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.
Anders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He was never in the best of tempers anyway, Anders – a book critic known for the weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything he reviewed. ..
The intellectual had become not so much an occupational type as a status type. He was like the medieval cleric, most of whose energies were devoted to separating himself from the mob—which in modern times, in Revel’s phrase, goes under the name of the middle class. … Moral indignation was the main thing; that, and a certain pattern of consumption. In fact, by the 1960s it was no longer necessary to produce literature, scholarship, or art—or even to be involved in such matters, except as a consumer—in order to qualify as an intellectual. It was only necessary to live la vie intellectuellle. A little brown bread in a bread box, a lapsed pledge card to CORE, a stereo and a record rack full of Coltrane and all the Beatles albums from Revolver on, white walls, a huge Dracaena marginata plant, which is there because all the furniture is so clean-lined and spare that without this piece of frondose tropical Victoriana the room looks empty, a stack of unread New York Review of Books rising up in a surly mound of subscription guilt, the conviction that America is materialistic, repressive, bloated, and deadened by its Silent Majority, which resides in the heartland, three grocery boxes full of pop bottles wedged in behind the refrigerator and destined (one of these days) for the Recycling Center, a small, uncomfortable European car—that pretty well got the job done...
another:
American architecture had never recovered from the deadening influence of the German Bauhaus movement of the twenties. American painting and sculpture had never recovered from the deadening influence of various theory-driven French movements, beginning with Cubism early in the twentieth century. In music, the early twentieth-century innovations of George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, and Ferde Grofé had been swept away by the abstract, mathematical formulas of the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg’s influence had faded in the 1990s, but the damage had been done. The American theater had never recovered from the Absurdism of Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, and Luigi Pirandello...
Somebody somewhere highlighted the distinctions between the two, especially as regarding political issues, and suggested that we consider which might be guiding our points of view.
Opinions, I suppose, require rational arguments whereas attitudes do not. Attitudes, it seems to me, come from temperamental predispositions, personal experiences, social environment, and the like. Nobody asks you to support a general attitude with data.
What's your view? Is it a meaningful distinction or not? I think it is.
Taleb believes that individuals require a great deal of autonomy in order to be truly free. In this view, working in large corporations or other hierarchical environments is antithetical to freedom.
I am sure we have readers who did wait staff jobs at some point in life. I discussed the skills involved with somebody this weekend. We laughed about two topics in particular. First, how to load and balance a full tray of plates and silverware, get under it in a squat, and lift. Second, how to load a tray of 20-30 glasses and throw a damp towel on top to glue them together.
Of course, the dramatic moments are when you drop a fully-loaded tray because some little kid scurries in front of you. Big crash, everybody has to rubberneck. Good times.
Just busing tables at large events quickly and efficiently is a skill. Delivering food to the tables is another skill. When I was in college, we figured 40 wait staff for 1000 guests, 4-5 for 150 guests. It's a work-out.
I suspect that part of the problem the Boy Scouts have faced is the remarkable rise of organized sports for youth. Also, the nerdy, wholesome image which does not fit with the age of hip hop.
Is the idea of being a decent, kind, and honorable person who has many basic life skills an obsolete one? Of course not. Among other things I learned as a Scout, I learned to be always kind to the elderly, to change a tire, to confront bullies and jerks, CPR, how to start a fire in the rain with wet wood, basic riflery and firearm safety, point-to-point navigation on land and sea. I also learned that outdoor camping, regardless of weather, is better in the telling than in the doing. Still, there is nothing as fine as sitting around a campfire.
For adults like me who seek and aspire to living a strenuous life rather than a relaxed one, the guys put together a sort-of adult Boy Scout program: 12-WEEK INITIATION INTO THE CULT OF STRENUOSITY.
Peterson is an apologist for a set of beliefs that we once took for granted but now require an articulate defence, such as: Free speech is an essential value; perfect equality inevitably conflicts with individual freedom; one should be cautious before attempting to reengineer social institutions that appear to be working; men and women are, in certain quantifiable respects, different. His life advice concerns the necessity to defer gratification, face up to the trials of life with equanimity, take responsibility for one’s own choices, and struggle against the temptation to grow resentful. How such traditional values came to be portrayed as a danger adjacent to Nazism is one of the puzzles of our time.
Colonel Van T. Barfoot won the Congressional Medal of Honor in World War II. He also fought the battle vs his local homeowner's association to erect a flagpole in his front yard.
He's right. Peterson is a (mostly secular) pastor with a dark message (Life is suffering, a hard thing to do) and a challenge to life adventure (Fight chaos, Be the best you can be, Don't make things worse, etc.). Like a good preacher, he brings truisms and even banalities back to life in a useful and, for many, inspirational way. He rights the ship in a crazy world.
Besides that, he's smarter and more articulate than any of us. God bless him.
Snarky about brunch. Truth is, brunch after church with friends is one of the most pleasant things in life. A delicious meal too, with smoked salmon and other neat things.
My best Sunday morning: Early one-hour workout, church, brunch with friends in an outdoor cafe with a Bloody Mary or Bloody Bull, until 1 or 2 pm. Then go do something interesting or go for a walk.
Life can be wonderful and beautiful if structured correctly and a Sunday brunch is part of that on a lovely Spring day.
Winter image is some village in Brooklyn by Francis Guy, c. 1819.
On its own, Brooklyn is perhaps the 3rd largest city in the US. However, it was incorporated into New York City in 1898 after much political squabbling.
It's basically a 70 square-mile peninsula of the western end of Long Island, jutting into New York harbor. Named after Breukelin in Holland as it was first settled by the Dutch (if you don't consider the Lenape Indians who were there then).
It is a boom town now with high-rise office buildings and luxury buildings sprouting up everywhere. Gentrifying rapidly. Still, much of it is a brownstone townhouse and wood-frame house city of developments built on farmland from the mid-1800s through the 1920s. Like much of the New York metropolitan area, it has an abundance of relatively distinct neighborhoods distinguished by class, ethnicity, affinity groups, etc. There are Hasidic and Orthodox areas, black areas, Italian neighborhoods, hipster neighborhoods, blue-collar neighborhoods, fully-mixed neighborhoods, quite down-at-the- heels areas like East New York, industrial and warehouse areas, upper class neighborhoods - almost everything but Asian neighborhoods which are mostly in Queens. And yes, Coney Island too.
While it is a city unto itself, there is no doubt that the economic engine for it is Manhattan even though many Brooklynites rarely venture into Manhattan. And vice-versa, except for the BAM and Peter Lugar's Steakhouse.
There's a good map of the Brooklyn neighborhoods below the fold. Our 12-mile hike last Sat. did not get much further than the westernmost neighborhoods. It would take a lot of time to explore the whole place on foot. I have a daughter in Crown Heights and a nephew in Williamsburg. One of our hiking pals was born in Brooklyn Heights. My grandma (from Norwalk, CT) taught school in Clinton Hill before she got married to a prosperous physician from Connecticut.
At Florida State University, a study was done on gender differences between men and women. Attractive, well-dressed students approached the opposite gender and asked one of the following three questions:
This was an-all NYC weekend for us. A splendid, uplifting weekend all-round. Glorious. Took a daughter and her boyfriend to see the Met's Thomas Cole show today after an early morning 4 mile mini-urban hike with my sis and her hubbie to loosen up stiff muscles from yesterday's hike (with evil Starbucks break this morning). Good informative show and ran into good family friends there serendipitously so the kids had to catch up and chat too-loudly in the museum. Saw his Oxbow painting of a sight which all drivers up and down Rte 91 near Northampton have seen.
At lunch, the good boyfriend told us that he, his dad, and his uncle will participate with 1400 people in this year's The Great Saunter on May 5th. It's a 32-mile all-day Manhattan hike. This event is new to me, but I love the idea. By comparison, our hikes are Little Saunters. 32 miles would be a challenge for me now but, dammit, I would finish it if I had to crawl. I have a friend who had to crawl a mile to finish the Hawaii Ironman triathlon a few years ago. His wife was proud of him.
There is nothing healthier than taking on things to dispel our self-esteem despite the ego-protective temptation to hide and avoid them. Into life, outside the comfort zone. Here are some of the things that work well:
- Socializing with high-achieving, highly life-competent witty people - Taking a calisthenics/fitness class at the gym - Taking the Great Courses Intro to Calculus or Intro to Immunology Class and discover your IQ limits - Joining a Bible, or classical music/opera study group and discover your ignorance and lack of insight - Accepting the duty of running a small volunteer organization - Inspecting your naked body carefully in a mirror - Reflecting on one's mortality and what good one will have left behind - Taking an advanced yoga class - Try to get your book published - Go to a new city or woods without a GPS and make yourself get lost - Reach out to befriend somebody you feel is smart, fun and interesting, and get the brush-off - Learn a new sport or skill from scratch - Go on a job search - Get into weight-lifting
I welcome your suggestions for deeper humility in the comments -
Good advice, but it's also always a good idea to sense when somebody is tired of taking to you. Sorry to say, they probably are. On both ends, short and sweet is best in most cases unless you are lucky enough to get a truly lively and jovial interaction going.
A friend recently extended his driveway to put in a Pickleball court. The game is like a cross between tennis, ping-pong, paddle tennis, etc. It looks like this:
Famous quote to Stalin from Lavrentry Beria, head of Stalin's secret police.
I continue to recommend the (depressing) Three Felonies a Day by Prof. Harvey Silverglate. You can count on it. You are a felon. There are 6000 federal crimes (including owning an owl or eagle feather), and nobody knows all of them until somebody looks one up to pin on somebody they decide to target. That's not counting the 40,000 pages of federal regulations.
Feel free to confess in the comments for your trivial crimes which might be past the statute of limitations.
Nack was a towering figure in the history of sports journalism, a literary wordsmith and tireless reporter whose distinctive and soaring prose is revered by his peers and generations of younger writers. He stands among the best sportswriters in the history of the genre, and in many ways, among the best writers of any kind. When he stopped typing, he was a giant personality, full of endless good charm, disarmingly well-read and all times, given to entertain...
And here's Nack's reminiscences of his favorite horse, Secretariat: Pure Heart
I was curious about why I never see cabooses anymore. 
