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.
Charles Krauthammer, MD, gets it. He always did. Our money- and power-greedy government has always drooled over the idea of control of medical care because so much emotion and money is involved. Votes, power, control.
Believe me, personal care does not lie in the future. At that point, I will give up. I will give up charity care too, if there is any of it left. I did not enter Medicine to be an employee or a peon. If that is what the people want, they can have it.
For me, it's a calling but I will not do it as a government peon.
As we head into Spring with snow still on the ground and snow predicted for tomorrow, here's what I'm seeing here in Yankeeland:
Carolina Wren Cardinal Tufted Titmouse Chicadees Mourning Dove Red Wing Blackbird Cowbirds Purple Grackle Song Sparrow Downy Woodpecker White Throated Sparrow still some Juncos Robins in flocks, mostly males lots of Golden Crowned Kinglets Blue Jay Sharp Shinned Hawks Mockingbird House Finches Goldfinch White-Breasted Nuthatch Canada Geese on the move, overhead
As my brother and I were beginning to clean out the parents' garage, at my Dad's request, yesterday, we found 8 wren and Bluebird houses. I'll put a few up here at the HQ, and the rest at the farm on my next trip up. We have a large Bluebird contingent up there but they have to compete with the Tree Swallows for the nest boxes. Birds compete for housing, just like people.
If psychotherapists "screw up" their children any more than anybody else, I haven't seen the data. (My own kids, BTW, are perfect.) Biggest issue with parenting these days? Trying to be friends with the young. They can be pals when they grow up and achieve independence but, until then, make your own friends.
It's a perennial topic, however. If therapist-types do, I think it comes from being over-attentive, over-protective, overly-empathic, and not respecting kids' resilience and adaptability. How Therapists Screw Up their Children.
It's important for therapist-types to put their work hat on before work, and to take it off after work.
Trust me, you folks around the world who want to sneak into the USA. We are an evil, Capitalist, heartless, war-mongering, carbon-spewing, gun-shooting, drug-abusing, poverty-ridden, sex-obsessed, Big Gulp-drinking, obese, poorly-educated, sexist, racist and zenophobic country that nobody would want to be a part of. There are no jobs here, and the place is crawling with Jesus Freaks, drunk cowboys with guns, communists, weird transgender people and weird mass-murderers armed with AK-47s and bombs. Don't believe the marketing hype about freedom and opportunity, because they are disappearing fast.
Just ask any American college professor how bad we are, and how unfair and harsh life is here. They will tell you the truth. Most Americans, I am sure, would leave if they could only find a way to get away to a better, kinder, and more peace-loving country. You would hate it here. Try China or India instead, or Mexico, Scotland, Russia, Iceland, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Italy, or maybe Australia.
Made another Ribollita for Dad tonight (photo). Will deliver tomorrow - these things are always much tastier a day later. My ol' Yankee Dad loves Italian peasant comfort food.
I used a different recipe this time for the Ribollita. These greens are half Kale and half chopped cabbage, plus the whites of two leeks. I pureed about 1/3 of the Canellini beans, and had to use plenty of chicken stock to keep it from being too thick. Water would be purist but I like flavor, and I throw all chicken bones in the freezer for whenever I need to make chicken stock. Or I make it and freeze it.
There's over 1/2 cup of olive oil in there, and pretty much all the rest of the (frozen) Thyme I could find in the icy garden. Plenty of garlic, onion, celery, carrot, of course. Large can of crushed tomatoes - maybe a little too much.
Cheap and delicious, and fun to make. It is difficult to over-use thyme in soups and stews. That's where the "savoury" comes from.
Serve on top of small 1"-cube chunks of preferably-stale Italian or French bread in a soup bowl. A glass of Chianti Classico Riserva. Then take a nap.
Over the transom, with info from the Mayo Clinic cardiologists -
How many folks do you know who say they don't want to drink anything before going to bed because they'll have to get up during the night!!
Heart Attack and Water
Something else I didn't know ... I asked my Doctor why do people need to urinate so much at night time. Answer from my Cardiac Doctor - Gravity holds water in the lower part of your body when you are upright (legs swell). When you lie down and the lower body (legs and etc) seeks level with the kidneys, it is then that the kidneys remove the water because it is easier. This then ties in with the last statement!
I knew you need your minimum water to help flush the toxins out of your body, but this was news to me. Correct time to drink water... Very Important. From A Cardiac Specialist!
Drinking water at a certain time maximizes its effectiveness on the body: 2 glasses of water after waking up - helps activate internal organs.
1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal - helps digestion 1 glass of water before taking a bath - helps lower blood pressure 1 glass of water before going to bed - avoids stroke or heart attack
I can also add to this... My Physician told me that water at bed time will also help prevent night time leg cramps. Your leg muscles are seeking hydration when they cramp and wake you up with a Charlie Horse.
Subject: Mayo clinic aspirin
Dr. Virend Somers, is a Cardiologist from the Mayo Clinic, who is lead author of the report in the July 29, 2008 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Most heart attacks occur in the day, generally between 6 A.M. and noon. Having one during the night, when the heart should be most at rest, means that something unusual happened. Somers and his colleagues have been working for a decade to show that sleep apnea is to blame .
1. If you take an aspirin or a baby aspirin once a day, take it at night. The reason: Aspirin has a 24-hour "half-life"; therefore, if most heart attacks happen in the wee hours of the morning, the Aspirin would be strongest in your system.
2. FYI, Aspirin lasts a really long time in your medicine chest for years, (when it gets old, it smells like vinegar).
Something that we can do to help ourselves - nice to know. Bayer is making crystal aspirin to dissolve instantly on the tongue. They work much faster than the tablets.
Why keep Aspirin by your bedside? It's about Heart Attacks -
There are other symptoms of a heart attack, besides the pain on the left arm. One must also be aware of an intense pain on the chin, as well as nausea and lots of sweating; however, these symptoms may also occur less frequently.
Note: There may be NO pain in the chest during a heart attack.
The majority of people (about 60%) who had a heart attack during their sleep did not wake up. However, if it occurs, the chest pain may wake you up from your deep sleep.
If that happens, immediately dissolve two aspirins in your mouth and swallow them with a bit of water.
Afterwards: - Call 911. - Phone a neighbor or a family member who lives very close by. - Say "heart attack!" - Say that you have taken 2 Aspirins. - Take a seat on a chair or sofa near the front door, and wait for their arrival and ...DO NOT LIE DOWN!
I have no idea. I prefer Bach to Beyonce. In fact, never listened to the latter despite being a hip youngish New Yorker. Here's the argument: Can Republicans Close the Pop Culture Gap?
Just curious, but how does Obama have so much time to watch TV and to listen to tunes? I find no time for TV. Not that that bothers me very much but I spose it would matter if I were running for office.
The Decline of Marriage and the Rise of Unwed Mothers: An Economic Mystery. The real question here isn't "Why so many babies?" It's "Why so few marriages?" And we have an answer.
As we say here, building a complex life with social pleasures, financial stability, family structure with continuity, traditions, and reliability, and the general comforts of life, is difficult without marriage and family.
To understand the now-antique Liberal/Progressive mind set in America, we must go back at least to the turn of the last century. Around 1910, Walter Weyl was all the rage - the new, new Coke.
At the time, the Western world was excited by utopian ideas about everything being run by brilliant, virtuous, and omniscient overseers who aspired to unburden us common folk of freedom, risk, and excessive responsibilities.
“We are beginning to see that we can moralize, we can socialize the trusts, and can build more widely upon the economic tendencies of the age…the end of it all must be production on the largest scale compatible with efficiency, but a production so regulated as to ownership, stock issues, dividends, prices, wages, and profits as to safeguard the whole community. Unless we are to take the saltum mortale [dangerous undertaking] of a complete and immediate governmental ownership and operation of all large industries, we must work out a more perfect system of corporation control in the interest of society.”
As most Maggie's readers know, individual freedom is not about "the greater good," nor is it about the State. It's about individual sovereignty.
It's the time of year for trip planning. A bit early to think about fall hunting, but spring and summer plans are on the menu.
For no reason that I can comprehend, Mrs. BD likes to go places with just me. I enjoy including the kids and giving them special life treats as did my parents for me, and their companionship and getting to know them better as they unfold is a joy.
She has gotten a little carried away, and now has things in the pipeline for 2014 too, God willing.
She has scheduled Little St. Simon's Island in April to catch migration season (to please me), a kid's graduation mini-trip, and the annual family reunion week in Wellfleet in August (for the first time, sadly without Mom but, I hope, with all of the immediate and extended family).
For fall, I dunno.
Before I get old, my short-term (3-yr) bucket list includes:
- a good-sized villa (5-8 bedrooms) in Tuscany for 2 weeks with enough room for the entire family and dearest friends, with a cook and housekeeper (they all come with that anyway) and rental cars for all. I am saving up for that, but it's not really too expensive. As much as I love Umbria and enjoy Sicily, the family all deserve more time in Tuscany. Well, my kids are lucky. They've been everywhere.
- More Sicily. Rent a sports car, drink a little Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Rosso, then drive all over with my cowboy hat and a history text and ignore the speed laws like everybody else. Try to frighten the Mrs. with speed, but that is difficult to do. She likes speed too.
- a barge trip through southern France with the inlaws and family. Dad's a bit too feeble for this now, but he already took plenty of these with my Mom.
- I need to get back to Pine Butte in Montana soon, maybe next Spring for wildflower bloom and Grizzly Bears,
- and to Big Sky in the winter before my joints begin to creak. I need new skis.
- Bermuda again, for a romantic 5 days (we like Cambridge Beaches - they call it luxurious but it is only luxurious by British standards)
- Another Holland-America Line cross-Atlantic trip, as we used to do when I was young. I love the North Atlantic stormy days on a ship.
- Another Holland-America Line history cruise
What's on the top of Mrs. BD's bucket list? A week down the coast of Turkey on a gulet. I would love to get back to Turkey again.
Carpe diem, friends, because memories are all we have of lasting value, and memories rarely include our daily routines and chores. Even if they should, so much of it just blends together.
School choice is not a Democrat-Conservative split. Nobody likes the government monopoly and everybody wants school choices, the same school choices that the Obama kids have. Inner city families long for school choices for their kids. The only problems the Dems have are to deal with are their wealthy allies in the teachers unions.
Thomas Nagel may be the most famous philosopher in the United States—a bit like being the best power forward in the Lullaby League, but still. His paper “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” was recognized as a classic when it was published in 1974. Today it is a staple of undergraduate philosophy classes. His books range with a light touch over ethics and politics and the philosophy of mind. His papers are admired not only for their philosophical provocations but also for their rare (among modern philosophers) simplicity and stylistic clarity, bordering sometimes on literary grace. ..
another quote from the piece:
Materialism, then, is fine as far as it goes. It just doesn’t go as far as materialists want it to. It is a premise of science, not a finding. Scientists do their work by assuming that every phenomenon can be reduced to a material, mechanistic cause and by excluding any possibility of nonmaterial explanations. And the materialist assumption works really, really well—in detecting and quantifying things that have a material or mechanistic explanation. Materialism has allowed us to predict and control what happens in nature with astonishing success. The jaw-dropping edifice of modern science, from space probes to nanosurgery, is the result.
But the success has gone to the materialists’ heads. From a fruitful method, materialism becomes an axiom: If science can’t quantify something, it doesn’t exist, and so the subjective, unquantifiable, immaterial “manifest image” of our mental life is proved to be an illusion.
"There is no magic point at which a genuine college-level education becomes an option, but anything below an IQ of 110 is problematic. If you want to do well, you should have an IQ of 115 or higher. Put another way, it makes sense for only about 15% of the population, 25% if one stretches it, to get a college education. And yet more than 45% of recent high school graduates enroll in four-year colleges. Adjust that percentage to account for high-school dropouts, and more than 40% of all persons in their late teens are trying to go to a four-year college--enough people to absorb everyone down through an IQ of 104.
"No data that I have been able to find tell us what proportion of those students really want four years of college-level courses, but it is safe to say that few people who are intellectually unqualified yearn for the experience, any more than someone who is athletically unqualified for a college varsity wants to have his shortcomings exposed at practice every day. They are in college to improve their chances of making a good living. What they really need is vocational training. But nobody will say so, because 'vocational training' is second class. 'College' is first class.
"Large numbers of those who are intellectually qualified for college also do not yearn for four years of college-level courses. They go to college because their parents are paying for it and college is what children of their social class are supposed to do after they finish high school. They may have the ability to understand the material in Economics 1 but they do not want to. They, too, need to learn to make a living--and would do better in vocational training.
There is great risk in that life plan. I often remind people that being put out to pasture is a quite modern invention. Originally an ideal of European Socialists, in the US it did not become a plausible plan until the Depression when it seemed politically useful to take "mature" adults - "seasoned citizens" - out of the labor force to reduce unemployment.
I have never understood what is so ideal about being unproductive and useless with a life of recreation, errand-running, and lawn-mowing. In my experience, people thrive on productivity and responsbility (while bitching about it of course) and frequently decay without it. If Heaven entails floating around blissfully on clouds all day, I have no interest in it. Anybody who wants that can have it today. It's called heroin.
Still, people pursue a degree of economic security, because constant worry is no fun. Except for the most ambitious and talent-driven, it seems to me that most people will be as resourceful as they need to be to try to construct whatever life they desire. I just hate to see people seduced by phoney pop-cultural dreams of lying in the hammock or farting into the sofa for 25 years.
My freedom in practice is to see people anytime I want or can, to work whatever hours I want to, to follow no imposed treatment protocols, to set my own fees and to provide as much charity as I wish, and to help anybody I chose to.
Nobody tells me what to do or how to do it. Maybe I'm a dinosaur. I'll see patients on a Saturday or Sunday if need be.
A quote from the article:
Once they work for hospitals, physicians change their behavior in two principal ways. Often they see fewer patients and perform fewer timely procedures. Continuity of care also declines, since a physician's responsibilities end when his shift is over. This means reduced incentives for doctors to cover weekend calls, see patients in the ER, squeeze in an office visit, or take phone calls rather than turfing them to nurses. It also means physicians no longer take the time to give detailed sign-offs as they pass care of patients to other doctors who cover for them on nights, weekends and days off.
Most hospitals exacerbate these strains by measuring the productivity of the physician practices they purchase in "Relative Value Units." This is a formula that Medicare already uses to set doctor-payment rates. RVUs are supposed to measure how much time and physical effort a doctor requires to perform different clinical endeavors.
Along with Washington and Jefferson, Calvin Coolidge is in our presidential pantheon.
At Maggie's Farm, we reject the notion that the "greats" are those who expanded central power in Washington. What's so great about that? America was designed in opposition to centralized power. Is "freedom" a dirty word?
When I cook this, I do it in my largest stovepot, 10 or 15-quart. Usually 2 hunks of corned beef and 2 cabbages, plus the rest. I've never included rutabaga. Parsnips are always a good idea but you have to remember that they cook fast. Parsnips are delicious with their menthol tang.
I like to overcook the meat a bit until fork-tender. Serve with abundant Dijon mustard and Horseradish mustard on the side. And beer.Mrs. BD got us some Wasabi Mustard this year.
But not so much beer than you cannot go out and plant your peas. It's the day to plant peas in Yankeeland, regardless of the weather. Snow Peas.
First, I think she is mainly talking about Manhattan real estate. There is a lot of NYC outside of Manhattan, and the prime fashionable neighborhoods of Manhattan (and Brooklyn) will never be "affordable" to the middle class because, given the barriers to new construction, demand will always outstrip supply. Even so, there are reasonable neighborhoods in places like Inwood, Harlem, Washington Heights, Spanish Harlem, Little Italy.
Second, there are few free markets in housing in NYC except at the higher end (ie condos in the 2+ million range). Even there, it's not really a free market because the barriers to entry for builders are so high (legal, regulatory, community review, architectural boards, time, political dealings, etc). Donald Trump, with his huge legal teams and political connections, can get that sort of thing done, but there are few of him and, even so, supply will never catch up to demand.
Third, NYC's approach to "affordable" housing since WW2 has been housing projects for the poor and rent control and/or entire rent-controlled developments (eg Stuyvesant Town or Tudor City) for the middle class. The former destroyed neighborhoods and was a catastrophe, and the latter (ST as an example) is bankrupt. Furthermore, rent control, instituted temporarily as a post-war adjustment, now has a huge and vociferous constituency (of course). The more recent efforts are to require some time-limited below-market rentals in new construction.
Altogether, many things conspire to keep rental and condo prices high, even out in the boroughs. Since massive deregulation will never happen in NYC, supply will never catch up with demand because NYC is a world-wide magnet for the energetic, the prosperous, the young, and for those who just want a toe-hold in the greatest and most interesting city in the world. (And if supply ever did catch up with demand, a lot of people would lose a lot of money.)
Government helped create the problem - if it is a problem. The Dems want to fix their problem with even more controls and takings. Typical.
My final thought is this: High prices mean high demand. That's a problem few city centers have these days. It's a good kind of problem to have. It's like when I hear people complain about parking in my village, and feel I need to remind them that there are tons of towns where you can park anywhere downtown - but would you want to live where nobody wants to go?
It is a mystery as to why Planned Parenthood seems so much in favor of single teens raising children. Seems obvious to me that the "root cause" is kids having sex and not going to Planned Parenthood. One quote from MacDonald:
Even were it the case that poverty indeed causes teen pregnancy, crime, or any of the other destructive behaviors that the advocates claim are economically determined, surely it is better to tell children and teens that they have the power to determine their own fate through hard work and self-control, rather than sending the message that society expects them to fail.
Under Obamacare, more and more doctors are becoming employees of large hospitals, where there will be more control over how they practice medicine. Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Dr. Scott Atlas fears this will cause a brain drain in medicine. "Really smart people want autonomy, and when you take that away it's naive to think you're going to get really bright people becoming doctors," says Atlas. "The best doctors could excel at any profession, so why go into medicine if they won't have the opportunity to be their best?"
The people interviewed practice the same way I, and plenty of my colleagues, practice. No insurance, and thus no back office staff and low overhead. No boss, practice exactly the way I want to as I decide with my patients.
In the public education world, it's considered a promotion to get out of daily teaching.
When I went to prep (boarding) school, all of the administrators taught at least one course, including the Headmaster and the coaches. My Headmaster taught Calc. - and, being an Episcopalian priest, also conducted the daily chapel service where he taught the word of God. Preaching to adolescents works, but it takes about 20 years to sink in.
A good guy. Eagle Scout, US Army vet. He had pet otters that followed him around campus. He was also the Varsity Hockey coach, had been Captain of the Harvard team in his youth. We had serious hockey. He checked me quite hard one time in a student vs. faculty game. Three outdoor rinks, and one under a roof. Each faculty person also had to coach a sport, but we had tons of intramural sports. A daily sport was required of all. Morning classes, afternoon athletics, then chapel, dinner, and study hall. A Spartan life-style, with no chicks around for distraction other than the deliciously-appealing and refined faculty wives with whom we all fell in love.
Mrs. BD and I went down to NYC yesterday to see The Pearl Theater Company's production of Part 1. Matinee, sold out house.
Their new digs are way over on the west end of 42nd St. We admire their efforts to run an acting company with its own theater, given the competition with hundreds of Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway theaters in NYC, very few with their own acting companies. (Along with the Classic Stage Company, we support them with modest donations.)
I am amazed by the number of fancy apartment towers that have emerged in that once-seedy area - "Hell's Kitchen" district, more or less. Used to be all street hookers and drug dealers, and now it's parents with kids in strollers with their dogs, even in the evening:
Over an early northern Italian dinner at the tiny, cozy Gallo Nero, Mrs. BD and I discussed whether the play - chock full of eternal quotes (eg "If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work" - is a coming of age play, or a comedy featuring Falstaff with some sword-fights and wars for tension.
My theory is that Shakespeare was an entertainer, a screenwriter, who would do anything to sell tickets. Throw in some sword fights, family conflicts, a king and some nobles, some thieves, a jester, a tavern wench, some human emotions, and see what happens. Just happened to be a genius writer/thinker too. When he made enough money (and he made plenty), he just retired from theater.
Despite the obnoxious Nanny Bloomberg, NYC sure seems to be thriving, clean, cheerful, safe, and busy. Just a wonder to me, always. So many good-looking people, too. If I were a little rich, I'd buy a brownstone there somewhere, rent out the top 2 floors, and keep the garden floor and the first floor as a pied a terre. That would be fun. We country and suburban folk need an escape once in a while, an escape to where the action is. Gee whiz, I really do love banging around Manhattan and I am fortunate to have a Mrs. who drags me in at least monthly, or more, to do interesting, stimulating things to prevent mental/cultural/spiritual decay.
Around here, we have seen many older people retire by buying a 6-month + 1 day place in a low tax state (FL, NH, SC, etc) and a place in the city. I like to remain rooted in my community, but I think that sounds cool.
By the way, Mrs. BD strongly recommends the series In Search of Shakespeare on Netflix. Enjoyable.
Carolina Wren
Made another Ribollita for Dad tonight (photo). Will deliver tomorrow - these things are always much tastier a day later. My ol' Yankee Dad loves Italian peasant comfort food.
How they disarmed our British cousins.
To understand the now-antique Liberal/Progressive mind set in America, we must go back at least to the turn of the last century. Around 1910, Walter Weyl was all the rage - the new, new Coke.
It's the time of year for trip planning. A bit early to think about fall hunting, but spring and summer plans are on the menu.
Unlike, it seems, some or many of the young women in Medicine today (50%), I never had any interest in being anybody's employee.
When I cook this, I do it in my largest stovepot, 10 or 15-quart. Usually 2 hunks of corned beef and 2 cabbages, plus the rest. I've never included rutabaga. Parsnips are always a good idea but you have to remember that they cook fast. Parsnips are delicious with their menthol tang.
Photo is from 