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.
There is plenty of motherly and grandmotherly wisdom in that book. Men used to talk about "settling down." Women need to learn how to make that happen unless their desire is to live forever like Hollywood starlets.
Here's a quote from the Amazon comments:
"Getting to I Do" catalogued various relationship scenarios, where the authors pointed out what worked and what didn't. I have to be honest, being a self-supportive "modern woman", I at first thought that the simplistic illustrations of male/female dynamics were really old-fashioned and that I might as well just talk it out with my grandmother. But, the book went way beyond just designating roles. For me it helped me to embrace the woman I was and to understand the relationship dynamic I wanted to have.
The book is terrific. I read it and applied it to my next relationship-someone I fell in love with and wanted to marry. I went through the "phases" as stated in the book and when it got down to the "negotiation" phase, my boyfriend wanted to move to France, with me. Great! But, not with an engagement. Turns out he was not ready to be married. It was a very painful to think about being without him. To have my dreams of being married to him dissolve. Fortunaltely, I had learned that I would be putting myself through so much more pain and anguish if I had up-rooted my life without any commitment other than being a great boyfriend. So, I let him go.
February 2010 was the ripping point of the Obama presidency. The only way the president could be a Hegelian Great Man of History — a doer of world-historical, taxpayer-subsidized deeds — was by sacrificing the ideals of unity and conciliation that had gotten him elected in the first place. For his transformative agenda was curiously unsuited to the times: Instead of confessing himself “childlike to the genius of his age,” he seemed to think he was living in 1933. He was blind to the fact that in 2010 not even a statesman of FDR’s gifts could have forged a consensus in favor of a centrally planned, state-run behemoth like Obamacare.
Win or lose, he is toast until he can get out of the White House and begin to make some serious bucks on the golf lecture circuit.
I've been impressed by how effective the petite 20-something blonde trainers are in encouraging middle-aged men to push to their limits during their 5 am work-outs at my gym. (I suspect the healthy-looking male trainers have a similar impact on the ladies.)
That should be no surprise, of course, given male psychology. Gyms and blonde trainers don't come cheap, however.
Even before Paul Ryan touted his enthusiasm for the Insanity program, I had been hearing about it from people (Ryan uses Insanity and P90X). I kinda like the way the woman in the Insanity ad says "I want to feel good about sharing myself with my husband for many years to come." That's a great attitude.
The problem with home work-out regimens is the self-discipline. On the other hand, challenges to self-discipline are how we build character. But, on the other hand...
Another Labor Day has passed, and I hope all Maggie's readers had a fine, relaxing long weekend. Barbecues, beer, wine, lawn or lounge chairs, picnics, whatever you typically do on a fine summer holiday, I'm sure you had a good time.
My wife and I, after having drinks with friends at the local swim club on Saturday, relaxed on a rainy Sunday then decided to head into the city on Monday to take a look at the Freedom Tower. We usually drive to Jersey City, park at a mall, and take the PATH train in. Parking and PATH for 3 people (our remaining homebound son joined us) was $22, much cheaper than driving into, and parking in, Manhattan.
They've done plenty of work on the tower and the area is finally starting to look as developed as it was prior to 9/11/2001. We checked for tickets to the 9/11 Memorial, but had 4 hours to wait. We decided to pass on that, and take a walk. Note to self, next time order tickets online before going in. They are free, but donations are welcome.
We headed up through City Hall Park, then turned and walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and into the DUMBO section of Brooklyn, where we decided to have pizza for lunch. Grimaldi's is the big name pizza place under the bridge. But the line was too long and we couldn't wait. Ignazio's is around the corner, and turned out to be a great alternative. Good pizza, great location near the water and also under the bridge. I give it high marks for food, service and views.
If you've never walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, I highly recommend doing it sometime. It's worth the effort. Not only do you get to soak up some of its great history, but the views are amazing. Some pictures below the fold. Unfortunately, it was not a bright, sunny day. We had some rain, it was overcast. It was still an enjoyable trek.
There are many people who hate math but are great poker players, but there are hardly any players who lack the people reading abilities and still manage to be good poker players,” said Vonk. “Mathematical knowledge can to a large extent be replaced by intuition and experience. After a player has played a million hands of poker, even if he does not know the math at all, he will have a decent feeling about when it is profitable to draw to a flush and when it is not.”
That said, knowing the math means you can acquire this kind of knowledge much more quickly, and those skills can give an edge in very rare situations that don’t often occur in a poker game. “To be a great player, you need both!”
Deep thinker Alec Baldwin thinks Obama would be 17 points up in the polls if he were white. I think he'd be 17 points down if he were white. His skin tone is a large part of his appeal, I believe.
These elegant stone barns were the dairy operation on the Rockefeller family's Kykuit Manor estate in Pocantico Hills, NY -a charming semi-rural hamlet nestled between the remarkably named villages of Sleepy Hollow and Pleasantville, one which has probably the highest-performing public schools in NY if not in the entire USA. Also, a famous Matisse and Chagall church.
The family recently deeded 1200 acres of their pasture and woodlands to New York State as parkland, now Rockefeller State Park Preserve. It has 20 miles of scenic riding and hiking trails, many overlooking the Hudson River. The parking lot was filled with horse trailers.
This land is only 25 miles north of Manhattan, 8 miles north of White Plains in Westchester County. That's what is remarkable about it.
The stone barns area of the preserve is now operated as a demonstration organic farm (definitely not vegan - they grow their own free-range pigs, beef, chickens, lamb, turkeys and geese), and is the site of the Blue Hill Restaurant. They only cook local, and pretty much all of their food comes from their farm, year-round, like old-timey farmers. They do not make their own Coke or Scotch whiskey, however. We stopped by for a stroll and a late lunch last weekend. Blue Hill has no menu, reservations required, but their cafe is casual.
OK, I think eating local is silly and that "organic" is a foolish fad. Harmless efforts, though. I did happen to notice that the natural gas which runs their a/c is imported from out-of-state because NY still has no fracking. Same for the greenhouse heating system for winter. Local food, imported energy. Guess that passes as "green" these days.
... the PhD is not being hired for anything other than part-time teaching; the JD is reduced to the law library gofer; the freshly minted MD is the equivalent of a salaried, high-paid nurse; the credentialed high-school teacher is subbing; the engineer is a draftsman; the carpenter is cobbling together home repair mini-jobs. The new plum job? Landing one of those federal or state regulatorships, inspectorships, or clerkships, which are paid for with borrowed money, produce little, and grow as those they audit and fine shrink.
In other words, we are seeing the proverbial chickens coming home to roost in an economy that has run up $16 trillion in debt, regulated its way into paralysis, hounded the private sector, and demonized profit-making.
It's time for a new approach. I hope the youngsters will realize that before the talents of an entire generation are wasted, and hope for the future (besides a hope for free birth control) is destroyed by hopey-changey.
Most public officials are mesmerized by the egalitarian fantasy. They insist that investing more in higher education will even out inequalities by helping those at the bottom get an Associate's Degree to compete with Ivy League graduates. No Virginia, Santa Claus cannot help those baffled by Algebra I to earn millions doing mind-boggling Wall Street swaps and derivatives. And take heed, Occupy Wall Streeters: next year's 1% will be even smarter and richer than today's 1% as the pool of applicants to top colleges expands as a resul tof growing worldwide wealth. In fact, thanks to this relentless upward pressure from an ever larger pool of applicants, today's 1% may eventually be displaced by those with even higher IQ's.
Those who wave the bloody flag of "fairness" in the income distribution are doomed. Exceptional talent, as any sports fan can tell you, does not come cheap. Bill Gates was once asked to identify his greatest competitor. He said Goldman Sachs. A puzzled interviewer asked why, and Gates responded that both Goldman and Microsoft competed for the same prime intellectual talent at the very edge of the bell curve's right side. Finding and rewarding top intellectual ability in today's global economy is incompatible with economic leveling though, ironically, this "unfair" meritocracy that looks nothing like those below will bring greater prosperity to everyone.
I'd prefer a more intimate, less insistent, rapid, and more modulated delivery, but Marco delivers the basic conservative message as only the kids of immigrants can do. He will mellow and ripen with age. (He is welcome to email me for advice!).
My other problem with his fine speech is equating power and/or money with the American Dream. There are over 300 million American dreams, no two of them identical. Freedom from the state, and opportunity with real risk and the possibility of real personal satisfaction with the shaping of unique lives, is what matters. The chance to follow your own heart and mind, bearing in mind that it might not work out and everybody might need a Plan B and a Plan C.
Only immigrants and the kids of new immigrants can remind us of how entitled and decadent we have had become.
Jeu de paume ("hand-game" or "palm game") was the handball precursor to raquet tennis. Paris' Jeu de Paume Gallery is in an old court.
"Real tennis," or "court tennis" came next. I had fun watching some pros play this on the court at Hampton Court a few years ago. There are a number of Real Tennis courts in the US, including one at the exclusive NY Raquet and Tennis Club on Park Avenue (men only).
Lawn Tennis was invented as a casual outdoor version of the wonderful game. I still prefer playing my tennis indoors: I play much better, and I cannot serve into the sun worth a damn.
Remember the Tennis Court Oath of the French Revolution? I believe that was a Court Tennis court.
Image is Jacques Louis David's Tennis Court Oath. It did not end up well because they were not Americans.
The 2011 film Machine Gun Preacher did not get wide play. It didn't play into the memes that Hollywood pumps out and unashamedly awards itself for. This is a true story of as deep a violent, ex-con, drugged man as you never want to experience finding G-d and turning his life around, and making his family proud. Right there this film crosses (if you'll pardon the expression) the effete critics who delight in films that disparage faith. However, the film further sins (again, if you'll pardon the expression) as the man finds what turns into a higher purpose for his life, fighting, yes bloody real machine gun fighting, against the savage African army of Joseph Kony that slaughters, enslaves, performs ritual murders, forces young children to participate in northern Uganda and southern Sudan. In my belief, it is more important to G-d what we do for others and how we treat others than what pieties we mouth. That is what G-d desires of us. The man, Sam Childers, hocks almost everything he has built in the US, overruling his wife and daughter's concerns for their own financial security, to build an orphanage in South Sudan, in the middle of the war zone, to shelter and protect hundreds of children and feed many hundreds more. In the process, Childers becomes disillusioned with the idea of relying on G-d to save the needy, and is adrift in figuring out how to be a man of principle and caring while having to be bloodthirsty in fighting Kony's forces. Childers finds himself coming out of this flame (again, if you'll pardon the expression) to being a decent person, at harmony with his family, and fighting as hard as ever against Kony's thugs. To my faith, that is doing G-d's will for us.
Stay watching the ending credits as Childers is totally unapologetic about what he does. For those who feel so safe that they feel they have the luxery of abhoring violence that is often necessary in the real world by real men (and women) this is the cardinal sin (yeah, again, if you'll pardon the expression). No wonder, 77% of the 108 paid-to-be-professional critics who chirp together logged at Rotten Tomatoes disliked the film, but in the real world of the over 11,000 audience members who voted at Rotten Tomatoes 63% liked the film. You can now only get it on DVD or streaming, but it'll be worth it. There is vulgarity at the start of the film, but stay tough for the tough truth in this film, people can only be safe when there are those who risk all.
Chris Cornell wrote and performed this song, The Keeper, for the movie. It's beautiful. But, don't be fooled by the clips of the film in the background. The film is not all uplifting moments. It contains much violence, including horrible brutalities upon children. Don't expect to come out of this film just uplifted but, if you have a soul and some guts, you'll be more determined to tangibly confront evil.
Surely some readers have cucumbers in their gardens by now. Probably, tons of them.
First one: two slices of good bread, one slice of Costco ham, plenty of mayo, a fat slice of a tomato from the garden, and generous slices/chunks of Costco goat cheese, salt and pepper. Mmmm.
Or: bread, fat slice of tomato, skinny slices of warm cucumber from the garden, salt and pepper and mayo. Wow.
Or, minimalist - the man's version of a lady's cucumber sandwich: bread, two or three fat slices consisting of an entire cucumber from the garden (sliced lengthwise, not in rounds, with or without the seed part), salt and pepper, mayo. Olive oil and vinegar dressing always substitutable for the mayo, but I prefer the Hellman's.
Never build a sandwich without salt and pepper - learned that long ago from a chef friend. Except PB&J - or Fluffernutter, of course.
Theo's inflated girlfriend, pictured, loves a good old Yankee Fluffernutter. She told me so. (Loyal Yankee tho I am, I cannot eat those things.) Anyway, I think this gal is pulling in her tummy for the photo.
...the truth needed to make the world a better place is a "public good" that private markets cannot easily supply. Foundations have spent many millions of dollars financing private, market-oriented think tanks in an effort to compensate for the damage being done by academia. But while these think tanks have had an influence at the margins, the vast majority of college-educated Americans continue to rely on the information provided by elite universities and mainstream media rather than the think tanks that espouse classical liberal thought.
Can market forces provide the creative destruction needed to solve this problem?
Pic below via SDA. Amusing, but I know many Conservative young ladies. There are many women out there who do not wish to marry the federal government. Sandra, who wants me to pay for her birth control pills, happens to be a law student from a wealthy family. Ask Dad to pay for your pills, Sandra. Or your boyfriend.
Ultimately this division — clerisy and their clients versus yeomanry — will decide the election. The patricians and the unions will finance this battle on both sides, spreading a predictable thread of half-truths and outright lies. The Democrats enjoy a tactical advantage. All President Obama needs is to gain a rough split among the vast group making around or above the national median income. He can count on overwhelming backing by the largely government dependent poor as well as most ethnic minorities, even the most entrepreneurial and successful.
Romney’s imperative will be to rouse the yeomanry by suggesting the clerisy, both by their sheer costliness and increasingly intrusive agenda, are crippling their family’s prospects for a better life. In these times of weak economic growth and growing income disparity, the Republicans delude themselves by claiming to ignore class warfare. They need to learn how instead to make it politically profitable for themselves.
There is a slow, deliberate change taking place on the internet. Not all that long ago, most digital publishers offered 'free' content, focusing on the sale of ads. This model is not a good revenue generator for the majority of websites. Several years ago, the Wall Street Journal switched to a paid model, and the New York Times also has a pay wall, one which is somewhat porous. Many of the digerati feel all content on the internet can, or should be, 'free'.
The Economist is a publishing outfit which has spent much time analyzing this market and how to approach it. I have read The Economist for years and I respect their views and analysis. They recently moved to the subscriber model, as well.
Technically, most publishers are not 'free', since they use advertising to cover their costs of business. But there's a cost to you, the reader, with advertising. It's a subtle cost, one which impacts the amount of readable material and sometimes even the editorial content. The alternative, a subscriber model, is something internet users rarely encounter. For some reason, people are comfortable subscribing to magazines, newspapers, and even cable TV. Radio remains one of the few 'free' media, and even that is changing as XM/Sirius slowly becomes popular (it was included as a 'free' trial for a year with our new car). However, on the internet, it's not uncommon to hear people ask for 'free' access.
Should news and information remain 'free', and, if not, why would anyone be upset if it isn't? Many of my friends who work in the media industry have lamented the move to subscriber models. I point out a simple fact. If they were willing to pay for the paper or magazine, why wouldn't they be willing to pay for the online version? Is there some difference in the delivery system that eliminated costs?
The really troublesome thing about all this is that many academic writers, even in the humanities, have legitimate and important insights to convey. Yet they genuinely believe, whether for one of the aforementioned reasons or for some other, that it doesn’t serve their interests to write straightforward English sentences.
My theory is that, if you couch your observations in academese, it makes you sound smarter. In ordinary English, most deep insights end up sounding pretty ordinary.
With the new football season only a week away, I started gearing up for my fantasy leagues. I'm usually in at least one, sometimes two, because I love the science of football. I love any sport that is highly quantifiable, and football has recently begun to have more than its share of statisticians break it down.
To learn as much as I can and prepare, I've studied the game closely. The best sites I've found are Football Outsiders and Advanced NFL Stats (I'm open to more if anyone cares to share). Call them sabremetricians for football, and as Bill James' work revived my love for baseball, these people keep my enjoyment of football very high.
The real value of fantasy leagues are the communication which takes place between the participants. It tightens the bonds of friendship and improves the vibe in an office. People who once had only work in common suddenly have much to talk about.
The old saw that you don't discuss religion or politics in polite company should probably be revised to include sports. Specifically fantasy sports, but sports in general can be very messy. Many of us have had disagreements and arguments over sports. Regardless of quantifiability, the question of who the greatest players are will always be fraught with emotion rather than pure reason. Barstool logic tends to predominate these discussions.
One could say barstool logic predominates most emotionally driven discussions.
"Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will be judged by only one thing-the result."
My favorite coach of all time (many peoples' favorite), Vince Lombardi, was often called upon to share his opinions on business, politics, and religion. Vince was a devout Catholic, a very tough taskmaster, but he was known to have a heart of gold. His views on the relationship between success and work for the achievement of victory continue to resonate through the years. He was a man who took control and didn't place blame, he inspired people to perform a job.
Filmed while walking on sand. That might be an error, because the shakiness gives me a headache and I pan too quickly. The minute, despite that, gives you an idea of why we love the spirit-cleansing place. It ain't the Jersey Shore, that's for sure. Nothing against the Jersey Shore, mind you.
Love the beach tents where people put their newborns to keep them out of the sun and wind, and to nurse in privacy. All babies require a little bath in the cool water, though, to help toughen them up for life. They love it. All of our kids have benefited from cold salt water, and still love it.
That's Cape Cod Bay, with Plymouth straight across but not visible. The Pilgrims sailed right past this spot, stealing the Indians' corn until the Indians in Eastham found them and showered them with arrows. Hence Plymouth, where the Indians had all died but left vast cornfields.
'Apocaloptimist' is a humorous term I recently heard that best describes how I've felt about the economy these last 4 years. The concept that it's all crashing down, but not to worry because we'll all be fine, in the end. I'm not sure that it's all going to come crashing down, but we're still not out of the recession/depression and there is a long road ahead before things improve to the point where we can feel confident about the future. Regardless of where we are, a quick review of history does point to one clear fact, and this is simply that mankind has a remarkable capability to adapt, make due, and eventually engage progress of a tangible nature.
We're still progressing today, just much more slowly.
But in the depths of a recession, true pessimists step forward. These are people who cannot see anything good, and refuse to take a simple step of reviewing history and seeing that bad times never last 'forever'. Absolutes can come back to haunt you, if used improperly. "We can never..." is the kind of phrase that inspires someone, somewhere to think, "Well, maybe we can...", and then they actually go out and do whatever it is we could never do.
Most human activity leads to peaks and those peaks are usually followed by valleys. Getting into the right frame of mind is how you get out of the valley and move to the next peak. Statements such as this, however, do nothing to help:
“No more fundamental innovations are likely to be introduced to change the structure of [today’s] society .... Like every previous civilization, we have reached a technological plateau.” — Jean Gimpel, technology historian, professor, and author.
Malthus was wrong, and 215 years later his views have still not provided any meaningful insights on how the world operates.
It should be a scandal that the federal government is purposefully weakening a core principle of our value system: self-reliance. To wit, the feds are praising local bureaucrats for "counteracting" what they call "mountain pride." These bureaucrats are convincing people who characteristically reject food stamps to instead embrace a culture of dependence.
It's in the politicians' interest to grow dependency: dependency means votes. It's in the bureaucracy's interest to grow dependency: that's how they grow their "business" and make themselves necessary and important, and keep their jobs.
I cannot imagine mowing an entire hayfield with a scythe, but they are excellent tools once you get the hang of the rhythm and the motion, especially for steep or hard-to-reach places. If you sharpen the blade.
We always had a foot-pedal-driven sharpening wheel, with an oil can on top. Handy for sharpening anything. Easy to get kids to do the foot-pedaling for a few minutes.
"The Marugg grass scythe proves itself an excellent tool. It is the most satisfying hand tool that I have ever used. In tough grass it cuts a little less uniformly than the power scythe. In all other ways, in my opinion, it is a better tool because, it is light, it handles gracefully & comfortably even on steep ground, it is far less dangerous, it is quiet & makes no fumes, it is much more adaptable. In rank growth one narrows the cut & shortens the stroke. It always starts - provided the user will start. Aside from reasonable skill & care in use, there are no maintenance problems. It requires no fuel or oil. It runs on breakfast. It's cheaper to buy than most weed eaters & is cheaper to use than any other power mower. And best of all it's good exercise."
Berry wrote a short story titled The Good Scythe.
As for me, I suffer from a decadent weakness for power tools and power equipment - anything that uses gas or electricity - but I am sure Berry is right. I do have two large patches on the farm that require a scythe. One is too steep for the tractor, and one is too muddy for the TR or the tractor. A stuck-in-the-mud heavy machine is no fun at all. A TR on a very steep slope makes for dangerous slapstick, but I've done it a few times.
My Mom still reminds me about how much her Dad - a businessman, Polo player, sailer, fisherman, skiier, hunter and shooter, Poker-player, Scotch-drinker, cigar-smoker, and a good pal of mine - loved to clear his head with a few hours of scything each weekend on the farm. Followed by a few hours of riding over hill and dale. My Mom does not approve of my affection for power tools (unless I am doing something she wants done). I miss the guy, dead from an MI at 63.
He made the most of the time he had, which was and is an inspiration to me. A Congregationalist Protestant, in his will he gave his field next to his house to the RC Church which had wanted to purchase it for a new church, and left them his house for a parish house.
During the War, he made that field into a large Victory Garden with a large chicken coop, and raised cattle on the Farm (and kept his - and my Mom's - horses at the farm too. Big Hunters). My family tradition is to always have some land somewhere, whether for survival or for pleasure.
It's a very complicated state of affairs, but the economy still stinks for almost everybody without a government job. However, it does not alter my longstanding thesis that a liberal arts education is not meant to be a job credential, and never was. It was designed as life-enrichment, advanced mental discipline, and delayed-adulthood for the clergy, for serious scholars, and for the prosperous elites.
Most of the kids today are being challenged to build something for themselves. That's a good thing for everybody, but it works better if the government gets out of the way.
A good book for single girls and ladies who think having a good husband might be a good idea for a good life:
This must be what Bill Clinton meant by referring to Obama as "an amateur." Woodward on how
I've been impressed by how effective the petite 20-something blonde trainers are in encouraging middle-aged men to push to their limits during their 5 am work-outs at my gym. (I suspect the healthy-looking male trainers have a similar impact on the ladies.)
VDH: 
A re-post. 
It's about Americans who have 
I cannot imagine mowing an entire hayfield with a scythe, but they are excellent tools once you get the hang of the rhythm and the motion, especially for steep or hard-to-reach places. If you sharpen the blade.