We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Let's first accept that men, especially young men, tend to be hormonally sexually alert and curious most of the time. Flirtatious too, when feeling confident. Doesn't that mean that the catcalls and other uninvited words simply come down to a matter of manners?
Here's a related question:
A good and mannerly young fellow on the subway finds himself standing next to a young lady who is reading Jane Austen. Cupid's arrow strikes him. From her appearance, her movements, etc. he feels that this is the girl God has made him for and he can't keep his eyes off her.
Should he say "How do you like the book?" Or should he decide not to be taken as a creep, let it pass, and kick himself for a month for passing up what might have been a life-changing opportunity to meet the woman of his dreams?
The liberal system will collapse of its own weight: debt, over-centralization, anti-natalism, all the perverse incentives it creates. As our old sources of national strength quietly dry up, the regime is distracted with exotic trivia like gay marriage and the search for new forms of discrimination to combat. Competition from China alone is going to put an end to this ideological navel-gazing in the not-too-distant future. We must position ourselves to present the public with a credible alternative when the crisis hits. This is my focus, not the shadow-boxing of Republicans vs. Democrats.
It's a difficult subject to study because people are not likely to reveal their more taboo fantasies. Furthermore, in my field we tend to believe that most of our fantasies (sexual and otherwise) are kept safely beneath our own awareness.
As a Psychiatrist, I can tell you that quite normal people commonly contain all sorts of aberrant and "abnormal" fantasies which they would never act on or tell even their spouses about.
The study found that one of the most common sexual fantasies, after the five “typical” ones, is submission, with approximately 65 percent of women and 53 percent of men fantasizing about being submissive. More men than women fantasized about dominating their partners. Still, there remains a distinction between fantasy and reality. Of the women who fantasized about being dominated, half said that they wouldn’t want to actually be dominated in real life. Reading 50 Shades of Grey, for example, could be an outlet to imagine these fantasies without acting on them.
Except in the small ways (eg the color of a moth's wings, or different kinds of finches), I am a skeptic about evolution, possibly because I do not really understand the theories behind the theories. I do get the part about development of related species, but I do not get the adaptive advantage of an elephant over a bacterium or an algae colony. I am told we live in the Age of Bacteria, a world in which bacteria are the largest (by volume) and most populous organisms, and thus the most successful and best-adapted to current times (and for multi-cellular critters, the bugs win). Thus it is difficult for me to view humanity as the new, improved crown of creation any more than elephants.
No, I am not talking about intelligent design and all that. Also, I understand that evolutionary theories (of which there are several) say nothing about "progress," just adaptation to current conditions. It's just that I find the science and the logic of it all puzzling.
Fielding’s older brother, the novelist Henry Fielding, had already, in “Joseph Andrews” (1742), explained “those little Spaces between our Chapters” as “an Inn or Resting-Place, where he may stop and take a Glass, or any other Refreshment, as it pleases him.” Chapter titles, Fielding proceeded to explain, were like the inscriptions over the doors of those inns, advertising the accommodations within.
Because it’s so easy to judge the idiocy of others, it may be sorely tempting to think this doesn’t apply to you. But the problem of unrecognized ignorance is one that visits us all. And over the years, I’ve become convinced of one key, overarching fact about the ignorant mind. One should not think of it as uninformed. Rather, one should think of it as misinformed.
You think you cannot appreciate art music. Well, you have not been properly introduced. Pop music needs little introduction but art music does because we do not automatically know our way around it. You know your way around a Lacrosse field (and so do I - played it like a redskin, lost a tooth).
This is an excellent intro, much better than I got in college: The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works. Readers know how much we love Bob Greenberg. My Mom loved him too. Buy it, or ask me to lend you my copy (which is actually on loan from a friend with whom we exchange Great Courses).
The Great Courses is one of the most life-enriching things we know of. We generally do one session of some course every evening.
Seems like everybody wants to be a therapist or counselor these days.
Everybody has problems of various degrees, and indeed sometimes it is helpful to talk it over with a trusted person. I have no problem with Biblical counseling. Anybody in a "helping profession" needs to know his limits and needs to be humble about his capacities.
My guess is that biblical counseling as some form of psychotherapy (as opposed to help with relationship to God which I would call Pastoral Counseling) can be most helpful for those whose guilt is honestly come by. By that I mean people who have every reason to feel troubled by guilt and remorse because they have done wrong, have not earned self-respect or earned a feeling of deserving God's love (which is another complicated topic). In other words, non-neurotic guilt.
It certainly is a wonderful place, vibrant and active on nice days. Shinn caught its beauty on a wet and windy night, as well.
(A late note - in our comments, a regional Philadelphia artist clarified that the "Philadelphia Four" is actually the "Philadelphia Five" and inclusive of Henri. It seems information on the intertubes is less than clear about the term, as Henri was mentor to the Four. However, the terms seem interchangeable. Ephemeral New York noted that George Bellows lived near Gramercy Park, as well, on 19th Street. We did not pass his house on our tour.)
I believe that evil exists. I have seen it in myself, and I think I understand the human desire to externalize it or to deny it. Denial of evil is dangerous.
From The Guardian (really): The truth about evil - Our leaders talk a great deal about vanquishing the forces of evil. But their rhetoric reveals a failure to accept that cruelty and conflict are basic human traits
One quote from this good essay:
There are some who think the very idea of evil is an obsolete relic of religion. For most secular thinkers, what has been defined as evil in the past is the expression of social ills that can in principle be remedied. But these same thinkers very often invoke evil forces to account for humankind’s failure to advance. The secularisation of the modern moral vocabulary that many believed was under way has not occurred: public discourse about good and evil continues to be rooted in religion. Yet the idea of evil that is invoked is not one that features in the central religious traditions of the west. The belief that evil can be finally overcome has more in common with the dualistic heresies of ancient and medieval times than it does with any western religious orthodoxy.
My experience in life has taught me that many or most people would accept some form of feudalism in exchange for safety and security for themselves and their families. Serfdom, if you will.
Caught as most of us are between a job and the government, it's all still basically feudal is it not? Not what the American founders had in mind.
America's founders never promised us a rose garden. Quite the opposite. They offered, to the world, a novel and very difficult life breathing the air of freedom and independence from government and any other powers.
Adventurous people from all over the world have been attracted to the ideas of dangerous freedom, opportunity, risk, insecurity, and self-reliance.
Those things bring out the best in people.
You all know all of this. In my view, if you want anything from the federal government other than legal justice and protection from invading powers, you lack the vibrant American spirit and perhaps might prefer to live elsewhere, where a more feudal state plays a more parental, controlling role. It's a big world out there and the American idea is not/was not for everybody.
American people do not have delimited rights. American governments have delimited powers. That was the idea and the ideal, anyway.
Freedom or rights for stuff rather than from stuff? It sickens my soul. Quit helping us, please. Our ancestors did not come here for help other than help from God and maybe from our neighbor if we had one. They struggled and endured freedom, and so should we all. "Gimme" is not American: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Gimmedat:
Lefty politicians wanted to get the poor and working class further hooked on the government dole. Republicans, for the most part, rallied against socialized medicine, with a hefty amount of cognitive dissonance telling them that Medicare didn’t suffer from the same deficiencies. The voting hordes were just as divided. Seniors wanted protection from government regulation of medicine, while demanding no changes to federal entitlement programs. Democrat voters were up-front about their desire: to force other people to pay for their goodies, which include health care.
A fine piece by a feisty woman of the world. A quote:
There are no grown-ups. We suspect this when we are younger, but can confirm it only once we are the ones writing books and attending parent-teacher conferences. Everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently.
She's right about the winging it, but I believe the wings change.
We had 14 hardy souls on our tour today. It seems there were no hitches, except perhaps the late arrival of one of the hosts. That would be me, learning it's good to check the weekend schedules for work being done on public transit. PATH trains to World Trade Center were apparently cancelled this weekend, meaning Mrs. Bulldog and myself were forced to arrive via Christopher St. and take a cab down to South Ferry. Apparently Maggie's folk self-identify, and 12 people were already waiting for us when we finally got there without benefit of the little sign I'd prepared.
All in all, the trip was a success. We stuck to the agenda, with a few extra stops baked in, up through to Chinatown. After that, minor adjustments were made to accommodate individual needs and schedules. But we made great time and managed to take in a good portion of the city's major sites and neighborhoods.
I hope everyone had a great time, I know Mrs. Bulldog and myself did. We enjoyed the company immensely. It was great to meet so many people and enjoy one of the world's great cities on such a personal level. From Fraunces Tavern to Cooper Union and McSorley's (where one member of the group was proud to announce he'd celebrated his 21st birthday recently - lucky young man!), we managed to soak in the flavors of New York. I think the one thing that surprised me most was that Stanford White designed the arch in Washington Square Park. In addition, one of the statues on the arch was designed by Alexander Calder's father.
I'd like to personally thank BD and Mrs. BD for introducing us to the Campbell Apartment in Grand Central. One of the coolest drinking establishments in NYC that I've ever been in. I will return with friends and family...and maybe even a few clients.
SCARUS On our side like the tokened pestilence Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt— Whom leprosy o’ertake—i’ th’ midst o’ th’ fight, When vantage like a pair of twins appeared, Both as the same, or rather ours the elder, The breese upon her, like a cow in June, Hoists sails and flies.
Poetic language is an intensification of the use of words. Prof Booth likes to look at the "physics" of poetic language. When a person gets into a poetry state, whether writing or reading, the mind can take over and let the inner physics of the thing just happen the same way you can hit a moving car with a snowball without knowing the math and the brain physiology of it.
I found this essay to be fascinating, and had to re-read it: Shakespeare’s Genius Is Nonsense - What the Bard can teach science about language and the limits of the human mind. One quote:
As a playwright and businessman, of course, Shakespeare had a serious interest in shielding his audiences from the mechanics of his verse. In addition to its concordance with the 16th-century concept of sprezzatura—lightness, ease, the ability to make even the most difficult things look effortless—a play crafted to maximize delight helped Shakespeare fill theatres in a way that a lot of visible sweating over the lines might not have. For every ingenious device that Booth describes in the verse, he brings as much attention to the effort that went into keeping it unobtrusive. His theory may explain the ineffable mind-states that poetry creates in us: poetic experience as the interaction of barely perceptible mental processes whose delicate, scintillating play is usually washed out by the spotlight of conscious attention.
What Booth so elegantly shows us is how Shakespeare can free us from ourselves. His lush, prismatic verse grants us “a small but metaphysically glorious holiday” from how we usually comprehend language, a holiday that is in turn “a brief and trivial but effectively real holiday from the inherent limitation of the human mind.” Rather than plunging into the abyss of not-knowing, we soar above it. We are not falling, but flying.
America's founders never promised us a rose garden. Quite the opposite. They offered, to the world, a novel and very difficult life breathing the air of freedom and independence from government and any other powers.