Monday, December 3. 2007
 I mentioned The Fear of a Blue Planet yesterday morning. In a piece titled Clear as Mud, Crittenden reminds us of a Hillary Clinton quote:
“We can talk all we want about freedom and opportunity, about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but what does all that mean to a mother or father who can’t take a sick child to the doctor?”
He comments: Well, okay, what does “all that” mean to someone stuck in congested traffic? Or annoyed by the price of cable television? What does Mrs. Clinton mean?
I do not find her quote to be ambiguous. It's plain as day. I believe that she is saying that "liberty and opportunity" are obsolete. Show me one sick child in America who is denied medical care, but, before you begin looking, I will warn you that you will not find one. (Me? I just want free legal care when I get my DUI. And free gas, please, for my truck - and would you throw in free car insurance, please?) How does her view differ from that of Lenin or of Chavez? My point is that if the ends justify the means, then any unmet human want or desire or personal responsibility can be used to rationalize the whittling away of freedom, American values, and the American way of life. And in whose hands does that power end up? In the hands of politicians - the last people in the world one would want in charge of your personal life. We should not re-design the government for those few who have big trouble in life. We should just charitably arrange to take care of them, but not sacrifice our ideals to do so. Charity is good. Government power is not, because government is populated largely by arrogant, ego-driven, power-oriented folks with minimal experience in the real world, and who know more about DC restaurants than they know about folks like me who want nothing from them except to be left alone. Give me American freedom, and let me take my own chances and live by my own choices, wits, and my own luck, and let me deal with my own difficulties without government interference or "help". I am an adult. As readers know, my view is that life in America is meant to be difficult and challenging (while full of opportunity to find one's own path, and with abundant charity from people and from government to protect those who stumble), because that is the price we pay for freedom. Serfdom is secure but soul- and spirit-stifling, whether the Lord of the Manor is the King of France, the Duke of York, a bureaucracy in Brussels or Moscow, a plantation owner, or the US government. A weak government is a good government. I believe that the once-worthy Dems (eg JFK) have been entirely captured by the "deep swimmers of the Left", as Horowitz terms them - abetted by the guilty or noblesse-oblige-oriented ultra-wealthy.
Saturday, December 1. 2007
 Just finished reading Marianne Wiggins' The Shadow Catcher, about which the San Francisco Chronicle said:
The Shadow Catcher tells two different stories set in two different times. The first is about famed Western photographer Edward S. Curtis. It's told by his wife, who finally divorced him after bearing his children and suffering his neglect. He preferred the open skies of the outdoors to family life. The second story is told by a writer named Marianne Wiggins, who is writing a novel about Curtis. She's also investigating the man who stole her father's identity, a man who committed suicide years earlier. As the writer digs deeper into both stories, she finds that they intersect. The Shadow Catcher has received mixed reviews with the San Francisco Chronicle saying, "Wiggins' net effect is vertiginously enjoyable, a rambunctious puzzle-box that rewards dives into murky interpretive waters: The more effort you devote to thinking the book through, the greater its rewards."
I am not advising you to read the book. However, it did spark my interest in the famous turn-of-the-century photographer Edward S. Curtis, best known for his photos of the West and especially his Indian portraits. (He also was the photographer for Alice Roosevelt's wedding.) . You can read about Curtis here. One interesting but unsurprising aspect of his excellent Indian photos is that they were taken well after the days of the "wild Indians." These were reservation Indians who he asked to dress up in the old style and to pose for the photos. The photo of the old Crow Warrior, above, was taken in 1908. Samples of his photos at Curtis' Wiki entry above, and more here, whence we borrowed the image.
Friday, November 30. 2007
Please, do not overreact. Erin Burnett, who undoubtedly is so smart that she would still be reading the news on MSNBC even if she looked like Madeline Albright, has referred to the POTUS as a "monkey." Twice. A lot of grim, humorless, authoritarian conservatives will get their panties in a bunch over this, and feebly ask for some sort of retraction. Pshaw, I say! Can't people who read the [scare quotes] news [end scare quotes] have opinions? Can't Erin have the hots for that Gallic midget instead of the Plano one? Can't we all just get along?
I say yes. In the spirit of the exchange, I'd like to remind everybody who finds this offensive to lighten up, and also do my part to support Ms. Burnett by jocularly suggesting that she get in the kitchen and make some noise with those pots and pans. My sammich ain't gonna make itself.
By the way, Erin, in honor of President Bush accompanying the hunky leader of the country that until fairly recently ruled Algeria, perhaps next time you should refer to Bush as a macaca. I doubt anyone will mind.
Thursday, November 29. 2007
A re-post from 2005. The Red-Tail migration is in full force right now, and I am seeing them everywhere. I had one perched above my porch a week ago, eyes fixed on my bird feeder waiting for a squirrel.  The Red Tailed Hawk is the most commonly-seen hawk in the US and Canada, especially in winter when he likes to hang out along highways and in suburbs, on the look-out for rodents. His white chest is usually more noticeable than his rusty-red tail which is only seen from the back, or when he turns in flight and the sun catches it.
He is a "buteo" - the large, plump, soaring family of hawks with rounded wings (called buzzards in Europe). The Red Tail is a versatile creature, able to make a home even in NYC's Central Park, where "Pale Male" has been raising families for several years on rats and pigeons. This hawk's call is a distinctive "Keeeeeeer" which sends a chill down the spine of all little warm fuzzy critters. He'll take a pheasant from a shooting field, but his hamburgers are rodents - rats, rabbits, squirrels and mice. He will grab a foolish pigeon if he can. He is migratory, with population shifts south during winter, such that our New England winter birds are likely Canada breeders. Learn more about the mighty Red Tail: Click here: All About Birds
I have been considering the work of young Cuban artist Ernesto Estevez, and like this painting of his:  Our editor Bird Dog asked whether that was hyperrealism or plain realism. I think he likes to put art in categories. Here's what Wikipedia said: Wikipedia: Early 21st century Hyperrealism was founded upon the aesthetic principles of Photorealism. However, it is starkly contrasted with the literal approach found in traditional photorealist paintings of the late 20th century. Despite any apparent similarities, the two styles are distinctly apart from one another. Hyperrealist painters and sculptors use photographic images as a reference source from which to create a more definitive and detailed rendering, one that unlike Photorealism, often is narrative and emotive in its depictions. Photorealist painters tended to imitate photographic images, often omitting or abstracting certain finite detail in order to maintain a consistent overall pictorial design. They often consciously omitted human emotion, political value and narrative elements.
I would call the painting below by Denis Peterson photorealism, but I am not sure. Artists just paint what they want: Claudio Bravo. This is Cristo en el Sepulcro (charcoal on paper):
The government as Santa the Thief (who and what is "Santa the Thief"? We will tell you later.)  The Trouble with Limited Government, by Voegli at Claremont. One quote:
Reagan was elected president 25 years after the first issue of National Review declared its intention to "stand athwart history, yelling Stop." This was an amazing ascent for a political movement that started out, in the words of NR's first editorial, "superfluous" and "out of place." In the 25 years since Reagan's election, however, conservatives determined to scale back the welfare state might as well have been standing a respectful distance behind history, whispering "please slow down." If conservatism has a future, those who want to fashion it need to acknowledge and understand this stunning defeat. In National Review last year Ramesh Ponnuru said the "real crisis" is that, while a conservatism whose "central mission" does not emphasize the fight against Big Government is inconceivable, a "political coalition in America capable of sustaining a majority" for that mission is unimaginable. Conservatism, in other words, can have a purpose or it can have a prospect. It cannot, apparently, have both. This political problem will only become more acute as the challenges of governance become more severe. One yardstick may help conservatives feel a little better about themselves. In 1981 federal spending was 22.2% of GDP; last year it was 20.3%. This measure hovered in a very narrow band for the whole era, never exceeding 23.5% or falling below 18.4%. Adding expenditures by states and localities confirms the picture of a rugby match between liberals and conservatives that is one interminable scrum in the middle of the field. Spending by all levels of government in America amounted to 31.6% of GDP in 1981, and 31.8% in 2006. Conservatives, though, can't take much solace from fighting Big Government to a draw.
Read the whole thing. Readers know my view: the only vision which can compete with the vision of childlike dependency on an omnipotent State is the old Yankee vision of the individual freedom and dignity of sturdy, honest, self-reliant family people who proudly forge their way through life, take their lumps, ask for nothin' from nobody, and want a government which only protects freedom and which "governs least." That noble vision was an easy sell in 1789, but not so easy today. From the board-room to agri-business to greedy geezers, everybody now seems to want a government Santa, and to feed at the trough of the income tax and the federal debt - and even invents ways to morally justify it. Heck, if I live to Medicare, I will probably take it too - but I will hate myself for doing so. There is a soul-degrading vicious cycle at work: the more you tax people, the less money they have to take care of their families - so the more they will want, or even need, "freebies." Am I old-fashioned to distrust and fear government power and control? Are we really just government-intoxicated decadent Europeans, on a different continent with different accents or a different language, instead of the stalwart, rugged, independent Americans of history? Was it just a dream?
Wednesday, November 28. 2007
 I was invited by our editor to comment on a piece, Talking Back to Prozac, in the paleo-Commie and reliably long-winded NY Review of Books.
The essay/book review by Frederick Crews is semi-hysterically worried about antidepressants, but the real theme motivating the essay seems to be the astonishing and scandalous fact that Big Pharma makes money from developing and selling medicine. Well, slap me with a mackeral and call me Mildred. That's terrible news. Maybe non-profits, or the government, or the UN should be developing the new treatments, and giving them away for free. OK, one of the books, the one by Christopher Lane - How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness, sounds like it makes some good points. Everything is pathologized today (and granted a fancy diagnosis to get insurance coverage) - and every child is supposed to be perfect. The assumption is that we/they could be, if only the government or somebody really smart ran the world, like the people at the New York Review of Books. I don't have time to comment further, except to say that antidepressants - the older ones, and the SSRIs and the hybrids, have, overall, been a great boon to mankind. The point is correct that depression and anxiety disorders are not really a "chemical imbalance" - except in the case of true Bipolar Disorder (and not the faux bipolar disorder that everybody and their kid and cousin is diagnosed with these days). That would be equivalent to claiming that a headache is a Tylenol deficiency. Anxiety and depression are usually symptoms of complicated mental states - time-consuming, expensive, and often frustrating if not impossible to get a grip on. Some people chose to try to get to the bottom of it, some choose the band-aid alone, and some people refuse medicine. It's a free country. I have always valued Joyce McDougall's A Plea for a Measure of Abnormality: I am not a psycho-utopian, or any other kind of utopian, but I think we all should be grateful for what the drug companies do. Eliminating pain is God's work. And no, shyness is not a disease.
 "Liberal Fascism"? Quoted from a Leftist French magazine in a piece at American Future:
Why so much hatred (for Chavez)? Because at the same time social-democracy is undergoing an identity crisis in Europe, historic circumstances seem to have confided the responsibility of taking the lead at an international level in the reinvention of the Left to Mr. Chávez. While on the Old Continent, European reconstruction has had the effect of making any alternative to neo-liberalism practically impossible, in Brazil, in Argentina, in Bolivia and in Ecuador, inspired by the Venezuelan example, experiments that keep the hope of realizing the emancipation of the humblest alive continue to succeed one another. In this respect, Mr. Chávez’s record is spectacular. We can understand how he has become the required benchmark in dozens of poor countries. In his scrupulous respect for democracy and all its freedoms [!], has he not re-founded the Venezuelan nation on a brand new basis, legitimated by a new Constitution [!] that guarantees popular involvement in social change? Has he not rendered their dignity as citizens to some five million marginalized people (including the indigenous people) deprived of identity papers? Has he not taken back in hand the public company Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA)? Has he not de-privatized the country’s principal telecommunications company as well as the Caracas electricity company and returned them to serving the public? Has he not nationalized the Orinoco oil fields? Finally, has he not devoted a share of oil rents to acquiring effective autonomy vis-ŕ-vis international financial institutions as well as autonomy for the financing of social programs?
Ah, government trying to run businesses! How quaintly 19th Century! How idealistic! How caring! It's "for the people"! Kinda like Hillary Clinton on the US oil companies: "I am going to take those profits..." Indeed, there is no greed in the business world that can compare with government greed for money and power. Chavez' "progress, " however, includes no food on the supermarket shelves. While I do not have the same trust in Venezuela's voting as Jimmy Carter does, it remains a fact that dictatorship by popular vote, and tyranny by popular vote, has a long history. However, this "liberation of the masses," as Gateway noted yesterday, is requiring lethal force and, remarkably, students and professors are in opposition (as they likely would not be in the US): Demonstrations also occurred in other cities: Maracay, Valencia, Yaracuy and Puerto La Cruz and there is information that many professors joined their students. For this Sunday, all the student leaders will join their forces and will march in a huge demonstration to reject Chavez's plans to turn Venezuela into an oppressive and tyrannical country.
More at Fausta - Countdown to Tyranny Where are Sean Penn and the rest of the Chavez-lovers today? Have no fear: they will re-emerge when this "vote" is over because, with Fidel on the permanent sick list, the ignorant thug Chavez is now the world's leading proponent of the beautiful utopia of totalitarian, police state socialism (unless you include the equally-charming Kim Jong-Il, who unaccountably receives few accolades and little moral support from the Western Left).
Monday, November 26. 2007
With Iowa coming up soon, it's been a tough month for Hillary Clinton with a whirlwind of uncomplimentary stories. The Hu contribution scandal, the radical law firm story, her strange reversal on illegal driving licenses, her unwillingness to take a firm stand on anything, new polls that reinforce the idea that she might not be electable, the Vin Gupta story, news articles reporting that people do not trust her honesty - and now the lesbian theme comes out of the closet today, a theme which has been whispered around Washington for many years. That's enough to short-circuit any rapid-response team. The Dems do have two excellent candidates who are substantial, savvy, accomplished, and ready for prime time: Joe Biden and Chris Dodd - Dodd being perhaps the more impressive of the two. If primary voters take a look beyond the two celeb candidates (Clinton and Obama) they might find something to like. When candidates were chosen by wise men in smoke-filled rooms, Biden and Dodd would have been on the top of the list and Clinton and Obama would have been viewed as arrogant, presumptuous lightweights and laughed out of the room and instructed to return when they have accomplished something. Are voters so celeb-intoxicated these days that solid guys ("solid" as politicians go - even though I would not be voting for any of these) don't have a chance?
 While persuing trips for next summer this weekend, the Mrs. reminded me of her long-time wish to visit the Shetlands and the Outer Hebrides.
On Harris, we found this great place - Blue Reef Cottages. It looks like Norway. Here's Visit the Hebrides. Here's a photo gallery of Harris, the home of Harris Tweed, natch. Nearby, the Dunollie Hotel on Skye looks good. In the Highlands, we'd chose the Tulloch Castle Hotel. I love the way they say in the UK: "Pets welcome. No extra charge." Photo: The Isle of Harris
 When Social Security was initiated by FDR as an effort to remove workers from the workforce to reduce politically-dangerous unemployment while virtuously cloaking it as "caring" for the old folks, politicians never publicly considered the long-term effect of that incentive.
Or did they? Adding money to lower-, middle- and upper-class folks' retirement calculations helps incentivize them to quit being productive and to retire earlier while they are still able-bodied, paid for, as parasites, by a shrinking number of hard-working youngsters. Politicians never think long-term (but, in the defence of those in the 1940s, folks in their 60s now are in far better shape that folks in their 60s then). Politicians think election, job, power, importance, ego, etc. But we know better: The Law of Incentive and the Law of Unintended Consequences are always in force. The Feds need an "Office of Consequences and Incentive" along with the "Office of the Budget." Mankind is powerfully motivated by money, and that will never change. Money offers choices. Many have commented on Megan McArdle's fine piece on Social Security, but I will link this piece on her piece. I believe Social Security should be income- and asset- balanced, but it will never happen. It's an entitlement now: another freebie on the backs of others. Photo: Ida May Fuller, supposedly the first Social Security check recipient
Sunday, November 25. 2007
 A repost from 2005:
Birding (it used to known as bird-watching but that didn't sound cool, and birders are of course cool) is the most popular and rapidly growing form of outdoor recreation in America. Besides all of the excellent birding handbooks that are out these days, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has a good basic site for basic info and identification, All About Birds, which we use all the time. They also have an advanced site, The Birds of North America, which is by subscription. Other things that CLO offers: A home-study course on bird biology, behavior, and identification and the necessary A Field Guide to Bird Songs. Photo: Two warblers after banding. These are immature birds in fall plumage, a Mourning Warbler on top and a Connecticut Warbler below.
Saturday, November 24. 2007
 I'm going to put an excerpt from The Guardian on here in a second. The Guardian, for those of you that aren't Anglophiles, is sort of the British Isles' intellectual appendix. That is to say, it doesn't seem to serve any positive function; it collects detritus; is dangerous if it ruptures into the body politic; and even though its removal from your life seems to have no deleterious effect, you just leave it there and ignore it unless it gets inflamed. Anyway, we read the The Guardian because we are dying to know whether Bush is Hitler, or Bush is Mussolini; and they are the only ones that cover that waterfront 24/7 to our satisfaction. Personally I lean towards Hitler, as old Musso's girlfriend Clara Petacci was a babe and I can't picture George with any babes eating anything bolognese. While we were seeking Bushitlerburton guidance at the Guardian, we came across this nugget. It's industrial strength stupid. I'm talking worthy of enshrinement on the Mount Rushmore of Moronic Observations. It is profoundly dumb, which is hard to do. There's really no point in reading the whole thing. You can if you want, but like many such things, you get the idea of everything that goes throught the mind of such a person from the snippet, which appears to be lonely and pointless trip, and now you can ignore everything else he ever says forevermore.
Continue reading "Industrial Strength Stupid - Britannic Boogaloo"
 Got any rabid Moonbat relatives?
Man, I do. Our loyal readers are lucky that I got out of there alive. I was close to getting waterboarded, if not tied up and thrown into one of the several roaring fires in the fireplaces (they have four in the antique farmhouse). All I did was to ask three entirely innocent and unprovocative questions in a mild-mannered, friendly fashion: 1. What if Iraq works out well? 2. Have you ever tried to find out where your "recycled" glass ends up? and 3. Who do you want to pay your medical bills for you? Apparently I am an "idiot," "greedy," "in denial" and a "blind Bush-lover." There was no possibility of calm, rational discussion. My fault: I have a couple of glasses of wine and I open my big mouth. I gracefully retired from the field after being asked "Didn't you see Al Gore's movie? Didn't you see the hockey stick graph?" It's almost enough to make a Conservative/Libertarian like me decide to register as a Republican. Every one of these folks is prosperous by statistics (top 1% income, but far higher in assets like investments, home, second houses and land), and expensively over-educated - and each one of them has an envious, brooding, toxic contempt for the presumptively "criminally wealthy." Why do they care about what others do? And why so ungrateful for their freedom to chose their own lives in their own way? Why so bitter? I am the only one who isn't even in the top 25% income category (I am at about the US average, with no assets other than a modest IRA, a $31,000 savings account in a Vanguard bond fund, a half-paid off Ford F-150 at 0% interest, and a powerful server and router rescued from my friend's company's discards. My modest and comfy living quarters, with wood stove, are rented. I do not do debt, and I do not need stuff; I desire no wine cellar and I drink good beer happily at Rudy's Bar and Grill. Yes, I could use a sweetie wife, if I can find a serious keeper to whom to devote myself.) I don't give a damn what other people do or make because I chose my own path in life: I do not covet other peoples' money nor would I ask or expect anyone to pay my bills. I believe that my freedom from government power is my wealth and my inheritance, purchased with the blood of my ancestors and of my fellow countrymen. For that historically rare and remarkable blessing I am fortunate - and profoundly thankful every day - not just on Thanksgiving.
Friday, November 23. 2007
A re-post from April, 2005:  I keep a pair of cheap Nikon 7X35 compact binocs in the car, just in case I happen to encounter an interesting bird. They work very well as opera glasses, too.
For marine use - not for birding but for looking around - I like a 7X50. Mine are inexpensive but good enough, and with the exposure to salt water and banging, I don't want to worry about them. For more serious birding and nature-watching, I like my Minox rubber-coated 8X32s. Darn good lenses, and you don't want additional magnification for wildlife except in special circumstances. The cool birders who want to spend the money use Swarovskis - but the very best birders I know can ID any bird with any old cheap compact binoculars, unless they are distant, on a beach or prairie. Then a spotting scope is essential. Great source for binocs - Binoculars.com. They also have night-vision optics, spotting scopes, and rifle scopes. Photo: Swarovski 8X42s.
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 Every five or six years our roses next to the house, warmed by the proximity and protected from the wind, manage to stay in bloom until Thanksgiving. With Thanksgiving so early this year, it's less surprising but still a delight to see them even though they are a bit ratty.
For other holiday news, I was amused to see a Sharp-Shinned Hawk hit our bird feeder yesterday, aiming for a White Throated Sparrow. He pursued the sparrow through the shrubs but finally emerged empty-handed. So much easier just to go to the Stop & Shop for one's Thanksgiving bird.
Wednesday, November 21. 2007
From a NYT piece on the NEA report on reading that we linked yesterday: ...Mr. Iyengar noted that students who lived in homes with more than 100 books but whose parents only completed high school scored higher on math tests than those students whose parents held college degrees (and were therefore likely to earn higher incomes) but who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books.
and Among the findings is that although reading scores among elementary school students have been improving, scores are flat among middle school students and slightly declining among high school seniors. These trends are concurrent with a falloff in daily pleasure reading among young people as they progress from elementary to high school, a drop that appears to continue once they enter college. The data also showed that students who read for fun nearly every day performed better on reading tests than those who reported reading never or hardly at all.
I guess this is new news: kids who have parents who like to learn also like to learn, but it's a crisis now. I blame global warming. As a solution to the Reading Crisis, I suggest a $1 billion Federal education program called "Books Are Fun!," a fun-filled, interactive, fast-moving multi-media curriculum-enhancement module ("MMCEM"), to be designed by leading expert reading consultants from teaching colleges and then introduced into every Middle School "curriculum" by Federal law. Approximately 40,000 new union-certified "Books are Fun!" specialists will be hired to guide schools through the application of this exciting new kid-friendly program through every course of study. Crisis solved! 
Tuesday, November 20. 2007
Dear Walter:
I hope you can help me. The other day I set off for work leaving my husband in the house watching the TV as usual. I hadn't gone more than a mile down the road when my engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home to get my husband's help.
When I got home I couldn't believe my eyes. He was in the bedroom with a neighbour lady making mad passionate love to her. I am 32, my husband is 34 and we have been married for twelve years. When I confronted him, he tried to make out that he went into the back yard and heard a lady scream, had come to her rescue but found her unconscious. He'd carried the woman back to our house, laid her in bed, and began CPR. When she awoke she immediately began thanking him and kissing him and he was attempting to break free when I came back. But when I asked him why neither of them had any clothes on, he broke down and admitted that he'd been having an affair for the past six months. I told him to stop or I would leave him.
He was let go from his job six months ago and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly distant. Can you please help?
Sincerely,
Mrs. Sheila Usk
Dear Sheila: A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the jubilee clips holding the vacuum pipes onto the inlet manifold. If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the carburetor float chamber.
I hope this helps.
Walter
Monday, November 19. 2007
Re-posted from Feb, 2007  If you believe in a man-made global warming crisis, you:
1. Will not fly on airplanes
2. Will live close enough to work to walk or bike
3. Will turn off your electric power - and no oil lamps. No computers - they are energy sponges.
4. Will cease to mow your lawn
5. Will heat your home with solar power, or, better yet, not at all. It takes a lot of energy to create those solar panels
7. Will give up eating beef
8. Will junk your cars, tractors, lawn-mowers, boats, chain saws, etc.
9. Will wear no synthetics, or clothing requiring electric power to produce
10. Will grow all of your own food so it doesn't have to be trucked to your supermarket If you do not do those things, then I won't believe that you are genuinely concerned, and will not take you seriously. Show me what to do - don't tell me what to do. Government and the UN first, please. Greenies second. Just don't tell me that you are going to continue to enjoy these luxuries until the government forces you not to. Show leadership and individual responsibility. No pseudo-virtuous tokenism, please. Carbon credits? Gimme a break. (Personally, I agree with Stephen Harper that the climate hysteria is no more than a socialist/luddite scheme.) Update. An Al Gore True Believer said this to me yesterday: "I'm not the problem. Society is the problem." This person sells real estate and drives a big Mercedes all day long in his job in our Connecticut exurbia. "Society"? Who dat bad man? And what is his phone number? Image: Non-hypocritical global warming fans in Vermont wear no factory clothing, inhabit caves, and hunt for food in the woods, which they eat raw so as not to create CO2 and other pollution with campfires. Vermont environmentalists complain that they are depleting the forests of roots and tubers, scaring the deer, and eating all of the skunks and raccoons. And crapping all over the place.
 A wave of the long, fat, Freudian cigar to Dr. X, who found that Jason Jones at Bookslut is re-reading his Standard Edition (24 books), at the pace of one book per month.
What is most worthwhile about reading Freud, preferably with a guide of some sort, is watching a powerful mind at work, searching for patterns and understanding, having ideas, then rejecting them, revising them, and often just getting stuck. Looking for a path through the wilderness of the soul. Book 1 includes A Project for a Scientific Psychology, a remarkable effort in which he admittedly reached a dead end, and asked for the manuscript to be burned. Jones' reflections on Book 1 here, and Book 2 here. We will try to keep up with these as they come out. Comment from Dr. Bliss: It is a sad fact that Freud's thinking, over time, has become deeply misunderstood, trivialized, misinterpreted, abused, and misused - and his errors magnified. His goal, most simply put, was to create a framework for understanding the irrational in mankind, with the hope that this might help individuals gain mastery over their lives and their destinies.
Sunday, November 18. 2007
Saturday, November 17. 2007
 While the Mrs. took the youngest Bird Dog theater-intoxicated and Shakespeare-intoxicated pup and her theatrical pal to the Vivian Beaumont to see the rarely-performed Cymbeline (the Beaumont is perfect for Shakespeare), my self-assigned chore was to clean up and polish ye olde farmhouse for the Thanksgiving hordes expected soon.
While finding many dust balls as big as alley cats, and some lost mail, magazines, a dried dog poo or two, and some important faxes under sofas, I cranked up my gigantic Legacy speakers for consolation. They were the top of their line when I splurged on these darn things, delivered by an Airways Freight truck. 175 lbs. each, 5' tall, and they look like beautiful furniture. But what the heck was I thinking when I bought these monsters? (A movie-business friend told me I have the same ones Tom Cruise has in his house. Sheesh. That is not good.) These speakers are powerful enough to knock down my walls or to blow a cow to the moon, but sensitive enough to capture the most subtle inflection of Dawn Upshaw's voice, like she is singing to you. The Messiah was on the CD player, from Eastertime. I listened to the whole thing while vacuuming, dusting, dog-poo-removing, polishing, and pickng up. How many Bibles do we have in this house? Well, I love that music and know every word, but I realized that I do music now on the computer. This dang computer-internets machine-thingy simultaneously shrinks and expands life. I realized that I had not turned on that fine sound system, with the mega-ultra ultra amp, since Easter.
 Talking about autumn foliage is about as cornball, old-fogie a subject as I can think of, but this fall has been the best in my memory. Since New England has been spared heavy rains, windstorms, and Nor'easters thus far, the leaves are still on the trees in many areas. A visual feast wherever you look, and nourishing food for the soul. It's uplifting, exhilarating, and it reminds me to be grateful for being alive.
Life is wonderful, despite being poor (statistically I am one of America's "poor" - which bothers me not one whit: just a humble, underpaid journalist junior reporter at a smallish newspaper). I love this brisk autumn weather which leads the spirit to thoughts of thanks-giving. Life is good. I am going to cook the bird I shot this morning (with my Gramp's 20 ga. Parker) on lentils with shallots and gibier sauce, for my current chick beautiful, intelligent, super-special gal. Wish I had a bottle of Jarhead Red to relax her, but I have something else. (I mean a bottle.) Try to tell me that I am poor! I am blessed. Poverty is a state of mind.
Friday, November 16. 2007
 Canada Goose-looking birds come in widely different sizes and ornithologists, who love obsessing about taxonomy, have a lot of fun with the subject.
The subject comes up because we shot quite a few Cacklers in Canada in October, which were probably what we used to call Hutchins' or Richardsons' Goose. These birds are high-Arctic breeders, and only winter on the East coast as rare vagrants. Bird Dog says he has seen them occasionally on the East coast. Their CLO link here. Photo: Canada Goose with Cackling Goose For the part of the Wikipedia entry which reviews all of the taxonomy, see continuation page below.
Continue reading "Goose of the Week: Cackling Goose"
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