Maggie's FarmWe 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. |
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Thursday, May 24. 2007Old Town, AlexandriaI had never banged around Alexandria, Virginia until this past weekend. Since we have been touching on one of our pet hates, urban renewal, in Old Town Alexandria we have a perfect example of how the absence of urban renewal has make it possible to have a downtown that everyone wants to go to to shop, to eat, to hear music, to see galleries, to maybe meet a new girl- or boy-friend, and to hang out on the street or on the piers with an ice cream cone. People like to go to places which are crowded, have a human scale, have some history and a touch of shabbiness or at least randomness. In other words, real places. Tiny Greenwich Village in NYC is crowded every night, but it cannot hold a candle to Georgetown for quaintness or size (but it has way better music). Why so many people seem to enjoy totally phony, manufactured places like Disney World is another topic for another day. Wikipedia has a nice little piece on the town's history, which of course includes its history as a major American port, its slave trade, and its role as a supply center for the Civil War. Washington considered it to be his home town. My lame photo, as usual, does no justice to what a hoppin' and pleasant place the Old Town is.
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05:56
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Tuesday, May 22. 2007Nice trees
Some very fine trees to look at on a Tuesday afternoon.
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13:16
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Monday, May 21. 2007Economics 101 made really, really simple, quick, and funThe ten principles of economics, simplified, with more humor than enlightenment...I think. It's from standupeconomist.com, at YouTube. (h/t, Jules). Best profound quote: "People are motivated by things which motivate them to action."
Posted by Bird Dog
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17:26
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Georgetown and "urban renewal." Yet another object lesson in how government experts destroy valuable stuffI challenge anyone to name a quainter, cozier town than Georgetown (which also has 15-minute access to a city) - or one in which it is more difficult to park a car. It might be worth it to be a politician just to live there for a while. Georgetown beats Cambridge Mass. hands down as a place to live. Every city in America which destroyed their 19th century factories, train stations, town houses etc. during the 70s government-funded frenzy for "urban renewal" is crying today. Case in point, as our Dylanologist keeps reminding us, is Nashville which would be packed with pubs, shops, tourists, and million-dollar townhouses today if they had not bulldozed the old downtown to "modernize" it, to sterilize it, and to erase its history along with every human-scale building. So people go to the disgusting malls, which are, happily, a dying fad. Like Bridgeport and Hartford, CT, the urban renewalist Stalin-inspired and highly-educated planning geniuses removed every reason a person might want to go, or to live, downtown. Only the backwater cities escaped that assault. Lucky for them. The supremely elegant and lovely Savannah, Georgia is my prime example, but we will do Alexandria, VA in a couple of days - same story but without the aristocratic flavor of Savannah. God bless Jane Jacobs. I was fortunate to hear her speak once in New York on the subject of Harlem.
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:18
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Sunday, May 20. 2007Holy Trinity Church, GeorgetownThis morning, in lovely Georgetown with unseasonably cool and comfortable weather for that swamp (figuratively and literally) of a city, Washington, DC. The first Roman Catholic church in DC, built in 1789. I did not intend to cut off the steeple in my photo. The building is now renovated as The Chapel of St. Ignatius Loyola as part of Holy Trinity Parish, which now has a new sanctuary on the corner of N St. built in 1851. The parish was started by Archbishop Carroll, who was also the founder of Georgetown University. We cannot underestimate the role of the Jesuits in this nation's history. My graduating child, who is Protestant, of a more-or-less evangelical flavor, told me that Georgetown holds an outdoor Mass in front of Healy any time something wonderful, or anything disturbing (including things like not winning in basketball) happens. As an approach to both the grim and the joyful vicissitudes of life, I find that wonderful and rational. Go Hoyas!
Posted by Bird Dog
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21:47
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Friday, May 18. 2007BrodkeyHarold Brodkey, from The State of Grace in a collection of short stories, First Love and Other Sorrows:
Image: Brodkey, drawn for The New Yorker in 1995.
Posted by Bird Dog
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18:08
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Dying LanguagesIt is now widely believed that essentially all 6000 world languages evolved, by geographical separation, from one proto-language. (This theory tends to undermine Chomsky's claim to fame for theorizing an internal hard-wired grammar - Chomsky's sole interesting idea, in my opinion.) However, languages are dropping like flies, as the planet shrinks. McWhorter in the NYSun argues that this is a good thing, but he hopes hobbyists will keep the old ways alive. Will the universal language be English? I hope so. It's a pretty good language, but Italian is far more musical, and I'd be happy to have an excuse to learn it. Would no longer need a translated libretto for the operas I love.
Posted by Bird Dog
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12:39
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The Sunny Side of the Street: Optimism is Good for YouBy Dorothy Fields / Jimmy McHugh, and famously sung by Billie Holiday Grab your coat and get your hat Excellent youtube of the song as sung by Marie Bryant - good photography. Woops - youtube cancelled that one. Here's Cyndi Lauper. There is a Harvard study of life success and health. A quote:
The assertion that "Character is destiny" is attributed to Heraclitus, around 500 BC. Read the whole thing. Lightning
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06:12
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Wednesday, May 16. 2007The Scenic Marvels of Kyrgyzstan
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11:02
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Tuesday, May 15. 2007Mark your calendars
On Feb 17, 2009 TV will switch to digital (DTV). What do you have to do to be ready for this change-over? Details here.
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18:55
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Take my wife - Please
Daimler actually ended up paying to unload Chrysler.
Posted by Bird Dog
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08:55
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LuckyThis photo shows an unfortunate situation a driver found himself in: Look at the first picture above and you can see where this guy broke through the guard rail (right side where the people are standing on the road). His truck left the road, traveling from right to left. He flipped end-over-end, across the culvert outlet and landed on the left side of it. Now look at the 2nd picture (story confirmed via Snopes):
Posted by Opie
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07:44
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If energy were free, like airAt dinner on Friday night I was talking with a friend about fusion as a power source. He told me that he had had a conversation about energy with physicist and Benedictine priest Stanley Jaki. In that conversation, Jaki posed this question: If energy were endlessly abundant and free, what would life be like, what would people do, and what would matter to people?
Posted by Bird Dog
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06:13
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Monday, May 14. 2007One Approach to Life: It's a Conveyor Belt of OpportunitiesI have told my kids that one optimistic yet realistic way to look at life is that it is like standing in front of a conveyor belt upon which a stream of opportunities are passing by, but each one will never pass by again in the same form. I am referring to every sort of opportunity: opportunities to make friends, to be kind, to find love, to have fun, to stand up for your beliefs, to show mercy, to develop interests, to develop good habits of character, to make money, to be forgiving, to practice strength, to find God, to learn, etc, etc. Alas, that conveyor belt offers just as many opportunities to make mistakes and poor choices. It is a tough part of maturity to accept the reality limitation, however, that any opportunity grabbed will reduce the number of opportunities passing by on the conveyor belt, because time is an arrow. A friend reminds me of the old story: The levee broke and the water is rising in the town. One guy gets on his knees and prays "God, save me from this flood." There is a knock at the door and a firetruck offering to evacuate him. "No thanks, God will rescue me." He waits as the water fills the first floor. A guy in a rowboat shows up. "No thanks, God will save me." Water fills the second floor and he goes to the attic and punches a hole in the roof. A helicopter comes by. "No thanks, God will rescue me." The water rises further, and he starts treading water, but finally tires and drowns. Up in Heaven he berates God. "Hey, you said you would help me when I was in need. Where the heck were you?" God replies "I sent you a firetruck, a rowboat, and finally a helicopter. You rejected every one..." Playing spyYou can locate anyone's cell phone with this GPS mobile phone tracking system. But, if my ringer is turned off, can it help me find my cell phone in my house?
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:13
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Sunday, May 13. 2007CaliforniaBird Dog made an error when he posted that Bobcat photo this week. That was not our place in the mountains, which is still entirely snowed in, no doubt because of global warming. It was the ranch of friends, outside San Francisco, which we visit every year and where we ordinarily shoot wild pigs (but we failed to find any this trip). Here's a shot I took of their typical ranch landscape, last week.
Posted by Gwynnie
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05:39
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Saturday, May 12. 2007Removing PachysandraWhy are we getting repeated Google searches for "removing pachysandra"? We have never posted on that subject, although I guess we have posted on pachysandra. Since there appears to be interest out there, here's my method. (But first, even though I have some pachysandra beds adjacent to the house, I do not really approve of it near houses or buildings. It belongs at a distance, in full shade - if you must have it at all.) I am an expert at pachysandra removal. You take a good sharp spade - not a shovel - and with it cut deep parallel lines in the pachysandra bed, about 14" apart. Then you use the spade to cut those stretches into 2-3' lengths. Use the spade to begin to undercut those strips a couple of inches deep, and then you can peel the whole thing up like a slice of carpet. If you want to replant it somewhere else, just lay those lengths of carpet down, and, with some watering, they will grow in. Friday, May 11. 2007A Pretty Girl with a Big Gun
OK for work, at our cousin's place, Free Market Fairy Tales
Posted by Bird Dog
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13:23
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"Garden & Gun"There is a new magazine out there, Garden and Gun. It sounds like an ideal sort of Maggie's Farm magazine (h/t, Dr. Helen). With a photo of Pat Conroy on the cover, how bad could it be? I'll give it a try, if only to find out whether it's more interesting than our Maggie's Farm blog. I am certain that it is better-written. Re gun mags, I used to subscribe to Shooting Sportsman, but it has become too snooty for my taste. Informative, though, if you own $60,000 shotguns instead of Mossbergs and Brownings like regular folks. Thursday, May 10. 2007To be young and in New York CityOne of the puppies is graduating from college in two weeks, and will be moving to New York. She is a Math major with a Fine Arts minor, with plenty of street smarts - plus a Division 1 Varsity sport. She sealed a deal with the job she wanted in back in November. Nice little "signing bonus," too. Yesterday she emailed me the website for the building in NYC into which she will be moving. Dang nice. This building has a doorman, a gym, and rooftop gardens. Plus she will have 6 pals from college and high school in the same building. Look out, New York, for the approaching tornado. When I lived in NYC, I lived in hovels and basement apartments with slovenly roomates and cockroaches, had few friends - and no money to paint the town even if I had wanted to. In those days, there were no buildings with gyms, indoor pools, and rooftop gardens anyway. Check out the details of the apartment building. I am jealous, but a professional curmudgeon like me should say "The kids today are so spoiled. They should be suffering and struggling, or in the Army, instead of romping around." She says she expects to work from 6:30 AM to 11 pm, so I guess it won't be all fun and games, and the pressure to be outstanding will be enormous...but that's Life in the Big City. (Sometime I will have to get her to record all of her job interview questions. One guy gave her five seconds to answer "What's 19X17?" Fortunately, she had memorized her multiplication tables through 20 rather than the ordinary 10. They also wanted instant decimal conversions, and tested the depth of her knowledge of statistics, Shakespeare, Latin, Mozart's operas, Thomas Aquinas, and Duccio. I take that as an effort to weed out the bullshit artists. A total of about eight hours of pressure interviews, spread over a few weeks, for each of the jobs she wanted. Most interviews included lunch or dinner at least once, which she rightly believes was an effort to check out her collegiality, sociability, manners, and poise under pressure.)
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15:58
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Wednesday, May 9. 2007Crosswind Landings
Via YouTube. And here's one with an Airbus A380. How do they keep the airplane angled like that as they approach the runway? Or do they make an approach into the wind, crosswise to the runway, and then a quick turn when the wheels touch down?
Posted by Bird Dog
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17:29
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Monday, May 7. 2007Are you going to Hell?"Through me the way into the suffering city, Take Dante's Hellfire and Damnation Quiz (Copyright 1327) and find out where you stand.
Posted by Bird Dog
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17:51
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Sold Out at Home DepotWhen Spring comes, you are supposed to have a solid inventory of Spring-related stuff. I picked up 20 bags of that Black Forest dark-colored mulch that I prefer, on Saturday. (That red-colored stuff they sell looks like crap - it is fake-looking, detracts from the plants' loveliness, and will make your place look like a MacDonalds.) So I schlepped back after church yesterday to pick up another 20 bags and they were SOLD OUT! Can't the government do something about this kind of problem? Nationalizing Home Depot might help a lot, dontcha think? It was a great inconvenience for me, and think of the gasoline I wasted on that second trip...plus Home Depot, in their greedy, cruel and evil Capitalist way, makes a profit on this stuff that I need. It's just not fair and it's not right to make money off stuff I need, is it?
Posted by Bird Dog
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07:50
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BB King on the roadBlues fan Dust My Broom saw BB King in Calgary this weekend. The man is 81 and still on the road. God bless this lovely, amazingly-talented guy.
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06:09
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