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.
Much as we might wish that most things fit Gaussian "normal" distributions because it's easy to visualize, they do not. Some college-level math underpins the Pareto distribution, but more interesting than the income and wealth distributions it describes are all of the other psychological (including intelligence), geological, and other natural effects which it predicts.
I agree with most of Bird Dog's review of The Labyrinth. In the comments you'll see I'd take task on the over-40 commentary. A good gym regimen is enough to keep you going and the fact one of our group did the scramble with a new hip says much about will as it does skill or fitness (admittedly, she runs marathons with that new hip, so she's not lacking in fitness). You DO need to be in shape. A good number of us emerged without our jackets, soaked in sweat. Those two fellows waiting at the top of Lemon Squeeze (both in late 20's, early 30's) were laughing in part from our dialogue, but also at the surprise of seeing a group of nine people aged 55+ emerging from that space. If you remember The Phantom Tollbooth, it pays to be Canby, as well. I can be young, I can be strong, I can be tall, I can be small. Be what you can be. It pays off in the scramble.
Hiking and some mountain climbing (my 2 experiences with rappelling were in New Mexico when I was 14), from my Boy Scout days, provided an edge. Mrs. Bulldog has only taken on hiking recently, though she does quite a bit of walking around town. Her 4 experiences of this sort of activity are limited to a climb up Quail Mountain at Joshua Tree with me in 2012, the Labyrinth, and our two previous hikes with Bird Dog and Mrs. Bird Dog.
I need to revise anything I said about Mohonk's Labyrinth scramble. It's not doable by the average person. I suspect very few people I know over 40 could handle the challenge. We were the only people we saw attempting it who had some grey hair - the only people over 40 for sure.
In fact, I had a great sense of accomplishment after getting through the Lemon Squeeze up towards the top of Skytop. Proud of myself.
We wondered how they cleaned up the bodies of those who slipped and fell, or got stuck and died of starvation. Must be a special clean-up crew.
The Labyrinth at Mohonk Preserve was a favorite annual family challenge when I was a kid. A bunch of us are going to tackle it again in a couple of weeks. I was probably 11 the last time I did it. It's not for everybody but most people seem to handle the scrambling ok anyway.
It is unique. I know Bulldog will love this.
Once committed, there is no backing out. Best to leave your daypack at the beginning and pick it up later. Nobody steals there.
These people enter the labyrinth at the 1:30 minute mark.
We just witnessed an historic US Open finish in more ways that one. Not only did Naomi Osaka win the Japan's first title in a major tournament, but Serena Williams managed to overshadow this feat with her tirades and accusations of a double standard. Is there a double standard in tennis? It depends on what you mean. If I am to understand Serena, she gets fined for bad language and behavior while men get away with it.
It is possible, but by no means probable, that men do behave poorly more and it is overlooked. But evidence seems to exist to the contrary. After all, it's rare to see a woman suspended for bad behavior (in fact, I have not found any examples of it) on the court. With men, it's a fairly common experience. Connors, McEnroe, Fognini are only a few who were assessed points, games, fines and/or suspended. These are a few of the higher-profile players who have suffered, but it's by no means rare or unusual.
I have seen, in person, quite a few tennis matches. I have rarely seen women assessed penalties. I can't remember all the times I've seen men assessed, mainly because it's happened frequently enough for me to have forgotten. In general, female players are better behaved than the men. If Serena's claim is that men behave badly more often and are not assessed penalties, that's going to be difficult to back up. However, what evidence exists indicates she's very wrong.
The real question is are women held to higher standards? I'd argue no, because I've watched many female tennis players berate judges without being assessed penalties. I've seen it happen at least as often as I've seen men berate judges without a penalty. I think commenting there is a double standard, though, lacks historical context.
To a large degree, the harshness of today's penalties are a result of the bad behavior of players like Nastase, Connors and McEnroe. Tennis' image was taking a beating when these players began creating a new image of 'bad boy' tennis. They were penalized and fined in the hopes of cleaning up that image, but they were good enough and wealthy enough to overlook it and keep going. Female players, in the 70s and 80s, didn't earn the same level of prize money, though they probably could have waved fines off as easily as men, if they were assessed. Still, one player who was far more outspoken and outrageous than Serena, Martina Navratilova, points out that Serena is wrong about her penalty. Navratilova believes (again, without fact to back up the claim) there is a double standard, but just because it exists doesn't mean it justifies behaving the way Serena did. Meanwhile, Navratilova never faced as severe penalties as those faced by Mac and Connors. I saw her play many times, and she was generally good about maintaining her composure - the sign of a great athlete, in my opinion - and that has a lot to do with the reason there may seem to be a double standard. Great athletes usually are good at maintaining their composure.
The reality is, as a friend of mine said, "The facts don't matter in anything anymore. The only thing that matters is the reaction of social media and the emotions it can generate." This seems to be true. Emotional ties seem to trump reality. When McEnroe - who was penalized frequently - says "Serena's right" people will take him at his word. But his word isn't accounting for the fact that he created the situation Serena faces, and that he was penalized more harshly than she was.
What we're going to wind up seeing is a reaction to a generalized 'feeling' that somehow there is a double standard, even if the facts indicate otherwise. Social media works on feelings, not facts, which is one reason the firms running social media have issues trying to determine what is 'real' news and what is 'fake' news. Serena's double standard is fake news, as is any news which is generated by, or relies on, emotions for support in defiance of fact.
I'm not commenting that Nike's Kaepernick ad will hurt them financially. So far, it has hurt them (in their stock price) but people are people and will buy things for a variety of reasons. Using Kaepernick as a 'theme' is, however, polarizing on many levels. For some people, the ad may spur sales. For many others, the ad will lead them to spurn the brand. If we look back at the Chick-fil-A and In 'n Out 'boycotts', we're resolved to recognize boycotts which are designed to exact retribution will often result in exactly nothing to harm a firm.
The difference with Nike was their ad is not a perceived slight. It's deliberately offensive. Nike raised the stakes in the marketing wars, and I don't think what they did will benefit them. This wasn't just a misguided statement or an ill-conceived donation. This was taking the Social Justice Warrior mentality and turning it into and ad. It's big question - can social justice be branded? Can the "revolution" of Progressive Thought be promoted in an ad campaign. I'd say no, and the fruits of this campaign may have people talking about Nike...but Nike doesn't need people to be talking about them in this fashion.
Let's start from the beginning. Kaepernick and other players have the right to kneel during the anthem. We all do. Excoriating them for this is silly, uninformed, and ignores the right to free speech. So set that aside. Let's discuss the real problem, which is the outcome of that decision to kneel, because that's where Nike messed up. They took a relatively benign issue, and amped it up on steroids.
The NFL has a Game Day Operations Policy it chose to not implement, which stipulates players which do not stand for the anthem MAY be fined. Not enforcing this has hurt the NFL's image and proved it to be a business at the mercy of its employees' political views. Try breaking YOUR employers' policies and see what happens. Good luck with that. But, hey - it's the NFL, and these guys are "STARS". So yeah, I guess if you have no backbone, you can ignore your own policies and assume everything will turn out fine.
The fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock is creeping up on us, and the 49th anniversary passed with barely a mention. That's probably how it should be. Maybe not, though. Woodstock is viewed differently by many people. For some it was a political event. For me it was purely music and culture. Regardless of how it's viewed, the history is deep, it resonates with different generations, and it was full of lessons. It was a turning point.
I was only 7 at the time. I remember it as 'an event'. At the time, I remember some vague political commentary surrounding it, I was too young to really care. The only thing I was aware of was visiting my cousins in the nearby town where they lived, and thinking the dirty hippies were scary.
Several years ago, I moved closer to the empty nest phase of life, having dropped my second son off at Syracuse (followed in dad's footsteps) for his freshman year. I had fun regaling him with my past life experiences. It was a period of time when past lives were looming. Mrs. Bulldog and I had been married 22 years, and only 2 had been sans children. That's a big gap, and if you've had kids you know what I'm talking about.
A former co-worker, who had been unemployed at that time, landed a job that started in September. He asked if I wanted to take a trip up to Bethel and see the Woodstock museum. I asked my wife if she had any interest, she didn't, so I signed on with him and one other former co-worker to take in some cultural history. Another bit of a past life.
I had a Dunkin with our roofer boss at 7 this morning when I got back from my calisthenics class. 64 year old Irish-Italian guy from Springfield, MA who needs no exercise classes because his entire day is physical. Physical, with lots of subtle skills too. Bending copper to fix a roof cricket is not easy geometry.
I asked him how he knew how to do so many things after he told me he had put new brakes in his ageing F-150 over the weekend. I have a special admiration for practical skills because I am a bit of a klutz with most machinery other than Farmall tractors and chain saws.
An American story. High school then 4 years in the US Army. They put him in a mechanical company, repairing broken things. After that, 6 years in a Massachusetts sawmill spending a lot of time, again, fixing broken things and maintaining machinery.
Got in too many fights with the boss, so got a job in a junkyard, retrieving good parts from junked trucks and cars. After 4 years of that, was offered an auto mechanic job by somebody he knew who knew him to be a hard worker. Became a master mechanic. Always did tree work on the side, and still does. Then his brother-in-law offered him a partnership in his roofing business. He had already done his own roofs, so he jumped at a chance to be a business owner. When that guy quit the biz because it was "too hard," the business was his. He has good crews to supervise but he does all of the tricky stuff and the copper work.
He is a perfectionist. This morning on a second story roof ladder he decided to add some aluminum edging under his new copper flashing to completely protect the crown molding on our dormers. Waterproof, paintable glue to hold it in. "That crown will be good for 200 years."
His life advice: Learn how to do as many things as you can. That way, you can always be useful.
His results: Bought his first house at 25. Has 5 kids who he likes. Bought two houses on his street, both as wedding gifts for his married kids. They are very happy to be near family. Married once. Also has a shack on Cape Cod that he is renovating, and a house in Florida. Grows tomatoes and fruit trees. Claims he will never retire but admits the day might come when he'll have to just be a boss instead of doing 3-story ladder work. Not yet, for sure. Says God blessed him.
Yes, he has a Trump 2020 bumper sticker. He is deplorable.
I admire and envy people like Nordlinger with the ear and talent just to be able to discern the sound of one conductor from another. Their experience of ambitious music must so be different from mine, much as I am a music-lover. To me, it is all wonderful.
I am with Janssen who loves Schubert. That's one guy who wrote music I feel I can get my head around. Also Mendelssohn I guess.
I am persuaded that no system of government — democratic, oligarchic, aristocratic, monarchical, tyrannical, oriental despotic or worse, liberal-progressive — can deliver anything resembling justice in this world, unless it is under the direction of angels.
He put a Baudelaire quote in there: “Everyone believes in God, but nobody loves Him. No one believes in the Devil, and yet his smell is everywhere.”
Our 3 weeks of roofers are 99% done. Nice job, very neat. All new shiny copper flashing. The carpenters have been at work for 3 weeks too, mostly doing exterior repairs of trim and siding. Some copper gutters too, but we don't need many gutters. All Azec replacement. When that's done I think Mrs. BD wants them to put a roof over the pergola. I am not sure I want that, but I will bargain to double the size of the bluestone patio. I want a place for a firepit. I hate being indoors.
What are unemployed Americans doing? The painters began work today, following the sides of the place where the carpenters have finished their work. 3 Brazilians. Lovely guys, very polite and accommodating. Perfectionists. One has been to Lisbon/Lisboa, but not to Porto.
Depending on weather, they predict 3 more weeks of work (prep takes the longest): scrape entire house, then power-wash, then re-scrape and sand, then prime, then paint. Doing the job the right way.
These guys have never heard of Fado. I suggested that they check it out. We liked this club in Lisbon. We had some Portuguese dessert there and I had a glass of wine:
The Quillette piece we linked this morning about paranoid thinking on the left fringes was good enough to mention author Doris Lessing's 1992 essay, Language and the Lunatic Fringe.
I recommend it. Things have gotten much worse since 1992.
I have noticed the growing use of the word "problematic" lately. I find the use of that word to be problematic. What it means is that you might be in trouble with the Thought and Culture cops.
I'm not commenting that Nike's Kaepernick ad will hurt them financially. So far, it has hurt them (in their stock price) but people are people and will buy things for a variety of reasons. Using Kaepernick as a 'theme' is, however, polarizing on many levels. For some people, the ad may spur sales. For many others, the ad will lead them to spurn the brand. If we look back at the Chick-fil-A and In 'n Out 'boycotts', we're resolved to recognize boycotts which are designed to exact retribution will often result in exactly nothing to harm a firm.
I had a Dunkin with our roofer boss at 7 this morning when I got back from my calisthenics class. 64 year old Irish-Italian guy from Springfield, MA who needs no exercise classes because his entire day is physical. Physical, with lots of subtle skills too. Bending copper to fix a roof cricket is not easy geometry.