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.
Everything in the attic, basement, and garage that has not been used in two years is on its way out today.
The attic will be emptied, completely. Nothing will ever go back up that attic pull-down stair, so long as I am alive. Will keep a few pieces of furniture that the kids might need when they find their own homes. Otherwise, total clean-out. A dumpster, and two strong helpers. Pancho and Ruiz, our good yard guys. "Nice house, but too much stuff" said Pancho.
Gave them nice tips - deserved it for sure.
Lots should probably go to Good Will but it's just too much trouble. Clothing, furniture, old kids' stuff, etc. If my legal immigrant helpers want stuff, they are welcome to it. I'm sick of my attitude of "I might need it or want it someday." Yeah, right. Will keep my Sawzall, tho. Best tool since the stone-age stone hammer. Chain saws? I use them frequently. Brio train set? A keeper!
If we lived on a busy middle-class street, almost everything would be taken by people if we put it on the curb. That's what my brother does with his excess stuff. Great set of 6 kitchen table chairs which I always liked, etc.
The way we Americans accumulate stuff is ridiculous. It expands to fill and then overflow the space - and then you can't find it even if you wanted to. That's why God, in his infinite goodness and wisdom, created dumpsters. Also, He created rent-a-tool places. Great. Why buy, store, and maintain something if you can rent it for a day or two when you need it?
Firearms? Well, I think I'll save all my spares for future grandkids. All most people really need around the house are a handgun, a deer rifle, a .22, a 16 ga. and a couple of BB guns for the little kids, but I do not even know how many firearms I have. More than I can use, for sure.
Update: It only took us only 5 hours to fill the dumpster over the brim. Found Mrs. BD's wedding gown, kept it (who knows, she might need it someday - it's a nice one and I can be a pain). Lots of keeper kids' books and keeper train set. And some antique oriental rugs I had stored away zipped up in mothballs and forgot that I had. Nice, but I don't need more rugs now. In fact, I already have a stash of very nice antique orientals waiting for my kids' use. They are not in fashion, but I love them. Especially the Caucasians. Well-worn but fascinating to look at.
Now just vacuum the whole attic, and it's done. Onward and upward with the autumn honey-do list...
People taking pictures of themselves has become a kind of 'normal' thing with the advent of the smartphone. Teens seem to do it regularly, and even the president takes part (which seems to give the practice validity, though he is very consumed with himself). The term 'selfie' has been added to the the dictionary and this self-indulgent practice has spawned a number of YouTube compilations. Some really are just self-indulgent. Others are well-designed and give insight. Still others have an artistic bend to them. But each has two things in common. The first is it is taken by the subject, the second is it is about the subject as an individual.
While the concept of taking regular pictures of a subject is not new, the ease with which it can be done (particularly on an individual level) has improved. As a project for an artist, however, it can yield intriguing results. Nicholas Nixon's study of the Brown Sisters provides a tremendous view of how a subject group, in this case a family, progresses through time. I am not sensitive enough to be moved to tears, though others have been.
My wife and I had very different reactions to the pictures. She focused on the items mentioned in the article, all of which are intriguing. I looked at the individual pictures, seeking to find indications of change and age. While each picture shows differences, I was of the opinion noticeable changes started appearing somewhere around the 16-20 year mark.
I was recently driving from New Haven to Boston and picked up the first hitchhiker I've seen in quite a while. He was hitching to Augusta, Maine, a Navy guy on leave.
I asked him why he did it. He told me had hitched since his early teens, and just liked it. I told him I used to hitch all over the Northeast, mostly going to see gals. Nobody gave me use of a car when I turned 16, or even when I graduated from college.
It seems to me that hitchhiking in the Northeast is a disappearing tradition. Too bad - it was a good thing, always interesting, but maybe that was a more innocent era.
Bulldog and I have been working on this for a while.
The plan is to hike from the Battery - South Ferry - to Central Park South. Or maybe vice-versa - we'll let you know details. However, it will be a somewhat meandering route so as to capture some fun sights and neighborhoods, and some cool locations, and for some fun beer/water and/or bathroom stops. We'll post a map of our route in advance.
As a result, it could be a 7-miler, a bit tiring for some but it's mostly all flat. We have no time frame for the hike (maybe 10 AM, until done). Totally doable in comfortable shoes. Cameras are good. If needed, we'll have a leader with an ISISSicilian Mexican American flag! Nobody to give talks, though.
Be there or be square. It's like, you know, like totally worth a trip to the city. Grab a hearty breakfast, because we aren't stopping for food. Backpack snacks if you need 'em.
Rain, snow, shine, or fire-and-brimstone. Bulldog and I will be there, News Junkie, family members, friends, and whoever, at the start. Join us, whether a Maggie's reader or not. We are friendly (and we do not care about your politics or your religion).
Details to you if interested in a group hike - just leave your contact info in the comments below, or we will post further details soon. Yes means Yes, but not maybe.
Why Girls Tend to Get Better Grades Than Boys Do - New research shows that girls are ahead in every subject,
including math and science. Do today's grading methods skew in their
favor?
Does this question require research? Anybody who has ever sat in a classroom knows why.
Sat. evening from the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway - a terrible road in every way yet a necessary one), headed to the BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) for a Finnegan's Wake performance.
At Aeon, Earth is not a garden - Some of the world’s most powerful conservationists are giving up on wilderness. They are making a big mistake. A quote:
The garden metaphor is particularly loaded. A garden is not an ethical place. Life and death occurs at a gardener’s caprice. Plant or cut, tend or kill, include or exclude: it’s an exercise of morally unconstrained will, fine in a backyard but requiring boundaries both literal and philosophical. ‘Once we shift to a gardener’s mindset, it gives us too much freedom to do whatever we want,’ says the bioethicist Gregory Kaebnick. ‘And I’m speaking as an avid gardener.’
In a garden, there isn’t necessarily a sense that life has any value apart from what we assign. Neither individual beings nor larger entities – populations, communities, species, ecological processes – are intrinsically worthy of respect. The gardener ethic can’t account for that. What Leopold so eloquently advised, that we think of ourselves not as conquerors of life’s communities but as ‘plain members and citizens’, goes out the window.
My neighborhood sweep stopped by yesterday for a routine cleaning, and informed me that I had some creosote glaze in the flue. (Like me, many of us up here burn firewood in our fireplaces daily, doing our part to fend off the coming Ice Age and to provide homey comfort and warmth to our humble abodes. The farm still has a good-sized mountain of hard coal in the basement to use when needed. You can just throw a few hunks on the fire if you want to.)
It's not not a good thing to have creosote glaze, because a sweep's brushes cannot remove it and it presents a chimney fire risk. He blamed it on my habit of burning green and damp wood, but said that any long-used flue will accumulate glaze over time.
He proposed a treatment plan: Cre-Away powder and Anti Creo-Soot Spray. These things claim to change the glaze into something brushable. The active ingredient is a catalyst which degrades creosote.
It's a career for people who do not wish to work in a cubicle. Our guy charges $125 per visit, and $50 for each additional chimney. (We have 3, so it's like a doctor's house call.)
He says he tries to do 8-10 calls per day, so this retired fireman makes $1200+ per work day, and takes the entire summer fishing on Cape Cod with his grandkids.
Critics might dismiss my and others’ concerns about what trigger warnings represent as a slippery-slope fallacy. But if there is one thing that I have discovered in fighting for free speech on campus, it is that when it comes to limitations on speech and the uniquely sensitive environment of college campuses, the slope is genuinely perilously slick. In my career, I have seen harassment rationales — meant to prevent misogynists from forcing women out of jobs through constant abuse — being invoked to justify censoring everything from quoting popular television shows to faintly implying criticism of a university’s hockey coach to publicly reading a book.
It's about global, disposable, rapid-response fashion. They won't sell in middle America - the Spanish company says the women are too fat for their stuff.
For good looking clothing, Mrs. BD says D&G is the best by far. Italian designers and artisans. It's wonderful that some people can wear it, and afford it. Zara does not copy D&G.
Photo is D&G, not Zara. I will admit it - that is art.
Interestingly to me, it's similar to how I dress today, and I was not even alive in 1948.
In 1948, college students believed that they were adults. Many had already been to war and were glad to get into sharp civvies and maybe meet a horny gal at a college tea.
" The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now it threatens the foundations of modern physics. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.
In Zero, Science Journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics."
When driving on I-95 (actually, I-195 - thanks, astute reader, it is past Providence) through southern Massachusetts, you can enhance your trip greatly by stopping for a bite at Gene's. It's been there for 55 years, going strong. Delicious, near New Bedford.
There is great road food out there in the Northeast US, if you can find it. At Maggie's, we know a few of the best ones in the Northeast. McDonald's? Are you kidding? Never. Barf.
Take the Fairhaven exit (18), and drive south to the light, then take a right on the main drag. It's not too far, on the right side of the road. Do it - you will thank me. Try the fried oysters, or the fried clam bellies, or the codfish balls, or the fish and chips. Or anything else.
If I were Elvis, I'd send a chopper out there to fetch good snacks and meals. Cheap, too.
Yes, if you recall, Fairhaven MA is where Joshua Slocum found the Spray as a deteriorating hulk. If you have never read his book, then you can thank me for that too. First guy to sail around the world single-handed, in her.
Over the transom. I can't say, but I'd believe it. THESE ARE ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY "THOMAS COOK VACATIONS" FROM DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS:
1. "I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."
2. "It's lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallarta to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time -- this should be banned."
3. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food."
4. "We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price."
5. "The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room."
6. "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow."
7. "They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax."
8. "No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared."
9. "Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers."
10. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."
11. "The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun."
12. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair."
13. "I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends' three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller."
14. "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the resort.' We're trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service."
15. "When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners."
16. "We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning."
17. "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."
18. "I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes."
19. "My fiancee and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.
Some people (especially Leftists) bemoan how hard Americans work. Boo hoo.
They say Europeans have more leisure time. How's that working out for them? More time to drink in cafes? More time to wear thongs on the beach in Ibiza?
I always relate to farmers, other entrepreneurs, and self-employed people. We are on the job constantly, partly out of ambition, partly for survival, partly out of interest.
I am essentially self-employed, but of counsel for a law firm. I work around 55 hours/week, but only bill around 40. I'm not greedy. When I sit by the stream with a cigar and a scotch, I often think about knotty cases. It's fun.
How many hours do you work at remunerative work? If it's less than 50, you ain't really working.
The notion that happiness is actually attainable belongs to the second half of the 18th century, as Freud pointed out. Previously there had been a general consensus that no one can be called happy until he carries his happiness down to the grave in peace. Paradiso was strictly for the pages of Dante. In Greenland, for example, the Greenlanders bought into Christianity on account of its persuasive description of pain and suffering. The vale of tears was real. And then Captain James Cook, and his French counterpart, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, embarked upon their great voyages. Bougainville’s Voyage autour du monde (1771) seems to suggest that this journey had less to do with discovery or French imperialism, than the pursuit of happiness. What’s more, Bougainville suggests that happiness was actually found—in Tahiti.
Scruton actually composed an opera, says it was the most difficult task he has ever undertaken. One quote:
A full-scale spectacle must run for an extended period if it is to cover its costs. Hence an opera can put the composer's name in lights for days on end, and the more costly the production the longer it must run. But it is not the promise of repeat performances that draws so many composers to this supremely demanding art form. Opera is a crown to be won, a sign that the composer has finally stuck his head above the clouds on Mount Olympus.
I was recently driving from New Haven to Boston and picked up the first hitchhiker I've seen in quite a while. He was hitching to Augusta, Maine, a Navy guy on leave.
My neighborhood sweep stopped by yesterday for a routine cleaning, and informed me that I had some creosote glaze in the flue. (Like me, many of us up here burn firewood in our fireplaces daily, doing our part to fend off the coming Ice Age and to provide homey comfort and warmth to our humble abodes. The farm still has a good-sized mountain of hard coal in the basement to use when needed. You can just throw a few hunks on the fire if you want to.)
How 
Your 
Colorful socks for guys: 
Some people (especially Leftists) bemoan how hard Americans work. Boo hoo.
Against happiness: