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.
As of this afternoon, my parents' house is empty of everything. Even the dumpster has departed. The Steinway Baby Grand was happily delivered to our parlor today and sounds pretty good there. My Mom's Victorian cast iron bird bath with four herons is in the driveway, waiting for me to show it some love with a power-wash and some Rustoleum. My Dad's Danish-style double bureau is in my bedroom. I've needed one forever, never saw one I liked. The drawers are cedar, so it smells good. Plus it was my Dad's for many years. He liked Danish design.
Funny thing about my parents. They never owned many clothes, but they always looked perfectly appropriate, and modestly-elegantly-attired, whether for weddings, beach club parties, dinner parties, fancy cruises, country clubs, hiking in Europe, opera, funerals, yard work, etc. I don't know how they did that. Mrs. BD opined that they did it by owning a very few perfect and very fine things, and were careful to never over-dress. They were not shoppers but seemed to have excellent Yankee taste. They had very little clothing for Good Will to take away.
Their dining room table is now against a wall in our living room, for the moment, where the piano mover guys were kind enough to lug away our old upright that my kids learned on. We might want to keep that Danish slate-topped table and use it as our kitchen dining table, as the wonderful one we use is quite large. Huge. Or save it for a kid. Mom's jewels - the few which I obtained thus far - are stashed in my safe.
After I do some clean-up, I'll post some pictures of it all. Life in Yankeeland goes on. An empty family house is eery, and left me feeling troubled and disoriented. I was already away at boarding school when they built it, but it became home even though I never really lived there. Somebody prosperous will love it, paint it, and raise some fine batch of kids there (it has 6 bedrooms). It's a lovely dwelling. Or maybe they will decide to do a demolition and start fresh. We are gone now.
Clean and wax the floors, wash the walls, then an open house asap. It's a short walk to the Congo church on the hill. It's only worth around a million, for the land. The lovely, large, but 1960s-era home itself does not seem to factor in its value at all. Small bathrooms, lots of big windows with no thermopane. People expect more comforts, nowadays, even though it is entirely sufficient and functional, modestly elegant and comfortable.
My parents were not interested in modern conveniences. Instead of a/c, they just planted trees to shade the house. No sound systems. Radio with WQXR.
Dad, I believe, was proud to have designed and built it for his big family of five kids. A place to read and talk, entertain, eat, and sleep. Never a TV until all the kids left, and always dogs until they got too old to take good care of them. Springers.
Call it Psychopathy or Sociopathy or just "bad people," people with an excess of predatorial instincts are all around us. Overwhelmingly most are non-violent, but what Dr X points out is that psychopathy is a matter of degree.
Most people who worry about being bad or evil, are not especially so. Sociopathic people rarely recognize their inner bad, and often think highly of themselves. Significant degrees of sociopathy can be found in people in all walks of life, not just in penitentiaries (in which few penitents are to be found). I knew a brilliant, charismatic Psychologist with abundant psychopathic traits who probably helped more people than I ever will with his charm, warmth, and wisdom. He had enough self-awareness to keep himself out of serious trouble but he had some close calls.
Dr X pointed out this piece at Smithsonian: The Pros to Being a Psychopath - In a new book, Oxford research psychologist Kevin Dutton argues that psychopaths are poised to perform well under pressure. Not sure I agree, but an interesting topic.
A "Cape" is short for a Cape Cod - style house. This was a common architectural style in the Colonial period, especially on Cape Cod but in New England generally. Common also in the Colonial Revival period (1930s-1950s). More about Capes in Wiki.
but it still reminded me of the song. In five months, both parents dead and final child moved out to NYC this week. That's a big life change for me and the Mrs., but we still have the dog. All 3 kids living and/or working in NYC now. It's a good thing for the youth to do: If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. They don't have to stay there forever.
What makes it even better is that they get together there sometimes, and sort of network socially. They all have lots of friends and associates from prep school, college, and work. Interesting, attractive, proper, and ambitious kids, and they all want to be in NY where the action is. Meet people, make friends, build a life. Fun, plus social capital. They all have nothing at all to complain about except income, and when you're young in Manhattan, you don't really care. When I lived there, I had no clue that I was a pauper. Life was fun and fascinating, I could afford a beer, and I even met the future Mrs. BD there. Man, that was a random meet but it clicked.
While the Anthropogenic Global Warming and Natural Global Warming camps have been filling the airwaves with their usual bickering lately, and certainly the Anthropogenic Chlorofluorocarbonic Warming contingent is trying to stay in the news, the Natural Global Cooling people have been left out — if you'll pardon the expression — in the cold.
In case you're new to the global climate debate and haven't heard of the dangers of NGC, you'd better sit your butt right down and get caught up to date.
And what those scoffing 'deniers' out there are missing is that we're already fighting the battle on the northern front as the ice sheet moves slowly and inexorably southward. This was in Flagville, North Dakota, just last week:
"It sounds like a train!"
What she's hearing is the low-frequency crackling vibrations as the top 6" of soil turns to permafrost for the next 10,000 years.
This was also fairly telling at the 5:16 mark:
"It's piling up, because the house is stopping it from moving."
(10 seconds later)
"Oh, my God, their door's in! It just busted through a door over here, all the way through — the door's caving! Look at that, it's going right through their goddamned house!"
Such is the raw, destructive power of Natural Global Cooling.
Well, as if we needed any further proof after that video, here's the latest on the NGC front:
Normally the high Arctic has about 90 days above freezing. This year there was less than half that.
The numbers don't lie, folks. Disregard the facts at your peril.
This also might be why I'm living in the Florida Keys; Florida being projected to be the last state to have unfrozen summers by 2160. It has something to do with the geography but southern California and southern Texas are scheduled to go decades before that. The water barrier between the Keys and the mainland is also supposed to slow it down, so we've got a number of factors going for us down here.
While helping my brother clean out my parents' garage, going through shelves of tools, boxes of drill bits, old hinges, misc loose nails and screws, washers, screw-drivers, hand-drills, boxes of what-nots, etc, along with more garden tools than you can imagine even existed, I came across this old cedar cigar box full of mixed nails.
I know where that box of nails came from. That came from my grandfather's garage. My Mom's Dad. He kept all categories of little things in cigar boxes. He smoked in his office in town of course, but outdoors too, even while scything hay or on horseback, but stuck with cigarettes indoors so as not to offend the womenfolk. Pall Malls. Still delicious cigarettes.
So what about L. Osterweis? Well, he made cigars in New Haven, CT, with "South American" (Cuban probably) filler and Connecticut wrappers. Cigar people know that Connecticut still grows the best wrapper tobacco in the world.
The Osterweis company sold off their assets in 1954. From this Yale snippet, it seems that the Osterweis family did pretty well in the tobacco biz for a couple of generations. Even sent a kid or two to Yale.
I'll open with a statement which is derived from the post I recently made regarding Libertarian thought. I believe if athletes want to use drugs or steroids, the choice is theirs to decide if using them will help them improve.
I know this is a controversial position, but if someone wants to use a product which may well cause cancer, shrink genitalia, or otherwise harm them, why should we stop them?
However, I don't support breaking rules. Rules in sports help focus players on developing talent rather than using technology to short-circuit the system. Golf is well known for its use of guidelines to introduce new products, and recently made a rule change limiting putters. I have used products in golf that can help me reduce my slice, and hit balls which fly further than those allowed on the tour. But the USGA limits what technology can be used by professionals because technology can trump talent.
I don't know how to play the violin, so the technology which makes a Stradivarius a great violin won't make me a better violinist. But if Stradivarius provided a tool which moved my fingers to their proper positions and moved my bow across the strings in proper fashion, I could suddenly compete with Itzhak Perlman and barely take a class!
In my post honoring Gwyneth Paltrow, World's Most Beautiful Woman, I included pictures of some other famous women for comparison.
A commenter called the following a "hag":
He also called this a "hag":
Well, in the latest exciting news from the Hag Front, I'm pleased to announce we have a new entry in this most select of fields:
What's beyond scrumptious?
Her name is Camilla Belle. Or, as I prefer to call her, "The future Mrs. Dr. Mercury". She's appeared in about twenty films, although the only one I recognized on the list was Steven Seagal's 'The Patriot'.
That's about as adorable as it gets without actually being illegal. Even back then,she had that elusive it.
Her Wikipedia page is here, her IMDb page is here. I'd never heard of her until she popped up in some slideshow I was watching.
There are some teams which, for one reason or another can't get out of the way of themselves. I happen to root for these teams, and they come from Philadelphia.
Before I get an email from Doc complaining "oh geez, another sports post," I'll allay his fears and assure him this is about racism.
The Philadelphia Eagles, in the midst of rebuilding a franchise that had been successful for the past decade, lost one of their key players. A Wide Receiver, Jeremy Maclin, blew out his ACL and was lost for the season.
What do you do? Turn to the next guy, of course, who showed flashes of talent, but hadn't broken out yet. Riley Cooper hadn't been nearly as successful, but could potentially fill this huge gap.
Based on the video, it's hard to tell why he used it. However, he has said that a black security guard didn't allow him to go backstage, and that was the word he chose while reacting.
There are no good reasons to use it. But it is used somewhat regularly by rappers and athletes (I've heard it used in the gym locker room by young black men), and even once by a commentator. It seems to be a term of endearment, at times, though I'm too far removed to give it context.
Certainly, there seems to be a fine line between using the word itself, and adding an "A" to the end of it.
Some comedians have taken this view to task (video is terrible and audio hard to hear, but it's part of a sketch that aired on Comedy Central's "Tosh.0").
At least some of his teammates have stepped up, and Michael Vick even rejected his brother's words. Apparently, he knows a little bit about forgiveness.
This is not a word which should ever be used in any form, with an "A" or not. If people want issues like this to go away, the word has to be avoided by all, including those who use it in friendly or familiar manner. In the meantime, mistakes are going to happen. Overcoming ignorance takes time, effort, and a willingness to forgive and provide support. After all, from my perspective, freedom of speech means you have the freedom to be offended from time to time. Of course, it's better to avoid offending people whenever possible.
After all, sometimes ignorance causes us to take action that is misguided and needs to be remedied.
In 1999, a white D.C. official was forced to resign for using a word that sounded like a racial slur. David Howard used the word "niggardly" during a meeting, which a black staffer mistook for an epithet. Webster's Tenth Edition Dictionary defines "niggardly" as "grudgingly mean about spending or granting."
Lots of folks think bluefish are barely edible, but they are fit for a king when cooked the day they are caught, full of rich juicy fishy goodness. Mix in a bowl: mayonnaise, lots of chopped fresh ginger, some soy sauce, some salt and pepper, and chopped scallions. Coat both sides of the bluefish filets, then throw on the grill.
The secret to cooking many fish on the grill is to put a layer of aluminum foil on top of the grill, then cut a bunch of slits in the foil with a knife - it allows you to turn it without crumbling. Don't overcook - just 'til it flakes. Sprinkle with more chopped scallions when done on the flesh side, and serve with potato salad and green salad, crusty bread, martinis and champagne, and go to sleep happy, fulfilled, and thankful for God's bounty.
I've been using this recipe ever since I found it in John Hersey's 1987 bestseller "Blues" - a very fine and delightful book about fishing on the Islands - and about Life, of course. They might have it in that good bookstore on the main drag in Nantucket, but I'd be surprised. Anyway, they should.
The Bluefish is the favorite fast-food snack of the giant 500-1500 lb. Bluefin Tuna - a fish which I find inedibly dry and dull except as sushi. However, if you can find "toro" - the fatty belly meat of the Bluefin, which only can be found where Bluefin are regularly caught in Montauk, Cape Cod, and the Islands, season it with salt and pepper and throw that on the grill and it beats the best Kansas steak by a mile.
Ask your fish store up there to save you some. Be careful and use low coals, because it will flame up and burn far more than a steak. The Japanese pay through the nose for it, which is why we can't find toro at our local fishmongers. They ice it and put it on a plane to Japan, and probably eat it raw, which is a shame and a waste because good Yankee smoke and flame reveal its deeper character. Indeed, as with people.
A tip from a reader - you can do swordfish belly meat too - never tried it but it makes good sense.
Again, as I mentioned in the last AGW/NGC/ACW/NGW update, we're catching a hint of desperation in the air. The North Pole is melting! — except that the slush pond pic they splashed all over the Internet was taken over 300 miles south of the North Pole.
Yep, them changing weather patterns is finally here as verified by the bikini-clad sunbathers right there before your disbelieving eyes. Sure, the picture was taken what looked to be about 10,000 miles south of Norilsk — but never mind those pesky details!
Well, before we continue, let's make sure any new readers are up to speed on the marvelous variety of science-based global climate models we now have to choose from:
— If you believe the science, then it's obvious that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is the villain.
— On the other hand, if you believe the science, then there's no question that Natural Global Cooling (NGC) is the true menace.
— However, if you believe the science, then it's quite apparent that Anthropogenic Chlorofluorocarbonic Warming (ACW) is the real threat.
— But, for those who believe the science, it's crystal-clear that Natural Global Warming (NGW) is what's really goin' on.
Again, it's all about the science, folks, and the wonderful options it provides.
The exciting news today is that responsible parties have finally stepped up and taken control of the problem, leaving all of those biased and subsidized "scientists" out in the cold — so to speak. I think we can all cheer that the issue has finally been removed from the political arena and that clinical, impartial pragmatists are finally in control.
The CIA is funding a study examining various ways mankind can geo-engineer the planet -- blocking or limiting the sunlight that reaches the Earth, stripping carbon dioxide from the skies, seeding the clouds and so on.
So they're keeping all options open, as good pragmatists should.
And they have the highest backing our nation can offer:
The project, a panel called “Geoengineering Climate: Technical Evaluation and Discussion of Impacts,” is backed by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA -- and the U.S. intelligence community.
Of course, the naysayers and doubters will come out of the woodwork and claim they're just doing it to make a bunch of fat-cat corporations happy, and, while true, at least they're right up front about it:
“All of our sponsors are interested in this topic as a part of the larger climate-change discussion,” he said.
As for why this smart group suddenly stepped to the fore to solve this difficult problem once and for all is easy to understand.
It's for the children.
A 2008 study by the National Intelligence Council concluded that climate change posted a serious threat to national security.
When your great-grandchild doesn't die because she accidentally locked herself out of the house for 35 minutes because she's living in what's been relabeled the Temperate Boiling Zone where a human being can only survive for roughly 30 minutes in the blazing heat, you'll have the CIA to thank for her deliverance.
So, to sum things up at this point:
— If you believe in AGW, then you're comforted to know that smart minds are finally stepping in to solve the problem.
— If you believe in ACW, then you're happy that the worst is over with.
— But if you believe in NGC, then you must be worried that the CIA is doing all it can to ensure the next ice age.
— And if you believe in NGW, then nothing anybody can do is going to make any difference and we're all doomed anyway.
So, on the good/bad meter, we're basically batting .500 at this point. On the other hand, that's good enough for the Hall of Fame.
I said I'd grab a few more pics of my late parents' home before we hurriedly plan to empty it out this week. Here's their living room. I think it is very pleasant, airy and and simple. Cathedral ceiling. A serene feeling. My Dad designed the whole house, and he was not an architect.
Large, wall-length fireplace on the left, with a raised hearth doubling as a bench, and with a 4'X4' antique oil portrait of a prize cow hanging over it.
No TV of course, but a radio for WQXR and a CD player on a bookshelf. Plus a piano in case you really love music enough to try to make some.
Can walk from there to our country 1763 Congregational Church. A nice 20-minute walk in any season, any weather.
As my lad and I reviewed the jewelry and silver components of my parents' estate tonight, I happened to notice that he was not wearing a watch. He said that a watch in the summer just gets sweaty and, besides, who needs one? You just pull out your iPhone, and there's the time.
Just like an old-fashioned pocket watch, I observed. Then I pointed out one of my Grandpa's gold pocket watches on the jewelry list.
Then I had a thought. Why don't these modern phones have some clip-on chain-type things like the watch chains of the old days? It could be a new/old fashion, and useful too.
Which, of course, led to an email exchange in which we fit Animal House quotes to the event. If you're a fan of Animal House, or baseball, try it. As my brother says, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
"Rodriguez, we've given this a lot of thought, your Delta Tau Chi name is "Juicer""
Collectively, our readers seem to know about everything.
I am having battery problems. I do not understand batteries. I think the main purpose of these batteries is ignition. Or are they for generating sparks too? I am ignorant.
Anyway, I have beeb experiencing a rash of dead batteries.
This excellent, heavy-duty baby takes a gel 6 V. battery. It died over the winter. I tried to recharge it but that didn't work. The guy said not to leave its batteries out in the winter.
A also have one of these cool trimmer-mowers which are fine and easier to use for weeds and tall grass in tight or steeply-sloped areas. It's like a gas-powered scythe. Luckily or not, it's a pull-start so no battery issue there.
Our Farmall tractor takes a regular 12 V car battery, so that's simple. Naturally, the battery dies over the winter from disuse, but is sometimes rechargeable by jumping it. However, our old Ford tractor takes a 6 V which will not hold a charge after jumping it and running it for hours.
I don't like that because I sometimes stall out on hills, and don't want to leave the tractor stuck outdoors. Do I need to buy a new 6 V tractor battery every Spring?
I guess that's wasn't what that idiot on The View would term "rape-rape."
This seemingly naive or reckless young girl (which is not to blame her) should have called the cops, and let the DA sort out the facts and the details.
Perhaps the issue is that college kids these days do not view themselves as part of the big adult world yet.
I have always countered people who complain about parking with the observation that they should feel fortunate to live where many other people want to be instead of some dying place where nobody wants to be and there is nothing to do.
I mostly avoid malls since internet shopping took hold, but you never really hear people complain about a 5 or ten-minute walk from a garage to their destination in the mall. Similarly when you drive into Manhattan and usually require a lengthy - but scenic - hike to your destination. Same with a stadium.
When street parking is available, people seem to think differently.
It's a dreadful task to break up one's parents' household but, with my Dad's death two weeks ago, we need to get it on the market before Labor Day in order to sell it before the lengthy driveway and parking area need snow-plowing and shoveling, and are covered with ice.
My parents raised most of us kids in this sunny and cheery 6-BR contemporary which my Dad designed, and my parents remained there until they died.
The realtors want the house emptied out, heavy-duty cleaned, and floors waxed, in the next 3 weeks. We 5 kids will draw a number out of a hat, then pick stuff we want in order (jewelry, silver, furniture, chatchkes, art, the Steinway, etc.), then call in Good Will to take whatever they can use. Then comes the dumpster and the cleaning crew. Thus does a home devolve into a house.
I took some photos to help my memory of home when my Alzheimer's arrives.
This is their kitchen with its fireplace with a wood stove insert at the far end of the kitchen area. The only sign that old people lived there, I think, is having things scotch-taped to the cabinets. Plus their refusal to put a/c in the house. That baby picture I was taking home was of me. I don't really want it, but I don't want to throw it away. Everybody has some stuff like that.
Bulldog and I were yakking away in email the other day. Such terms as "loads of sugar", "M&Ms" and "Hershey Kisses" were bandied about, an indication of the somber tone the fabled bloggers of Maggie's Farm take on when discussing life's most serious issues in private.
We got to talking about the recent Korean-owned Asiana Air crash at SFO and whether cultural conditioning played any role. I mentioned I was thinking of doing a short post on it. As I said:
1. If Asians are involved, and 2. it seems inaction was the sole cause of the crash
then it's a pretty good guess where, deep down, the problem lies.
This was just after the crash where, with everything else seeming to be functioning normally, simple inaction was the only thing left on the table.
Bulldog (known as 'Big Drool' to his bar buddies) mentioned author Malcolm Gladwell, who had tied together two Korean Air crashes due to "cockpit culture", along with an Avianca crash; a company based in Colombia where the same 'militaristic hierarchy' existed in the airline industry.
So, thanks to Droolie, I then had to track down this Gladwell character and I came across this:
Gladwell did not return a request for comment, but in summarizing his ideas for Fortune magazine in November 2008, he said Korean Air's problem at the time was not old planes or poor crew training. "What they were struggling with was a cultural legacy, that Korean culture is hierarchical," he said.
"You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S." he added. That's dangerous when it comes to modern airplanes, said Gladwell, because such sophisticated machines are designed to be piloted by a crew that works together as a team of equals, remaining unafraid to point out mistakes or disagree with a captain.
Both Gladdy and the writer are one-third right.
Yes, it's cultural, but not in the way they indicate, and not in the conclusion they reach. But we'll get to that.
Of course, then I had to watch the 'Mayday' episodes of the three big crashes the article backs up Gladdy's claim with, and that's when this post took yet another leap as I realized how wrong both The Gladman and his adoring acolytes were.
Then, wiping my fevered brow, I realized the horrid truth that since I was the one with all of the aforementioned 'Mayday' episodes at hand, it was up to me to grab my video editor and put it all together. In other words, one quick flurry of emails with Droolie and this went from a 1-clip, 250-word 'behind the scenes' peek at the Asiana crash to a 5-clip, 3,120-word video essay.
As a kid, I spent one summer trying to get the hang of this near-impossible, absurd, pointless, and extremely fatiguing stroke. Never could.
In the summertime, it is fun, though, to see the kids' swim teams do their best with it and, at high levels, it's more interesting to watch than any other stroke.
I found myself wondering who was to blame for this monstrosity, which seems to have been invented around 1933.
For several years, I've felt the need to drop most of the spare pounds I've been carrying. At six feet tall and weighing anywhere from 208 to 215, I was never obese but I was definitely overweight. My doctor would ask the same question every year, "You don't look like you're over 200, where are you hiding it?"
It was true. I am naturally thin and once I reached about 185 pounds, the difference between that weight and 210 was not terribly noticeable. Except to me. I was slower on the tennis court, my back gave me problems on a regular basis, and my clothing might still fit but was awfully tight. I used to play two man beach volleyball in tournaments, but there was no way I could even consider this after I passed the 185 mark. I would have been worn out in no time.
I'm pleased to say I recently returned to the 185 pound level and I have a goal of 178 pounds. I remember crossing the 200 line the day I was heading down to attend the Preakness, and feeling proud of that small achievement. So far, I've lost 25 pounds in about 16 weeks.
The only sure and healthy way to lose weight is diet and exercise. However, there are more diets on the market than you can shake a stick at and plenty of exercise gurus who want you to give them money. I chose to focus on reducing caloric intake rather than just removing carbs. I wasn't interested in changing my diet radically.
My method was to engage portion control and self-discipline. I downloaded an iPhone app called "LoseIt". It's free, and all you do is set your goals (I wanted to lose 1 1/2 pounds per week). It's simple. You log your exercise and the food you eat. It will calculate the carbohydrates, protein and fats as well as the calories. I've had an average intake of about 20% protein and 50% fat for the last 16 weeks. I've been going to the gym at least 4 times a week for an hour and a half and mixing bike work with lifting weights. Early on, I did more cardio, and as I lost weight I began to focus on muscle development (which can burn slightly more calories over the course of the day).
There are plenty of apps which do the same thing, and ultimately it will come down to desire, discipline and will-power. I haven't skimped, I haven't starved, and I haven't changed my diet dramatically. All it took was the realization that this would be a good thing to do for myself. I've learned that being aware of what you eat, and counting the calories, actually helps you eat less. Weight Watchers is on to something, it would seem. I don't see the need to pay anyone to help me lose the weight. Except the gym, and only because I sit at a desk for at least 40 hours a week, and usually more.
Start with something that hasn’t changed: American women’s obsession with their figures. The January 1963 Redbook featured a cover line on a 10-DAY DIET TO HELP YOU RECOVER FROM THE HOLIDAYS; the February 2013 issue cajoles readers to “get to your best weight ever” and promises “the plan and the push you need.” The April 1963 Ladies’ Home Journal pledged ideas on how to “dine well on 300 calories”; the February 2013 issue offers a more cheerful take on weight control: “Yay! Retire your fat pants forever.” One shudders to think of the pounds lost and gained over five decades of readership...
Re-posted - 
Aging is not for sissies, the saying goes, because something is always going wrong. However, Oliver Sacks is delighted to be turning 80: 