Tuesday, June 14. 2005
The Tug of Peace Yes, eliminating the ancient, time-honored Tug Of War will definitely teach kids the lovely sensitive lesson of not competing. Sure. What a fine, progressive idea. The world is upside-down. What good is life if you don't try? Losing is not a problem - losing happens, and it isn't such a bad thing, either. You learn to deal with losing and disappointment, or you will remain an infant, and will never accomplish anything you might wish to. This self-esteem crock of BS has got to go. Dr. Bliss - old pal, old buddy - please do something authoritative on the subject. Who are these termites who want Americans to be spineless whining weenies? I will tell you one thing - anyone without the will to TRY HARD, and to discover their limits, will do nothing in this life. Gay and Right has the story: Click here: GayandRight: Political correctness gone mad...
Monday, June 13. 2005
 The Tacoma Narrows Bridge
Dr. Bob clearly has a thing about bridges, both the architecture and the engineering. He has a fine series, with lots of photos, on the construction of his local suspension bridge. That's a lot of polpo. Why a photo of a Pacific Giant Octopus? Read it.
 James Kilgo's Deep Enough for Ivorybills. Timely in a season in which the "extinct" Ivorybill has been found alive. A modern classic of Southern literature by a hunter-naturalist-armchair philosopher. Getting lost in the swamp is something to which all outdoor-people can relate, either literally or metaphorically. A 1988 review from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
"Though he never glimpses the rare, regal Ivorybill wodpecker, James Kilgo's lifelong urge to "go deep" has grown into this thoughtful book of autobiographical sketches...This is a book not just for hunters, birdwatchers, or naturalists. It's for everbody who senses, or perhaps remembers, that the woods have more to offer than a splotch of shade on a deck." Image from Peterson's Field Guide
Tuesday, June 7. 2005
Moms at War Auster is right to point out to what extent our PC machine in America is able to "normalize" the grossly abnormal and nonsensical (while simultaneously trying to "abnormalize" the normal). His case in point concerns "coping groups" for military Moms in Iraq who miss their kids. There is a craziness to letting Moms go to war which mocks common sense, emotional sense, family sense, cultural sense, and psychological sense, and would only make sense if our shores were invaded by barbarian hordes. How did we get to this, unless we are psychotically imagining that Moms are Dads, and men are women, and black is white? Auster here.
I cannnot believe some of the emails we receive. Honestly, getting bored with being called a moron. Let's get a little more creative out there, critics: Editor Bird Dog, You stupid ---- ---- Republican jerks why dont you look at yourselfs and see how stupid you are, the whole country is dieing from pollution and no food and needs help and all you do is look at birds and get jobs while people are starving and not getting education because of Bush or disability which I need and cannot get and what do you care. You are hopeless morons and I do not read your blog and you are right there is no cure for stupidity - and I mean yours. Anonymous  Dear Loyal Reader,
Thank you for the genteel and constructive criticism. We must earnestly try to be less stupid, but it is hard to do with the limited brain content we have. We can't all be as wise and perceptive as you obviously are. I would suggest that you run for office, instead of writing to blog editors. You have a future in politics, along with John Dean and all the others, and you wouldn't have to worry about that disability problem. I think you meet the IQ hurdle, but take it easy on the Old Milwaukee or you might slip below the bar, which is 75. But hey - we aren't Republicans so much as we try to be Rationalists who vote for whoever makes the least bad sense and is the least corrupt. There are many dogs we'd be glad to vote for but they are way too smart to run for office. Running for squirrels or ducks is a wiser game. But keep reading Maggie's - we need the numbers. Sincerely, Bird Dog (yup, that's my photo)
Monday, June 6. 2005
1944 F armall Model H Time to get back to work, fellow bloggers. Check the oil, crank that thing up, and get rolling.
Thursday, June 2. 2005
Summer Reading: Summer Accommodations Sex, violence, mystery, Judge Crater, and suspense...and coming of age in a classic 1950s Jewish Catskill resort which is very humorously depicted. A medical school pal has written an absorbing novel - God bless him. Especially because he doesn't write like a shrink, which he is, and a darn shrewd one. Favorite quote: "The good things in life you have to seek out and reach for; the shit will always find you." That pretty much sets the stage for the plot - as it does for life.
Yes, Dear A couple celebrating their 80th wedding anniversary shares their secrets with the world. Humility and moderate alcohol use seem to be part of the picture. Plus true love, of course.
Wednesday, June 1. 2005
Steyn on Broadway Who is this mystery man, and how does he know everything about everything? Steyn on Spamalot and the Broadway scene.
Carmen Miranda A cultural icon, no? The Brazilian bombshell. You need this for your cultural education: audio and visual.
Tuesday, May 31. 2005
The American Chesterton Society The best writer, on every subject, of the 20th century that many have never read. We have one reader who is determined to make G.K. Chesterton her summer reading, beginning now. The website has lots of his witty quotes - we'll use them for QQQQ.
Back to work day. This is a 1985 
John Deere, Model 60 Would you say that's a Farmall-lookin' machine? A handy light-weight, like some people.
Monday, May 30. 2005
Cinderella Man See it. Our entire theater clapped at the end. Sure, movies manipulate our emotions, but the story of James J. Braddock was a heck of a story. The real comeback-kid. And a good, old-fashioned movie - pure story-telling, without layers of irony, negativity, propaganda, high-tech flash, or emotional confusion, and with compelling boxing action which will make males sweat and ladies "glow." Thus an honest movie, with neat kids too. Thanks, Ron, for another wonderful movie that puts worthwhile and lasting images in our heads, which few movies do these days. The Bird Dog father-in-law remembers listening to the Baer vs. Braddock fight on the radio in Jersey City, just like the movie: Braddock - the Pride of the Irish of Bergen County. And the story is true - he did repay his welfare checks when he was able to. The movie makes it all real, including the male indignities and the female stresses of the Great Depression. Braddock could take the punches of life - including the punches delivered below the belt by a sleaze-bag like Max Baer and the punches delivered by fate - for his family, not for himself. Thus a real adult male without excuses - the kind we admire and to which we men aspire - a true father. And that is what the movie is about - American fatherhood. Best line: "I do it for the milk."
Sunday, May 29. 2005
 Two Stooges, plus Sweden
Just to prove that some of us here have some humility, here's what we did on Saturday: We took the Ford tractor, with the Dixie brushwacker hooked up, sharpened and ready, to go mow the "back forty" which we missed last year due to the tractor being worked on, and to cut some low branches that get in our way and annoy us by smacking us smartly in the face when we mow. This is a small, not really forty but maybe 25-acre curving meadow adjacent to the beaver marsh, that we only mow alternate years, for the wildlife. (Yes, there are no birds nesting in that field, but we watch out for turtles, snakes, etc.) On my foolish advice, and foolishly listening to mine, brother-in-law rests the chain saw on the side of the tractor seat balanced on top of a hill of chain that we use to drag heavy stuff, and I march behind carrying a plastic container of chain saw 50/1 gas-oil mix, and other miscellaneous tools including a shovel and a bunch of bare-root junipers I want to plant to mark the big rocks in the meadow, along with some Gatorade and Ballantine Ale, like the beast of burden that Bird Dog is. The tractor hits a log hidden by the already 10" hay (thanks a lot, beavers, for dumping that log there), the chain saw jumps, incomprehensively, past the tire-guard and mischievously clips the nozzle off the tire. The water (yes, water-fiilled rear tires) spews out like a fire hydrant, and we have a flat tire on Memorial Day Saturday when no tractor tire places are open, plus the meadow is over a wooden bridge that I doubt any tire guy with his precious shiny Ford 350 pick-up would like to hazard. Unprintable language spewed from Bird Dog as lavishly as the water did from the tire. So much for the day's planned work. But somehow the Stihl saw still worked after its victorious battle with the tire.
Wednesday, May 25. 2005
Humanitarian Adventure Travel. Relief Riders International. How cool is this? Camel? Donkey? Elephant?
Monday, May 23. 2005
1995 John Deere, Model 8650 We moved tractors to Mondays. Monday is the day we all need a little traction to get rolling. This big boy provides more than a little. I'd like to try pulling a few stumps with this one. Man, this is a serious tooth-puller. Almost too big for Yankee-land farms. Put a chain around the house and move it over there!
Saturday, May 21. 2005
Criticism from Readers Keep 'em coming. We will try not to be hypersensitive or defensive. Much as we enjoy compliments, they really do us no good at all. (But keep them coming too.) Yes, we can go overboard and be stupid and provocative sometimes. And yes, sometimes the transitions in our "essays" are lame. And yes and no, we are a hodge-podge, but so is life. And yes, we do like guns. And lots of other things, including dogs and marshes full of birds and this whole amazing Creation. And yes, we can be edgy - some of us, anyway. Edgy is OK, as is curmudgeonly, but cranky is something we'd like to avoid - if we can. Too much Cuba? Sorry. There is just something about Cuba that we like.
Friday, May 20. 2005
Italy this Summer? The strikes have already begun, just in time for tourist season. From Travelwire: "The unions are supposed to maintain a minimum level of service even on strike days, but this legal requirement is not always enforced in practice. The British Embassy in Rome has issued a warning that in addition to planned strikes there was also a risk of unannounced wild-cat stoppages by transportation workers in cities across Italy." Link.
Thursday, May 19. 2005
 May the Force be with you: The Final Episode
George Lucas has brought the galaxy back. Today is opening night for the last installment in the greatest movie making series of all time. Star Wars: "Revenge of the Sith" shows us what finally made Anakin turn to the Dark Side. According to reviewers everywhere, this installment is as good as the original. Kudos to Lucas for ending on such a high note and cementing his place as one of America's great filmmakers. Cannes Film Festival : But the topic of the second three, and particularly this one, is hard as hell. This movie chronicles Anakin's earlier transformation, by which the righteous pilgrim, so handsome, so brave, so noble, so committed, lost his way and became Ahab or Macbeth or Raskolnikov or Faust, or John Wayne in "The Searchers," a figure of power and strength and charisma and intellect, all of it invested in madness and destruction. "What corrupted Anakin into Vader?" a critic asked six years ago. "Pride, that manly bringer of self-destruction? Arrogance? Abuse? (An intriguing possibility and source of many monsters on the banal old Planet E.) Genetic predisposition? Fear? Lucas only knows and let's hope he can get it together to tell us. If told right, it should be quite a tale."Finally, it is.'Sith': The Promise Fulfilled
Monday, May 16. 2005
Anchorman An adolescent, slapstick, semi-lame movie starring Will Farrell which deserves to go down in history as one of the silliest movies made about TV news and reporting. It is so goofy that it is fun.
Saturday, May 14. 2005
1950 Farmall C With the classic short front axle - scarey on hills.
Thursday, May 12. 2005
Another side of the Gary Keillor issue: Gwynnie thinks he's a sanctimonious twit: From Opinion Journal - I'm Open-Minded, You're a Stupid Jerk
There's something amusing about the obnoxious way in which some people trumpet their own open-mindedness and tolerance. Consider these two passages from an essay by Garrison Keillor in The Nation: I enjoy, in small doses, the over-the-top right-wingers who have leaked into AM radio on all sides in the past twenty years. They are evil, lying, cynical bastards who are out to destroy the country I love and turn it into a banana republic, but hey, nobody's perfect. . . . The reason you find an army of right-wingers ratcheting on the radio and so few liberals is simple: Republicans are in need of affirmation, they don't feel comfortable in America and they crave listening to people who think like them. Liberals actually enjoy living in a free society; tuning in to hear an echo is not our idea of a good time. If this were true, nobody would listen to NPR, watch "Fahrenheit 9/11"--or, for that matter, read The Nation.
Wednesday, May 11. 2005
 Talk Radio
I love Garrison Keillor as a precious addition to my life. It is a treat when I can hear him coming through from Northeast NPR on Saturday night, and his books are masterpieces of warm, penetrating yet empathic humor, like a perfect psychiatrist, uncle or grandfather. He has fine, eclectic taste in music, and his singing voice has the same sort of sweet quavering frailty we heard in Jerry Garcia's. I don't agree with his politics, but he's from Minnesota so he can't help it. Still, I don't get why he seems to hate Bush, who seems to be the only person on the planet that this gentle man despises. He points out that local talk radio has been around since the advent of radio, and he claims no fear of conservative - he calls it "right wing" - radio. But he prefers the local chat. (Photo from Lake Wobegon Trails courtesy of Ludwig Photo)
The 7 Plots We have all heard the rumor that there are only seven storylines in all of literature. Well, it depends. Denis Dutton reviews Christopher Booker's The 7 Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. Sounds like an engaging if flawed book. The review is fascinating, and it happily digs into Aristotle a bit. Still amazing to me how everything tracks back to Plato and Aristotle. I guess we are a Greco-Roman colony.
Tuesday, May 10. 2005
Lucas Happy to Retire from Star Wars What a run. 25+ years of fine fantasy, even at its worst. One can only be grateful to him: "Lucas' accomplishments marked a one-of-a-kind revolution. He sneaked into a Hollywood that no longer had the verve or nerve to make the weird, giddy, goofy Saturday matinees of his youth. He found a lone patron among fainthearted studio executives willing to pony up cash for what was essentially an Arthurian sword-in-the-stone fantasy in space." Read entire.
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