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.
A “disorder” is a socially constructed label that describes a set of symptoms occurring together and its associated behaviors, not a real entity with etiological homogeneity. Labeling emotional problems “disordered” assumes that happiness is the natural homeostatic state, and distressing emotional states are abnormal and need to be changed. A diagnostic label can help improve communication and understand maladaptive behaviors; if that label is reified, however, it can lead to assumptions that the etiology, course, and treatment response are known. Proponents of the diagnostic psychiatric nomenclature have acknowledged the dangers of over-pathologizing normal experiences of living (such as fear) by way of diagnostic labeling.
That's what I've been saying for years, but she says it better.
Inquiring minds want to know. Here's ours, for around 23 people - family and friends:
Unknown hors d'oevres (my Sis brings) with Champagne.
Two turkeys, one in the oven with cornbread stuffing, and one on the grill. Extra stuffing. Gibier gravy. My Mom is making her famous artery-smoothing mashed potatoes with sour cream and cream cheese and chives etc in them (mashed potatoes like that plus regular red wine intake have kept my 85 year-old Dad alive and kicking thus far). Brussel Sprouts sauteed with bacon and shallots. String beans with almonds. Creamed baby onions. Sweet potatoes done somehow by my Bro. Mountains of various forms of Cranberry sauces (The best? Orange-Cranberry Relish). Corn pudding (from good dried corn like Cope's) from my M-in-law. Good red wine, cider, along with lots of Martinelli's for the teetotalers and an assortment of really good beers including Palm and some of the German Weissbraus that I have become fond of.
Pumpkin Pie made by Mrs. BD from fresh pumpkin, and Squash Pie from fresh Butternut squash. Apple Pies made by another Sis. Indian Pudding. Pumpkin Cheesecake. Ice cream and whipped cream on the side. Some decent Port for after, with cigars for the gents (and for any women who want them. As far as I know, Mrs. BD has not smoked a cigar since the Macanudo she rebelliously enjoyed at our wedding reception).
The best part? Everybody helps clean everything up after, and nobody leaves until it's all done. It gets like The Cat in the Hat around here. The strong men scrub the pots and pans and carry the rental tables and chairs out to the driveway. Our family - families - are like that: they seem to enjoy work and effort, and seek it out. If they can't find any work at hand to be done or any mess to be tidied, they go for a five mile run or split some firewood or build a wall or do something useful. None of my own kin will watch TV. It's Yankee blood. We do not do idle very well, even on vacation. Or especially on vacation. Maybe it's a flaw - but mess and idleness are the haunts and playthings of the devil. We can rest and "relax" all we want when we're dead. Until then, it's "Hi, Ho, Go, Go" as long as we can.
With a world so full of wonders and challenges, why leave a legacy of a dent in a sofa?
There was a time when anybody would be ashamed to take charity, and would knock themselves out to avoid it or to get out from it. The way some people talk nowadays, you're a chump if you don't take what you can. There is never gratitude towards the taxpaying neighbor. No Thank You notes for the charity.
People should never give up on engagement with life. Can you find dignity?
With Thanksgiving on the way, my thoughts have wandered to one of my favorite desserts - Indian Pudding. I don't know about the rest of the country, but up here old Yankees view it to be as essential as Pumpkin Pie and Winter Squash Pie on the dessert table. (I usually consider Mince Pie to be more of a Christmas treat.) Here's one good recipe. I think ice cream overpowers it, but a drizzle of heavy cream does not.
Since we're on the subject of corn meal, here are a few of my other favorites:
Cheese Grits. This would be good for Thanksgiving too. Cheese grits are good with game meat, and with barbecue too. I could live on cheese grits.
Related, but not ground corn: Cope's Dried Sweet Corn. The best for corn pudding, which is a Thanksgiving necessity.
Almost forgot - Cornmeal pancakes. More interesting than ordinary pancakes.
The American Indians ground their teeth down to nubs from chomping ground corn (samp) - and especially from the stone particles in it from their stone mortars.
Over the past decade or two, the marketing of higher ed has been to sell it as a financial investment. Of course, financial investments are about supply and demand, and when the supply goes up and demand goes down, the proud grads with their marketing-inflated grades are SOL.
If they want to market higher ed to the masses, they need to either market as adolescent sex resorts as Club Ed, or as an opportunity be become a citizen who is more deeply rooted in their culture. I suspect the former, "the college experience", sells better to the youth.
As I think about it, there's also the social angle (non-college grads like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Bob Dylan have trouble getting invitations to the nice parties and clubs) - and also the networking angle, but that mainly works well for high-prestige and high-visibility schools: Ivy League, Little Ivies, Big Ten, UT, MIT, Va. Tech, and so forth but many other colleges have established very tight networking for their grads. I'm thinking of USC, Connecticut College, Georgetown, Kenyon, and there are plenty of others where loyal alumni will do anything to help grads find a career track they want.
No doubt these lies are "for my own good," just like the Obamacare lies. I am sick of an overly-powerful federal government, and sick of the fawning respect it gets from the media. It disgusts me, this culture of branding and pop-culture, high-school, leg-tingling nonsense which has invaded government.
From a good post on Washington DC and it's over-importance and self-importance, Fifty Years after Dallas - In a TV cult like Kennedy’s, there is more than a whiff of Roman decadence.
The real difficulty is that the presidency has come to occupy too large a place in our individual psyches, even as the federal nation-state over which the president presides has come to occupy too large a place in our individual lives. The imperial presidency that had its beginnings in the administrations of the first Roosevelt and Wilson has grown up with the imperial state, a noxious weed that is only too likely to culminate in a kind of Caesarian first magistracy, an office very different from the one the Founders envisioned when they drafted the second article of the Constitution.
As the federal government grows ever more potent, local and regional culture diminish apace; we are left only with national power and the national sanctities. Kennedy, who made the slenderest of marks on the policy of the nation, left the greatest impression on its imaginative life. He had, indeed, an eye for the enchanting symbol. He approved the peculiar logo that is to this day blazoned on the presidential aircraft; he conceived the Medal of Freedom; he laid down the protocols for the pageantry of the modern state visit. What is more, he chose for his mate a brunette of excellent taste who turned the dowdy White House into the most stylish of 20th-century courts, and selected for his (most notable) concubine a platinum blonde who continues to haunt that dream-vision of an America in which Huck Finn, Abe Lincoln, and Betsy Ross (or some such mythical company) are forever laughing and swapping yarns on a raft on the Mississippi.
It is, alas, a spurious dream.
JFK was not much as a president, but he was a pre-Beatles pop-idol for the gals, and he enchanted the media. The only good thing about him was his basic conservatism. Rich and handsome, with good, expensive speech-writers. So what?
We did one turkey in the oven, stuffed with cornbread stuffing, and the other one on the grill with occasional doses of soaked apple wood chunks from my neighbor's tree, and with white wine in the steam water. Both birds were brined 24 hrs before cooking, and each around 18 lbs.
We had plenty of family and friends to eat it all up.
I think people preferred the grilled (no stuffing in the grilled bird). It was my first time trying grilled turkey. Beginner's luck: It came out perfectly: moist, with a pleasant hint of smokiness. It took around 3 1/2 hrs to cook. Keeping the temp at near 325 involved carefully titrating the number of briquettes and fruitwood chunks to keep the heat low, but to not let the fire go out. Basted it with veg. oil and honey.
Nice grill, eh? This cast-iron thing weights 500 lbs. I had to assemble the darn thing off a truck, and got most of it right. Except for the wheels, which fell off. Now it takes a few pall-bearers to move it.
This is halfway:
And done:
The puppy seemed equally happy with scraps from the grilled and from the oven-roasted turkey.
Just the euphemism "unprepared" exposes the college diploma fraud that is sold to so many American kids and families. As I have asserted many times, if you can't handle calculus, statistics, college physics, Econ, Plato, and Thomas Aquinus, you do not belong in a serious 4-year college.
There are immense other learning opportunities in the US for anybody who wants them, for motivated scholars. Public libraries, for one example. They do not close at 5 pm. Useful community colleges have sprung up all over America to provide some of the basic and remedial education that was not done in government high schools, and to teach practical skills that used to be learned in apprenticeships or on the job.
"Unprepared" is a euphemism for unmotivated, uninterested, or unable for personality or intelligence reasons. Not everybody can play in the NFL either.
Remember the shocking reality that half of Americans have below-average IQs. College curricula have been aimed at well-above average IQ and well-above average curiosity and self-motivation levels. Some "experts" opine that only 5% of a population are really able and interested in the demands of traditional and rigorous higher ed. I'm willing to admit that, of that 5-10%, only about half would be motivated to self-educate without the structure of a school. That's simple lazy human nature.
Were I (God forbid) a college admissions officer, one thing I would care about is what the applicant learned outside of school on their own initiative. As I have often said, learning is not something that is delivered, it is something that is taken. You can lead a horse to water, etc. Even the "worst" schools, whatever that means, offer huge opportunities for anyone who wants them. Teachers want nothing more than motivated, capable, and respectful kids, and will respond to them. Yes, even unionized teachers.
People can dumb higher ed down all they want to fill seats, collect tuition, etc., but it doesn't mean a thing anymore.
I recently had a discussion with one of the hiring managers at my office, discussing an informational interview she'd had with a young fellow graduating from college. Good experience was all over his resume, plenty of jobs, references and the candidate played on a Div. 1 football squad. He was second team on defense, but he had an agent encouraging him to go pro. He had a good shot at making the NFL, either on a practice squad somewhere or possibly special teams, both offering the chance of better things.
He was a good student, too. As a result, he opted out of the NFL, and decided the working life was a better career choice. He was a bit tired of the culture of football. He loved it, but it's grinding work. He wanted to use other skills he'd developed. I don't blame him.
As the hiring manager and I spoke, she commented "Well, he has the added benefit of being diverse."
I looked at her and said, "What do you mean, exactly?"
"I think you know what I mean, he's ethnic."
"So he's black. You're telling me this makes him more qualified?"
"No, not more qualified, but you know how things are today. We have to remain conscious of this fact, diversity is so important in the workplace."
"Yes, I agree, it is important. But having me as part of the team doesn't make us more diverse? I'm curious if I'm diverse?"
"Well, you're diverse in terms of thought. You think in ways nobody else here does, but that's not what we focus on in diversity."
...Paine sat down beneath the dark December sky and wrote his electrifying The American Crisis, the first of a series of essays, on a drumhead by the flickering light of a campfire. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” he wrote—words that should be engraved on every American heart and that never lose their power to thrill. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, at this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” How unworthy of a man and a father to sigh, “Well! give me peace in my day.” A loving father would say, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” As for the American army, Paine reported from firsthand experience, it remained cool and orderly during the tough retreat across New Jersey, and the soldiers, “though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or provision . . . bore it with a manly spirit. . . . The sign of fear was not seen in our camp.” And now, “we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast.”
This was just the bucking up that the army and the nation sorely needed, and when the essay appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet on December 19, 1776, the soldiers read it to one another as they huddled together for warmth by the banks of the Delaware. Wavering civilians within reach of Washington’s camp made up their minds to join his force, and long-expected reinforcements finally arrived, temporarily swelling the Continental Army to 7,600—enough to cross the ice-choked Delaware River on Christmas Day, win the Battles of Trenton and Princeton in the next ten days, save the revolution, and change the course of world history. “Without the pen of Paine,” John Adams judged, “the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.”
I suspect that most of my ancestors were Tories, but so were most Americans at the time. A dramatic rebellion, nonetheless, with the American Constitution as its crowning jewel.
It's an opiate agonist/antagonist. Apparently it's a mild high. I know a doc who prescribes it. He is all about $.
My bias tends to be in favor of sobriety and standing up and facing life and oneself directly, but those things are difficult for everybody. In the UK, however, certified addicts can pick up their heroin etc at the docs' office on the way to work. The NHS figures it's cheaper than rehab. Of course, the NHS also considers death cheaper than cancer treatments.
From Daniel Hannan: The World of English Freedoms - It's no accident that the English-speaking nations are the ones most devoted to law and individual rights, writes Daniel Hannan. A quote:
Wasn't the American) republic founded in a violent rejection of the British Empire? Didn't Paul Revere rouse a nation with his cry of "the British are coming"?
Actually, no. That would have been a remarkably odd thing to yell at a Massachusetts population that had never considered itself anything other than British (what the plucky Boston silversmith actually shouted was "The regulars are coming out!"). The American Founders were arguing not for the rejection but for the assertion of what they took to be their birthright as Englishmen. They were revolutionaries in the 18th-century sense of the word, whereby a revolution was understood to be a complete turn of the wheel: a setting upright of that which had been placed on its head.
That's why wise people are always skeptics about "studies." Ten years ago, transfats were to save us from butter. Now, vice versa. Ten years ago, broccoli was good. Now, it's said to be carcinogenic. Ten years ago, the experts told us to avoid fats. Now they tell us they made a mistake; bacon is back and carbs are the bad thing (I think this seems correct from what little I know about insulin and carb metabolism). I take to heart little of what I read, but I read it anyway. Reading is recreational, often entertaining, and beats hard work.
Were I to live with no TV, no internet, and no newspaper, I think I would be a wiser man to simply focus on my daily experiences.
In this case, the kids did not want to hear Charles Murray. Seems like they did not want to hear fresh ideas. Fresh, thought-provoking ideas are threatening.
If you do not want to hear new viewpoints and new information, what are you doing in school? Murray is always interesting, because he is one smart dude who just follows his data wherever it leads. I have no doubt that he is smarter than those arrogant students. As with Sen. Moynihan, it was data that led Murray from Lefty to Centrist.
To learn, one must become humble because new ideas and new information disrupt comfortable biases. Disruption of biases is uncomfortable.
Speaking of logic, here's a comment on the fallacy of the precautionary principle from one of this morning's links:
... the precautionary principle itself — a framework under which no one would venture outdoors at any time for work or play, as any number of horrors loom, all of which carry probabilities greater than zero. Even indoors, of course, the precautionary principle requires eternal vigilance, as Pravda in its glory days would have put it, as the roof might collapse at any time. I am surprised that the Left has not proposed a requirement that individuals wear hard hats when indoors, a diktat qualitatively identical to seatbelt and motorcycle helmet laws and other such manifestations of nanny-statism.
The precautionary principle, accordingly, is a fundamentally totalitarian construct, as it leads inexorably toward a world in which government dictates which risks are acceptable.
A little risk is good, isn't it? It adds zest to life, the hot sauce. I would never go outdoors without my tin foil hat, however. Never know who might be listening in to my brain waves. Beware of the Thought Police.
Many of the women who purport to speak for the modern woman sound as if testosterone were toxic. However, I wonder how many of them (the non-Lesbians, that is) would ever claim that they seek a husband who is timid, frail, non-physical, unforceful, indecisive, unauthoritative, unadventurous, passive rather than restless, and lacking in intellectual and sexual aggressiveness and vigor?
Try it again, Icarus - it will work this time. Obama today basically says "Never mind. Keep your old plan for one year until after the election next fall, then we go back to now."
Insurers have spent two years revising their plans to meet Obamacare legal requirements, erasing their old plans and creating new ones with new pricing and new, expanded coverages (in many cases) and new deductibles. Not to mention 20,000 pages of government regulations to try to understand. Thus we had, today, yet another phony false promise which, as I understand it, is not even consistent with the law even if it could be done.
You break it, you own it.
Our government moral and intellectual superiors have done it once again. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but hubris exists as does Nemesis, even today. Good Lord, save us from others with good intentions towards us.
We at Maggie's HQ are lucky. Our very cheap $10,000 deductible family policy didn't change at all, so "we can keep it." "Allowed" to keep it? Well, thanks, geniuses. I bought that, my choice. Our IQ is over 100 (if you add Mrs. BD's IQ in there), so we aren't stupid. Am I allowed to keep my car too? Or is it "substandard"? It gets me to Dunkin' Donuts every morning at 4:45 so it's good enough for me.
Yesterday we had a post by Bulldog about colleges as teen fun 'n sex resorts. By coincidence, this morning I chatted with a dad whose daughter is applying to college. She only willing to consider a college with a major football or basketball team, modern dorms with pool, sauna, and work-out room, and which offers a major in pre-school education. Plus she wants to go out of state to "be independent."
Would "the college experience" cost any more or less without the "education"?
She has high grades but mediocre SAT scores. Clearly the slick college marketing has captured her attention. She wants to try out for cheerleader.
I've been reading Edmund Wilson's A Prelude: Landscapes, Characters & Conversations from the Earlier Years of My Life. Wilson had the real, old-time "college experience," investing himself in a rigorous and vigorous life of the mind at prep school and at Princeton (advanced math, Greek, Latin, French, and his own literary and intellectual pursuits and interests on the side) while inhabiting spartan quarters and making many lifelong relationships.
He writes with such relaxed clarity and innocence that even his musings about aunts and uncles are a delight.
A recent look back at his tenure as president of Miami University (OH), the school my son happens to attend, did not provide any new insights. However, it does support my view of what is wrong with the education process. After many visits to Miami and other universities, it's clear there is too much emphasis on coddling the students. There is a war going on to provide the best dorms, the best cafe-style foods, the best recreation center, the best student union. Building on the Miami campus, which really does resemble a private school in look and feel, is rampant. You can't turn a corner without seeing construction.
I have complained that the cost of my son's education is primarily to support spending on new 'stuff' rather than better education. I'm glad to see the former president more or less agrees. It is a problem which is not isolated to Miami, I've seen similar activity taking place on every campus I visited.
It doesn't help that Federal loans and grants are helping to fuel this work, either. Ultimately, whether you have a child at university or not, this is costing you money.
Remember the Democrat Convention last year, when we were assured that government is the only thing to which we all belong? This shows that liberals haven't made a dent in the most destructive kinds of poverty, i.e., mental and spiritual. Indeed, for the liberal, these impoverished states are mandatory -- sort of an inverted interpretation of Jesus's praise of the poor in spirit. "Blessed are the weakminded, for they shall inherit the state."
I have no doubt that Obama wishes Obamacare to do good. But that is no excuse! Indeed, we could call it culpable goodness, because there is probably nothing in the world that has caused as much death and destruction as misguided good.
It could be a Maggie's theme song. I thought the lines that followed were "I love the girls and the girls love me." My Mom used to sing it as "I like the boys and the boys like me."
Don't hold your breath. Their jobs are far too important to let truth get in the way of what they want to do for us. A sordid business, closely related to and affiliated with prostitution of every sort. A sorry bunch of losers in life, even when they win elections and get rich in the process.
Everybody knows that politicians lie and manipulate routinely, which is why most people view them as a necessary evil despite their endless claims of being our moral and intellectual superiors. It must be interesting to be in a sales job in which the product is insulated from either performance results or meaningful competition.
Today’s Democrats argue that, some deceptive language aside, President Obama had every right to implement his view of medical care for America, as well as other things, because he was elected twice having promised something of the sort. But, in 1974, Republicans could have argued that Nixon had been elected twice, the second time by the largest margin in US history, specifically to undo the 1960s. In fact, Nixon’s lies about what he knew of his subordinates’ misdeeds were entirely irrelevant to the purpose for which he had been elected. Why should the Republican constituencies who had worked so hard have given up on the Nixon Administration? Why did Barry Goldwater, Mr. conservative himself, go to the White House to tell Nixon he had to resign?
The government thinks you’re stupid, or at least ignorant.
This isn’t just an indictment of the current government or an indictment of government itself. It’s simply a statement of fact. At its core, the government exists to do certain things that people aren’t equipped to do on their own. The list of those things has gotten longer and longer over the years. In 1776, the federal government’s portfolio could have easily fit in a file folder: maintain an army and navy, a few federal courts, the post office, the patent office, and maybe a dozen or two other pretty obvious things.
Now, the file folder of things the federal government does is much bigger.
Read the entire brief post. It is in the government's interest to keep us all ignorant, poor, weak, and unresourceful serfs on the government plantation. That is not American, it's European or worse. Even "colonial." If your taxes approach 40%, you are a serf of the State. Feudalism endures and the bank accounts of the mandarins grow fat.
Typically, serfs in England owed 30-50% of their production to the Lord, who in turn owed some fraction of that, plus soldiers when needed, to the King.
My chef friend recommends trying Sweet Chili. I've only made hot chili in the past, and I like to make it with chunks of chuck, and no beans.
With a relative here recovering from orthopedic surgery, I'm trying Sweet Chili tonight. Something like this, with its interesting combination of ingredients: The Best Chili You Will Ever Taste. Chef also advises using Pink Beans - Rosadas - not kidney beans for Chili. Also says canned beans are at least as good as soaking dried beans. Says no good chef would bother soaking beans.
I'll serve it with some rice if wanted, but I think chips are the right thing. Or maybe I'll make some cornbread. Yeah, that's what I will do.
The fun thing about Chili for me is a choice of toppings: Scallions, chopped red onion, grated cheese, chopped pepper or chopped Halapenos, sour cream, etc.
I use a Slow-Cooker, aka crock pot, for these sorts of things so as not to be chained to the kitchen. Slow Cooker never burns things, and you can go do things for 6 hours. Mine has a timer, too.
The good Balsamic Vinegar comes from Modena (home of Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini), where they have been making it for a thousand years. I have some days when I hunger for some Balsamic.
It's called "balsamic" because it was thought to be a good balsam, or balm, for pain and disease. Our North American Balsam Fir was thought to be good for diseases too, hence its name. The Romans viewed vinegar as a balm and a medicine - hence the Roman soldier kindly offering Jesus vinegar on the cross.
They make it from boiled-down Trebbiano grape juice. Balsamic Vinegar is not a wine vinegar.
The aging process seems to be key. As the volume shrinks over time and the vinegar becomes more syrupy, it is moved into smaller and smaller wood casks made of different woods until ready. Juniper is the final cask. 15 and 25 year-old Italian Balsamic Vinegars are readily available, and there are 100 year-old ones. The 15 year-old one in the photo is $70/bottle. Unlike a bottle of wine of that price, however, you only have to use a few drops at a time.
Northern Italians would never touch our supermarket stuff, nor would any really good American restaurant. However, the available quality is getting better and better. Costco has pretty good balsamic for salad use.
The old story Marcella Hazan relates is about the old Northern Italian guy who ran down to the cellar when the Americans began bombing. Then he remembered, and ran up to the room where his precious small casks of very old Balsamic were stored and rushed them down to the cellar. Then he realized that he had forgotten one more thing: His wife.
Ever tried a good Balsamic on strawberries? It's a classic Italian dessert. It's equally good on fresh fig halves with a touch of honey or sugar. Just make sure you use the good stuff.
What's on your menu? (re-posted) -
Over the past decade or two, the marketing of higher ed has been to sell it as a financial investment. Of course, financial investments are about supply and demand, and when the supply goes up and demand goes down, the proud grads with their marketing-inflated grades are SOL.
Just the euphemism "unprepared" exposes the college diploma fraud that is sold to so many American kids and families. As I have asserted many times, if you can't handle calculus, statistics, college physics, Econ, Plato, and Thomas Aquinus, you do not belong in a serious 4-year college. 
Thanks to Myron Magnet for 
Here's an online course: 
Try it again, Icarus - it will work this time. Obama today basically says "Never mind. Keep your old plan for one year until after the election next fall, then we go back to now."
Image of Obamacare ad via
The good Balsamic Vinegar comes from