Thursday, April 27. 2006
Very few people know what it's like to work in a profession where serious bodily harm or death are likely if you make one mistake in a lifetime. Even doctors, whose decisions and expertise can can save or kill their patients, don't generally die themselves if they foul up; they can bury their mistakes. There are a lot of table saws in the United States. In most woodworking shops, it's the central piece of equipment. About 60,000 people are injured every year using table saws. 3,000 people a year suffer amputations using them. The injury related costs for table saw accidents is estimated at $2,000,000,000 yearly. One table saw in one hundred is involved in an accident every year. Those are bad odds, for the operator and the person that pays the workman's compensation premiums. So what do you do? The old playbook for dealing with the danger of a tool is well known: Sue like crazy- No one gets their fingers back, but the lawyers get a new boat every year. Require safety guards- The more elaborate the guards on a saw, the more likely the operator is to remove or disable them to speed up production, or simply see what they are doing. And any guard that will allow wood to be pushed through a blade will accomodate a finger too. Require elaborate safety training- The problem here is, the greater the feeling of safety felt by the operator, the likelier it is he'll be lulled into ignoring the danger of the spinning blade. And the majority of injuries are suffered by professionals. Familiarity breeds contempt for danger. Outlaw the tool- Impossible. Or you could invent a tablesaw that refuses to cut your finger off. Something tells me the fellow that invented the SawStop system is going to be buying that lawyer's boat I mentioned earlier, pictured below. Good for him. 
Wednesday, April 26. 2006
 I have read about this before. This is very cool, but quite far from effete fly-fishing. The 60 lb. catfish grabs your fingers, then you shove your hand down his throat while you get into his gills with your other hand. I could not do this sober.
Sounds like changing a fan-belt on a running engine. Perhaps I am a wimp, but the idea of a 50 or 60 lb. fish grabbing my arm in muddy water gives me a bit of a chill. Story in the NYT. Image from the story, with the winning catfish from a noodling tournament. Fried catfish isn't a bad thing, but does not come to close to cod.
Tuesday, April 25. 2006
 Regular readers of Maggie's Farm know that I am a newspaper reporter by profession, at this point in my still-callow youth.
I doubt that I will always be one, but it's good enough for now. I don't need much money now, and I enjoy the folks I work with. I will tell you the problem with reporting: Reporters feel inferior to other people. Other people - no matter how silly and foolish or corrupt - are the ones who are doing things in the world. We are just the observers, the scribblers. It doesn't feel manly. We experience daily narcissitic humiliation just by working, which even Ed Norton, who was proud of being a hard worker in the sewers, did not. The fact that we are not doers is a constant, nagging source of ego-pain. How do we try to deal with that pain? By thinking that we are the noble, essential Fourth Estate. By seeing ourselves as heroic, altruistic warriors, fighting power and lowly commerce. By picturing ourselves as mini-gods, looking down from on high on the actions of lowly, flawed humans. By insinuating our view of the world into what we write - to try to "make a difference." And by drinking too much. Trust me - our lives are dull, except for newsroom politics: I would feel more productive planning the sewers than sitting for three hours at a Sewer Commission meeting. We semi-lazy, semi-glib, semi-cynical reporters all want to be players in life, but we aren't - and we know it. We envied the lacrosse players that we reported on, when we were in college: they were cool and we were not. We envy the doofus politicians, and feel flattered when they know our names. We envy the Sewer Commissioner, because he is doing something real in the world, and we are not. We envy people who build things and make things and make lots of money, and we try to find ways to rationalize feeling morally superior. We want to work for the New York Times, so we will be invited to parties instead of drinking at Rudy's. We secretly envy all people who do things, and wonder whether we really can do anything notable, or even normal in the hurly-burly world, ourselves. So we report, try to find fault, and try to build up our egos. We all secretly want to be Woodwards and Bernsteins - to bring down presidents (preferably Republican ones, but that surely does not apply to me), and to be big celebrities instead of humble scribes whose work lines the bottoms of parakeet cages. I know professors and teachers who feel the same way: who feel that they are out of the loop, or have taken themselves out of the loop, perhaps because of their personality type. If we sometimes behave arrogantly or wear bow-ties, or talk as if we believed we knew anything in depth about a subject, please understand that we are simply over-compensating for the castrating experience of not feeling fully engaged in life, like other people. Thus when I see the big city reporters publishing pieces on classified material, and the like, I understand it completely. Reporters, in moments of weakness, will sell their souls, or their country, to try to redeem the sense of purposelessness of their lives. They want to be engaged actors, and not objective observers. In my opinion, that is reporting in bad faith, unless it is on the op-ed page. In our newsroom, in our medium-sized, tired old New England city, we sometimes amuse ourselves with the New York Times, which many newsmen, regardless of political stripe, view as a political tool. We figure out what they leave out, what they bury on page 21, how they spin stories, and what they decide to cover. We howl over their lame corrections. They have become highly agenda-driven, with a socialist, multi-cultural, anti-Israel, anti-American bent, but will not admit it. And I am telling you why that happens - it's not just that they have a Leftist mission: it's about ego. They want to "make a difference" and they want to "feel virtuous" with other people's money - but without doing anything real other than typing on a keyboard. In other words, the NYT reporters are nothing more than full-time bloggers, who get paid and who kill trees. Our City Editor would kick our asses if we pulled the tricks the NYT does. He demands professional discipline, and no BS. And it is a damn shame that great papers like the NYT have come to this, because reporting is necessary and important. But to do it right, for a long time, you have to be willing to accept a degree of humility and a professional sense of service, duty, and responsibility which is difficult in our ego-driven age. Like any professional, you must learn to put self, self-gratification, and self-expression aside to do the job right. You are not hired to change the world, but to report it as accurately and honestly as you can. Writing for Maggie's Farm is my outlet - my effort to be a bit more in the world. But when I find my right place (someday everything is gonna be different) I will do some real things in the world, like raising a family and holding a real job - probably not worthy of the attention of reporters - and I will feel much better. Honestly, I might feel more worthy operating a backhoe, but I can't. I am a spaz with machines, and Bird Dog, the chain-saw king, will not let me near a chain-saw. Image: Ed Norton, of course, with Jackie Gleason, in the best TV series ever made.
Monday, April 24. 2006
The architect Filippo Brunelleschi 
(1377-1446) is the giant of Florentine
design. More than anyone else, he is responsible for bringing Renaissance architecture to the old medieval city.
Dr. Dave had slept with one of his patients, and felt guilty all day long. No matter how much he tried to forget about it, he couldn't. The guilt, and sense of betrayal of his Oath was overwhelming. But every once in a while he'd hear an internal, reassuring voice in his head that said: "Dave, don't worry about it. You aren't the first medical practitioner to sleep with one of their patients and you won't be the last. And besides, you're single. Just let it go..." But invariably another voice in his head would bring him back to his conscience, whispering:
"Dave ....
Dave .....
Dave......
....you're a Veterinarian"
Wednesday, April 19. 2006
The Sprint Family Locator. Here.
I can hear this Down Easter guy thinkin' "I just think I might bring this one home fer myself." 
Tuesday, April 18. 2006
This looks like a good alternative to a taxi or a car service to the airport: ParkRideFlyUSA.com. Reserved parking, plus a shuttle. It's about time.
I thought MassBackwards was pulling our leg when he claimed that this was a .410 shotgun. But it is. Details here. It is made by Ares. The below from StrategyPage. 
Friday, April 14. 2006
 Before I head off to do the Stations of the Cross - the most moving ritual in the Christian calendar - let's remember the greatest Republican President, killed 141 years ago today as he relaxed at the theater - one of his favorite diversions, besides memorizing Shakespeare and the Bible, reading the humor of the time, and just hanging out with the remarkable Seward, and his other buddies.
In those days, the President could just stroll over to his friend's houses, or hop on a horse and ride. All summer, he would commute daily, alone on his horse, from the Soldier's Home, until the death threats became too alarming. And I owe the blog a review of Goodwin's bio of Lincoln, which I am finishing now. Can I say "spellbinding" without being cliched? Read it. That guy was one hell of a non-political politician. 600,000 died in the war, which engaged 3 million Union soldiers. The righteousness of the war can still be debated (the popular vote for his re-election was very close, due a strong anti-war, "give-up" faction), but the weight of Lincoln's character cannot. His relentless sense of humor is a revelation, but most of it is lost. His capacity to deal serenely and kindly with political adversaries should set an example for all in that ugly trade. Re the book, three small bits jump to mind, off the top of my head: "If I were two-faced, do you think I would wear this one?" "Revenge is suicide." "I'd rather swallow my buck-antler chair than appoint Chase to the Court, but it was right for the country." ...and one bit, a letter to a friend from his wife, and I paraphrase "Thank God that my darling Abraham was re-relected. I owe over $27,000 to my New York dressmakers, and I could not hope to carry that debt without this job." That was a big credit card debt, back then. Her husband never knew. She was a shopaholic, and never really got over the death of her son. Image: A montage of Lincoln and his Generals. Such a photo-op never actually occurred. They were far too busy, and the wonderful General Grant was the last guy to get in a photo. He preferred sleeping on the ground, in the company of his troops. How Grant tolerated being President, I do not know. Maybe booze helped him get through it.
 I like this piece at One Cosmos as much as I liked Kesler's piece on Passover earlier this week. A couple of quotes:
Faith, on the other hand, is a dynamic engagement with the unknown. Faith, properly understood, is not a cognitive structure or grid to be superimposed upon reality. Rather, it is a psychospiritual probe with which to explore reality--somewhat like the way a blind person might use a cane to to construct an internal image of the dark space around him.
Furthermore, unlike belief, faith should be convertible to knowledge. It is actually a subtle and sophisticated way to gain knowledge that transcends the senses, not a means to provide false but comforting answers and to vanquish curiosity.
Thus, many people of faith are actually "people of knowledge," whereas many so called intellectuals are actually no more than simple "people of faith." You can really see what little genuine knowledge people have when the discussion revolves around something you do happen to know about, whether it is quantum physics or plumbing repair.
and: The spiritually generative lumin being does not merely report reality. Rather, such an individual imparts reality. You might say that they are a door. Or you might say that they are a way. Or perhaps they are even the life.
The whole piece is worth more than a few minutes. Image: Storm of gasses in the Orion-Swan nebula, from the Hubble telescope - a storm due to Bush's global warming, claim experts, possibly even worse than Katrina.
Friday, April 7. 2006
I can think of a few others, but the main downside is that wives don't like men to take naps, according to the always-wise Joe at Evang. Outpost: We men realize that we are completely screwed up, yet, for some inexplicable reason, we don't feel the need to change. Since we can rarely muster the audacity to openly show disdain for the Master Plan, we have to take a more passive-aggressive approach. By napping we can enter an unconscious state where we don't have to think about our feelings, ponder where this relationship is going, or answer questions about why the floor around the toilet is always sticky.
Thursday, April 6. 2006
An interview with Arlo Guthrie. I have eaten at Alice's, just off Main St. in Stockbridge. Long gone. Wonder where Alice is now; she probably owns a Taco Bell franchise in Pittsfield.
Very fine brief essay by Dinocrat. One quote: In a way, people live their lives as though magic existed, as the blogger Shrinkwrapped has stated. Flick a switch, the lights go on; get a sinus infection, take a pill and it’s gone; push control-alt-delete, and Windows just might fix itself. There is magic in technology, no doubt about it. But historically the American people have been a can-do bunch, tinkering, and fixing and creating, and not that much given to Utopian fantasies. How much that it still true today is, in our opinion, an open question. Certainly, as Thomas Sowell alluded to, and the Rahmatullah-Yale incident highlights, our educational institutions have become debased. Furthermore, as we discussed in How Your iPod is ruining America, there is a critical need to connect the people of today with the world of 130 years ago in America so they can understand how we came so far so fast from where we were, and this education is not happening. The lack of such awareness and education can lead to alienation, as well as ignorance, and that is quite dangerous.
Read it all. Lots of good links in it.
Wednesday, April 5. 2006
The Burj Al Arab in Dubai is the only seven-star hotel in the world. This roof-top tennis
is just one remarkable aspect of this place. This is Agassiz and Federer, but I believe that it
is really a helipad. Nice promo, though. 
 
Tuesday, April 4. 2006
Two of my buddies got back from Islamorada on Sunday.Tarpon, Permit, and of course, these nice Dolphin (aka dorado, aka Mahi Mahi). Jealous? I am. 
Thursday, March 30. 2006
 A 16 and 19 year-old posted photos of themselves on MySpace, the popular kids' social site, and are arrested for child pornography.
Three questions: 1. Can you commit pornography on yourself? 2. Are 16 and 19 year-olds children? 3. And what about this guy? (quote from The Globe article) "A police officer assigned to Lincoln High School, where the girl was a student, discovered the photographs while monitoring the Web site."
Wednesday, March 29. 2006
Oral Love: A review of a bowl of unusual new books on food, at Bookslut
It is a cliche that the definition of neurotic person is someone who keeps doing the same thing, while expecting a different result. There is surely a good lesson in that expression. However, I often find it useful to think about things from the outside, in ... instead of inside, out. Especially with stubborn minds. What do I mean? Erik Erikson famously said that "Psychotherapy begins where common sense ends." I like that. Despite being a psychoanalyst and thus by definition a happy diver into the human depths, I rarely take anyone deeper than is necessary. You don't want people to run out of air on the way down, or to get the bends on their way back. This is why I like the idea of Reality Therapy. You may call it God, or Life, or Reality, or Chance, or whatever you chose, but It has a funny of way of teaching, and re-teaching us whatever we need to learn until we finally learn it, or die first. For me, this is analogous to the image of Christ at the door of our heart, knocking and knocking until we open the door. Life is always trying to teach us something, and we all have problems and weaknesses and blind spots and areas of stupidity and of emotional immaturity where we can improve our mastery of life and of ourselves. Sometimes, all we need to do is to stop, look, and listen to find what it is that life is trying to teach our stubborn minds. While I would rather piously - but truthfully - say that the red buds now emerging on my antique French Roses are teaching me that God is in his heaven, instead I will offer a timely but trivial example from my own life. I will quote myself: An area of life in which I do not function well is with paperwork and book-keeping. I could find plenty of excuses for this, and plenty of fancy psychological explanations, but I was raised to never make excuses. The truth is that it is a character flaw, a flaw which is thrown in my face every tax season. I procrastinate - which is precisely what I am doing right now by writing this piece. I love Quicken, but I don't enter my checks. I save business receipts, but they collect dust in piles and drawers and and pocketbooks. I have delivered three Suburban loads of good outgrown kids clothing to Goodwill this year, but God knows where those lists are. In the glove compartment, maybe? And what about cost basis for stocks bought in 1987? The computer those numbers were on died years ago. No clue. And since then, I have changed brokerages and the old guy retired. I try to pretend that April 15 is an absolute deadline, or I would never get this chore done. And I cannot rely on the hubbie, because he will have nothing to do with my mess, so we file separately. The lesson is just not the annual miserable last-minute hassle to get everything together. Last year, I had a fine of over $3000 for errors and lateness. Ouch. There is just nothing like reality to hit you over the head and force you to learn.
Life is the real final exam, but you get to take it over every day. I will never forget my favorite Neurology professor in medical school who overheard me and a friend bitching about an exam in the hallway. "This is nothing," he said. "Every patient you will ever have is the real exam. These exams are just for you to find out what you don't know, before it's too late." Keep knocking, Reality. Eventually, we will get it. Thanks to God that every day is a new chance to learn and change.
Tuesday, March 28. 2006
 A few snippets, which require no comment because they speak for themselves. Our News Junkie posted this piece a day or so ago about the unpopularity of marriage among American blacks: Marriage is for White People. WaPo, H/T, Instapundit At the same time, Morse posted a piece at Town Hall titled Marriage: A Social Justice Issue. She points out, as has been done before by others, that most of black poverty is due to the absence of marriage. Marriage creates wealth and social stability, among other things. One quote: Marriage is a protective factor against social pathologies. Marriage generates and preserves wealth, unlike other family forms which dissipate wealth. A recent publication by the Boston-based Seymour Institute, "God’s Gift: A Christian Vision of Marriage and the Black Family", spells out the case for marriage as the most important next step for the future of black America. The report cites the fact that married families in the black community have twice as much income as unmarried black families. The founder of the Seymour Institute for Advanced Christian Studies is the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers, III, the black Pentecostal minister whose work with poor urban youth has been widely celebrated. In the introduction to God’s Gift, Rev. Rivers states his case. "The impact of the decay of marriage among black people has been enormous, resulting in higher poverty rates among black families, school failure among children, and the intergenerational transmission of high teen pregnancy rates and female-headed households. Sociological research has implicated fatherlessness in violence, drug use and criminal behavior, especially among young black males." To those who might argue that marriage is somehow alien to the black experience, linguist John McWhorter has an answer in the most recent issue of The American Enterprise. McWhorter observes that the high proportion of single parent families among blacks is a relatively new development, and not something that can be attributed to some amorphous "legacy of slavery."
And a comment from one of our readers, re the News Junkie post: What a depressing article. Marriage was ordained by God for the procreation and rearing of children in the service of God. Spouses are supposed to be helpmates to each other not playmates. Marriage is for grownups, not hedonistic children.
Monday, March 27. 2006
 High praise for his new record.
Of all of his great tunes, my favorite is These are the Days from Avalon Sunset. A tear-jerker, and rightly so. And it happens to be a theme song of the wonderful Rockbrook Camp in NC, where girls learn about independence, courage, endurance, horses, white-water kayaking, rock-climbing, guns, corny camp songs, bonfires, heavy-duty hiking, God, life-long friendship, shaving-cream battles, and everything else that matters in life.
We posted Frederick Church last week. Since we're on a Hudson River School kick, here's a local favorite by Thomas Cole (1801-1848) - View from Mount Holyoke (1836), but often referred to as the Oxbow. That's the Connecticut River. A bit here about Mt. Holyoke. If you drive through Route 91 in Mass., you have been past the oxbow. 
Sunday, March 26. 2006
 The Multiculturalism movement, which has been sufficiently mocked and demolished endlessly, represents cultural suicide.
A very fine piece by Dinocrat on the subject of the encounter of Sharia Law with Western Liberalism. That encounter leads to fire, as it has for over one thousand years. War is the only solution, and inevitable, as long as Islam requires submission from others. War, or submission, but submission is not my cup of tea. A fight is preferable. For the past week I have been reading about the wars of the barbarians against the Romans. Those barbarians never did quit. Tribal people for whom fighting and expansion of territory was their way of life. Why didn't they just want to make nice villages and farms along the Danube and the Rhine? We call them "warlike," and that captures it. Rome conquered Gaul not to expand empire - there was nothing valuable there that could not be obtained by trade - but for defense. The tribes would not leave them alone. Today, we are dealing with people of a similar mentality. If you compromise with them, they will only view it as weakness, and will be encouraged to push your limits further. It is difficult for Western Christian people to imagine the mindset of people who truly view us as subhuman, because we try so hard to be humane. Someone forgot to teach them multiculturalism and tolerance, and perhaps we have been over-taught not to respect and love our culture and our civilization. They can easily take France and Sweden, but they will never take the USA. We are not warlike, but we are proudly cranky.
Saturday, March 25. 2006
This Pepsi_Italian_Style.wmv one is as good as the Mercedes advt. If you missed the Mercedes advt we posted a couple of days ago, scroll down. This stuff is Art!
Friday, March 24. 2006
Dear New Visitors to Maggie's Farm: Check out our entire blog - we are worth a couple of minutes of your time - and bookmark us - we are always informative and surprising... Man, the net is full of good advice - for free: Ask the Imam: Are women allowed to work? Ask the Madam: I am bored with my sex life. Ask the Guy: What about Feminism? Ask the Pastor: How can I tell if this guy is married? (and should I care?) Ask the Sexpert: Am I a Transgender? (Of course your are.) Ask the Doctor: Excess body and facial hair. Ask the Sexologist: How to masturbate. Ask the Plastic Surgeon: I need bigger boobs. Ask the Leftist: Like, ummm, How do Feminism and Marxist-Leninism go together? Ask the Gynecologist: I have PMS 30 days per month. Ask NOW: What Month is it? (It's women's Herstory Month!!!) Duh!!! Everyone knows that. Ask another Sexologist: How do I please a man? Ask the Anatomist: Is my clitoris too big or too small? Ask the Dating Pro: How do I chat up a man? (Image: Quit pushing that button - the video won't work here. We are a dignified blog.)
|
