Thursday, January 3. 2013
Our pal Sipp crawled into his well-air-conditioned office in Maine to offer this thought about the blue house pics I posted on Tuesday night:
That's a beautiful house. Front-gabled Greek Revival. Mid-1800s. It was so common it was called the "National Style" back then. After the War of 1812, Americans didn't want to build their houses in the Adam (British) style anymore. They were captivated by the Greek War of Independence from the Ottomans, and got interested in everything ancient Greek because it was considered a chaste, proto-Roman civilization. I can't see all that much in the pictures for evidence of what's going on, but the house in the front is original. The big thing in the back was probably a barn at first. That huge chimney on the barn is pretty modern. It was probably attached to the main house by the ell you see between them. (In Maine, they called something similar Little House, Big House, Back House, Barn, with the little house being the "ell" and being built first) The ell might have been one-story at first. When horses and servants went out of fashion, the barn was turned into more house, most likely, and a second floor added to the ell to have unfettered access back and forth. The wart on the side might have been an open porch, or been missing entirely at first. Nobody ganged windows like that back then.
I doubt that big house in back was ever a barn, but I get the point.
How good is this little patch, up high above the Connecticut river? You have several of your basic old-timey styles, and I'd bet they were all built by the same family on the same lot over time and generations (no estate taxes and no zoning then), middle one first - I'd guess around 1750-1780:
Wednesday, January 2. 2013
Fear and loathing of income inequality is both totally understandable and ultimately misplaced.
Income inequality, if it is a problem (I do not see why it is) it is easy to fix. Just tax all income over $40,000 at 100% (except for politicians and bureaucrats).
Then confiscate all private assets over $100,000. (except for politicians and bureaucrats), because assets are really more important in life than income. Let's make it fair. Why focus on income? Some people have huge houses and apartments, and small families. The government can provide the manna. It worked great in China and the Soviet Union, so why not here?
Income and asset inequalities are fine with me. Money provides choices. Many people are highly motivated by such things, and they make good things happen. My job, for example, which pays me enough to afford ski trips to Whistler which, in turn, provides jobs for Canucks.
I don't care too much about people's energy use, and, if people want to live in McMansions two hours from work, so be it.
However, I do object to the subsidization of urban and suburban sprawl by tax-supported highways. I also object to the public subsidization of home ownership via the mortgage tax deduction. (I am a flat-taxer.) From the Globe:
Nathaniel Baum-Snow of Brown University found that each new highway passing through a central city reduces its population by about 18 percent. The home mortgage interest deduction further encouraged suburbanization, because rental units are disproportionately in cities while owner-occupied homes are disproportionately distant from city centers.
Note - sorry, those older links are now behind a paywall. Greedy capitalists at the Boston Globe are messing up our efforts to give them business.
Tuesday, January 1. 2013
More Yankeeland architectural pics tomorrow. One aspect of the traditional ethos is to make a home appear humbler and smaller, than it is. One way to do that is to make them narrow in the front, but to run on in the back with endless additions and attachments.
This is not an inn, it's a family homestead. Could have been an inn at some point in history. Here's the full view, behind the trees, Hard to determine which part came first, but Sipp can probably explain the cobbling here. I tend to guess that the Federal front part came second, but I can't be sure:
Monday, December 31. 2012
You always wondered where Eskimos went to the toilet:
You always wondered about Reindeer and sleds:
More old Eskimo pics here, from before the Welfare and snowmobile era. What I have always wondered is why they never moved further south..
Sunday, December 30. 2012
So you won't be disappointed, this will not be so much a review of the movie Django Unchained as a review of many reviewers. I've read about twenty reviews after seeing the movie. Django is pure Tarantino, over-the-top vulgar and violent, funny at times, the photography excellent and the actors fulfilling their roles well. In short, Django Unchained is a terrific shitkicker.
It is an action-revenge film that takes place in the pre-Civil War South, which along the way grips the viewer with White-on-Black violence and degradation of the worst imagination or fact and Black-on-Black violence (the Mandingo fighting a historical fraud, according to experts) and intra-Black slavery-facilitating discrimination and repression.
Most reviewers and audience polled give the film a high rating at review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. They just take it as Tarentino's outrageous brand of entertainment. Probably most viewers knew that going in to the theater.
Some reviewers, Black and White, criticize the ahistorical emphases within the film or the depiction of some Blacks (I don't recall any of these reviews reflecting similarly about the Whites), or wonder whether the film is a useful ideological guide to today's Blacks. They are entitled to their points of view, and their excesses can be forgiven for having to find enough words to fill their column. Still, most manage to lesser or greater extent applaud the film's execution even if disturbed by its supposed meanings.
Instead, don't look for meanings, or imagine them. Just enjoy a pure Tarantino shitkicker, with Shaft melded with Clint Eastwood and upping the gunplay, and every bad guy blown to spectacular smithereens.
Re-posted -
 That's the title of Mead's latest. He should have used a more provocative and engaging title, but it's not his style to do so.
Mead is a sort-of open-minded Liberal (I think) and an academic. One quote from this excellent piece, which (take note, BD) deserves to be on our Best Essays of the Year thing. A quote:
...the biggest roadblock today is that so many of America’s best-educated, best-placed people are too invested in old social models and old visions of history to do their real job and help society transition to the next level. Instead of opportunities they see threats; instead of hope they see danger; instead of the possibility of progress they see the unraveling of everything beautiful and true.
and
Since the late nineteenth century most intellectuals have identified progress with the advance of the bureaucratic, redistributionist and administrative state. The government, guided by credentialed intellectuals with scientific training and values, would lead society through the economic and political perils of the day. An ever more powerful state would play an ever larger role in achieving ever greater degrees of affluence and stability for the population at large, redistributing wealth to provide basic sustenance and justice to the poor. The social mission of intellectuals was to build political support for the development of the new order, to provide enlightened guidance based on rational and scientific thought to policymakers, to administer the state through a merit based civil service, and to train new generations of managers and administrators. The modern corporation was supposed to evolve in a similar way, with business becoming more stable, more predictable and more bureaucratic.
Most American intellectuals today are still shaped by this worldview and genuinely cannot imagine an alternative vision of progress. It is extremely difficult for such people to understand the economic forces that are making this model unsustainable and to see why so many Americans are in rebellion against this kind of state and society – but if our society is going to develop we have to move beyond the ideas and the institutions of twentieth century progressivism.
And later in his essay:
The foundational assumptions of American intellectuals as a group are firmly based on the assumptions of the progressive state and the Blue Social Model. Those who run our government agencies, our universities, our foundations, our mainstream media outlets and other key institutions cannot at this point look the future in the face. The world is moving in ways so opposed to their most hallowed assumptions that they simply cannot make sense of it. They resist blindly and uncreatively and, unable to appreciate the extraordinary prospects for human liberation that this change can bring, they are incapable of creative and innovative response.
Do me a favor by reading his whole essay. Better yet, read it and ask your Lib friends to consider it. If Obama is a personal friend, email it to him and Valerie Jarrett too. These Progressives are stuck in the past, and have not had an interesting new idea since Marx, who died in 1883, and who could never have been able to understand modern America where the poorest have wide screen TVs, two cars, washing machines, and the right to bear arms.
You know my view: Liberalism, aka Progressivism, is over 150 years old, and way over the hill - policy residue from the early nasty years of the early Industrial Revolution.
Pic is Walter Russell Mead, who looks the way I thought he would.
 Quite a fine king he was. A true philosopher-king. (1194-1250). From the wiki:
At the age of three, he was crowned King of Sicily as a co-ruler with his mother, Constance of Hauteville, the daughter of Roger II of Sicily. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage and his connection with the Sixth Crusade.
Frederick II (26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250), was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous. However, his enemies, especially the popes, prevailed, and his dynasty collapsed soon after his death. Historians have searched for superlatives to describe him, as in the case of Professor Donald Detwiler, who wrote:
A man of extraordinary culture, energy, and ability – called by a contemporary chronicler stupor mundi (the wonder of the world), by Nietzsche, the first European, and by many historians the first modern ruler – Frederick established in Sicily and southern Italy something very much like a modern, centrally governed kingdom with an efficient bureaucracy
 So claims Peggy Noonan, and I think it's darn good and enjoyable too: George Will on Religion in Politics at Washington U on Dec 4. (You have to click the link to video playlist for the speech, on the right)
"Do 'natural rights' presuppose religious faith?"
Will is not a man of faith and he is an old-fashioned Liberal. It's not a political speech; it's a wonderful historical-philosophical survey from the Greeks to Woodrow Wilson and the notion of progress, and it goes a long way towards explaining the historical underpinnings of the Maggie's chronically anti-statist and revolutionary view of the world.
Every 6th-grader to high school kid in America should know this basic stuff, but I bet many do not. "Should the State have a monopoly on social and civil authority?"
The Q&A after is excellent too. Family disintegration. Do not skip it. He speaks slowly and methodically, but it still deserves two listenings. George Will, like us, is a Madison and de Toqueville fan. Those guys were smarter and wiser than all of us. Those who think they know better need to beware of hubris: they were wary of all power.
America has indeed been exceptional in world history, and, we hope, will stick with it. I hate the idea of people voting without knowing their history.
Saturday, December 29. 2012
At Acton, The ‘Small’ God Who Brought Heaven Down to Earth. A quote:
This season, which pulsates with nostalgia, memory, sadness as well as with a deep and abiding sense of profound joy and human meaning – and does it all at once – is a season prompted by the very Incarnation of God’s Love, a love that goes beyond words, but rather is a Word – the Logos – that became flesh.
It is for this very reason that the Christian faith which emerges from this proclamation about God’s entrance into the human condition, could build institutions and cultures aimed at concretely reverencing each and every human person from the very first moment of their existence in the womb, in all their vulnerability and potential, without regard to their ethnicity or some other accidental factor. It is the belief stipulated in that memorable passage from Ecclesiastes (3:11): “He has … set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
The books from the people who know my reading tastes and tendencies but are always trying to nudge me towards a slightly higher fiction ratio. Having been rid of TV for the past few months, my reading rate has not increased at all because I never turned the thing on anyway. Who has time for TV when there is life to be lived, and a website to be edited?
I prefer dead-tree books to digital. Precious things. This is all great stuff to nourish brain and soul:
Mark Helprin: In Sunlight and in Shadow
Leonardo Sciasia: The Wine Dark Sea
Tom Reiss: The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
Guiseppi di Lampedusa: The Leopard (I can't believe I've never read this classic, but Mrs. BD decided it was time that I did)
Andrew Motion: Silver: Return to Treasure Island
Giles Foden: Turbulence
Orhan Pamuk: Snow
Sandra Benjamin: Sicily: Three Thousand Years of Human History
Louise Dickinson Rich: We Took To The Woods
Frank Oppell (ed): Tales of Old New England (Who knew that Boston used to export ice to India?)
Friday, December 28. 2012
 A family friend just returned from a year's posting overseas, and despite massive jet-lag got himself over to the Maggie's HQ to cook up a storm last night.
After a year of southeastern Asian food, he wanted to cook a rustic Ragu. Either rabbit or duck are fine, but he used duck because rabbit was sold out at the market. Lots of Italians around here in Yankeeland. Use Porcini for the mushrooms, or at least the dried mushroom mixes with porcini in them.
There are excellent versions of this without tomato, too. "Italian" does not = tomato sauce. The Italians were cooking tasty dishes for thousands of years before tomato seeds were brought over from Mexico.
(Another great Italian classic is Rabbit Stew - like Veal Stew - which is usually not served with a carb or, if it is, with rice or risotto.)
For a Ragu - or for almost any meat concoction like Beef Bourguignon or Beef (or venison) Stroganoff - the only pasta I like to serve is pappardelle, which is a broad, egg noodle. It's also the best pasta for Pasta al Funghi with Porcinis. Trust me. How much do we love Porcinis? Is there any other mushroom really worth eating?
A Chianti Classico or Chianti Riserva works well with it, too.
 I've been preaching this since long before Gary Taubes' books came out. That's because I have a colleague who studies the physiology of insulin. From what I know, Taubes is right. A quote re Dietary Incorrectness at Powerline:
Taubes disputes the connection between dietary fat and high cholesterol. He challenges the thesis that dietary fat is detrimental to our health. He rejects a balanced diet. He advocates a high-fat diet. He opposes dieting. He doesn’t object to exercise, but he asserts that it makes you hungry. It’s almost funny. He is the dietary equivalent of politically incorrect.
Taubes is a serious science reporter, not a crank. As I say here ad nauseum, and as Taubes explains, if you want to get trim, quit the carbs. None. That includes fruit, which isn't any good for you anyway. It's just sugar. As the man says, after 14 days off all carbs they will not appeal to you so much anymore. (There is an addiction-like quality to carbs.) And if you want to be fit, youthful, sexy, intelligent, and vigorous, then exercise or do physical work too. If you want to lower your triglycerides, get better genes or take Lipitor.
It's not complicated. It's a free country, food is cheap and exercise is free. Do what you want to achieve the goals you desire. Don't tell me it's hard to do, because everything in life is hard to do except eating, surfing the net, and watching TV.
Thursday, December 27. 2012
A powerful report from Heather MacDonald: Chicago's Real Crime Story - Why decades of community organizing haven't stemmed the city's youth violence.
I cannot pick out one juicy quote because the whole sad thing is of a piece: moral, family, and cultural breakdown since the 1960s. These kids are growing up in something between anarchy and Lord of the Flies. One quote:
Some members of Chicago’s Left will argue against holding fathers or mothers responsible for their children. “To blame it on the family is totally unfair,” says Gwen Rice, a board member of the Developing Communities Project. “I’m tired of blaming the parents. The services for the poor are paltry; it boggles the mind. Historically, you can’t expect a parent who can’t get a job to do something that someone with resources can do. These problems have histories; there are policies that have mitigated against black progress. What needs to happen is a change in corporate greed and insensitivity.” Rice corrects my use of the term “illegitimacy”: “There are no illegitimate births,” she says.
Wednesday, December 26. 2012
Those of us who served in Vietnam have fond memories of the traveling cover bands, usually very good, and their female dancers and singers, also very good and sexy. I saw a quote earlier that although we are now old, at least we got to see the great music groups. I'd include these show people who brought fun into our horny lives in Vietnam.
Cinammon Stillwell is an accomplished reporter. Her mother made this documentary about the entertainers who visited us wherever we were in Vietnam. It is one of a kind, something that to my knowledge has not been documented before. The film does not have an embed, so you have to go to this site to watch it. I know that us Vietnam vets will, and I think others out there will enjoy it and learn something different than many misconceptions.
Just for the heck of it, here's one of my blurry (I should say beery) photos in the 1st MarDiv HQs E-Club from back then:
 We always say that "freedom is messy" and that "Freedom is not for sissies." From Sultan's A Perfect Prison:
Bloomberg is a living model of the glass half-full theory of human behavior. This is after all a man who banned large sodas, and if you can't trust people to have large sodas, then you can't trust them to have cold medicines, let alone guns. Where does it end? It ends the same place - it ends in a prison. Nowhere. If you believe that people are basically bad, then every problem you identify is met with another control measure until you control absolutely everything.
(Hizzoner, of course, has been surrounded by armed men since he got rich on Wall St, long before becoming Mayor. Must be nice to afford armed bodyguards and armed drivers of your Lincoln Town Car while you sip single malt Scotch in the back with your latest squeeze while denouncing legal gun owners.)
The eternal problem with widespread freedom from state control is that some small minority of people can't or won't handle freedom, personal independence, self-control. For whatever reason, they do not buy into our social contract or are unable to fulfill it. Perhaps they never even heard of it, never were informed that a person makes a deal to be a citizen here and that it is a historically-unique privilege, responsibility, and challenge. How come nobody told them that life in America is supposed to be difficult and risky, but filled with opportunity? It's not about safety and comfort and was never meant to be based on anything but virtue and freedom. Our streets are not paved with gold, but with blood, sweat, and tears.
These failures of a minority of bad apples to get with the program invite the state to step in in an effort to provide controls and supports externally. Thus we all lose a bit of freedom each time some jerk, idiot, sociopath, addict, or lunatic abrogates his American dignity and fails at running his own life in the manner of an honest, free, law-abiding and upstanding citizen. It's a shame - and wrong - that the least moral and worse-behaving of our population should have the power to deprive freedoms from the vast majority of decent citizens who aim to construct honorable, dignified, and independent lives by following their consciences or God's will as best they can.
Go ahead and ask me why I might want a 30-clip magazine, or a Big Gulp Coke. Well, I don't really want those things, but I don't want them forbidden me. I have a handgun carry permit, but I don't walk around armed all the time. Rarely, in fact. I might as well ask why you need a car that goes 110 mph, when car deaths in the US are far higher than gun deaths (32,000, vs 600 deaths by rifle - half of them suicides and others accidents).
(For other stats: Swimming pool drownings in the US: Approx. 3000 per year, mostly young kids. Backyard pools frighten me far more than guns do. I hate pools and I like guns... Also, firearm murders with illegal handguns thus far in the gun-banning village of Chicago, 2012: 470.)
Leftist control freaks often try to find signs of "market failure" to justify government intrusion into the free and voluntary exchange of goods and services. Similarly, they seek signs of "freedom failure" with the same goals. It's about power of the elites over us little people - always for our own good, of course, because we are "the masses." However, there are no "masses" in America and there is no aristocracy of any sort, political or otherwise.
Isn't obesity a "freedom failure"? Of course it is. North Korea has no such problem because they enforce "food control." So my final thought on this topic tonight: Why does the government allow Medicare-aged people to be overweight? 500,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease per year. Surely some controls are called for to address this crisis of excess freedom which results in so much disability and death, and burdens everyone else with their medical bills. Easy for the government to fix that: just offer to pay for medical care based on your BMI. If it's over 27, no free doctors. They are heading that way in the UK already. My view is that if you want to be heavy, do so and enjoy it. Not on my nickel, though. My freedom to life and property should trump all else because it is a gift from God.
Image is via Theo
Part 1 was Lamp and Lantern Season
Part 2 was Keeping your humidor humid in winter
Winter in central New England entails jump-starters, oil lamps and lanterns, snow-blowers, snow plows, flashlights, snow shovels, plenty of firewood, hats and long-johns, and good gloves and boots of all sorts. Global cooling will be here soon. Oh, and 4WD for the sissies and the city-folk for whom a little snow and ice are daunting - and for your plow truck. Gas generators? We country folk don't go in for those.
I keep one of these charged up in the garage, and it came in handy when one of the tractors, rarely used this summer, had both a dead battery and squishy front tires Saturday. I had been using the Ford all summer, and figured I ought to get the Farmall moving a little to prevent Tractor Arthritis.
What was my chore? Heading up into the woods with the wagon to clear our cross-country ski trails of fallen trees, and to accumulate some more firewood in the process.
This cool thing solved both problems easily:
Monday, December 24. 2012
It's very brief, Here. (Don't tell the kids.)
The modern American celebration of Christmas, with its commercialized gift exchanges, developed in cities, led by New York, after 1880.
Nast, 1863, Santa in Camp
Nast, 1865
Sunday, December 23. 2012
The Folly of Scientism. Prof. Hughes begins:
When I decided on a scientific career, one of the things that appealed to me about science was the modesty of its practitioners. The typical scientist seemed to be a person who knew one small corner of the natural world and knew it very well, better than most other human beings living and better even than most who had ever lived. But outside of their circumscribed areas of expertise, scientists would hesitate to express an authoritative opinion. This attitude was attractive precisely because it stood in sharp contrast to the arrogance of the philosophers of the positivist tradition, who claimed for science and its practitioners a broad authority with which many practicing scientists themselves were uncomfortable.
The temptation to overreach, however, seems increasingly indulged today in discussions about science. Both in the work of professional philosophers and in popular writings by natural scientists, it is frequently claimed that natural science does or soon will constitute the entire domain of truth.
another quote:
Of all the fads and foibles in the long history of human credulity, scientism in all its varied guises — from fanciful cosmology to evolutionary epistemology and ethics — seems among the more dangerous, both because it pretends to be something very different from what it really is and because it has been accorded widespread and uncritical adherence. Continued insistence on the universal competence of science will serve only to undermine the credibility of science as a whole. The ultimate outcome will be an increase of radical skepticism that questions the ability of science to address even the questions legitimately within its sphere of competence. One longs for a new Enlightenment to puncture the pretensions of this latest superstition.
Saturday, December 22. 2012
It is no "assault weapon." "AR" means Armalite Rifle, not assault rifle. It's good for target shooting and for small game and critters like coyotes and groundhogs. Some consider it a lady's rifle, but might best be termed "gender-neutral." It is easily customizable. Very popular rifle. I think what most people understand the term "assault rifle" to imply is an automatic rifle, like a Tommy Gun or an AK-47.
In the NYT: Rifle Used in Killings, America’s Most Popular, Highlights Regulation Debate
The press seems usually not to to get that the vast majority of firearms are "semi-automatic." As we have mentioned here, a cowboy six-shooter is semi-automatic. As Rudy Guiliani said yesterday, a would-be killer can kill with anything no matter what it looks like. Killers in the US generally use 9 mm. handguns.
As this guy notes:
...what makes the AR-15 prime for these attacks? Simply the cosmetic make up of the gun - no less, no more. The AR-15 uses modern synthetic stocks, which make it look (to some) more menacing, but I am guessing you probably own a firearm right now that sports a non-wood stock. The AR-15 also has a detachable magazine, but I am also guessing you probably own at least one .22 rifle with the same feature. Some claim that the AR-15 can easily be converted to fully automatic. Well, it cannot... at least no more so than any other semi-auto firearm and doing so is illegal to boot. So it is easy to see that an AR-15, aside from sheer looks, is really no different than a standard semi-auto firearm you probably already own.
This is interesting: The results of the Gun Free School Zone act’s passage have been devastating.
OK, the photos. On top is a Remington semi-auto 30.06, below is an AR-15 semi-auto. Which looks scarier?
Friday, December 21. 2012
I spent the entire day of Friday 12/14 in a meeting. I kept getting text messages asking what I thought of 'the news', though I had no idea what they were referring to. When I finally came out from the meeting and saw what happened I was deeply saddened and my thoughts and prayers went out to the families and friends of those lost. It's a tragic episode, one which has played out far too often in the past few months here in the US.
I'm pleased with the limited time Maggie's has spent on the topic. By the end of Friday evening, I was done with the news. It isn't news. It's an emotional outpouring which began to grate on me, and even this morning as I left for work, I was annoyed that major outlets continue to spend far too much time on this tragedy. Without any useful information, it's been over-analyzed in the course of the week.
I can't and won't let emotion sway my beliefs. My views on life are backed up with analysis and thought, not an emotional reaction to one or two events.
This is important to me because the meetings I have been in are about leadership. One primary approach to leadership is that style less important than behavior. If your behavior in emotional and stressful situations is different from how you behave normally, it undermines your credibility and ability to process information rationally. This is why the voices we hear on the black boxes of aircraft facing emergencies are usually calm and matter-of-fact. These people were chosen to be in their position for a particular reason...
Continue reading "A Week Later, Some Thoughts on My Beliefs"
 Christmas Day is a traditional feast day so we are expected to cook something either traditional or tasty. We have done all of the things: turkey, goose, roast beef, crown roast of pork with apple stuffing (wow - good), etc.
On the other hand, the Italians do a cool thing - they do their Christmas Eve fish dinner because it is a vigilia di magro (fasting, Italian-style).That is darn good. Fried baccala, fried calamari, scungilli, clams, mussels, maybe lobster etc etc. I love the baccala, and those little fried minnows bagiggi - smelt - with lemon that you eat whole like french fries, and clams (if they aren't cooked), but I hate those cold seafood salads - dolphin bait. In Sicily, the tradition is seven fishes.
But back to Yankee Christmas dinner, and goose.
As regular readers know, for the Canada geese we shoot we usually cook the breast only, marinated and sauteed rare. We confit the legs and thighs. For Christmas goose, you need to cook the whole bird.
Supermarket goose tends much smaller (maybe in Dickens' time they had bigger farm geese - if you can find a giant Christmas goose as big as Tiny Tim, great), and has more fat on it. In fact, it seems about 50% fat, which oozes out during cooking and fills the pan below. If you want to cook that traditional English bird, you need a few of them. I would say, one per 3-4 people if you are using the supermarket birds. (Some might disagree with this.) One bird will not do it, as a turkey does, because once the fat melts off, there isn't much left except bones. The plus side of all of the fat is that they are self-basting.
Overcooking a pair (brace) of whole geese, at low heat, is not a bad idea. For a roast goose, you may really want the meat falling off the bone, unlike a nice rare breast of wild goose. Goose is, of course, a dark meat like duck (but more coarse in flavor, I think). Stuff them with apples and onions and things, but don't eat the stuffing.
Make a tasty sauce out of the drippings, once you have removed the fat. Add a little red wine, maybe a handful of huckleberries or dried cranberries and a bit of sugar, and reduce/thicken.
What to serve with goose? Mainly braised and sauteed roots. Parsnip, carrot, potato, turnip. And how about a rutabaga puree? I love the mentholy flavor of parnips and rutabaga. Or a celeriac (celery root) puree? Maybe a pile of braised, sauteed baby squash, too. Cranberry sauce? You betcha.
Are store geese delicious? Not really. It's more of a tradition than an epicurian experience.
This recipe is pretty good. Definitely use the goose fat to roast the potatoes in. Toss some Rosemary into the pan with the potatoes. Salt and pepper. Potato heaven.
Been in the City lately? I have. Love the vitality of it, the spirit, the pretty people. Best place in the world at Christmastime when everything and every corner is hopping. It is uplifting, invigorating, inspiring.
McSorley's is one of the great old pubs, but there are so many.
McSorley's allows ladies to enter nowadays, but it's really still a guy place. I puked in their bathroom one time as a youth. "Boot and rally," as we say. Not a sacred place - just old, uncomfortable, dusty, and rickety. Perfect.
Here's one: How Joseph Mitchell’s wonderful saloon became a sacred site for a certain literary pilgrim.
Thursday, December 20. 2012
 "In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there’s no resolution in sight."
Well, I think the Heller case sort of settled it. As I say, the only problem is criminals with illegal guns. America doesn't have too many guns, it has too many crims. When we figure out how to effectively control criminals and the violent insane...
Here's my proposal: First, the government removes all illegal weapons from all of the criminals and from the violent insane. This would require a major, nation-wide undertaking. Second step, as a sign of faith in their effort, the government removes all weapons from their own bodyguards and the bodyguards of the wealthy and celebs. Then we can talk about reasonable rules for civil society and for us ordinary, rule-following citizens. Historically, only aristocrats could be armed with swords or whatever. God forbid the humble, honest peasants like us have access to weapons too.
I saw at Drudge that WalMart is almost sold out of firearms this Christmas. Guys and gals both enjoy a fun new firearm to play with. So do kids. Many if not most American boys remember their first .22 under the Christmas tree. I sure do. My Dad, a US Army vet, university professor, opera- and ballet-lover, taught me everything about it, safety, assembly, cleaning, everything. Good stuff. The smell of that Hoppe's cleaning fluid always takes me back to the farm's kitchen table covered with newspaper with gun-oil stains, just like Proust's madeleine brought him back. I destroyed countless beer bottles and coke cans with that rifle.
He also got us a powerful clay target-thrower when we moved into shotguns. Since then, I have enjoyed the challenge of shotgunning more than rifles but I still have a few rifles in the closet. Not sure how many because we never use them. Farm tradition always had a loaded 12 ga. leaning against the kitchen wall like any other farm tool, and a loaded revolver in the kitchen drawer with the pliers and scissors and balls of string. Country-style, I guess. My Mom is/was a champion with skeet and trap, better than me because of her relaxed, serene focus.
I love hunting, but only hunters know that shooting guns is only a small part of it. That's why it's not called "shooting." Self-protection? I don't really need it now but we have had problems at the farm where, in a very isolated place far from government control, a firearm would be handy for justice purposes or to civilize an insane Black Bear.
Handguns? Well, I figger my concealed carry permit should be enough to deter bad guys because I have never actually carried except in the trunk of the car. Might be amusing for people to wear the carry permit on their Brooks Brothers sports jacket as a deterrent to trouble.
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