Wednesday, March 31. 2010
Saturday evening, out the car window en route to the theater -
I guess you could also call it a Redneck TelePrompter.
Tuesday, March 30. 2010
- "Authentic" classical music, with original instruments and strict constructionists directing (eg John Eliot Gardiner) was popular over the past couple of decades. Interesting too. But is it time to Forsake Authenticity?
- In praise of PG Wodehouse. Without doubt the best author to read when you are sick - except for Peter De Vries.
- I am having a good time going through Jacquetta Hawkes' The Atlas of Early Man: The Rise of Man Across the Globe, From 35,000 B.C. to A.D. 500 With Over 1,000 Maps And Illustrations. It is structured like a timeline so you can see what was going on across the globe with civilization and pre-civilization during different periods.
- No Christian heroes, please.
- I have been advised to watch Ridley Scott's 2005 Kingdom of Heaven. Anybody seen it?
Monday, March 29. 2010
I like the look of David's new place ( Never Yet Melted). Sort of a Virginia version of Maggie's Farm.
Cruel but amusing: tons of photos from WalMart, America's favorite store, here.
Wide Load below -
Jay Schalin at The Pope Center
 How much of what shapes our lives is luck and serendipity? Most of us have met our spouse by chance, and many even have their jobs or even their careers by stumbling onto something.
On Maggie's Farm, we like to view life optimistically as an endless conveyor belt of opportunities, but with few of them passing by more than once. Thus do we necessarily accumulate regrets over time.
But what is luck made of? What is Fate made of? In part (and only in part), it is made of these ingredients:
"Character is destiny." - Sigmund Freud
"Chance favors the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur
"You make your own luck." - Ernest Hemingway
"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -Thomas Jefferson
"I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often." - Brian Tracy
"Suit up, show up, and shut up." - AA aphorism, and the closely related Woody Allen quote: "Eighty percent of success is showing up."
This topic came to mind as I reflected on our corny but deeply true QQQs on persistence. Persistence tends to work because it works on a statistical basis. If a fellow hits on enough gals in the pub, he'll eventually get lucky.
Of course, knowing when to fold 'em is part of wisdom too. Sometimes sunny optimism is plain stupid.
Here. Wholesome indeed. Heads up, as it were, Boy Scouts.
Sunday, March 28. 2010
 When Christ rode into Jerusalem down from the Mount of Olives on a colt (or small horse, or donkey - whatever) on Palm Sunday, he was greeted with Hosannas by excited crowds who believed him to be the Messiah.
His teachings and his miracles had become famous. People threw their cloaks on the road and, presumably, palm leaves, for his horse to walk on.
Much of their enthusiasm was unwarranted, however: the Jews were hoping for a political messiah (using the word "king"), more than they were hoping for the messiah who came to tell them that much of what they believed about being in relationship with God was wrong - and claiming that he had the authority to say so.
"Salvation," for the crowds, meant salvation from the Romans, and "the kingdom of God," in the Hebrew Bible, referred to the literal restoration of a nation of Israel under God, as had been promised to David. There was no concept at the time, I believe, of the now-Christian idea of salvation or the Christian idea of "the kingdom of God." Furthermore, Jesus had no interest I am aware of in politics or governance and had no beef with the Romans.
A radical for sure, in his apparent renunciation of the ordinary world.
There is plenty of discussion about what is understood by the kingdom of God.
My own view is that it refers to God's domain, ie the universe of those souls who seek relationship with God - not any literal kingdom but a "spiritual" (I hate that word), unworldly kingdom. Maybe "transcendent" is a better word.
I suspect that the Jews who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem were deeply disappointed to discover that Jesus' mission was not worldly, but other-worldly: only a few handfuls of people remained to constitute what the scholars term the "Christ cult" after the crucifixion. It took Paul's inspired work to rebuild on the foundation.
(That's just my amateur take on it all. I am no expert.)
Image: Fra Angelico's Entry into Jerusalem
Deresiewicz begins his 2008 essay The Disadvantages of an Elite Education thus:
It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.
It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy.
Saturday, March 27. 2010
Mrs. BD is now considering this idea for an August trip: barging through Provence on the Rhone and the canals.
I told her the choice was between that trip and finishing getting my teeth fixed. It's called Fun With Implants. (Of course, if Obama would pay for my teeth then I could do both. Maybe I should write a note and cc Reid and Pelosi and tell them I'm ready for my new choppers right now.)
My Mom and Dad took one of these trips a few years ago. She said their plump Chef decided to try the balloon ride one time, got about 10" in the air and leaned out to tell the Sous-chef some last minute cooking detail and fell out of the basket into the canal. Hilarity ensued.
Also on my bucket list: Sailing cruise down the coast of Turkey. Yes, I do want to visit Turkey again - with digital camera this time. I like the people, the food, the landscape, the markets, the history, the ruins, and their fruit and wines.
Carpe diem. Cave canem. Gnothi sauton, too.
Friday, March 26. 2010
Cell phone photos: A pal visited NASDAQ HQ yesterday:
The Jewish holiday of Passover begins this year next Monday night with the first Seder. (Translation = Order or sequence and content of the prayers, symbolic foods, and retelling of the Exodus, with emphasis on educating the children.) Many Christians also celebrate the Passover Seder, which was their Last Supper.
Less known is that the Exodus was central to the minds of the new United States' Founding Fathers. The first committee of the Continental Congress assigned to design our Great Seal, the symbol of our sovereignty, was comprised of three of the five men who drafted the Declaration of Independence: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. Franklin chose a design of "Moses standing on the Shore, and extending his Hand over the Sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open Chariot, a Crown on his Head and a Sword in his Hand. Rays from a Pillar of Fire in the Clouds reaching to Moses, to express that he acts by Command of the Deity." The motto: "Rebellion To Tyrants Is Obedience To God," which was later adopted by Jefferson as his personal motto.
The above is drawn from this website about the US' Great Seal. Click around the site. It is fascinating.
Here's a relevant quote:
"All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher." – Abraham Lincoln
Thursday, March 25. 2010
The subject is Real Estate in the New York Times, and the treatment of it in this article is architecture. This short filmette from the article is well done, but (more below)
that was my high school, the largest in the country. The NYT misses the more important backstory.
Winners of the most Westinghouse and National Merit Scholarships were from Erasmus Hall High School. (My favorite alumnus was Moe Howard.) With changing demographics and theories of education, the city has shut it down as unmanageable. The building on the corner was a Yeshiva in my time. The grade school (P.S.6 for public school #6, in NYC parlance) sits on what was a parking lot in my time, for people who flocked to the then excellent shopping, now mostly gone and replaced with Carribbean shops, and three palace like movie theaters on Flatbush Avenue, now shuttered. What's now called the Flatbush Town Hall, built in 1875, was a police station, and we knew all the beat cops who looked out for us. Down the block on Church Avenue was Holy Cross, church and school, now closed. If you look in the upper right corner of the shot above you'll see the steeple of the Dutch Reform Church, built in 1654.
In my time, one out of every seven families in the US traced its family to Brooklyn, a major settling spot from the 1600s to 1900s for immigrants who went on to build America. The bones that made Flatbush, at the heart of Brooklyn, famous are still there. The spirit and lifeblood isn't.
Tuesday, March 23. 2010
I guess it's a motorcycle. The cowbell is a nice touch. We believe that these jolly good folks in their Sunday Best are the Maggie's demographic.
 Last week I mentioned I'd soon be posting a list of my favorite links, and I thought it would be fun to ask the Maggies Valued Readers™ to pitch in. We had a great response and a number of very interesting sites got added to the list. I'm going to split up the page that way.
Please note this is not a 'comprehensive' list by any means. A number of categories are not included, such as mainstream news sites, bloggers, and reference sites. Bloggers can be found in the site's sidebar and I'll do separate posts on reference sites and online games some other time.
Continued below the fold!
Continue reading "Doc's Bag O' Links"
Saturday, March 20. 2010
Weather adventures are great, but I will not be an idiot either. Since I already have a good gas line, I am finally installing one of these babies. Anything to keep Mrs. BD happy, and it turns out that she is no longer the rugged camper that she once was.
Friday, March 19. 2010
Many friends in town still without power etc. At some point, it gets a little old. A hot shower is one heck of a fine thing. A few more of my storm photos were posted earlier today. A few observations -
- You can get the phone co. to forward your regular phone to your cell phone on an emergency basis. That's a good service. Problem is, it pretty much wears out your cell battery while trying to get through to them.
- The power of nature is a majestic, frightening, unpredictable, glorious, exciting, humbling thing.
- Throwing out everything in your freezers is a bummer. Furthermore, the smelly garbage draws raccoons from all surrounding counties, who spill and drag it all around. Lovely. Thanks, fellas.
- It might be time to spring for a Home Depot generator like Gwynnie has. I am always the last person to have the techy thing.
- Memo to self: "Call your mother." Don't wait for an 80-something lady to call to see how you are doing. She said "Oh, we're fine. Your Pop and I are having quite an adventure with candlelight and the fireplace and the wood stove all going strong. We keep eachother warm. No stove though, so your Pop keeps sending me out five miles to Dunkin Donuts for coffee."
- The importance of fortunate timing: the BD pupette spent this week skiing in Utah with college pals - Deer Valley, where they offer you a hankie and a VSOP or glass of sherry on the lift line - instead of chilling here in the dark. Nice life to be a BD kid. I'd be happy to be one myself right now, around 20 years old with what I know now.
- No government was needed to get New England back up and running. All it took was neighborliness, dutiful utility companies, and tree companies from all over. The guys clearing our roads came down from NH and Quebec. I believe we also had every cherry-picker truck in Mt. Airy, NC, up here.
- No distractions: When you have no radio, TV, internet, phone, or power, you are pretty much stuck with your own thoughts. Sometimes that is interesting; sometimes it is living hell with memories, regrets, remorse, pain, etc. Dr. Bliss posted on this in A New Way to be Insane and in Try turning off the radio: Obsessions, Distractions and Diversions.
- My preferred living temperature is between 60 and 64 F. Keeps me alert, and comfortable in the proper dress code.
- All fossil fuel is just stored solar power. So is firewood. These things are solar power batteries. "Organic," too.
- It is said that fireplaces draw heat from a house. Perhaps that is true - but not in an unheated house. In an unheated house, a fireplace will radiate fairly well. Of course, a Franklin stove will do a much better job of that while burning less wood. Ol' Ben was quite a fellow, even if he was a jerk in some ways.
- Sheesh, Mr. Bruce Kesler! Now I see why people complain about the cheesecake on Maggie's. Every time I stopped by the library to check my email (they had power) and to see how Maggie's was holding up, out popped that seductive St. Paddy's leprechaun for all the world to see. I have to consider my reputation! However, she is one pleasant leprechaun.
Maggie's HQ was fortunate to regain heat, cable, and power last night, after losing those fine modern conveniences on Saturday. Here's how we lost them:
another one:
A photo of the HQ at dusk:
Wednesday, March 17. 2010
FWIW, the man I respected most of any I've met in my life and to whom I was closest to came out as gay. He was a Navy veteran, who'd served at Pelelieu and elsewhere in the Pacific during WWII. I sat with him through his last year before he succumbed to AIDS. He was an accountant when I knew him and learned from him, who insisted on honest and informative numbers.
The VetVoice Foundation’s poll of Iraq and Afghanistan vets’ attitudes toward Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell says that:
[B]y six points Iraq and Afghanistan veterans under age 35 lean toward favoring allowing gay and lesbian people to serve openly (41% favor to 35% oppose) while veterans over age 35 lean toward opposing by five points (31% favor, 36% oppose). This recent bipartisan survey, conducted among service members in the United States, in many ways runs counter to the idea being asserted by many, that service members and the military cannot handle this change and are unwilling to do so.
That may or may not be so. The poll itself, however, has some problems.
1. Its service composition is off. The poll has the following service who say they served in Iraq or Afghanistan, 50% Army, 12% Marines, 18% Navy, 22% Air Force. According to Stars and Stripes in March 2008, for example, when most who’d served had been in Iraq, 73% were in the Army, 18% in the Marines, 3% in the Navy, and 6% in the Air Force.
2. The poll does not distinguish those in combat units (although many in non-combat units often were subject to hostile fire). One of the key considerations regarding Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell is how it may affect combat effectiveness.
3. The methodology of the poll is clouded. Proper polling standards require full disclosure of the methodology. This poll doesn’t. This is all it says:
* Methods: Lake Research Partners and American Viewpoint designed and administered this survey, which was conducted by phone using professional interviewers. The survey reached a total of 510 veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) and/or Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). The survey was conducted February 8-23, 2010. Telephone numbers for the sample were generated randomly from a military sample and a radius sample drawn from military bases in the United States. The margin of error for the total sample is +/- 4.4 percentage points.
The respondents’ answer to whether they served and to where is self-reporting and unverified. How the sample was chosen is not detailed nor its representative validity presented. And, as seen in point 1 above, the service composition is off, and from point 2 above a critical question not asked.
4. The sponsoring organization is partisan. Although claiming the pollsters themselves “designed and administered” it, it is frequent that sponsoring organizations influence the design. VetsVoice Chairman is John Soltz, and only one vet Board Member is listed, J. Ashwin Madia.
On John Soltz (who supported disgraced Democrat congressman Eric Massa):
Mass was endorsed by the tough guy Veterans Political Action Committee (PAC) VoteVets. VoteVets is led by tough guys like Jon Soltz, a veteran of four months of duty in a division extended for fifteen months in Iraq. So far since 2006, VoteVets (click here for the This Ain’t Hell breakdown) has lied about Body Armor issues in a multi-million dollar campaign commercial used against Senator George Allen, had another veteran lie about his service in a Missouri Senate campaign commercial for Claire McCaskill. Still following? VoteVets used a veteran who lied about being a veteran in Denver. A veteran who is not a veteran. There are lies and then there are VoteVets’ Richard Strandlof who is now facing jail time for claiming to be a wounded warrior.
For the past week, Massa has further disgraced VoteVets in a gay scandal.
This is the legacy of VoteVets. You can’t blame them. When you are so desperate to prove your argument, even though you are absent factual truth or first hand testimony, you tend to get that guy on camera quick. So when you meet a fellow defeatist, pro-victimizing veteran, you grab them with both arms. Sometimes vetting these liberal “war heroes” would a good idea. But if Jon Soltz and VoteVets vetted everyone in their group claiming to have served in a combat zone, hell even Jon Soltz wouldn’t be a member of VoteVets.
On J. Ashwin Madia (who served as a Marine JAG in Iraq, defeated as a Democrat for Congress in 2008: “The district was ranked as one of the top ten most likely to switch parties in 2008. However, after a challenging campaign, the district remained in the Republican column.”):
I have experience advocating on behalf of unemployed people, immigrants, disabled children, battered women, and the LGBT community. In fact, I was one of the first marines to successfully defend a gay marine from “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Although influenced by Obama, I prefer to wait for the Department of Defense to complete and issue its study of Don't Ask/Don't Tell, in progress.
P.S.: I just received an Excel worksheet from the Defense Department's Press Operations Center breaking down by service and various demographics all those deployed from September 2001-January 2010. I'd be happy to email a copy to the pollsters or journalists.
Women of film:
Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, Ruth Chatterton, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck, Vivien Leigh, Greer Garson, Hedy Lamarr, Rita Hayworth, Gene Tierney, Olivia de Havilland, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, Ginger Rogers, Loretta Young, Deborah Kerr, Judy Garland, Anne Baxter, Lauren Bacall, Susan Hayward, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Audrey Hepburn, Dorothy Dandridge, Shirley MacLaine, Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno, Janet Leigh, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Ann Margret, Julie Andrews, Raquel Welch, Tuesday Weld, Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Catherine Deneuve, Jacqueline Bisset, Candice Bergen, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sigourney Weaver, Kathleen Turner, Holly Hunter, Jodie Foster, Angela Bassett, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Salma Hayek, Sandra Bullock, Julianne Moore, Diane Lane, Nicole Kidman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon, Halle Berry
Men of film:
Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Errol Flynn, Fred Astaire, Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, Tyrone Power, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Gene Kelly, Burt Lancaster, William Holden, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, Anthony Quinn, Gregory Peck, Richard Burton, Jack Lemmon, Sean Connery, Sidney Poitier, Charlton Heston, Steve McQueen, Peter O'Toole, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, Warren Beatty, Dennis Hopper, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Harrison Ford, Kevin Kline, Kevin Costner, Michael Douglas, Christopher Walken, Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, John Travolta, Antonio Banderas, Tim Robbins, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, George Clooney
Tuesday, March 16. 2010
A map-equipped exercise machine can reenact any hike on Earth.
I suspect that it is a genetic defect specific to married women which causes them to object to the heavenly fragrance of the finest legal and illegal cigars.
Before you marry the gal, she will have no problem with the habit. After you marry them, all you hear about is how the smoke gets in the draperies and upholstery and the insanely-expensive "window treatments."
I have a friend who installed an old 12" brass ship ventilator next to his desk in his library containing a powerful fan, exiting out the wall. A custom design with a baffle to keep snopw from blowing in, and very cool.
In order to preserve an otherwise acceptable marriage, many hedonistic fellows have thought long and hard about how to smoke indoors, and to avoid the humiliating and less-than-relaxing experience of having your smoke out in the rain and blow and snow like a naughty child who has been banned from home and hearth. As a commenter on a relevant site says:
I smoke cigars and can only indulge once in a blue moon and that is basically because I have to go outside to smoke them, I can only smoke during seasons when it's not too hot or too cold, there's nothing to do while smoking, etc. I'd like to have a room where I can smoke a cigar while sitting in a leather chair and watching some TV or a movie or listening to some music. Also I'd like a place where I can play poker with my friends and not have to force them out of the house to smoke cigarettes.
Well, OK. I guess every married guy is pussy-whipped to some extent (and often enough for good reason - many males seem not to domesticate well).
The cheapest solution  is to create a negative pressure in your home smoking areas with a cheap window fan like this.
A more expensive solution is a powerful ceiling vent, like a kitchen fan.
The so-called "air purifiers" are a joke, in my view - and especially if you are the sort who likes to have some windows open in your house. Unlike Al Gore, you cannot purify the planet.
If you have a basement man cave, something like this makes sense.
If readers have any useful ideas short of evicting the spouse or of provoking one's own eviction, please share them.
My son and I are already watching pre-season baseball games on TV. We hosted a viewing of the great film "The Jackie Robinson Story" for his Little League team. Here's a book that examines the interracial baseball that barnstormed the country before then.
Interracial games had been a part of baseball for almost as long as the game has been played. Beginning as early as 1869 in Philadelphia, and becoming a component of professionalized baseball culture by the 1880s, teams of black players and teams of white players stepped out onto the diamonds and went at it for nine innings. Remarkably enough, it was possible for a team like the All Nations (with a roster of blacks, Native Americans, Cubans, Polynesians, Asians, and Italians) to “barnstorm” the country between 1912 and 1920, before they were transformed into the legendary Kansas City Monarchs of the original Negro National League. Otherwise, interracialism meant that all-white teams played against all-black teams. But even so, once the regular season ended, some of the stars of the Negro and Major Leagues (including Babe Ruth) would join the barnstorming tours for the competition, the fun, and the cash (though not necessarily in that order)....
And yet, even as Paige, Dean, and Feller demonstrated that baseball fans might well be ready for integration, the contradictions of Jim Crow America hung over them. Paige had mixed feelings about the prospects of integrating the game, successful as he was in the world of the Negro League and interracial barnstorming. What might integration hold in store for him? “You might as well be honest about it,” he reflected in the early 1940s, “There would be plenty of problems, not only in the South, where the colored boys wouldn’t be able to stay and travel with the teams in spring training, but in the North, where they couldn’t stay or eat with them in many places. All nice statements in the world from both sides aren’t going to knock out Jim Crow.”
Sunday, March 14. 2010
 From Env Econ:
The sound of meditation for some people is full of deep breaths or gentle humming. For Marc Umile, it's "3.14159265358979..."
The guy knows 15,135 of the numbers - and he's only #10 in the world.
As you might have seen the other day, Gwinnie posted some mindless online game designed for people with the IQ of a banana.
Myself, I scored an 88%, which I think is pretty good.
In that vein, here's one of my favorite online games. Just hit 'Start', no need for instructions.
Challenge: Level 13 in two clicks.
Friday, March 12. 2010
 Founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service. It's her birthday.
She said she didn't do it because she was moved by suffering, but because she liked the work.
I prefer people who do fine things because they want to, not because of pious self-congratulatory virtue or grandiose notions of changing the world.
Wednesday, March 10. 2010
Male or female? A test to see how you think. h/t, Attack Machine. (Somebody send this to Larry Summers...)
While you take the test, here's this:
:
Back before they had these
they had these:
Tuesday, March 9. 2010
 Alas, the man's name does a disservice to the brilliant Florentine Renaissance political scientist and student of human nature that he was.
However, I did not know that he wrote comedy on the side. Another Renaissance Man, as it were.
I like his face: shrewd and discerning, but ready to laugh.
"Princes and governments are far more dangerous than the other elements within society.”
- Niccolo Machiavelli
Monday, March 8. 2010
Photo: Killer Whales killing Sea Lions just for the fun of it.
Euphemisms are about creating an illusion of a nursery school pretty pony and rainbow view of the world in which evil does not exist, in which we can all get along if only we wanted to, and in which we can all be anything we want, if only we would label things properly.
Rabid Jihadists and criminals become "the oppressed," kids who cannot read well become "learning disabled," klutzes become "hand-eye coordination impaired," the socially-awkward become "Asperger's," global warming becomes "climate change," housing developments in swamps become "Riverview Estates" - and Killer Whales become cuddly "Orcas" (so as not to offend their delicate sensibilities, no doubt).
Euphemisms are a form of propaganda (see The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook: Updated! New Entries!) designed to kill reality.
"Imagine," indeed.
Please post your favorite euphemistic reality-killers in the comments.
Sunday, March 7. 2010
The Azimut Magellano. A 74' blue-water boat, but you can park her with a joystick and make tight, high-speed turns like a speedboat.
There is a market for such wondrous craft but, for better or worse, it ain't me.
Friday, March 5. 2010
That's what the beer man calls out at Yankee Stadium: "Hey! Beer man! Beer man here! You know you want it." Devilish marketing.
You know you want this pretty Hinckley 49, currently for sale. But even if you afford her, can you afford to keep her?
Thursday, March 4. 2010
I see that George Will wrote a piece, The Basement Boys -The making of modern immaturity, which echoes the themes I mentioned in my post this week, Are men "naturally" monogamous?
Will wearily concludes:
Last November, when Tiger Woods's misadventures became public, his agent said: "Let's please give the kid a break." The kid was then 33. He is now 34 but, no doubt, still a kid. The puerile anthem of a current Pepsi commercial is drearily prophetic: "Forever young."
Alas, Will makes the common error of associating years with psychological maturity and strength of character. I have known plenty of mature 18 year-olds - even 16 year-olds, and plenty of infantile 75 year-olds.
The Endeavor, off Newport in 2004
Our recent post on this year's America's Cup race in Valencia got me to reviewing the history of J-Class boats, often known as "J-boats." An excellent summary here, which takes note of the surviving Js.
I've seen 'em up close, but never sailed one. Open for an invitation, though. I do know how to trim a jib but that monster foresail is one big Genoa, not a jib.
Wednesday, March 3. 2010
A Pudd'n Guy who knows his math. An easy investment in a lifetime of free air travel.
BTW, it would save us all some linking time and trouble if y'all would just check Vanderleun's American Digest daily, or twice, or thrice daily, same as you do Maggie's.
 Just stumbled on this 2001 book by Ted Dalrymple: Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass.
I think I'll track down a copy. It's the first book I have heard of from a Psychiatrist taking a look at the topic, and Dalrymple has spent much of his career in tattoo land.
I assume he is talking about Brit families of multi-generational poverty and dysfunction rather than the temporarily poor (eg the unemployed, new immigrants, grad students, people down on their luck, etc) or the electively poor (eg hippies, small farmers and farm help, spendthrifts, Maine fishing and hunting guides, aspiring artists and actors, etc) who together make up much of the American poverty stats.
Addendum: By coincidence I see from Insty that Dalrymple has a new book:
IN THE MAIL: From Theodore Dalrymple, The New Vichy Syndrome: Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism.
Can he say that nowadays? Oh, I forgot. He's in the USA now, isn't he?
Photo: Ted Dalrymple, aka Anthony Daniels MD, retired Psychiatrist
It's an 11,500 year-old temple in southeastern Turkey. h/t to a good piece at Protein.
It's time we did a plug for a wholesome site, The Borderline Sociopathic Blog for Boys. Photo is not from it, but sorta could be:
Tuesday, March 2. 2010
 A charming female figure affects men like a drug.
A dinner partner asked me "Are men naturally monogamous?" on Saturday. What a silly question. "Of course they aren't."
Men are obviously programmed to want to have a good time spreading their DNA around willy nilly, as it were, but, at the same time, normal men are capable of forming these strange things we call "relationships," of forming sturdy and deep attachments, of developing strong character restraints, and of living by moral codes and committments to others.
We often refer to those latter things as core aspects of "manliness" in our culture: loyalty, honor, dependability, reliability, responsibility, self-control, providing support and family defence and all that. Otherwise, a guy is just a teenager. The combination of the former and the latter is part of the male challenge. (Females have their own set of life dilemmas.)
Still, these "naturally" questions I get always raise the basic problem: How does one discuss "natural" for a naturally culture-building and society-building animal like man? The discussion always becomes circular.
Freud was not the first person to address the topic, but he did his best.
Did you pack your own bag?
Yes, you always pack your bag. You'll be tempted to say that your new man-servant Abdul Arafat packed it in his tent, and then welded it shut so you couldn't peek. Resist this compulsion unless you crave proctological attention followed by long rides on Greyhound buses for life.
Are you innocent?
Yes. Everybody in this prison is always innocent. Just ask them.
Lots of other important FAQs at Vanderleun
 Tar and Chip is a good way to do, or re-do, a driveway. It's more attractive than asphalt, cheaper, and affords better traction.
It can also be applied on top of an asphalt driveway to improve the appearance. It's basically stone chips or small gravel, of whatever color you chose, rolled into hot tar. Over time, careless snow-plowing will wear away the gravel. Not quickly, though. It lasts for years.
This guy loves his tar and chip.
Do we have any readers who are tar and chip fans?
Marriage, and Conflict or Divorce? A ?Lenten confessional piece, with good links.
Who ever said anybody was really a "great catch"? We're all just flawed people.
Sunday, February 28. 2010
You're the engineer of a great big freight train. Nothing stands in your way! What's that? There's a huge 18-wheeler stalled on the tracks up ahead? No problem! You'll cut that tin can in two and just keep on goin'! Nothing stands in your way!
Well, unless you attempt to drive through a tornado, of course.
But who'd ever do that?
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The brave escape of Curious George