Maggie's Farm

A sign in the Bank Lobby reads:

"Please note that this Bank is installing new Drive-through teller machines enabling customers to withdraw cash without leaving their vehicles. Customers using t his new facility are requested to use the procedures outlined below when accessing their accounts. After months of careful research, MALE & FEMALE procedures have been developed. Please follow the appropriate steps for your gender."

MALE PROCEDURE:

1. Drive up to the cash machine.2. Put down your car window. 3. Insert card into machine and enter PIN.4. Enter amount of cash required and withdraw.5. Retrieve card, cash and receipt.6. Put window up.7. Drive off.
***********************************************************
FEMALE PROCEDURE:
1. Drive up to cash machine.2. Reverse and back up the required amount to align car window with the machine.
3. Set parking brake, put the window down.
4. Find handbag, remove all contents onto passenger seat to locate card.
5. Tell person on cell phone you will call them back and hang up.
6. Attempt to insert card into machine.
7. Open car door to allow easier access to machine due to its excessive distance from the car.
8. Insert card.
9. Re-insert card the right way.
10. Dig through handbag to find diary with your PIN written on the inside back page.
11. Enter PIN.
12. Press cancel and re-enter correct PIN.
13. Enter amount of cash required.
14. Check makeup in rear view mirror.
15. Retrieve cash and receipt.
16. Empty handbag again to locate wallet and place cash inside.
17. Write debit amount in check register and place receipt in back of checkbook.
18. Re-check makeup.
19. Drive forward 2 feet.
20. Reverse back to cash machine.
21. Retrieve card.
22. Re-empty hand bag, locate card holder, and place card into the slot provided.
23. Give dirty look to irate male driver waiting behind you.
24. Restart stalled engine and pull off.
25. Redial person on cell phone.
26. Drive for 2 to 3 miles.
27. Release Parking Brake.

Metaphor and Learning

Metaphor, analogy, imagery, and the like, not only make it easier to learn something - often they are what we know (shadows in the cave). The picture of that Neils Bohr atom comes to mind, like a mini solar system: that picture is a visual analogy, bearing no resemblance to a real atom. It is tough to integrate anything new without a metaphor to carry it into the brain. Jesus spoke in parables for the same reason. The below excerpt is from a piece by Hudson at The Ornery American:

"The very pervasiveness of this strange way humans have of explaining concepts to one another should lead us to question why metaphor is so prevalent in our communication. Why should the conflation, for example, of roses and cheeks in the same sentence conjure up images of cherubic children with the healthy pink pallor of youth? What do lemons have to do with defective cars? I believe that the answer to these questions may have its roots in the fundamental nature of human learning.

Nobel prize-winning neurobiologist Eric Kandel has shown that memory and learning are tied to structural changes in the connections between neurons that form the functional units of the brain. Essentially, whenever we learn something new there are new connections made in the brain, and those connections are what allow us to think about the new knowledge we have acquired. It is safe to say that any bit of knowledge that we have - whether it is knowledge about how lemons taste or what the color yellow looks like, or even how it feels to be in love- this knowledge must be reflected in the physical structure of the brain."

If you can concentrate at this hectic time of year, read entire.

Craig's New Layout Boat, and some hunting photos

Layout boats fool ducks. Here's the new one, on Saturday on Long Island Sound, surrounded by Bluebill decoys. You just lie down in it and hope a big wave doesn't drown you. You tow it out and anchor it. Another boat has the dog, etc. (Click Continuation Page below to see photo of Harley)

Fawlty Towers

Now that I have gotten my Christmas present copies, I will provide the link, as if you couldn't think of it yourselves.

The Complete. Nothin' better. And it's clouding over and the bad weather is on the way. Bring it on!

 Does anything beat a fire in the fireplace, snow and sleet falling, Fawlty Towers on the DVD player, Dylan on the CD, and a Grey Goose martini in one hand, one's sweetie-pie in the other, and a good Cuban in one's third hand? Multi-tasking. Except hunting or skiing or...

(Bad photo - 3-4 olives minimum, for healthy living.)

A Wide-Screen Narnia Trailer

Here.

Instant Narnia Review

It gets a 5/5 from the Bird Dog crew. Enchanted and enchanting, great casting, perfect computer graphics, absolutely loyal to Lewis' tale, and, if anything, more overtly religious than the books (which are mythic, allegorical, and a very good tale). Who knew Disney had it in 'em? A perfect Christmastime movie and an instant classic. Definitely not just for kids.

Good Education for Christmas: The Teaching Company. They are the best invention since Books on Tape. Great fun, and I wish libraries would stock up on them. You'll have to find out for yourself how excellent these are - they use great teachers - not (necessarily) great researchers - which is the right approach. Get the CDs - there's never time to sit down and watch the DVDs. Hey - listen to 'em twice (assuming you have ADD too), then share and trade with friends and relatives. Like baseball cards.

Goldfish Hates Bowlmate. This will ring a bell with lots of people... life must be better somewhere else, outside of this bowl. Like jumping out and becoming a dried trisket of tiny bones on the carpet.

I wanna go. Hacienda de los Santos. They have a dove shooting package too. Happiness is a warm gun (but hmm, I wonder how nasty that sounds to non-hunters, especially at Christmastime. These are White-Winged Doves - not doves of Christ or of the Holy Spirit or Doves of Peace - they are practically almost sort-of pigeons, really.) Tasty things broiled medium-rare with a strip of bacon on top of each one, and stuffed with sauteed chopped onion, apple, and pear, their livers or maybe a hunk of foie gras, and served on a buttery, garlicky piece of toasted French bread with the drippings on top...man, getting hungry. Shmoosh some of the liver into the drippings, and some cognac, before drizzling on top. Lots of pepper. Great compensation for the sore shoulder from all of that arduous shooting.

Gene McCarthy. What a fine fellow he was. Fine people can be wrong.  He was wrong about the war, and would have made a rotten and probably Minnesota-socialist president - but a superb gent, and more poet than politician, although some people I know say he was craftier and more calculating than he seemed. His death saddens me - I was in New Hampshire for him in my callow youth, and met him at a Georgetown party, in the 60s. A special person who followed his own path and who asked God for answers to his questions.

The US economy is in great shape. Why don't we hear about the Bush Boom?

Department of No Gratitude: Katrina rescuees complained about Red Cross. Jeez - that takes some nerve. I do believe this country has somehow inculcated the ethics of grievance and entitlement over gratitude. Big mistake. That path leads nowhere except to wasted time and a wasted life.

Have enjoyed this for years - still have it on vinyl: Christmastime with The Judds.

You know you want this

The Roku Soundbridge. There's a Wi-Fi music system and a Network Music Player which, among other things, will send a wireless signal from the PC to your good speaker system. Too bad they don't combine the two products into one.

I think I "need" the Network Music Player. Hey, Santa - are you online?

Duck Hunting Safety

Drowning and hypothermia kill duck hunters each fall and winter. It figures, because going out on the winter waters in small open boats in bad weather, wearing heavy layers of clothing, probably isn't the smartest thing to do. But it's in the nature of guys to do stupid and reckless things sometimes. This company sells inflatable hypothermia camo outerwear made by Mustang. It could save your life. No, we do not get paid for this advt. All of our advertising has been free, thus far, in support of Commerce, Capitalism, and Good Stuff!

But is it "Art"?

"A distinction between art and entertainment isn't worth making."
George Balanchine

Reading a short piece in the CSM (my favorite newspaper right now besides the New York Sun) about how comic books are being featured, and presented as serious high art, at LA's Museum of Contemporary Art, triggered an ill-formed thought that has been percolating in the back of my mind.

And it's not the usual ranting about "That's not real Art."  It's that the notion of "serious art" or "high art" is the real problem. I'd like to replace the word "art" with the word "pictures." Then we can start to talk.

COLONEL DON CONROY'S EULOGY,
          by his son Pat Conroy, 1998

 The children of fighter pilots tell different stories than other kids do. None of our fathers can write a will or sell a life insurance policy or fill out a prescription or administer a flue shot or explain what a poet meant. We tell of fathers who land on aircraft carriers at pitch-black night with the wind howling out of the China Sea. Our fathers wiped out aircraft batteries in the Philippines and set Japanese soldiers on fire when they made the mistake of trying to overwhelm our troops on the ground.

Your Dads ran the barber shops and worked at the post office and delivered the packages on time and sold the cars, while our Dads were blowing up fuel depots near Seoul, were providing extraordinarily courageous close air support to the beleaguered Marines at the Chosin Reservoir, and who once turned the Naktong River red with blood of a retreating North Korean battalion. We tell of men who made widows of the wives of our nations' enemies and who made orphans out of all their children.

You don't like war or violence? Or napalm? Or rockets? Or cannons or death rained down from the sky? Then let's talk about your fathers, not ours. When we talk about the aviators who raised us and the Marines who loved us, we can look you in the eye and say "you would not like to have been American's enemies when our fathers passed overhead". We were raised by the men who made the United States of America the safest country on earth in the bloodiest century in all recorded history. Our fathers made sacred those strange, singing names of battlefields across the Pacific: Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh and a thousand more. We grew up attending the funerals of Marines slain in these battles. Your fathers made communities like Beaufort decent and prosperous and functional; our fathers made the world safe for democracy.

And more Botticelli

Mystic Crucifixion, below, (c. 1500), is among Botticelli's latest paintings. The picture is, sadly, in very poor condition, but can be seen at the Fogg Museum in Cambridge. Worth a trip. Note c.1500 Florence in the background, with the walls of the city - it has not changed much. I'd enlarge the picture if I could.

What a contrast with the popular and charming Primavera and Venus and Mars. With this amazing, pseudo-Medieval and almost Expressionistic picture, we will leave Botticelli for a while so as not to test the patience of our readers.

Merry Christmas, Tiny Tim

Anyone who is offended by the word "Christmas" is worse than a Scrooge. But I do not believe than anyone truly is offended: It's a pose. You'd need to be deeply paranoid to take offense at the mention of anyone's religious beliefs or Holy Days.

Nay, not paranoid - paranoid and hostile.

We, and the entire anglophone world, live in Christian-based cultures, and we are extremely fortunate to do so - or could I say blessed to do so. Whether we are true believers or secular Christians, or even non-Christians, the celebration means a lot to the human spirit in this culture. It deserves respect and, in my opinion, gratitude. And it is meant to be fun, too. So join in the celebration, people, and learn a little bit about Jesus, too. It won't hurt you: it's a message about love - a stern yet joyful message about love and grace and mercy.

That is why stuff like this ticks me off. It's worse than Russia during the Soviet era, or France.

And it looks like we will have a White Advent in New England, tonight. Wonderful. Snow and Christmastime go together up here. If you cannot relate to Christmas, or feel hostile towards it, or just don't get it, watch this and this. You'll understand how the miracle of birth and the parallel miracle of rebirth affect people.

For another kind of approach to the subject, try this at RTP: "Keep pissing Santa off, neo-yuppie scum."

Lurkers vs. The Blog People

"Lurkers" was an "old" style term for those who visit blogs without leaving a comment or a trace. Nowadays, many popular blogs require registration (which never seems to work right for me - or I would spread my Bird Dog wisdom around more widely), and other obstacles to commenters, in an effort to prevent spammers, vandals, and the like. Others simply eliminated their comments capability, as we used to do. (We read all comments, eventually, but only respond when we have something to say.)

This comes to mind because Rick Moran, one of the finest bloggers in the world, tends to leave a comment when he stops by. We do appreciate that, being suckers for love and validation, like all dogs.

Just got back from taking the pup for a walk in the woods (sans gun today - tomorrow gunning), and the pup naturally leaves a drop of pee with his special scent on rocks and tree trunks -wherever appropriate. Please feel welcome to similarly mark your scent on Maggie's Farm. But in words, please. Do not pee on us - life does enough of that.

That is why we require no registration - and we never will, unless we run into a problem with destructive people. We aren't big enough (yet) to attract the bad guys, but we have had plenty of spammer problems.

More Botticelli

In his later years, Botticelli fell on hard times because, under the personal influence of the evangelist Savonarola, he quit painting secular works. His latest work refers back to Fra Angelico and medieval styles of painting, but with the added ingredients of prophetic and mystical references. Need I mention that I think these late paintings of his are mind-blowing? From about 1500, the one below is Mystic Nativity. Will show you the best one soon. It's difficult to believe that Sandro Botticelli died poor and forgotten, after having been Florence's most popular painter, in his prime.

Standing Up for Christmas

If you want to stand up for Christmas, the next time someone says "Happy Holidays," respond with "Oh? What holiday is it?"

Three Classics

For Christmas books for the youth, I highly recommend the two ancestors of self-help books, which together contain the ABCs of life, and one recent deserving addition. Corny, yes. Hip? No. Wise, yes. Still true? Absolutely. Indispensible when facing the big world.

In an era when we no longer live with grandpas and grandmas and aunts and uncles, we need books like these to fill us in on how the world works. Who else will teach us this stuff?

1. The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

2. How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie

3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey