Friday, May 18. 2007
 Carbon for me but not for thee. The hypocrisy - nay, deception - abounding amongst the carbon fanatics causes me to doubt whether they really believe anything of what they say. Perfect example, at Samizdata. I guess gummint carbon doesn't count. Gaia apparently loves Government Carbon.
Here's my pledge: When politicians, bureaucrats, and Greenies quit flying and driving, and quit generating tree-murdering piles of paper upon which are written unintelligible rules for me, I will reconsider their sincerity. I'll never forget my Greenie friend who preached thus to me in my cozy red-neck bar one snowy night this winter in the Massachusetts Berkshires: "I have to drive to get to work, but you could ride a bike because you're closer." My reply: "They will have to pry my F-150 out of my cold dead hands." Yes, she had driven to Rudy's Bar and Grill too, in her Camry, and somehow made it home without a DUI. I don't approve of wasting precious ethanol as a fuel, but I do believe in that old "in vino veritas." My friend is very moral and sanctimonious, but she does like to drink stuff with ethanol in it. She prefers Wild Turkey (which is entirely organic), but she isn't too picky about guys. Photo: Is that my friend? Or is it Gaia herself, in human form? I forget.
By Dorothy Fields / Jimmy McHugh, and famously sung by Billie Holiday Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worry on the doorstep
Just direct your feet
To the sunny side of the street
Can't you hear a pitter-pat
And that happy tune is your step
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street
I used to walk in the shade
With those blues on parade
But now I'm not afraid
This rover crossed over
If I'd never have a cent
I'd be rich as Rockefeller
Going to set my feet
On the sunny side of the street Excellent youtube of the song as sung by Marie Bryant - good photography. Woops - youtube cancelled that one. Here's Cyndi Lauper. There is a Harvard study of life success and health. A quote: Early wealth and privilege did not predict life success and health of the study subjects nearly as well as the original investigators thought it would. What did separate successful subjects from failures was their level of maturity and their optimism.
The assertion that "Character is destiny" is attributed to Heraclitus, around 500 BC. Read the whole thing.
Wednesday, May 16. 2007
 A quote from our pal Coyote:
In Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom tells the story of a question he used to ask his classes vis a vis income inequality. He would ask something like "Would you vote for a law that reduced income inequality but at the same time reduced total wealth, such that the poor might get a larger slice of a smaller pie, and might even be worse off on an absolute basis afterwards." Apparently, he would get solid majorities for "yes" and in fact I have been in classes where this same question was asked and at least 40% said "yes." This is a situation a bit similar to the one above, but without it being personal. In other words, no one has explicitly hosed you, they have just done better. I hope you can see the parallel. Large numbers of people are willing to pay (or equivalently make less money) to reduce the earnings of people who are wealthy and/or successful. They are even more willing to do so if they think that they have been treated unfairly. Which is why you see so many politicians and media outlets working so hard right now to convince the middle class that current income distribution patterns are somehow "unfair." Politicians are pandering to this base human emotion, the desire to spitefully bring someone else down (in the case of income equality laws, someone the person has likely never even met or transacted with) even if it makes oneself worse off. I can understand why Pete Best might harbor a grudge against the Beatles. But why do so many Americans harbor a grudge against people they have never met, just because they make more money?
Last I heard, Envy was a deadly sin. Whole piece here. Comment from The Barrister: Coyote gets right to the point. America is not about making money. It's about having free choices to do what you want, and, as Bird Dog said yesterday, being adult enough to live with the consequences of one's choices. If you want to pursue wealth, great. If you want to pursue other things, great. All I ever wanted to pursue was a bit of modest comfort, work, friends, a relationship with God, and a happy family, and I feel blessed to have found those things. I love to make money (doesn't everybody?), but it has never been my main objective. However, I do hate being held up as an object of angry envy by pandering politicians just because my life plan worked. I had a basic life plan, and I just followed it. It was not rocket science. To maintain my plan, I will need to keep working - if I live - until I am 75 or more. No problem. I am happy to do that, as was my Dad, my Grandpa, and my great-grandpa, who died at 86 in the fields with his hands on the plow on his farm in CT just up the road from here. That farm was lost, to the family's perpetual resentment, to cover estate taxes and is now covered with absurd mini-mansions on 1/2 acre lots and has a street called Azalea Drive. Great Grandpa would be rolling in his grave if he saw that on the land that is soaked with generations of family sweat. And, if he ever saw an azalea (which I doubt, up here in those days), I am sure that he would have considered it a vulgar display. Even today, where I live, the wealthy happily drive rusty old cars, Yankee-style.
Monday, May 14. 2007
 I have told my kids that one optimistic yet realistic way to look at life is that it is like standing in front of a conveyor belt upon which a stream of opportunities are passing by, but each one will never pass by again in the same form.
I am referring to every sort of opportunity: opportunities to make friends, to be kind, to find love, to have fun, to stand up for your beliefs, to show mercy, to develop interests, to develop good habits of character, to make money, to be forgiving, to practice strength, to find God, to learn, etc, etc. Alas, that conveyor belt offers just as many opportunities to make mistakes and poor choices. It is a tough part of maturity to accept the reality limitation, however, that any opportunity grabbed will reduce the number of opportunities passing by on the conveyor belt, because time is an arrow. A friend reminds me of the old story: The levee broke and the water is rising in the town. One guy gets on his knees and prays "God, save me from this flood." There is a knock at the door and a firetruck offering to evacuate him. "No thanks, God will rescue me." He waits as the water fills the first floor. A guy in a rowboat shows up. "No thanks, God will save me." Water fills the second floor and he goes to the attic and punches a hole in the roof. A helicopter comes by. "No thanks, God will rescue me." The water rises further, and he starts treading water, but finally tires and drowns. Up in Heaven he berates God. "Hey, you said you would help me when I was in need. Where the heck were you?" God replies "I sent you a firetruck, a rowboat, and finally a helicopter. You rejected every one..."
 With all of the exciting news about wildfires, I want to make a pitch in favor of wildfire. Wildfire is part of nature, and it's a good thing.
Fire suppression makes natural fires worse when they occur, because kindling builds up on the floor of the forests. Why is wildfire good? Not just because it is "natural." I am not a pagan who believes that whatever is "natural" is good. But fire is nature's way of creating swaths of ash-fertilized space for plant succession on the land, and new habitats for the species that like newer growth. In fact, mature forests probably have the lowest biodiversity of any non-polar habitat. For one example, the Elk and songbird populations of Yellowstone took a huge jump after the big fires. Smokey the Bear was wrong. Wildfire is part of the creative destruction of nature. Suppressing it is little more than sentimentalism combined with a subsidy to logging business. Whether millions of taxpayer's money should be spent, and lives risked and lost, to support that sentimentalism and that industry is a political question (to which my answer is "No"). We have written more about the virtues of wildfire and clear-cutting before.
Saturday, May 12. 2007
Why are we getting repeated Google searches for "removing pachysandra"? We have never posted on that subject, although I guess we have posted on pachysandra. Since there appears to be interest out there, here's my method. (But first, even though I have some pachysandra beds adjacent to the house, I do not really approve of it near houses or buildings. It belongs at a distance, in full shade - if you must have it at all.) I am an expert at pachysandra removal. You take a good sharp spade - not a shovel - and with it cut deep parallel lines in the pachysandra bed, about 14" apart. Then you use the spade to cut those stretches into 2-3' lengths. Use the spade to begin to undercut those strips a couple of inches deep, and then you can peel the whole thing up like a slice of carpet. If you want to replant it somewhere else, just lay those lengths of carpet down, and, with some watering, they will grow in.
Friday, May 11. 2007
 There is a new magazine out there, Garden and Gun. It sounds like an ideal sort of Maggie's Farm magazine (h/t, Dr. Helen).
With a photo of Pat Conroy on the cover, how bad could it be? I'll give it a try, if only to find out whether it's more interesting than our Maggie's Farm blog. I am certain that it is better-written. Re gun mags, I used to subscribe to Shooting Sportsman, but it has become too snooty for my taste. Informative, though, if you own $60,000 shotguns instead of Mossbergs and Brownings like regular folks.
Thursday, May 10. 2007
 One of the puppies is graduating from college in two weeks, and will be moving to New York. She is a Math major with a Fine Arts minor, with plenty of street smarts - plus a Division 1 Varsity sport.
She sealed a deal with the job she wanted in back in November. Nice little "signing bonus," too. Yesterday she emailed me the website for the building in NYC into which she will be moving. Dang nice. This building has a doorman, a gym, and rooftop gardens. Plus she will have 6 pals from college and high school in the same building. Look out, New York, for the approaching tornado. When I lived in NYC, I lived in hovels and basement apartments with slovenly roomates and cockroaches, had few friends - and no money to paint the town even if I had wanted to. In those days, there were no buildings with gyms, indoor pools, and rooftop gardens anyway. Check out the details of the apartment building. I am jealous, but a professional curmudgeon like me should say "The kids today are so spoiled. They should be suffering and struggling, or in the Army, instead of romping around." She says she expects to work from 6:30 AM to 11 pm, so I guess it won't be all fun and games, and the pressure to be outstanding will be enormous...but that's Life in the Big City. (Sometime I will have to get her to record all of her job interview questions. One guy gave her five seconds to answer "What's 19X17?" Fortunately, she had memorized her multiplication tables through 20 rather than the ordinary 10. They also wanted instant decimal conversions, and tested the depth of her knowledge of statistics, Shakespeare, Latin, Mozart's operas, Thomas Aquinas, and Duccio. I take that as an effort to weed out the bullshit artists. A total of about eight hours of pressure interviews, spread over a few weeks, for each of the jobs she wanted. Most interviews included lunch or dinner at least once, which she rightly believes was an effort to check out her collegiality, sociability, manners, and poise under pressure.)
 The term "Market failure" has become a fashionable phrase for things that somebody claims "require government intervention" in the economy.
In my opinion, there is no such thing as market failure, given time, fair competition, and honest free markets. Markets always eventually reflect people's economic interests, and their personal desires. "Market failure" is used, it appears to me, whenever a political agenda, for better or worse, desires to overpower market forces to achieve some postulated "public good." Thus using the loaded term "market failure," as I have seen it used lately, is often a misnomer because it's not the "job" of markets to directly supply "public goods." Indeed, the term MF can be abused to apply to anything these days: legal help, medical care, the price of gas, environmental protection, eminent domain, Microsoft, wages - you name it. These days, the Left sees market failure everywhere they look for it because they do not like free markets (which means, to me, that they do not approve of the free choices people make). When politics intervene in markets, with all of the fearsome power of the State behind them, they enter perilous waters, but it is often politically necessary in democracies, and sometimes practically necessary. My political hero Teddy Roosevelt was a great market-intervener with his trust-busting, and I would not care to live in a village without zoning, a country without an army, or to invest my money without the SEC cops to keep markets reasonably honest. But once the door has been opened to market intervention, there is potentially no end to it. It can be a slippery slope to obnoxious authoritarian (see Mayor Bloomberg telling people what kinds of fat they can eat) and/or socialist solutions. That is the creepy part for a nation which was founded on an ideal of individual freedom (and the property rights which enforce individual freedom against the power of the State), but it has been one of the prime drivers of politics (and political funding) since FDR - who, to my mind - was a noblesse-oblige socialist: "Socialism for thee but not for me." Sort-of like the Clintons, but they lack the noblesse piece. Howard Dean sees a "market failure" in the small number of listeners to left-wing talk radio. That's a good example of how a well-functioning market can end up being politically labelled as a "failure:" people don't want what he wants to sell them. See Howard Dean: "We need to re-regulate the media." Photo: The Grand Bazaar in amazing Istanbul. A wonderful maze of a free market. I advise everyone to save their pennies and visit Turkey - and not just Istanbul. It is a fine and fascinating place to which I am eager to return. And I need a new rug, about 20X30'.
Elegant birds. The large Royal Tern is the size of a small gull. They live on our East Coast ocean beaches, and nest on dry sand bars. Like all of our terns, they are highly migratory, and make their living diving for small fish. You can read about Royal Tern here. Amateurs like me can easily confuse them with the Caspian Tern in the field (that is, on the beach). 
Tuesday, May 8. 2007
 Canada's Menu Foods Income Fund (TSE: MEW.UN) is a major North American contract manufacturer of "wet" pet foods which are sold under a variety of brand names including Iams.
Their recalls have been in the news, as have the the animal death and illness resulting from contaminants in the rice or wheat gluten imported from China. The only importer whose name I have heard mentioned is the Denver-based Wilbur-Ellis, a large agricultural and chemical company which sold the Chinese product to Menu Foods. My guess is that someone in China added material to the gluten to give it the appearance of containing a higher amount of protein than it did. Many lawyers will make money on suits between the involved companies, and in class action suits like this one. One shrewd investor has told me that Menu Foods is an excellent business, and could be a buy around its current depressed price.
In the past year we have posted quite a bit on pigs. A reader was kind enough to send in his Show-and-Tell photo above of a recent Texas pig hunt. Is that a piglet his friend is holding in his mouth? (By the way, which crude, culturally-insensitive reader suggested dropping these from 20,000 feet on Baghdad to clean out Sadr City?) Our contributor Gwynnie sent this note on Friday: This weekend, Gwynnie will join a group of ranchers using their depredation permit on a Northern California ranch to try to dent the population of European wild boars that have invaded the California Coast Range and beyond. She will try to post pictures next week or so. She has done a little research on the issue and found an excellent article excerpted below:
Continue reading "More on Pigs and Pig Hunts"
Monday, May 7. 2007
 Poverty is, of course, relative. The functional American poor have cars, washing machines, and cell phones. Poverty statistics themselves can be a snare and a delusion, especially if they are defined as the bottom whatever-% of the population, as the Brits do.
If you use that method, there will always be a bottom whatever-%, no matter what sort of safety net is provided through government, and our amazing abundance of American charities, most of which are desperate to find somebody - anybody - to help. In fact, if you declare yourself poor in this neck of the woods, 20 government agencies and 20 charities will descend upon you like vultures - if only to justify their existence. Poverty in the US is defined as below a $20,000 (declared) income, not by a percentage. I include "declared" in parentheses because there is a heck of a lot of black market labor out there where the boss would far rather hand you a pile of bills than put you on the payroll. We all see it, daily, just as well all see folks who will only accept cash. Is "poverty" a useful concept at all, nowadays? I wonder. Or is it like "global warming" - just a handy excuse to expand government and entitlements? Tools for politicians? What rankles me is that American poverty figures are driven by political agendas rather than by truth-seeking. Thus American poverty can include recent high school grads in their first job living at home. Or grad students, or hippies living off the land in northern California. Or addicts who don't get to work. Or crusty Appalachian hill-dwellers who don't like to come down to town to work (the original hippies), but poach, grow some stuff, make a little 'shine, and send the wife to town for the monthly check. Or other sorts of voluntarily poor such as those who won't move to where the jobs are, or rural and inner-city single 17 year-old moms with four kids. Or those whose second jobs are paid under the table. Or an unmarried couple where the partner works part-time at WalMart. The icing on the cake, though, is that American income figures do not include any government or charitable transfers, grants (welfare, Social Security Disability, unemployment checks, etc), housing subsides or the value of subsidized housing, or other benefits such as food stamps, child care, and Medicaid. If that money is not included, there is nothing government can do to change the numbers. Furthermore, poverty numbers do not take assets into account - just income. Thus I would be a poverty stat by being a 70 year-old Maine potato farmer with a paid-off 150-acre farm, living on Social Security in the big old family farmhouse, and selling $16,000 of potatoes every year. (I like to use Maine as an example because they have high poverty stats, but no-one going hungry or without a pick-up truck.) The estimable Arnold Kling at TCS makes the case that the only war on poverty that works is the building of character in a capitalist system. One quote: Our moral and mental development, and the high productivity that accompanies it, have taken place under a system of decentralized capitalism. I would claim that the capitalist system accounts for more than 100 percent of the reduction in poverty that has taken place over the past hundred years. How can capitalism account for more than 100 percent of the reduction in poverty? Is that mathematically possible? If we take into account the factors that have retarded poverty reduction, then we can argue that, by overcoming those factors, capitalism accounts for even more than 100 percent of poverty reduction. That is, if world poverty has fallen from 90 percent to 20 percent over the past 200 years, then capitalism would have reduced it by even more were it not for the retarding factors. Ironically, the biggest factor retarding the capitalist solution to poverty may well be the crusade to end poverty using conscious planning. Certainly if one includes among the planned solutions to poverty the experiment with Communism (and I see no reason why it ought to be excluded), then the case against intentional anti-poverty efforts is rather compelling. Simply compare poverty in North Korea with that in South Korea, for example.
Kling is probably correct about the world in general, but, in the US, I doubt that applies because we are already a wealthy nation with plenty of jobs and no meaningful unemployment. You have to know there is work for everyone when my supermarket now has folks with Down's Syndrome doing shelving and bagging - which I think is wonderful. But first, I want to know who the poor are, and what they own, and what they do all day. I am not hard-hearted, but I am hard-headed. My guess is that the truly American poor are mainly emotionally or physically disabled, dysfunctional, or exploitative and sociopathic - or the voluntarily poor (which includes new immigrants) or temporarily poor - and thus unlikely to benefit much from any kind of job growth. Please correct me if I am wrong about any of this. Addendum: Bruce Kesler of Democracy Project was kind enough to send some readings explaining how poverty has been dealt with in the US. 1. The Safety Net Delivers. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities 2. The Effects of Government Taxes and Transfers on Income and Poverty. US Census Bureau 3. Federal Transfer Payments to Low-income Households Tops $17,000. The Tax Foundation Photo: Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother (1936) during the Dust Bowl years. This 37 year-old mother of 7 would be benefitting from much help today, if her pride would permit her to accept it.
Saturday, May 5. 2007
 I will not use this blog to confess every possibly wrong, evil, or criminal thing I have done. That would be vulgar showing off.
Instead, I want to use this post to claim my victimhood! Maybe I can get some special treatment or power or money for it! (Please wire funds to my Cayman account.) It's an old saying that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. In my case, that shift was an intellectual awakening, but I have been mugged and robbed. Here's my tale of woe: NYC: 1970s, Saturday, a few days before Christmas, around 8 pm, with snow: On way to an Upper West Side Christmas party, walking happily along Morningside Drive in the lovely NY snowy evening, when a scruffy guy of no racial idenity jumps out of the park and sticks a handgun in my stomach, and requests money. Having worked all day driving the horse and buggies in Central Park (my cool college job), I had about $1300 in a wad in my back pocket, but half it it (not including tips) belonged to the stable on W. 48th St. Emptied my front pockets (change, subway tokens, a few crumpled one-dollar bills) and handed it to him. I did not appear wealthy, for sure. Guy takes it, and runs back into the snowy Morningside Park. My body shakes for an hour, until I have had a few drinks and tell the story at the party. In those times, a waste of time to call the cops. NYC: 1970s, May, Saturday, 11 am. Packing girlfriend's powder-blue Volkswagen convertible for a picnic out at Jones' Beach. Run inside to get blankets for our picnic. Run back out - car gone. Call cops. They say "Fuggedaboutit. Unless you really want to file a complaint. If you really want to bother, you can come down to the precinct and fill out the forms. We will need the VID and the registration, but you're better off just calling your insurance." During the Koch and Dinkins years, there was anarchy. All credit goes to Rudy for the NYC of today. Boston, 1980s: Sunday night, 11 pm. Three young guys of no racial identity begin following me to my car. I walk faster; they walk faster. I run; they hustle. They are overweight, and one waves what looks like a handgun. I have my keys out, jump into my car, lock the doors and turn on the engine and start off. They kick the bumper as I depart, leaving them in the dust. NYC: 1980s, Saturday, 5 pm. Return to Upper West Side apartment with friend after buying mountain-climbing equipment. Mainly crampons and ice axes. Find door open. Hear water running, and open bathroom door. Find young person of no racial identity dressed in my roomates' clothes in bathroom. Then find suitcases full of our stuff in the living room. Threatened guy with ice axes, told him to remove clothes and get the f- out before we killed him. Guy says "Don't be gettin no attitude" but makes hasty retreat with only his dirty jeans - no shoes or shirt. Yells from bottom of stairwell "I'll be back, M-f-." He never did come back. I think we seemed crazier than he was. Eventually, moved back to New England. All that has happened to me since has been one late-night emptying of the garage - all bikes and fishing gear gone in the morning. Fear-free, but dismaying. But never try to tell me that thieving and white-collar crime are equivalent to ugly crime. They are not equivalent in the degree of personal violation. Image: 1883, Murder in a railroad car
Friday, May 4. 2007
 Quoted from Towards a Totalitarian Europe, in Brussels Journal:
Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovksy has warned that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. When people who have worked on higher levels in the EU system note similarities as well, it is time people start taking this idea seriously.
I think people are learning that the best way to destroy liberty is incrementally, from within, working in and around democratic processes, rather than by force of revolutionary arms or invading armies. It's always "for your own good" or "for the greater good," and they always take your guns away first, in case people get cranky about being turned into sheep. This isn't paranoid: I don't think these folks are usually malevolent in intent, but malevolent in effect. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and there is a thin line between the Nanny State and authoritarianism, as Tony Blair has amply demonstrated. Similarly, would-be invaders of nations have learned that it is more effective to do so via immigration than with arms. After all, if a million people try to cross a border with weapons they'll get shot, but if a million cross a border unarmed they will lay out a red carpet for you.
Thursday, May 3. 2007
 Quoted in NRO (h/t, Classical Values), regarding the new documentary Indoctrinate U:
...I was struck by the scientist who said that her students were able to figure out her politics simply by noting what she did not say. Just by teaching her subject, without adding extraneous leftist political harangues, she had revealed herself to be a closet Republican. You won’t believe what happened when the faculty found out about her politics. But the full horror story is almost less disturbing than the reality of that single observation about silence. Particularly in some of the non-science disciplines, it really has gotten to the point where mere silence on matters political is enough to reveal you as the enemy.
Whole short piece at NRO here. Register your interest in seeing the documentary here. See the trailer here. What does it take to be an academic pariah? Be conservative. Powerline. It's not funny. Deeply disturbing and distressing. Maoist. Another plug for the Indoctrinate U documentary. If the main job of education is to transmit foundational knowledge, values, and the culture, it cannot be done without a required core. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) have one. Fun to read. Columbia and Chicago have the best ones I know of, but every college has a potential core curriculum - it's just not required. Only Mom and Dad can require it - and they should. Ask us what we have required, if you're interested. Or maybe I will post it. ACTA is not pleased with the Vanishing Shakespeare. Their report here. Freshman Algebra in 1961. Right Wing Nation. I especially like the quiz questions like "How would you approach this problem?" and "Why can't this problem be solved?" My opinion on high school? No reason for it to be four years. Three is enough to do the job. Trivia question: when and why was American High School increased from three to four years? And, of course, for grown-ups who feel inadequately educated (that should mean everyone), don't take a course. Use The Teaching Company. I have never been disappointed in them. Photo: Columbia's Hamilton Hall, across College Walk. Interesting that Columbia College is now the most competitive liberal arts college in the country, and has the largest required core curriculum and the largest number of required courses. That says something. You can thank Rudy and Bloomberg too, who have cleaned up the city.
Tuesday, May 1. 2007
 Today is Illegal Alien Rally Day - a day which mocks American sovereignty and which celebrates the exploitation of American soft-heartedness and soft-headedness.
Boortz has some hard-headed ideas about how to deal with it. One of two Mexican families have relatives in the US, Drudge reports. Does that mean that if illegals are given citizenship, half the population of Mexico could move to the US? Remittances to families in Mexico is Mexico's second largest source of foreign currency, after oil, and far ahead of tourism. Linknzona looks at the crime mess in the Southwest, created by illegals. Of course, they are all criminals by definition anyway. We have 623,000 released alien fugitives in the US. Michelle. From a year ago, Mark Helprin on The Unvarnished Immigration Debate in the WaPo. A quote: Businesses large and small, careerists with Latin nannies, and those who want wages low, the unions suppressed and their gardens well tended have made common cause with their political opposites. The latter, who have embraced multiculturalism and bilingualism, and who, though they may be little blast furnaces of ostentatious compassion, are in their disdain for America as ruthless as commissars, would be delighted to see it changed any which way as long as it becomes unrecognizable. If you worry about the potential for California and the Southwest to calve like melting glaciers and cleave to Mexico, or vice versa, the left will mock your distress as it once mocked and reviled anticommunism. And in the same vein the equanimity of the business right is similar to the self-satisfaction of those who would have sold Lenin the rope with which he planned to hang them. This is the lobby, strange as it may seem, for illegal immigration.
Working in Mexico: The following is a re-post from about a year ago. A comment from a director with Southwest Bell in Mexico City. I spent five years working in Mexico. I worked under a tourist visa for three months and could legally renew it for three more months. After that you were working illegally. I was technically illegal for three weeks waiting on the FM3 approval. During that six months our Mexican and US Attorneys were working to secure a permanent work visa called a FM3. It was in addition to my US passport that I had to show each time I entered and left the country. Barbara's was the same except hers did not permit her to work. To apply for the FM3 I needed to submit the following notarized originals (not copies) of my: 1. Birth certificates for Barbara and me. 2. Marriage certificate. 3. High school transcripts and proof of graduation. 4. College transcripts for every college I attended and proof of graduation. 5. Two letters of recommendation from supervisors I had worked for at least one year. 6. A letter from The St. Louis Chief of Police indicating I had no arrest record in the US and no outstanding warrants and was "a citizen in good standing." 7. Finally; I had to write a letter about myself that clearly stated why there was no Mexican citizen with my skills and why my skills were important to Mexico. We called it our "I am the greatest person on earth" letter. It was fun to write. All of the above were in English that had to be translated into Spanish and be certified as legal translations and our signatures notarized. It produced a folder about 1.5 inches thick with English on the left side and Spanish on the right. (The remainder of his note on continuation page below)
Continue reading "Illegal Immigration: Mayday Mayday Mayday"
I have a soft spot for motor-sailers, probably because my Gramps was so fond of them. This one is a 1983 Island Trader 40. Not too expensive, either, and the finish is plenty nice. Take a look at the details and the interior. Nice boat. 
 Here's a rendering for a new Nordhavn 56' motorsailer with transatlantic range under power. Very slick. The designs and large renderings from all angles are on the link.
And below is 1918's 62' Old Glory, build by Lawley's and designed by Fred Lawley. Note her "canoe" stern design. She is for sale. You might be able to afford to buy her, but can you afford the upkeep? 
Monday, April 30. 2007
Many of our younger friends, and my colleagues at the firm, spent the week before last visiting colleges with their high-school age kids. Ambitious kids often aspire to our venerable, prestigious Ivy League colleges, but the Ivies do not have the space for all of the smart, curious, motivated and talented kids who apply. These days, you need a hook. A very big hook, if you have the misfortune to be a white male with 1600 SATs. Why? Because nowadays, the most competitive colleges "construct" a class. They don't simply take the kids they like; they take the best applicant from each of a large number of columns. The best violinist, the best oboeist, the best squash player, the best quarterback, the best legacy applicants, the kids of the biggest donors, the one who won the most international math tournaments, etc. Plus their prospecting for ultra-talented kids is world-wide now: Just look at the names on Ivy tennis, soccer, or fencing teams - globalization at work. They might have a category for smart, well-rounded kids, but they keep that secret. Fortunately, in America there are tons of equally good alternatives for kids who would like to excel, many which have not become commie propaganda mills yet, and many of which are far less expensive. In education, you do not get what you pay for, you get what you can take in. In our firm, we have associates from all sorts of colleges and from all sorts of top 20 law schools. We realize that it's a big world out there, and that it's not like my day, when having an Ivy pedigree seemed like a social and professional requirement (and admission was less selective). Those days are gone, and it might be for the best, but I am not sure. I prefer values to brains, assuming the brains are adequate. Editor's Note: A reader sent in this photo of Harvard's University Hall, taken on a college visit with a child a week ago. 
Saturday, April 28. 2007
What a bunch of mind-numbed morons. Michelle. No wonder the hedgies prefer Dartmouth kids: we think more normal, and we reject PC.  More stuff later today, but the Missus and I are going for a morning ride on this lovely spring day to try to tire these winter-weary horses. We plan to do a Pony Express-style morning, to try to remind all of our dumb beasts about what we expect from them. A morning grapefruit and a Bloody Mary or two, and then canter or gallop the piss out of them on the trails, fallen-tree jumps, deep mud, and all, until they listen and obey.
You have to deal with them with an "attitude," at this time of the year: I have been known to jump off and slug a horse in the face, a useful technique that I learned long ago from an Irish trainer. It makes an impression, if you don't break your wrist. There is nothing as fine as a Saturday morning ride on pea-brained, wacked-out Hunters in the early spring in Yankeeland. Battle them back into submission and obedience, if you have the heart. We will bring some of the pups to follow us, and wear them out too. A goal for a Saturday: tired horses, tired dogs, and a tired wifie taking a nap. Then light a fire in the library, gather the pups around, pour a double Scotch, and catch up on the blog readin' and writin,' and find the Dutch Courage to approach the paperwork mountain. A late casual dinner with pals, I see on the calendar. Perfect. And then Nirvana: a nightcap, beddie and bookie. I call it a balanced life. You have to build it the way you want it. In America, you can. Church tomorrow morning. Photo: the Missus in our ring, on Ben.
Friday, April 27. 2007
 I found Dr. Helen's discussion of the psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Friedman, who stated in the New York Times that he made politically-correct referrals, a good one, but I was confused by Dr. Friedman's premises.
Psychiatry is not all about empathy. In fact, empathy is just one of many tools in ye olde toolbox. When patients ask for a certain gender, age, color, etc. for a referral, I like to explore why. Usually it is a "resistance," ie based on the idea that someone might go easy on them and not challenge what needs to be challenged. All shrinks have seen people who search until they find someone who will "support" them rather than shake up their world and challenge their inner problems. Kindly, one would hope, but also aggressively, because life is short. For example, a black patient might chose a black psychiatrist because "he would better understand my life." Nonsense. He just maybe might understand your surface outer life, but we deal with inner life. That is our special expertise. I have been known to say "What you are saying sounds full of shit," and it has been quite helpful - and truly "empathic" - because it was true. Empathy is just a tool for speaking the truth. Depth psychotherapy for character flaws is about the doctor doing battle with a series of resistances. When one is cut down, the next resistance in line pops up. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a high-falutin' game of Whack-A-Mole. I will never forget one consultation I did with a fancy, somewhat condescending middle-aged WASP lady, to assess her appropriateness for psychoanalysis. She mentioned that, if possible, she would prefer a Jewish analyst. Why? "I guess maybe because I wouldn't worry about what I said to a Jew." There was Resistance #1 handed to me on a platter: shame about what she might say or reveal. Thus she told me that shame was one of her surface resistances - part of the easy work before the subtler transference resistances kick in. Neo-neo commented on Dr. Helen's piece, and said that she knew therapists who would not treat a Republican. In my opinion, such a "therapist" is a fraud and not prepared to help anyone, because they are clearly so caught up in their own self that they do not welcome the adventure of trying to enter another person's mental world. Can you imagine a surgeon caring more about your politics than about your appendix? There is a little thing called the Hippocratic Oath.
Wednesday, April 25. 2007
 Boat designer Skip Etchells, who lived in Connecticut during most of his career, is best known for the International Etchells. That sailboat is no comfortable day-sailer, but a sleek, knife-like racing boat which unfortunately was never chosen as an Olympic class, but which has been a racing sailboat of choice for many of the best skippers in the word.
Etchells are still going strong after Skip's death. 
Monday, April 23. 2007
 Department of Things You Always Wondered About: How does a snake swallow a larger snake? Live Science
North America's handsome King Snake is best known as a snake-eater, hence its name. He is immune to the venom of poisonous snakes. In the US, there are a number of varieties of King Snakes, including the stunning eastern Scarlet Kingsnake, but the taxonomy is unclear. I have only seen one wild Scarlet King Snake in my life, and I tramp the woods, fields and marshes as much as I can. Image is a King Snake subduing a Copperhead by constriction, preparatory to dining on it.
Sunday, April 22. 2007
 40% of American women have no financial plan for their future. It is a good source for that info, but I do not have the link.
For a country where people are expected to be responsible adults, and to take care of themselves, that is pretty bad. The numbers could be as bad for guys, but they wouldn't admit it. But guys do not last as long as gals: life worries do them in. Grow up, you ladies without trust funds. Daddy won't be there to save you, hubbie will probably be dead, and you may no longer look like the charmer in the photo. Feminism entails demands along with the opportunities. Women tend to live a long time as old ladies: it's the price they pay for being so delicious in youth.
Saturday, April 21. 2007
A re-post from Dr. Bliss in October, 2006, after the Amish school slaughter. Few are talking about evil, re VT. Why not? Evil deeds deserved to be labelled as such. In reply to Lawrence Auster, re the lack of moral judgementalism around the Amish murders: People do not like to talk about evil, especially on TV. Some of them don't believe that evil exists, some of them do not want to sound preachy or morally sanctimonious, and probably some of them just want to avoid the unpleasant subject of evil so the watchers don't switch channels. I suspect that essentially everyone feels judgemental about the murders, but public moral judgement is out of fashion these days, except against Republicans, where it is always fashionable (as in the Foley story). Probably only a handful of misguided clergy, social workers, and academics truly withhold judgement from heinous acts. But many bloggers have no problem discussing evil. Dr. Sanity engages the subject regularly, as does Shrinkwrapped and One Cosmos. And we do too, here and here, for example. If the MSM did all that it should, most bloggers could retire. I hate the term "sociopath," because it sounds more like a medical diagnosis, or one of those phony Soviet diagnoses, than what it truly is, which is a disorder of the soul - an incapacity for guilt or remorse, and a capacity for putting of one's self and one's emotions before all else - above the rules, and above other people. It's a disorder for which there is no doctor's cure. They are built wrong, so they act wrong. They are better known as Evil People. There are also non-Evil people who have very nasty thoughts, or who do morally wrong things, but that's another subject. This child-killer is the face of evil, disguised as a regular harmless person. Remarkable to me, in this story, is the speed with which the Amish speak of forgiveness. It comes too soon for it to be convincing to me, but I know what it is they seek. They seek to have God cleanse their souls of hatred because a soul burdened and contaminated by hate or chronic anger is alienated from God and from one's spiritual community. But at the same time, I suspect (but I don't know any Amish) that they would expect to see this guy executed. Forgiveness is not a gift to a wrong-doer; it's a blessing which, with God's help, is conferred on ourselves to release us from the burden of hatred and vengefulness. It is difficult and it is not natural: it is supernatural soul-maintenance, like an oil change from above.
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