Friday, May 15. 2009
We have posted many times about the tragedy of the commons here. This handy concept goes far beyond the original meaning.
It is the most basic human nature to take care of your own. Unless you have a close, small, closed society with strong affinity and who are on the same page, people will rape the commons for their own purposes.
We posted the other day about plans to try to maintain the fisheries.
John Stossel discusses Eat the Tigers! Same point. Most people need a sense of ownership to really care about stewardship.
Thursday, May 14. 2009
I hate studies of happiness because 1) I think happiness is fleeting 2) Everybody's happiness is different 3) I think good cheer and happiness come from within and from a clean conscience - not from without and, 4) I don't think life is or should be all about happiness anyway: I think it is meant to be made of sterner stuff than that...but that's me.
Therefore, I believe that "the good life" is not a one-size-fits-all shoe. For some, it's about being half in the bag on a mountaintop. For some, it's struggling with impossible math problems; for some, it's exerting minimal effort. For some, it's about having good relationships, but many folks don't give a darn about that. "Happiness" is a useless concept and, to me, a "good life" means nothing more than an honorable, responsible Christian life, with minimal jail time, and some golf and tennis and a good man in it but, again, that's just me.
Joshua Shenk has a piece in The Atlantic on the now-72 year-old Harvard longitudinal study. He begins:
Last fall, I spent about a month in the file room of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, hoping to learn the secrets of the good life. The project is one of the longest-running—and probably the most exhaustive—longitudinal studies of mental and physical well-being in history. Begun in 1937 as a study of healthy, well-adjusted Harvard sophomores (all male), it has followed its subjects for more than 70 years.
Read Shenk's piece, and tell me what you think. David Brooks wrote a commentary on the Shenks piece, in which he says:
The study had produced a stream of suggestive correlations. The men were able to cope with problems better as they aged. The ones who suffered from depression by 50 were much more likely to die by 63. The men with close relationships with their siblings were much healthier in old age than those without them.
But it's the baffling variety of their lives that strikes one the most. It is as if we all contain a multitude of characters and patterns of behavior, and these characters and patterns are bidden by cues we don't even hear. They take center stage in consciousness and decision-making in ways we can't even fathom. The man who is careful and meticulous in one stage of life is unrecognizable in another context.
Shenk's treatment is superb because he weaves in the life of George Vaillant, the man who for 42 years has overseen this work. Vaillant's overall conclusion is familiar and profound. Relationships are the key to happiness. "Happiness is love. Full Stop," he says in a video.
In his professional life, he has lived out that creed. He has been an admired and beloved colleague and mentor. But the story is more problematic at home. When he was 10, his father, an apparently happy and accomplished man, went out by the pool of their Main Line home and shot himself. His mother shrouded the episode. They never attended a memorial service nor saw the house again.
He has been through three marriages and returned to his second wife. His children tell Shenk of a "civil war" at home and describe long periods when they wouldn't speak to him. His oldest friend says he has a problem with intimacy.
Even when we know something, it is hard to make it so. Reading this essay, I had the same sense I had while reading Christopher Buckley's description of his parents in the New York Times Magazine not long ago. There is a complexity to human affairs before which science and analysis simply stands mute.
Ed: Related, see some of our previous posts on the topic:
Are we happy yet?
The Aristocracy of the Human Spirit: Freedom vs Happiness
Money and Happiness
Huxley's Brave New World at 75
Do Americans expect too much of marriage?
Happiness for Sale! No brain, no pain.
Grumpy. Are Americans hard to please, or do we just love to bitch?
Monday, May 11. 2009
One of us quoted Dylan recently, who said something like "You got to take your inspiration wherever you can get it."
And we recently posted the lines which begin "Sing, Goddess...." Thus acknowledging that the Goddess is the author, not the man. The man is the messenger.
It reminds me of what my pastor once said to me when I asked where the preaching came from: "I stand up there, and the Holy Spirit uses me. It just flows out. I have nothing to do with it."
The definition of "inspiration" is "the immediate effect of God or gods." How wonderful is it that the word doubles as the medical term for inhaling, and that "expiration" doubles for exhaling and for death?
Whitestone Bridge to LaGuardia, Manhattan in the distance:
Nice early morning Tennessee thunderstorm with cheerful tornadoes buzzing around:
Nashville skyline, 6 AM:
Biscuits and sausage gravy: one of the reasons to fly south for brekkie. Nectar of the Gods:
Wish we had this kind of delivery up here:
More Tennessee breakfast:
This is a smoking establishment. Smoke and drink and enjoy life and raise hell with live music in freedom from the nannies:
The Dylanologist has commented here that Nashville lost any hope of being a charming city when it bought into the urban renewal craze in the 60s and erased its history, replacing it with parking garages, car dealerships, strip malls, and other forms of true urban blight. When civil rights leaders in the 70s referred to urban renewal as "urban removal," they were correct: it eliminated residential neighborhoods from the downtowns (see Bridgeport, CT too and, by stark contrast, Savannah, GA and Manhattan - where gentrified old "slums" are some of the most desirable places to live in, eg Chelsea, aka Hell's Kitchen), leaving those renewed downtowns as dangerous ghost towns at night and forcing people into the suburbs and into their cars. (The replacement of streetcars with busses is a whole, interesting story in itself. Maybe the Dyl will take it on if he has some time.)
I think it's fun to find some of the few remaining reminders of how pleasant Nashville once was before genius government planners with their theories, bulldozers and wrecking balls got to work:
A close-up:
Sunday, May 10. 2009
Reposted -
The Jonathan Fairbanks house in Dedham, MA. 1636. Those are the bones of the basic center-hall Colonial. The slope of that roof is great for either snow or rain.
Multiculturally-sensitive though he may be, Sippican Cottage is omitting pueblos and phony old houses in St. Augustine from his thorough research on the topic. He means real wood-framed houses.
It's easy to detect the core of the farmhouse, before all of the additions and extensions.
What a young nation we are.
Saturday, May 9. 2009
From a Vandy graduation yesterday. I saw no signs directing folks towards tofu and organic water -
The Law School:
Tent, Lily Turf, and daisies -
If you have never been there, it's a nice leafy, parklike 300-acre campus in the city, but unfortunately it lacks a large open central gathering place: no landscape core like a town green, or like the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. Olmstead would have designed a serenely dramatic psychological center to it all.
and it has tons of gigantic Magnolias:
and plenty of other good scenery, as the South always has (view from the front was even better. She had that pouty but cool look that said "I doubt you are worthy of talking to me, but I know you want to and I know what you're thinking. F- off."):
The newly-minted and doubtless rapacious young lawyers:
No skimping. Mountains of strawberries with accompanying mountains of confectioner's sugar - and too much champagne to keep up with the rate of serving. You just had to man up and do your best. As I said to the servers, "Can't let it go to waste. Think of all the thirsty people in Arabia."
Thanks to the good old New Yorker Commodore Vanderbilt, a very interesting fellow, for all he did to improve the world with the riches he just could not help but to accumulate due to his energy and his entrepreneurial and savvy spirit back in the days before income taxes:
 Thinking about smells and tastes today (they are essentially the same thing). My big old barn/garage did it to me this morning, with the warm air filled with scent and memories.
For me, that warm stew of the scents of gasoline, oil, grease, hay in the hay-loft, grain, tools and machines, dust, tractors, sawdust, kerosene, piles of saved lumber, old paint cans, leather tack and the saddle soap for it, the sweetness of fresh horse manure - mixed with the smell of the new grass and clover and wildflowers springing up in the fields wafting around - is an emotional thread that runs all the way back to my earliest childhood in Connecticut.
What it reminded me of today was being a lad of 8 or 10 helping my Dad build a new mounting block for my Mom and for us kids to get up on the horses. My Mom had a couple of big hunters, and appreciated a help to get up on them. She was almost always either pregnant or getting over being pregnant, but she loved the Hunt. These mounting block things had steps and a platform, with a railing on one side. My Dad would only use a hand-saw, believing that bench saws and the like were for the pros. He had one, but never used it. He could cut a straight line.
I was instructed to paint it barn red to match the horse barn, and the railings and cross-pieces white.
They make them out of plastic nowadays, but this guy built a simple wooden one.
Photo is one of those nasty modern plastic mounting blocks. Looks like made by Fisher-Price. Advantage: you can move them around easily.
Friday, May 8. 2009
Another reminiscence from our shrink friend Nathan about his days in the Indian Health Service -
 A limp and a death among the Lakota Sioux marked my first day at Eagle Butte, devoid of eagles and buttes. Two days’ drive from Chicago, I am greeted from afar by John Running Horse, he dipping and rising like a Venetian gondolier, waving aloft what from afar seemed to be the plaster sculpture of a leg. Up close, it is.
Before I could stop completely, John Running Horse lay one hand on the open window of my red Fiat 128, bowed in head and cast, asked, “You the new doc?” I was. “Put this thing on again”; hands me the cast, then points to his gondoliering leg. I park and head in.
The Indian Health Service had told me that there were two docs; arrive Sunday.
But, by Sunday, Dr. K. had been flown out with her atrial flutter to be cardioverted eighty miles up the road to Mobridge; Dr. L. was riding shotgun with a mother in active labor also to Mobridge. No docs in Eagle Butte.
I wrapped a new cast on John Running Horse’s right leg and asked as I did so -- dipping plaster rolls in warm water, smoothing them first around, then smoothing downward along the fracture to make it seamless -- how his old cast got cut off. Itched, he said; cut it off himself, as he unsheathe his James Black/Musso pattern S-guard bowie knife. White plaster still dusted its curved Stainless steel back tip and brass quillion; hadn’t even wiped it clean.
I told John Running Horse that his skin would itch again after a few days; dried skin flakes. I found a metal coat hanger, bent it straight and showed him how he could insert it within the cast to scratch itches. He found this marvelous; made a special leather sheath for it to hang from his belt. Later, he returned; brought a water color gift; painted himself on his horse; he wearing Sioux gear. In his right hand, born aloft like some victorious banner is not a leg cast, but his Winchester Model 1894 lever-repeating rifle -- the gun that won the West, the weapon of choice for the Rifleman of TV.
Continue reading "A Limp and a Death"
You used to just plain peter out at 68 or 79 or 93 but, after 1951, the law changed and some Doc had to make up a cause to put on the death certificate. A proximate cause, plus additional lines to fill in for contributing causes/underlying causes of death. (Imagine what that change did to disease stats!) More many more little-known facts about death.
Old time Docs knew that people died when they got old and rickety or had a bum ticker or some nasty growths. You plumb wear out eventually, and it is just a matter of which internal doohickey crapped out first. It was considered sort-of natural, and not a medical issue.
And, when folks died, they either said "They died" or "They ascended to their Maker" or "Went to their eternal reward." They did not say "They passed" (what a strange expression - passed what? New Agey-sounding, isn't it? Took a pass on more life, or what? Passed into the Spirit World?) or "passed away," as the relentlessly euphemistic funeral home people used to say. Like they aren't dead: they just sort of floated away past the 7-11 and the Pontiac dealership and the Pizza Hut to somewhere else.
Maybe to the lovely Mall in the Sky.
Thursday, May 7. 2009
"I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the falls azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff -
and I lived on..."
 I read Nabokov's Pale Fire when it came out. I've read all of Nabokov, or almost all. None of his butterfly texts.
From Mary McCarthy's 1962 review:
Pale Fire is a Jack-in-the-box, a Faberge gem, a clockwork toy, a chess problem, an infernal machine, a trap to catch reviewers, a cat-and-mouse game, a do-it-yourself novel. It consists of a 999-line poem of four cantos in heroic couplets together with an editor's preface, notes, index, and proof-corrections. When the separate parts are assembled, according to the manufacturer's directions, and fitted together with the help of clues and cross-references, which must be hunted down as in a paper-chase, a novel on several levels is revealed, and these "levels" are not the customary "levels of meaning" of modernist criticism but planes in a fictive space, rather like those houses of memory in medieval mnemonic science, where words, facts, and numbers were stored till wanted in various rooms and attics, or like the Houses of astrology into which the heavens are divided.
 It's part of wisdom to know the limits of one's knowledge (and the limits of one's wisdom, if that is possible).
When I post a photo of a rug I like, aka a floor mat, my taste and lack of expertise are invariably corrected by one or another rug pro who likes Maggie's. And rightly so. I am the kind of person who welcomes correction and education even as it injures my fragile self-esteem and self-worth.
But this time I am determined to show something to wow the experts: this highly-collectible museum quality semi-antique 3X5 Barbie rug.
Now that is a special rug. It's the Barbie 50th Anniversary Rug! The sensitive rendering of Barbie permits the depth of her wonderful personality to shine through. The vibrant, sensual pink is very special, as are the beautifully stylized background flowers.
Any person of discriminating taste would be proud to have this carpet in their parlor.
The Dems seem to want everybody to go to college. I want everybody to get a solid HS education, but many will not. Not because of the schools - because they don't want it.
As I have said many times here, one does not "get" educated: one takes it - or does not. As it is, how many colleges are glorified high schools, diploma mills, or propaganda factories?
The Dems want student loans to be a federal entitlement. That would basically make colleges and universities fully under the thumb of the feds, which will lead to everything becoming politicized. Also, they want to eliminate private college loans. Does this all sound sort of familiar?
In part, their wishes sound like a government full-employment plan for PhDs in unmarketable subject areas, and one more power grab over independent and private institutions.
Wednesday, May 6. 2009
We recently noted here that, if you gave 5 people each $100,000 to do something with, after 5 years one guy would be broke, one guy would have a million bucks, and the others somewhere in between.
It's like Jesus' parable of the talents (which of course had nothing to do with money, but with the use of gifts of the spirit.)
Readers know that I don't give a darn what other people make. I care about what I make, how I make it, and what I do with it.
Just One Minute looks at Robert Reich on income inequality. One commenter says:
Tuesday, May 5. 2009
The current issue of the Digest from the National Bureau of Economic Research carries findings from Stanford University economists looking at the different economic outcomes for similarly situated Jamaica and Barbados from different macroeconomic policies pursued between 1960 to 2002.
Both had the institutional foundation from being British colonies and similar sugar and tourism-based economies, yet from 1960 to 2002 Barbados’ GDP expanded about three times faster than Jamaica’s. The current income gap in favor of Barbados is near five times larger than at independence.
Why?
Jamaica pursued extensive state intervention in the economy, nationalization, income transfers and the like, and borrowed heavily to fund growing deficits. Barbados followed a more restrained posture toward business, spending and borrowing.
Sound portentous?
 The US has, I believe, the highest business and corporate taxes in the world. China has no corporate tax because they want to encourage business growth. They aren't stupid.
The Dems want to push them higher. Furthermore, they want to tax foreign biz income before it is repatriated, which discourages overseas expansion and does not make the Brits very happy.
Heck, if I were a biz, I'd just move my HQ elsewhere if I am not made to feel welcome or appreciated here. The old saying goes "A gentleman knows where he is not wanted."
Am I way off the mark when I observe that taxes on business are indirect taxes on consumers and investors? And that they reduce employment and growth?
And that, by doing so, those taxes will soon reduce the revenue that the government so greedily feeds on? Is this complicated? Isn't basic economics taught in Middle School Social Studies? Or at least in Home Ec?
Good comments below - thanks, y'all.
Monday, May 4. 2009
Wizbang has a piece on the Osprey today. Can you name that fish?
 “Capitalism is nothing but a false religion, with Mammon as its god and Adam Smith as its high priest.”
If that is true, how come the Marxists and Socialists all want my money - the fruits of my labor and my saving and investing?
Who is greedier than a Lefty politician? And does anybody love my money more than politicians?
(Disclaimer: I like money. It gives me power over my life, freedom and choices, and personal security. However, I do not want one penny of your money unless I do a job for you.)
A few very thoughtful links about filthy lucre:
Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, discussed at Standpoint.
Bloggingheads TV with Joseph Heath on Filthy Lucre. Economic basics. Well-done.
Your financial planning. Mankiw
 As traditionalist/Centrists here at Maggie's, we tend to prefer Repub candidates because they at least pretend to sound like the word "freedom" matters to them.
Right now, the Repubs are searching the earth, looking for ideas. Wrong. Waste of time. Major national elections are won by appealing, likeable candidates who come across well on TV, have a bit of charisma and energy, and offer some inspiration, celebrity, and excitement to us benighted masses.
The wonkery and the ideology has little to do with it. Very few voted for Obama because he promised to nationalize (ie politicize) our major industries and businesses.
As Riehl rightly says,
The terrific irony here isn't that it's a Bush saying no more Reagan, it's that exit polls showed individual policies actually had little to do with Obama's win. National elections tend to be more thematic, than they are wonkish. All the Democrats really did was demonize Republicans, call for change and voice a lot of platitudes.
GOP turns to Bush aides for advice
Forget Reagan - be like Liberals
My final word on this: It's the candidate, stupid. Any reasonably smart person can make an issue out of anything, but it takes a powerfully convincing talker to reach over the head of the biased MSM and speak directly to people.
As Roger de H says, a party picks a figurehead to decorate their pirate ship.
Saturday, May 2. 2009
A re-post for the beginning of boating season up here -
 Since it's boating season up here, I thought I'd do a little study of the US Yacht Ensign for today. This flag's use originated in 1847 when the Commodore of the New York Yacht Club proposed using it to identify private (ie non-commercial) yachts in US waters.
The law permitting the Yacht Ensign's use as a substitute for the National Ensign (American flag) was repealed in 1980. However, boaters love the Yacht Ensign and, in good American spirit, defy the regulation and continue to fly it. It just looks better on a boat.
A few details gleaned from various places:
- The size of the flag should be based on the length of the boat, feet to inches, so that a 32' boat should fly the closest-sized ensign, which is 36". Otherwise, it looks stupid.
- The 50 star national flag or the yacht ensign should only be flown in two places: either on a flagstaff on the stern or on the leech of the mainsail. It should not be flown from the spreader. Only the yacht club burgee and, most importantly, the courtesy flag of a visited nation are to be flown from the spreader.
- What's the story on the "fouled anchor" naval and nautical logo? After all, a fouled anchor is a nautical abomination - it will cause your anchor to drag. Naval Uniform History says:
The foul anchor as a naval insignia got its start as the seal of the Lord Howard of Effingham. He was the Lord Admiral of England at the time of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. During this period the personal seal of a great officer of state was adopted as the seal of his office. The fouled anchor still remains the official seal of the Lord High Admiral of Great Britain. When this office became part of the present Board of Admiralty, the seal was retained - on buttons, official seals, and cap badges. The Navy's adoption of this symbol and many other customs can be directly attributed to the influence of British Naval tradition. The fouled anchor is among them.
That's your hard-working Editor in the background, fishing in Connecticut in the Spring rain a couple of years ago. It's time to review some of our good trout posts from the past.
Fishing sea-run trout on Long Island, on the Connetquot.
Here's our post on the Eastern trout species.
And here's our post on the Western native trout species.
Here's the latest info on safe catch-and release techniques
Friday, May 1. 2009
I have posted numerous times here about the role that infantile wishes and hopes can play in the lives of those who are otherwise adults. We all must have hopes and dreams, and we all must have many of them dashed to become real, serious adults.
Real serious adults know all about the futility of wishful thinking, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny - and the free lunch.
Hoven at American Thinker has a post up about Wishful Thinking in politics. As salesmen, politicians are all about appealing or pandering to wishful thinking. He begins:
There's the old joke about an economist's plan to get out of a pit he was thrown into: "First, we assume a ladder." There has been a whole lot of assuming going on, from alternate energy to non-harsh interrogations.
Some of us (including the MSM) have entered the wondrous, enchanted Obama-Dem Dreamland where dreams come true, but some of us have kept our feet on the ground where Mean Old Mr. Reality walks around.
One whose grip on reality is, in my view, only sporadic is Mr. Krugman, who insists that cap and trade taxes in the US will save the planet. But what if they don't? What are the odds that they will? He is in Dreamland. Or maybe he just wants any excuse for more tax dollars to the Feds.
All of this reminds me of Lawn Chair Larry. Remember him? I think he violated LAX air space.
Ed. note: Re childish dreams, the history of The Internationale (h/t, Good Sh-t)
Thursday, April 30. 2009
 I was working at home today, and took a stroll at lunchtime up the driveway for a quiet smoke and to give the horses some carrots. A new black F-150 pulls in. A well-muscled and well-tattoed guy leans out and says "Got a FedEx for ya." He rummages under the Lear top to find my package.
"Where's your truck?" I ask. "In the shop today." "Why all the plumbing tools back there?" I ask. "I'm a plumber." He pulls out his card for me.
I'm always interested in stories like this. Jimmy R. bought this FedEx route: he owns it. Three trucks, three drivers. His real job is plumbing contractor, but he helps the drivers on his route when a problem comes up. He started out as an apprentice plumber after getting out of the Corps. The man is a double entrepreneur, and Jimmy is a part of the America the libs neither know nor comprehend. He is also the part of America that the Dems are determined to damage.
"You need a plumber, you call me" he instructs as he leaves. Stickers on the back windshield of the Lear top: "Mossberg," an image of a leaping stag, and the US Marine Corp logo.
Man, I thought, I love this country just the way it is.
Megan addresses the issue of primary care docs. Fact is, internists are sort of our routine GPs now. It's not possible to be an old-time GP any more, doing obstetrics, pediatrics, minor surgery, cardiology, cancer, neurology, psychiatry. You couldn't keep up, for one thing - and no insuror would cover you. The closest things we have to real GPs today are ER docs.
The comments on her post are interesting.
Wednesday, April 29. 2009
Exams, contests, competitions, elections, business. Pollyanna-ish as it may sound, losing or doing poorly in these things offers learning opportunities. People tend not to learn much from winning: they tend to just keep doing the same thing until it stops working. That's when people are forced to re-think.
I have never watched Dr. Phil, but I am told that one of his favorite comments is "And how is that working for you?" It sounds like one of those great AA aphorisms.
Rick Moran has a very thoughtful and, I believe, realistic piece Moderates? Who needs 'em, about whither conservatism. It surely rings true up here in New England, where we lost our last R congressman, Chris Shays, in the last election. One quote:
“Changing historical circumstances” and the recognition that although our principles may be immutable, how they are interpreted is up to each generation. My interpretation of First Principles differs broadly from most of you reading this. Does this mean we can’t be allies in the struggle to bring those principles to the job of governing a great nation? Chasing away those who agree with you in principle but differ with you on interpretation will only lead to permanent minority status for conservatives. I have to think we’re too smart to allow that to happen.
Read the whole thing. Of course Conservatives need appealing, inspiring and articulate spokesmen but, to remain a national force, Conservatism, as a subsection of the GOP, has to recognize regional realities. You just cannot say "Good riddance" to every Chris Shays.
Gotta remember that "All politics is local," and that every voting lever pulled is done by an individual person in a certain place at a certain time with varying emotions, information, and environment. Most voters have no real political philosophy. If they did, we'd probably have a national Libertarian party.
From the NYT article:
Honeybees can tell their sisters how far away the food is up to a distance of about 15 kilometers. For good measure, they can also allow for the fact that the sun moves relative to the hive by about 15 degrees an hour and correct for this when they pass on the information. In other words, they have their own built-in global positioning system and a language that enables them to refer to objects and events that are distant in space or time.
Photos from the NYT piece.
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The uproar about income inequality continues to baffle me. Why does relative socioeconomic status matter more than absolute socioeconomic status? If the US has the richest poor people in the world, why is the distance between them and the people at the top such a big deal?
FWIW, Gregg Easterbrook, a liberal, argued in The Progress Paradox that if you factor out immigration, the rise in income inequality disappears. He got severely criticized by the left for this analysis IIRC.
Also I don't trust government definitions of "poor." My friends whose two kids qualify for S-CHIP have a 4 (smallish) bedroom house in an expensive part of town, a car, two cell phones, high-speed internet, a nice desktop & two nice laptops, buy mostly organic groceries, spend disposable income on ebay, gardening hobbies, etc. etc. They live on one-and-a-half salaries (he works full-time, she works part-time out of the house). But they're considered to be in need of government services, apparently. So if they're counted in the numbers of "needy" Texans, no wonder the numbers are skewed.