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.
A remarkable report from a Liberal public defender, which sadly fits most of what we all know from life experience: Confessions of a Public Defender.
These people weren't raised right. In fact, it doesn't seem as if they were raised at all. A damn shame. Barbarians in our midst. However, I would not generalize his experiences of black criminals to black Americans in general. There are plenty of dysfunctional, ignorant low-lifes out there of all skin colors, and the government makes life relatively easy for them to make useless, effortless, unconstructive lives.
As I understand it, the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) view God as both immanent and transcendent. I do, I suppose. However, I know little to nothing about theology.
I fell into this subject while thinking about the word numinous (from Latin numen - a spirit which inhabits a thing or place). My Pastor referred to "numinous experiences," by which I believe he meant moments in which God's presence is strongly felt. I like the word very much.
Another fine kiddie chair from my Mom's stash of furniture: a kiddie potty chair from the olden days. Of course, you put an old pot under it but it had already been adapted to a regular kid's chair when I was a lad.
Thanks to Mom for having saved all of this old stuff.
I wonder whether any readers know anything about the history of this one.
Advice for a Happy Life by Charles Murray - Consider marrying young. Be wary of grand passions. Watch 'Groundhog Day' (again). Advice on how to live to the fullest.
Camille Paglia is my favorite Lefty, feminist lesbian. A quote from Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues - The cultural critic on why ignoring the biological differences between men and women risks undermining Western civilization.
Ms. Paglia relishes her outsider persona, having previously described herself as an egomaniac and "abrasive, strident and obnoxious." Talking to her is like a mental CrossFit workout. One moment she's praising pop star Rihanna ("a true artist"), then blasting ObamaCare ("a monstrosity," though she voted for the president), global warming ("a religious dogma"), and the idea that all gay people are born gay ("the biggest canard," yet she herself is a lesbian).
They say that only boring people get bored. If skiing, boating, hanging out in the City, attending shows, going hunting, traveling to new places, starting a new business, etc. is not enough stimulation, try this:
Roger Scruton is in the Maggie's Farm pantheon because he is a deep thinker. (Nice work if you can get it, but most of us are not capable of it, especially me. I count myself fortunate to be able to follow him.)
Just as there is an understanding of art, which forms the domain of criticism, and which is a rational exercise with its own standards of validity, so there is an understanding of people, which forms the domain of interpersonal relations, and which is a rational exercise obedient to norms of its own. And just as it is an error to think you can replace art criticism with the neuroscience that allegedly explains the experience of art, so too is it an error to think you can replace interpersonal understanding with the neuroscience that allegedly explains our behavior. This shift requires describing human behavior in terms that remove it from the context that gives it sense; it requires becoming a reductionist, someone who fails to see that the most important features of the human condition are emergent features, ones that inhabit the surface of the world and are invisible to those whose eyes are fixed on the depths.
At dinner with friends last weekend, a pal said to me "When it comes to important things like health and education, I'd rather have Washington make the decisions than my dopey neighbors."
I replied "But is that Washington's proper role, given our inheritance of supposedly limited central government? "
He said "All that really matters is what is effective."
I said "All that really matters is our dopey neighbors. In America, we're all somebody's dopey neighbor - and the dopiest end up in politics."
Anyway, I dropped the topic, but felt like I was not conversing with an American. I do like the guy otherwise. Yes, he is a Progressive.
Althouse's post on ticks reminded me of the Kit Cat clock I had on my wall as a kid. It was a Christmas present, as I recall. I wanted a clock in my room, and kids did not have watches in those ancient days. Did its tail and eyes move and did the eyes and numbers glow in some radioactive way, or am I remembering wrong?
That memory of my Kit Cat clock was like a Madeleine to the sentimental Proust in me. I see my room, the window overlooking my Mom's hosta garden, my bookshelf-turned-rock-and-fossil collection, the Revolutionary War prints on the wall, my little desk and chair with my chemistry set in one of the drawers, my first precious little transistor radio, the big aquarium set up with rocks and sand for my various lizards, and my bed that I hid my forbidden Mad Magazines beneath to read with a flashlight after lights-out.
And I remember Question Time as a young lad.
Every night, at lights-out time, my Dad would stand silhouetted in the doorway to invite one question. It would be things like "Why do snow crystals vary when quartz crystals don't?" or "What's this new Continental Drift idea?" or "How do birds navigate?" or "How do sails work?" (We sailed quite a bit.) Being a Harvard guy, an MD, and highly curious about everything in this world, he usually had an answer.
Oh, I also remember asking "Where do babies come from?" (My parents were constantly making annoying new babies, it seemed.) The answer, as I recall, sort of freaked me out but he always did - and still does - say it straight. Except when he doesn't want to. When he was young, he looked like Gary Cooper, was 6'3, never tolerated fools, had Commie politics, and was inner-directed to a fault. The latter three still apply to the laconic and enigmatic old Yankee guy, who would be still working today if his eyes and ears hadn't worn out.
But back to the clock. Remarkably, you can still buy them, but the new ones need batteries. The originals plugged in, which made much more sense because time marches on whether you can find any C batteries or not.
"Decades of demonizing failure have turned America
into a nation of cowards and outcasts. Risk-taking, successful or not,
is vital to a resilient society."
As we say here, you learn little from success but much from failures. I've had my share. In general, I won't blame anyone but myself for them. When a lad, when I was prone to blame failures on external circumstances, jerky teachers, annoying coaches, rejecting girls, unappreciative people in general, etc., my Yankee Mom would always say in her Yankee way "Cut out that talk, sonny boy, and look to what you mishandled."
This seems to have been culturally normative, at least for their class, and accepted by all. Did they need moral leadership?
Every person has such impulses of course, but it has often seemed to me that the wealthy and powerful often come to believe that the rules apply to the little people. That is true in America today.
We're getting into wedding season. Wedding season brings up the topic of engagement rings, which brings up the topic of manipulated prices - stocks, gold, diamonds, oil, etc.
Fancy theological words for 
Roger Scruton is in the Maggie's Farm pantheon because he is a deep thinker. (Nice work if you can get it, but most of us are not capable of it, especially me. I count myself fortunate to be able to follow him.)
Althouse's 
A friend of mine loves these things: 