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.
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...
The more options we have, the better off we are. It's as simple as that.
So, imagine how thrilling it was to discover that bad ol' carbon dioxide was no longer suspected in the race to see which substance (carbon dioxide, ozone, second-hand smoke, liberal thought) would destroy the planet first.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are to blame for global warming since the 1970s and not carbon dioxide, according to new research from the University of Waterloo published in the International Journal of Modern Physics B this week.
CFCs are already known to deplete ozone, but in-depth statistical analysis now shows that CFCs are also the key driver in global climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
The verdict is in, the debate is over.
"Most conventional theories expect that global temperatures will continue to increase as CO2 levels continue to rise, as they have done since 1850. What's striking is that since 2002, global temperatures have actually declined - matching a decline in CFCs in the atmosphere," Professor Lu said. "My calculations of CFC greenhouse effect show that there was global warming by about 0.6 °C from 1950 to 2002, but the earth has actually cooled since 2002. The cooling trend is set to continue for the next 50-70 years as the amount of CFCs in the atmosphere continues to decline."
So, while granting that it'll take another half-century for things to return to normal, at least we're headed in the right direction. Thank goodness we can put that little problem to rest!
If you, yourself, happen to blunder upon one of those old, outdated "global warming" articles, please inform everybody there that the latest scientific evidence is in and that they no longer have to worry. It's all getting better. I'm sure this will come as a big relief to everyone.
If, however, you, yourself, remain one of those 'skeptics' we read about in Time Magazine and you're convinced that, despite the latest science, Anthropogenic Chlorofluorocarbonic Warming is not the bad guy here, well, remember what I said about 'options'?
The most wonderful aspect of the climate debate at this moment in time, and a point simply no one could contend, is how many choices we now have:
— If you believe the science, then it's clear that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is the villain.
— If, however, you believe the science, then there's no question that Natural Global Colding (NGC) is the true menace.
— On the other hand, if you believe the science, then it's obvious that Anthropogenic Chlorofluorocarbonic Warming (ACW) is the real threat.
— And, for those who believe the science, it's crystal-clear that Natural Global Warming (NGW) is what's really goin' on.
It's all about the science, folks, and the wonderful options it provides.
We recently posted the report that Google is not particularly interested in interviewing American grads with college degrees.
The fact is that the meaning of Higher Ed has changed in the past 100 years in the US. In 1900, around 2% of Americans had BA degrees. That was a meaningful socio-cultural marker, but as the numbers now exceed 35%, and as even the most elite schools do not seem to know what their mission is, it no longer means very much more than a piece of paper required to manage a McDonald's store.
For a couple of decades, as BAs became commonplace, graduate degrees seemed to become more meaningful and popular as markers. Now, however, we are overrun with unemployed and marginally-employed MAs, PhDs, JDs, D. Divs, and MBAs with huge loans and no way to pay them off. And, assuming that MOOCs begin to take off thanks to the internet, there will be far less need for Profs.
How do all the other tenured, morally self-congratulatory educators live with the knowledge that many of their students, after having had their narrow certainties and provincial visions broken down, face years of indentured servitude? We can begin to understand by thinking of the 2,774 U.S. institutions that (as of 2010) grant bachelor's degrees as being in the credentials business rather than the education business. The Daily Beast's Megan McArdle, summarizing an interview with economist Bryan Caplan, points out that it's "actually fairly easy to get a Princeton education for free, as long as you don't want the degree: just walk in off the street and sit in on the classes. It's unlikely that a professor will kick you out, or even notice." No one does this, of course, since no matter how much you might have learned auditing courses, your degree-less self will fare no better in the job market than will the next autodidact.
Many students do the opposite, however: earning, or in any case receiving, college degrees after learning as little as possible. After all, writes McArdle, college students "cheer when class is cancelled. This makes no sense if the goal is accumulation of human capital. In no other business are customers excited to get less than they were promised."
Large public universities, where millions of Americans enroll, are especially conducive to the avoidance of intellectual exertion and achievement. As John Merrow, a journalist specializing in education, discovered in 2005 after investigating academic life at the University of Arizona, "learning seems to be optional." Many undergraduates, in the words of one administrator he interviewed, are "‘maze smart'—they have figured out what they have to do to get through: buy the book, find out what's going to be on the exam and stay invisible." Another spoke of the "mutual nonaggression pact," in which the professor gives the students high grades for mediocre work, and the students give the professor generous evaluations for indifferent teaching. As Arizona's dean of students acknowledged, "We have a lot of students whose motivation for coming here is to get a good job. They think, ‘How do I get the grades?' instead of trying to learn."
Like most of us Maggie's Farmers, I get my education now via a pre-MOOC. If you like to learn, that's what you do. It used to be called The Teaching Company, but now it's called Great Courses. Once you're hooked, you will never waste time on TV or movies again.
Books are good, too. Some students give it up after a paper credential, but some use it as a launching pad for a lifetime of curiosity and intellectual pursuits. In my view, the latter are the only ones deserving of a liberal arts education.
Many of us privileged baby boomers were fortunate enough to receive a rigorous classical education while the masses received the fad du jour from the teachers' colleges in the government schools.
Ran across a post on ZeroHedge last Friday, about the emasculation of men in the US today. The post itself was not particularly enlightening, but the topic is rather interesting. It's a theme my father and I discuss somewhat frequently.
What does it mean to be a man? There's the Y chromosome, and some private parts. But we are different from women in other ways, and we are under attack, in my view. I suspect one of the reasons we're under attack is because many men were raised with minimal male influence over the last 50 years or so. Divorce may play a huge role in the current attack on male society. My father was not your typical 'guy's guy'. He didn't play a huge role in my upbringing until late in my teens, because my parents were divorced. His personal tastes are less Hemingway and more Fitzgerald (though he enjoys Hemingway in a literary sense). He is definitely a red-blooded American man. He does the lawn, can use a chain saw, and enjoys a good fire. He doesn't share too many of his emotions, except when it's really necessary. I was lucky, however, to have several uncles who stepped in immediately, and later a stepfather, to fill the vacuum of a male presence. Most of the younger men in my office could use a lesson or two on being more masculine, though.
I think it is fairly common for commercials, and TV in general, to exhibit men as outlandishly stupid beings. Men on TV are usually infantile, unable to think about anyone but themselves, engaging in moronic behaviors, if not generally portrayed as drooling neanderthals. The media has gone out of its way to diminish the male psyche. It's evident in many ways. Why are there "Women's Studies" programs at universities and no "Men's Studies"?
I also think many high-profile men today are effete snobs, starting with our president and Joe Biden.
I'm all for women's rights, by the way. So it's not like I'm opposed to women in the workplace, seeing them succeed or even earning a just wage. But I don't understand why, every day, I'm told I need to think, act, or behave more like a woman. Women and men are different, and those differences are positive things. We complement each other extremely well. I don't believe women are more capable or smarter than men. I've taken classes (on the recommendation of women) on "Emotional Intelligence". I was underwhelmed, but I can see why women view the concept of "emotional intelligence" as important. To me, the recommendations were really just another way of saying "Because you're a man, you're incomplete."
Most people don't need one very often, but they are darn handy when you do. Using the magic of leverage combined with the human arm and the ratchet, one can apply remarkable power either vertically as a hoist or horizontally for pulling.
We are using a come-along today to install some new barbed wire in a 50-acre field. Not too tight, not too loose. Most of the posts are solid enough but the wire helps hold them in place and we use trees for the machine. We used to have an electrified fence but the barbed works fine. It's for the cattle, not for the horses.
If you wanted to, you could pull a tree down with one of these, but a chain saw makes better sense. Pictured is a 1.5 ton lever, but they come in varied powers.
Tugit makes good ones. Good, cheap, powerful tool. With a little grease and some pine boards you can easily move your shed, chicken coop, or outhouse with it.
When I was a kid, the Good Humor Man came down the street after suppertime, ringing his bell. I was partial to the vanilla thing coated with nuts, and the orange-raspberry popsicles.
How that guy made a living, just in summertime, with those 25 cent treats, is beyond me. Dad would give us each a quarter for them, but not every night. Maybe once a week. You would hear the jingle, and kids would evacuate their houses. Anyway, the union and gas prices put an end to that charming tradition.
Now they have the more urban Mr. Softee. He does not come into our village.
As she says, it's not from The Onion. The guy in the video is smart but pitifully emasculated. I guess it goes with the territory. Every assertion he makes ends with a question mark. Lame, and not a word about education.
I have written about the history of the concept of retirement several times, over the years. Basically, I tend to believe that retirement is a bad idea for body and soul. My house painter is 74, and he claims work keeps him young and permits him to take better trips than he could otherwise afford.
“Did you kill any babies, Bruce?” As we lay in bed on New Year’s Eve 1970, this is what the girl asked who a friend had introduced me to when I returned from Vietnam a couple of months before. I got up and drove home in the snowy streets from Queens to Brooklyn. I didn’t even try to date another girl for almost a year after. But, I moved past it and didn’t dwell on that night.
Some returned soldiers and Marines had worse experiences and some had better and almost all just blended back in after an initial adjustment. Studies show that most were more successful in their lives than their non-serving peers. But, what the major media and liberal opinion-setters painted was an image, usually grossly ignorant and mendacious, of a mentally and morally scarred Vietnam veteran. The purpose was to reduce support for the US commitment to South Vietnam. It took several decades before this image from the Left was reversed and due pride in veterans’ service returned to America. Yet, that erroneous and harmful image of Vietnam veterans still lingers in many minds.
Aside from the opprobrium poured upon us Vietnam veterans from the Left in the pop culture and academia, the goal of our war was lost and we had little reason to exhibit pride in the outcome of our service as millions of IndoChinese were murdered by the conquering communists in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The perfidy of so many of our Senators and Congressmen, and the indifference of most opinion-leaders, only deepened the alienation from authority, and increased the vulnerability to the anti-Vietnam messagers.
That’s what the fall of Saigon has to do with the life paths of Vietnam veterans.
Rarely do two books appear on widely different aspects of the Vietnam War which based on meticulous research weave an understanding of the still confusing Vietnam War that, as Paul Harvey used to say, tells us “the rest of the story.”
Pr(A|X) = Chance of having cancer (A) given a positive test (X).
This is what we want to know: How likely is it to have cancer with a
positive result? In our case it was 7.8%.
Pr(X|A) = Chance of a positive test (X) given that you had cancer (A). This is the chance of a true positive, 80% in our case.
Pr(A) = Chance of having cancer (1%).
Pr(~A) = Chance of not having cancer (99%).
Pr(X|~A) = Chance of a positive test (X) given that you didn’t have cancer (~A). This is a false positive, 9.6% in our case.
Diamonds are not scarce, are not investments (they depreciate), and are no more "forever" than any other rock. Their popularity as stones in engagement rings dates to the 1930s with DeBeers' very effective marketing campaign.
We covet diamonds in America for a simple reason: the company that stands to profit from diamond sales decided that we should. De Beers’ marketing campaign single-handedly made diamond rings the measure of one’s success in America. Despite its complete lack of inherent value, the company manufactured an image of diamonds as a status symbol. And to keep the price of diamonds high, despite the abundance of new diamond finds, De Beers executed the most effective monopoly of the 20th century. Okay, we get it De Beers, you guys are really good at business!
De Beers believes that a fellow should spend two month's income on a diamond. Wiki has a brief history of engagement rings and wedding rings.
Carpe Diem recommends fake diamonds, and real love and reliable companionship.
Mrs. BD gave me an early Father's Day/Anniversary present two weeks ago, and it pleased me greatly. It was five (legal) strong and energetic Mexican yard guys for 9 hours to clean up various unpleasant outdoor messes which had gotten out of control around the semi-elegant but rusticated Maggie's HQ.
If you knew me personally, you would know that I naturally worked alongside of them all day (with chain saw mostly, and some carrying of firewood, rocks, and branches), tipped them with $20 each, and gave them cold Coronas with lime slices at the end of the day. They arrived at 8 am with chipper, giant dumpster, tools, grass seed, hay, weed-whackers, an industrial tiller, etc.
Among other tasks, we cleared out almost 1/5 acre of weeds and dying shrubs and trees, removed roots and stumps, removed evil porcelain berry vines, thinned out some of my older spruce and cedar plantings, cut firewood out of some trees and large branches fallen from Sandy, shrunk my vegetable garden by 1/2, tilled, raked, and planted grass. While I tend to be opposed to lawns on principle, it was the only way to make this particular area not look like crap. Luckily, it has been cool and rainy almost every other day since we finished and the grass is coming in nicely. Thanks to global cooling, it's cool, windy, and rainy yet again today. Grass loves cool and wet.
Feels like Ireland up here. I like it. Got a sweet-smelling fir-log fire going right next to me as I type.
What a good present that day was. Thanks, Mrs. BD. These guys work as hard as I do, but they have bigger muscles. Well, I spent most of this past weekend trimming all of the hedges and misc. gardening, weeding, log-splitting, and transplanting at the direction of Mrs. BD. Are gardens ever done? Never. I do all of the outdoor work I have time to do. It's good exercise and the results can be gratifying. Next weekend, I plan to do the necessary lawn plugging but not, of course, on the new area.
Owning properties is an endless war against nature and her insidious Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Now I just need those 5 guys for one more day because I still have a to-do list and I need a dump truck load of mulch and a truck load of fresh driveway gravel. Maybe next Spring?
Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) wrote "Oh, Susanna," "Old Folks at Home (Swanee River)," "De Camptown Races," "Old Black Joe," "Beautiful Dreamer," "My Old Kentucky Home," "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair," "Hard Times," - and lots more.
Where would the American songbook be without him? Nowhere.
Here's his Wikipedia listing. It's the usual: made pennies from his songs, died drunk and alone in New York City. Only visited the deep South briefly, once, on his honeymoon.
Photos of his German piano teacher in Pittsburgh, his first guitar, and the first piano he played, here.
Why the Swanee River? It fit the meter and the feeling. Here's "Old Folks at Home," a true heart-breaker of a sentimental popular song, with a lovely simple tune, as Foster wrote it in NYC for the minstrel shows.
With up to 40% of American kids being born today to single mothers, often with neither alimony nor meaningful child support, alimony, like marriage, is irrelevant to the lives of many Americans today.
Some states are ending lifetime alimony. One must wonder to what extent the risk of alimony is a deterrent to marriage. (It certainly can be a deterrent to divorce, at least for a while).
Nevertheless, there surely seem to be a lot more two-income households today than there were in the 50s (even though many women did work outside the home then). However, in the 50s there were almost no single moms other than widows. It was considered shameful.
Women married to functional men take jobs not as a matter of economic necessity usually, or as a matter of personal fulfillment. It's usually a matter of people wanting an economically-higher standard of living, better financial security, or the ability to pay escalating tuitions and housing costs.
Writers, like talkers, like to tell stories, and most people enjoy well-told stories. A well-told story is a wonderful thing in life, especially because most of our lives are made of humdrum stories - at least on the surface. The most revelatory stories can be touchstones for a life, eg the Bible stories.
Gerard posted a snippet of the best-told story in American history. It won't make you "good", but it's at least as rich as sausage gravy. I should say, as rich as spermaceti.
Aging is not for sissies, the saying goes, because something is always going wrong. However, Oliver Sacks is delighted to be turning 80: 
Options. That's what it's all about.
Most people don't need one very often, but they are darn handy when you do. Using the magic of leverage combined with the human arm and the ratchet, one can apply remarkable power either vertically as a hoist or horizontally for pulling.
Diamonds are not scarce, are not investments (they depreciate), and are no more "forever" than any other rock. Their popularity as stones in engagement rings dates to the 1930s with DeBeers' very effective marketing campaign.
Mrs. BD gave me an early Father's Day/Anniversary present two weeks ago, and it pleased me greatly. It was five (legal) strong and energetic Mexican yard guys for 9 hours to clean up various unpleasant outdoor messes which had gotten out of control around the semi-elegant but rusticated Maggie's HQ.
Foster (1826-1864) wrote "Oh, Susanna," "Old Folks at Home (Swanee River)," "De Camptown Races," "Old Black Joe," "Beautiful Dreamer," "My Old Kentucky Home," "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair," "Hard Times," - and lots more.