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.
Diligent students of Maggie's Farm have had the chance, over the years, to become familiar with many of the common birds of North America - or at least of the Eastern US. The common winter sparrows around my parts (not including Junco, which is a sparrow):
In some winters, we get a surge of Fox Sparrows, but not this year. This year, though, I have seen more Tree Sparrows than ever (that's the American Tree Sparrow, not the Eurasian):
The Chipping Sparrow is common here in the summer, but migrates south. I rarely see a Field Sparrow anymore these days. No idea why. Never see White Crowned Sparrow at my feeder either.
This is the common urban pest, once called the English Sparrow (they were a nasty import from Old Blighty):
An interesting perspective on internet marketing from our respectable oriental rug consultant/expert friend at Rug Rag, who is clearly frustrated by the Google system in which, as I understand it, one can buy one's position on searches. Commerce is a tough game:
Sniper sites show up in the top 10 search results for "Oriental Rugs." A 100% commission-based single page facade website literally has every site link directing traffic straight to an affiliate Canada-based dealer which cannot sell most of their Persian rugs to the States unless they happen to be warehoused in NY.
Another is a hole-in-the-wall shows in top ten for "Oriental Rugs." So many unbelievably great rug companies in the States with fantastic websites and merchandise, and a black hat SEO site represents the top 10 searches for the term. They have over 20,000 pages from what we can see most are dedicated for each town and city in every state covering the US, in some cases, misleading to have a location selection in every one.
Picture of a spider-hole rug store below, courtesy Google maps. Front had the name on it, so that pic is from the side. Ranks 6-8 for "Oriental rugs" in Google. Problem is, there need to be more quality sites ranking for these keywords.
We want to keep the junk Persian rugs off peoples' floors, but we don't rank high enough to be seen before people make purchase decisions.
I wasn't able to join Mrs. BD and friends to hear the great Yale and NYU Prof Harold Bloom talk about Shakespeare Monday night at the Classic Stage Company (a theater company she loves and supports) just off Union Square.
She reported a few random things Bloom said, paraphrased:
"Lear is Shakespeare's greatest work. I don't know how a human could have written it."
"I am not a Shakespeare scholar. I give no credence to any Shakespeare scholar."
"Shakespeare used a 22,000 word vocabulary in his writing. No other writer has ever come close to that. And he probably invented 1000 words, many of them now part of ordinary English."
"He wrote Othello, Macbeth, and Lear within 14 months. How could that be done?"
"He may have died of Syphilis."
Mrs. and Co. had supper at the Blue Water Grill. With the Union Square Cafe, The Gotham Bar and Grill, the Blue Water Grill, and Toqueville(which my daughter loves), Union Square has come a long way since I sort-of lived on University Place. Back then, the cops would stop by to pull dead guys out of the bushes in the morning. ODs, mostly.
Now it has a dog park and an open air bar with live music, and I guess most of the old addicts and drunks are dead.
Pretty amazing, eh? A huge theme park has to relocate a ride because of a... ghost?
Bosses at a theme park were forced to move a new ride after workers reported seeing what appeared to be a headless monk.
A paranormal detection agency called in by park bosses to carry out tests found that an ancient burial ground or settlement could have been disturbed.
Paranormal expert Jim Arnold, who carried out tests at the site, said that "results were picked up immediately, with orbs, ghostly images in photography and Ouija reaction results being strongest around the site where they were proposing to build Storm Surge. The results were so strong we felt the only explanation could be that an ancient burial ground or settlement was being disturbed, prompting the extra paranormal activity."
Wouldn't you just love to know what an Ouija reaction result is? The person holding the board hiccuped and the pointer moved?
And I like the term "extra" paranormal activity — as referred to the normal amount of paranormal activity found at construction sites.
Oh, and the name of this backwater third-world country caving to medieval superstition?
Well, just click on the link and find out for yourself.
Interesting bird, the Snow Goose. For one thing, it comes in a blue and white form, and all sorts of intermediate forms, so was long thought to be two species. For another, its population has boomed in recent years such that it is destroying its tundra nesting areas, and so the wildlife managers are essentially begging people to shoot them. They were scarce in the 1970s.
There is almost no real limit on these birds, and it is now legal to use electronic calls to try to bring them into your field decoy spread during the spring Snow Goose season in the midwest. However, as it turns out, hunting makes no dent in their numbers.
When a flock of 100 or 1000 of them descend over your blind into your field decoys on a frigid dawn, it's one hell of an adrenaline rush and one hell of a shooting experience. A literal "blast," and you cannot reload your auto fast enough to keep up with the action of these determined birds who can, at times, seem quite undeterred by the sound of shotgun fire. They go down very easily, compared to Canadas which can sometimes coast or flap for a quarter mile with a fatal wound, which gives a retriever - or a fellow - a good work out.
We say "They go down like a prom dress."
Our Brit cousins would love this shooting - they have, alas, nothing comparable for fun. Neither prom dresses nor Snow Geese. Our good pal Mr. Free Market would have the time of his life.
When 5000 of them decide to chose the seemingly identical barley field adjacent to the one you happen to be in for brainless goose reasons, it is a deeply frustrating experience and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.
A northern Canadian nester, this medium-sized honker is highly migratory across the US, especially in the Central Flyway. It is not unusual, these days, to see them flying over Vermont ski slopes in winter, or on Long Island potato fields.
The causes of the potentially self-destructive population boom are unclear, but may have to do with changes in the agricultural lands on which they winter. I wish I had a decent digital image of the size of the flocks of these birds, capable of truly blocking out the sun, but my best shots are from my pre-digital era, a few years ago. Beautiful, and awe-inspiring but, according to the biologists, a big problem too. They could be wrong; it might just be a natural boom and bust cycle like the housing market.
Being game birds, a word is always in order on cooking, since you must eat what you kill. These geese do not hold a candle to the delectable Canada Goose. The tough breast is best stewed, or crock-potted, and can be quite fine in a cassoulet. But anything is good in a cassoulet on a cold snowy, blowy winter evening, with crunchy garlic toast and a few bottles of Cote Roti and a mountain of powerful stinky French cheeses on the side.
More about Snow Goose at CLO, whence the photo, here.
Our old post on Cassoulet is lost for the moment. Good hearty peasant food, best made with game sausage and game meat of any sort. We once made one with venison sausage, wild boar, and Snow Goose breast.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get more inane, Brooklyn College is exposed for gross negligence in its hiring and supervision of a self-professed pro-Palestinian activist – a grad student himself -- to teach the Politics of the Middle East to other grad students.
As a reporter cites, Kristofer Petersen “makes no secret of his aggressively pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist views.” The report, titled “Drawing Lessons From The Brooklyn College Uproar,” by quoting those directly involved in the hire, makes it evident from the horses' mouths that this hire is a horse’s ass, irresponsible, ignorant and unprofessional.
Although Petersen says of several dozen demonstrators who turned out to support him “he was disappointed that some of his defenders turned their speeches into diatribes against Israel,” Petersen nonetheless addressed them rather than leave. A Commenter to the report lists the virulent hate groups Petersen attracts.
Petersen says he modeled his heavily slanted syllabus on that of a professor of Mideast studies at CUNY’s Graduate Center, who recommended Petersen for the position. That professor, however, told the reporter, “the Israeli-Palestinian portion of his former student’s syllabus is different from his own and that Petersen-Overton includes some scholars he would never use in his own class.” He cites Edward Said, “not a Mideast scholar…much more political advocacy than scholarship”; Noam Chomsky, “a linguist, not an expert on the Mideast”; Ilan Pappe “sees himself as an advocate” not an objective historian. That professor says, “many of them should be balanced with others”.But they aren’t. This professor advised Petersen to keep his own views to himself, “but [the reporter sums up] this former student takes the opposite approach.” The recommending professor knew better but didn't act upon it.
Although the PoliSci professor who hired Petersen argued that he should be rehired after he was terminated, that professor says the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict [is] a subject with which Ungar isn’t familiar.” So, where was his competence to hire Petersen?
Another senior professor at the college says “academic freedom for adjuncts should begin once they distribute their syllabus – but not beforehand. ‘The department has influence, if not control, over the structure of the course, including readings and the topics to be covered.’ “ Instead, the PoliSci department abdicated its responsibility.
The report ends with this choice double-talk by Petersen of his slanted course: “Asked whether he sees himself as a scholar or an activist, the professor said he regards himself ‘as a scholar in my scholarly work and as an activist in my activist work. The answer would be both.' ”
Petersen, also, has a Brooklyn Bridge to sell.This gross negligence at Brooklyn College is a disgrace. If there’s a lesson to be learned, Brooklyn College must exercise proper vetting and supervision in its classrooms. Anything less would be another Brooklyn Bridge for sale on campus. Academic negligence, and slant, cannot be hidden behind or excused by chanting academic freedom.
I thought it appropriate to group these three movies together since they all have that same warm, fuzzy feel to them. Not to mention a hot chick! Or, at least in the case of True Grit, hot under the collar!
True Grit
Doc's List Of The Toughest-Talkin' Hombres In All Of Western Moviedom:
5. John Wayne in The Alamo
4. Clint Eastwood in Hang 'Em High
3. Kurt Russell in Tombstone
2. Gene Hackman in The Quick and the Dead
And #1 on Doc's List Of The Toughest-Talkin' Hombres In All Of Western Moviedom:
1. Little 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
I mean, wow. Write some tough lines for any of the above heavyweight dudes, then stick a dainty 14-year-old girl wearing her daddy's big floppy hat in front of the camera speaking them, and watch the sparks fly. Poor old Rooster never knew what hit him.
Neither did this poor slob:
Nor did Jeff Bridges, who said in an interview that he was full of trepidation at the thought of giving the lead to an unproven 14-year-old, but the first scene they filmed was when she walked in while he was sleeping and proceeded to verbally kick his ass all over the room, at which point he never had another doubt.
What was particularly impressive about the movie was that it had a nice unhurried feel to it, as befitted the times, yet it never dragged. I had complained in my Jonah Hex post a few weeks ago how slow and boring Westerns had become, and while there wasn't a lot of gunplay in Grit, it sure never felt boring. Even the 'quiet' scenes, like around the campfire and saddling up the horses, had a sharp edge to them because of the ever-present tension between Marshall Cogburn and Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, played to perfection by Matt Damon.
Another nicety is the way they stick to the language of the day and don't use contractions — a purely modern convention. I'm sure it felt a little awkward and unnatural for the actors at times, and it's a little jarring to hear, but its authenticity made up for any disjointedness. They also use 'full' sentences, unlike the clipped way we speak today.
Old way:
"I do not know of that which you speak!"
Modern way:
"Huh??"
A truly enjoyable movie. Notes on Toy Story 3 and Shrek 4 are below the fold.
Winter is made for outdoor fun of the strenuous type. I call the cold "God's air conditioning." Time to do things that make you sweat like a pig when it's cold as hell.
When the kids were young, we focused on family skating, skiing and sledding. Wonderful times, and all of my kids have mastered these things while accumulating the scars and broken bones that are an essential part of a vigorous childhood. My family does vigor, avoids "relaxation" - our theory is that you can lie around and relax when you're dead.
I used to like a ten mile road run in the morning in 10 degrees, but I don't do that anymore even though I should. (I prefer my wake-up cigar and a large Dunkin.) My relatives and friends like Paddle, cross-country skiing, Frostbiting, snow-shoeing, and skiing of course. My elderly Mom still likes to get her cross-country skis on and go out in the woods and hills and fields for a couple of hours in 10 degrees (F). Never was a wimp. She does appreciate a hot toddy on her return, a warm fire, and somebody to listen to her tell what she saw ("I saw a Goshawk on the ridges and flushed a grouse out of the briars by the river. Bear tracks on the mountain trail.").
I told her we might find her dead frozen body someday halfway up Tim's Mountain, and she said that was OK with her.
What do you like to do for outdoor cold-weather fun?
I'm sure readers have surmised that we are not big on fake things here at Maggie's Farm. We are sort of stuck on that 1960s authenticity thing.
However, we will make an exception for a few fake candles. Mrs. BD used them over the holidays for decorating tables and pine-strewn mantles, and I had to confess that they were quite pleasant and realistic with a waxy look and feel, and have the benefit of not burning down your house on Christmas Eve while you are busy carving the goose.
Real is better, but there's a role for these fake things. They seem to come in all shapes.
I think she got her collection of them at Bed Bath and Beyond the Budget, but they can be found all over the internet now.
I don't recall doing anything to change my camera settings, but I guess I did. Perhaps I can term this my brief Ohio Highlands Blue Period and try to make an artistic virtue out of a tech accident:
In the end, Gwynnie kindly managed to salvage some of my pics, and to restore the world to its proper tones:
God knows how many lawyers have built their retirements in West Palm Beach or "the Tampa area" on slip 'n fall cases in New York City. It's a major industry there, feeding mostly off the deep pockets of the city government. They settle promptly.
There is an entire category of inattentive person which seems to be slip and trip-prone. Perhaps their moms never told them "Watch what you're doing." They trip over curbstones. The overlap of that set of people with the set of greedy litigious persons are the key to the jackpot for both the lawyers and for the lucky jerk who didn't watch where he was going and has the personality type to cash in.
In the past, such people would win the Darwin Prize which eliminates their genes from the gene pool, but, in the new world, they win the big bucks.
Winter must be a windfall for these lawyers. Everybody slips on ice, and everybody knows that Gomers Go To Ground.
Admittedly the design is meant to be as much to invent an aesthetic rus in urba experience rather than a practical one, but how could anybody design anything in which some litigious person might not be able to find something to trip over? Aren't there rocks to trip over in Central Park? There are rocks and roots and ice all over my town paths where I like to take my dog - each one, I would suppose, with dollar signs all over it. I have slipped and tripped and fallen many times in my life, broke an arm, tore a shoulder to shreds, etc., and it never occurred to me to sue anybody.
I thought the litigation risk of the High Line would be drunks falling off the sides. Maybe I am out of sync with this new way of life. How do you design a litigation-proof anything other than a padded cell?
Back last night from a quick visit to a snowy and frigid central Ohio. Naturally, we had breakfast at Bob Evans'. Stupid not to:
This was my "be fit" breakfast. Yum:
But look how the outdoor shot is washed out and blue, and the indoor shots were not. I think I fiddled with my settings, but I don't know what I did wrong. It's on full auto, I think.
Every outdoor shot I took, unless there were some lights in the photo, did the same thing.
For another example, this shot (while snow falling from a grey sky) should have been pretty nice, but it's blue:
This problem is new to me. Don't tell me to photoshop it. I don't do that.
All of us at Maggie's Farm enjoy a Bloody Mary at brunch. Extra horseradish, please. Some of us prefer it made with Spicy Clamato, or sometimes as a Bloody Bull (with beef bouillon - canned beef broth, added, which is the way Bill Buckley liked it).
At a nice restaurant at Sugarbush they make something that is new to me for apres ski - a Hot Bloody Bull. They make a Bloody Bull, then stick that air-heater thing they use for making cappucino into the mug to heat it up.
I have always liked a few beers after skiing in 5 or 10 degrees all day, but this is a good find. It's almost a complete meal, too - vegetable, protein, and alcohol. Two of these beverages are perfect as a medicine to combat the growing public health crisis of frostbite.
It happens every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembles a giant orange and is starting to dip into the blue ocean. Old Ed comes strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand is a bucket of shrimp.
Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now. Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts....and his bucket of shrimp.
Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier. Soon, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, "Thank you. Thank you."
In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave. He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place. Invariably, one of the gulls lands on his sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat - an old military hat he's been wearing for years.
When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away and old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.
If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like "a funny old duck," as my dad used to say. Or, "a guy that's a sandwich shy of a picnic," as my kids might say. To onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.
To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant ....maybe even a lot of nonsense. Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters. Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida.
That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better. His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero back in World War II. On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.
Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger. By the eighth day their rations ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were. They needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.
Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull!
Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it. Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait......and the cycle continued. With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued. (after 24 days at sea...)
Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull. And he never stopped saying, "Thank you." That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.
(Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp.221, 225-226)
According to Rickenbacker, each person on the rafts converted to Christianity after the experience.
PS: By 1910, Rickenbacker was racing cars. Touted as the first man to drive a mile a minute, he received the sobriquet "Fast Eddie" (giving rise to a nickname borne by many men named Edward since his time). Eddie raced in the 1912, 1914, 1915 and 1916 Indianapolis 500. His only finish in the race was in 1914 when he finished 10th. In the other three races, he did not finish due to car failure. Notably, in the 1916 race, he started on the front row in 2nd place. Eddie was also an Ace in WW I with 22 enemy planes to his credit and started Eastern Airlines back in the 30's. Eddie left us back in 1973, but he was a pilot in two wars, an Ace, and received the Medal of Honor. He was also on the overseas air mail stamp some years ago. And he never forgot his debt.....
From the review of the book "Perpetual Euphoria" in the WSJ:
Instead of rehearsing the usual explanations about the rise of science and technology, Mr. Bruckner claims that the Christian attitude to pain contained the seeds of its own undoing. Many Christians naturally desired to hasten the coming of the Messiah, who would deliver them from their earthly torment. During the French Revolution, this urgent desire was secularized into utopian designs—as when idealists like Robespierre tried to eliminate the misery of the ancien regime and remake society in accordance with republican virtue. But for Mr. Bruckner, as much as for Edmund Burke, any attempt to usher in a reign of felicity will be marked by folly—and may well create new forms of misery. He notes that the more secular Western societies have become, the more sensitive they are to suffering that is no longer justifiable as part of a divine plan.
The reviewer concludes:
Mr. Bruckner himself comes across as neither a stoic who advocates giving up on happiness nor a sentimentalist who thinks pain has some intrinsic or artistic value. We are only happy, he believes, in spite of the suffering around us, and only for rare, unexpected and often inexplicable moments. Happiness, he implies, may not be as important as qualities like lucidity and dignity. But if you really want it, the best way to find it is not to care too much about it.
I could write about this topic for hours, and find some happiness - or pleasure - in doing so. But I won't. I have other things that need doing.
Every year in midsummer, Bird Dog invites all the Maggie's Farm contributors to gather under the shade of the old hanging tree for the company picnic. It's a veritable kaleidoscope of camaraderie, and Mrs. Bird Dog always has a big supply of road kill jerky and ouzo for everybody. Please note the prevalence of what we like to call Maggie's Farm Gun Safety. The Wikipedia entry for Maggie's Farm gun safety rhapsodizes:
Bird Dog always opens the ceremonies with a rousing "Let me hear your balalaikas (and your AKs) ringing out, come and use your guns free form!" This year, I'm bringing a bazooka, or a bouzouki, or both.
Looking forward to the solstice, Bird Dog. Until then, I'll keep the home sterno burning.
Late last winter the Spring snowmelt combined with a late nor'easter washed out our footbridge along with some multi-ton marble blocks that formed the old mill dam. Nature's entropy is always trying to destroy whatever man does.
We still haven't figured out how to fix it all in a cost-manageable way, but the beavers are always working on rebuilding the dam now. The mill which had been here was built for cutting marble blocks, then rafting them downstream in the Spring high water towards NYC and Boston. Oxcarts too, I believe. Lots of marble in the Berkshires.
The basic problem, across the whole range of the human helping relationships (like aid) between what might be called the “helper” and the “doer,” is that success lies in achieving more autonomy on the part of the doers, and autonomy is precisely the sort of thing that cannot be externally supplied or provided by the would-be helpers. This is the fundamental conundrum of all human helping relations, and it is the basic reason, not complexity, why engineering approaches and the like don’t work.
Read the whole post. One can not and would not refuse to give some food to a starving person, but most economic "help" is not helpful to anybody. There is something racist about the idea that Africa, being black, needs welfare and charity instead of free markets and the rule of law.
On this day in 1959, the "Big Bopper" J.P. Richardson, Buddy Holly, and Richie Valens died in a plane crash. This video is "Chantilly Lace," one of my favorites from that era. (My boys hid behind their chairs when I sang it at karaoke on a cruise. -- Today, I'm tormenting them with my version of James Brown, together with my imitation of that great performer's dance steps -- wish I had a cape, too, singing "I feel good.")
Symptoms of the higher education bubble include students and their families in debt for unemployable degrees, taxpayers and the economy weighed down to support colleges that put country-club campuses, lack of academic rigor, even outright bias, above excellence, and fervid resistance to change from college faculties and administrators.
Any organization that fails to identify and satisfy the legitimate needs of those who provide its inputs and consume its outputs -- stakeholders -- will ultimately fail. Higher education is not immune to this rule of markets.
Professors are not the only stakeholders in academic freedom, though they’d like others to think so and allow them exclusive sway over what occurs within higher education. Students, qualified outside observers, taxpayers, indeed society in general, are key stakeholders.
Loyola professor of business law Arthur Gross-Schaefer’s brilliant piece in the February 2011 Journal of Legal Studies in Business, “Academic Freedom: Moving Away From The Faculty-Only Paradigm” is must reading for anyone who is concerned for the future and success of US higher education. As Gross-Schaefer says, “A serious re-evaluation of the faculty-centered paradigm of academic freedom needs to be undertaken.” Gross-Schaefer gets to the point: “this article will challenge the Robinson paradigm of academic freedom, predicated on faculty as the single stakeholder, as limiting and self-serving.” He reviews what happens “when a professor’s personal analysis begins to interfere with objective inquiry and the honest review of diverse opinions.”
Usually, this abnormal situation occurs when a professor is dealing with a contentious topic and has only presented a single view that compromises the academic environment. Accordingly, university students need basic academic rights: the right to not have professors impose political or personal beliefs, the right to receive valid scholarly materials, and the right to have controversial topics fairly discussed by having diverse views represented and carefully examined.[84]
Psychiatry made a wrong turn when it tried to turn its back on the heart and soul, and appeared to decide that it was better, or easier, or most cost-effective, or more "medical"-sounding, to view humans as bags of chemicals and containers of symptoms.
In his "Reflections on Sacred Texts," the Boring Old Man sees it pretty much the way I see it (h/t to Dr. X). I have a similar aversion to the DSM. My "sacred text" is the individual with the problem. Most patients I see do not fit neatly into any box, and I do not try to squeeze them into one.
The good doctors of most patient-oriented specialities - Internal Medicine, Family Practice, Surgery, etc. - seem to take more personal interest in understanding their patients and their lives than many "Biological Psychiatrists" do these days.
Psychiatry spans a broad range of problems, from pure brain abnormalities to regular difficult life problems, with complicated mixtures being the most frequent.
Fortunately for our patients, some us are still interested in getting to know them and in figuring out what ails them beyond their symptom checklist.
I forget who this came from, but it this feels like today:
December 8 - 6:00 PM. It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!
December 9 - We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the Whole World? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life.
December 12 - The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry, we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. l don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.
December 14 – Snow, lovely snow! 8 inches last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish l wouldn't huff and puff so.
December 15 - 20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.
December 16 - Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.
I wasn't able to join Mrs. BD and friends to hear the great Yale and NYU 
one thing, it comes in a blue
I'm sure readers have surmised that we are not big on fake things here at Maggie's Farm. We are sort of stuck on that 1960s authenticity thing. 
A Great Story (1973)
