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.
Collectively, our readers seem to know about everything.
I am having battery problems. I do not understand batteries. I think the main purpose of these batteries is ignition. Or are they for generating sparks too? I am ignorant.
Anyway, I have beeb experiencing a rash of dead batteries.
This excellent, heavy-duty baby takes a gel 6 V. battery. It died over the winter. I tried to recharge it but that didn't work. The guy said not to leave its batteries out in the winter.
A also have one of these cool trimmer-mowers which are fine and easier to use for weeds and tall grass in tight or steeply-sloped areas. It's like a gas-powered scythe. Luckily or not, it's a pull-start so no battery issue there.
Our Farmall tractor takes a regular 12 V car battery, so that's simple. Naturally, the battery dies over the winter from disuse, but is sometimes rechargeable by jumping it. However, our old Ford tractor takes a 6 V which will not hold a charge after jumping it and running it for hours.
I don't like that because I sometimes stall out on hills, and don't want to leave the tractor stuck outdoors. Do I need to buy a new 6 V tractor battery every Spring?
Seth Klarman, billionaire investor and promoter of risk-averse value investing, is concerned. Seth thinks the U.S. should actually try capitalism. He's right, considering the current status of Detroit, with many other cities and states to follow. Living within your means is a good idea. Competition and the market are more effective tools than policies promoting 'fairness' and picking winners.
I tend to agree with Alan Greenspan, that bubbles can't be predicted. I'd go so far as to say they can't even be defined. You 'know them when you see them'. Didier Sornette would disagree and has some basis for his view. However, Sornette's model isn't necessarily predictive of bubbles, and rather charts obsessive investing behaviors. Not all obsessive behaviors lead to bubbles, though his model is still informative. Regardless of how much you trust Sornette's models (and I do), the question is less one of 'what do you do' and rather 'what don't you do'.
It's worth noting if you do something right, it usually appears that you did nothing at all.
The topic of physical or emotional trauma is complicated as heck. For starters, what is "traumatic" for one person might very well not be for another. What is termed "traumatic" depends on the severity and duration of the effects, not the event or situation itself. There are just too many things to be factored in for each individual. I once had a root canal done without Novocaine. That hurt terribly, but was not traumatic. My first break up was traumatic, and the scar remains and affects me many years later.
A life, lived long enough, will collect many physical and emotional painful or disruptive experiences. Some will scar over, some will remain oozing wounds, and some may be crippling. It's normal life. Shrinks and therapists try to find ways to be helpful with emotional pain, but there is no panacea.
I guess that's wasn't what that idiot on The View would term "rape-rape."
This seemingly naive or reckless young girl (which is not to blame her) should have called the cops, and let the DA sort out the facts and the details.
Perhaps the issue is that college kids these days do not view themselves as part of the big adult world yet.
I have always countered people who complain about parking with the observation that they should feel fortunate to live where many other people want to be instead of some dying place where nobody wants to be and there is nothing to do.
I mostly avoid malls since internet shopping took hold, but you never really hear people complain about a 5 or ten-minute walk from a garage to their destination in the mall. Similarly when you drive into Manhattan and usually require a lengthy - but scenic - hike to your destination. Same with a stadium.
When street parking is available, people seem to think differently.
My wife and I have been scuba diving for 20+ years, and we've seen all kinds of fantastic sights. I was lucky enough to meet a Sea Turtle on my first open water experience, at 120 feet. Barracuda have eyed my wife and I hungrily, while we off-gassed on the hang line. An octopus shot some ink while we watched him in his lair. Probably the most amazing thing we experienced was being buzzed by a pod of Atlantic Bottle-Nosed Dolphin while we ascending from a WWII wreck.
It was a disconcerting experience, at first. As the video below only hints, baitfish will suddenly move in a unified direction as a predator approaches. We were surrounded by baitfish and they disappeared suddenly, as if being washed down a funnel and into the darkness of the ocean. You don't need much experience to know what that mean. Our eyes as big as plates, we anticipated the arrival of a shark. When the Dolphin suddenly appeared, it was as if playtime was declared. They whipped around us two or three times, encouraging us to let go and join them.
But I've never, ever, come this close to being lunch.
I like this refreshingly hot, crunchy Chinese pickled salad in the summer. Here's how I make it:
Peel and then cut some raw turnips (real turnips) into small (1 inch) bite-sized chunks. Same with some carrots. I cut them in irregular shapes. Some cauliflower chunks. Being a turnip person, I make it about 50% turnip. Chopped cabbage, too, if you want. Blanch them all in boiling water for a minute (separately, in order of color, or you will end up with orange cauliflower). You might want to give the turnip chunks a little more time to boil, but it's all meant to be crunchy.
If you want, some (unpeeled) raw cucumber chunks in it to add color and fun, great, but add those chunks at the last few minutes before straining because soggy cucumbers are not good.
Mix clear vinegar with some salt and a teaspoon or three of sugar (to taste). Toss in some of those very hot dried red Chinese peppers, also some red pepper flakes and/or fresh jalapeno slices, and some thin slices of fresh ginger root. It's fine without the ginger too.
Throw the roots and vegetables in a garbage bag or bowl with the mixture, cover, refrigerate 6-24 hrs, stirring it up occasionally. It should be meaningfully spicy, but it doesn't have to be.
Call the police. Their number is 911. Easy to remember, even if you aren't so good with numbers.
Now if your only complaint is bad manners, I suppose that's another matter. I suppose a college has the power to enforce gentlemanly and ladylike manners if they wish to, but, if so, I am not impressed. Manners, like Codes of Conduct and Codes of Honor, are so old-fashioned, aren't they?
Our yellow Trumpet Vine on our entryway arbor - a mini- nature preserve - is having a good year.
A Robin is nesting in it right now. Her second batch this season. They get annoyed every time you walk through.
I devoted yesterday afternoon to manual labor because the heat wave passed. Weeding, vine removal, some mid-summer pruning, stacking logs for winter, etc. While taking a little iced-tea and cigar break sitting on my wood pile, I got free entertainment from two Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds fighting over the ownership of the entire vine. "Why not share it?" I thought. "There's enough nectar and tiny bugs for all." Nope.
Nature is not nursery school.
Elsewhere at the Maggie's HQ, I have a red Trumpet Vine. I think they prefer the red, but they seem to find the yellow worth fighting over.
It's a dreadful task to break up one's parents' household but, with my Dad's death two weeks ago, we need to get it on the market before Labor Day in order to sell it before the lengthy driveway and parking area need snow-plowing and shoveling, and are covered with ice.
My parents raised most of us kids in this sunny and cheery 6-BR contemporary which my Dad designed, and my parents remained there until they died.
The realtors want the house emptied out, heavy-duty cleaned, and floors waxed, in the next 3 weeks. We 5 kids will draw a number out of a hat, then pick stuff we want in order (jewelry, silver, furniture, chatchkes, art, the Steinway, etc.), then call in Good Will to take whatever they can use. Then comes the dumpster and the cleaning crew. Thus does a home devolve into a house.
I took some photos to help my memory of home when my Alzheimer's arrives.
This is their kitchen with its fireplace with a wood stove insert at the far end of the kitchen area. The only sign that old people lived there, I think, is having things scotch-taped to the cabinets. Plus their refusal to put a/c in the house. That baby picture I was taking home was of me. I don't really want it, but I don't want to throw it away. Everybody has some stuff like that.
I love cucumbers from my garden in the summertime. I harvested my first few this weekend.
Is anything more refreshing than a hot cucumber fresh off the vine?
I guess I prefer them as a dominant component, and not as a minor ingredient. Mixing tomato with cucumber is an insult to Mr. Cucumber - except in a Greek tomato, cucumber and feta cheese salad - which is hardly a salad. More like a fine simple plate of food, with olive oil drizzled over it.
Cucumber sandwich: 2 or three 1/4 to 1/2 inch-thick lengthwise slices of peeled cucumber - try to minimize the seeds. Sprinkle a little salt. Put on bread with some mayo. This version is definitely not a lady's tea sandwich.
Cucumber and onion salad: My Granny made this all the time in the summer. Sometimes with shrimp in it as a light lunch, but I like it plain. I don't think she used the oil, but maybe she did. I make it without oil and with the clear-colored vinegar, sugar to taste, and definitely let it sit in the icebox an hour or so to absorb the flavor.
Yet another cucumber slaw: A favorite. Peel and seed them. Shred in Cuisinart. Always drain shredded cukes in a colander with a bit of salt and some weight on top for 20 minutes before making slaw or it gets too watery. Shred some carrots too. Toss together in a vinaigrette with a little salt and pepper. Really nice with lobster and fish, but also terrific with barbecue.
Cucumber and Dill Salad. A classic, and the only reason to bother growing dill in the garden.
An immigrant is puzzled about why American blacks seem to be so susceptible to the grievance industry when it makes all the sense in the world to be grateful to be here instead of Uganda or Somalia or God knows where.
I guess everybody loves a freebie. Bowl of lentils.
"Savvy travelers have come to depend on Karen Brown's recommendations."
Yes, indeed. Over the years, Karen Brown has never recommended a dud to us. For the past few years, Mrs. BD has relied entirely on her travel and inn recommendations. She's not about Hiltons, The Four Seasons, Sheratons. She's not about discount places either, or mass market. She's about boutique charm and local flavor.
I suppose the tourist goes to see certain things, eg The Grand Canyon or Harrod's or St. Peter's. The traveler goes to "be there" and meander and to soak it up.
Mrs. BD and I are somewhere in between. We like to rent a car and pop into unknown places, farm town greasy spoon in Colorado, a little local ristorante in an unknown village in Italy, but we also want to see the cathedral, the Norman castle, and the famous gardens. My lad, a true traveler, just likes to wander with a backpack. If he sees a ferry to Sardinia, he hops on. If something looks interesting, he'll walk in.
My pic of the piazza on the dock at Bellagio on Lake Como. There is nothing much to see there, but it's a nice little place to hang out for a while.
"Cape Cod Turkey" is Codfish. One of our favorite recipes used to be Baked Stuffed Cod, the way the Portuguese restaurants make it. I was reminded of this by our dinner a couple of Saturday nights ago at the Lobster Pot (still fun and crowded as usual, but maybe not as good as it used to be) in P'town.
Here's how I make this rustic, home-cookin' meal:
1. Thickest filets you can find of Cod, Scrod, or Haddock.
2. The stuffing (you don't need to stuff the fish, just put it as a bed under the filets, skin down): Plain bread crumbs mixed with chopped onion, shallot, shrimp, crabmeat, lobster, chopped clams, whatever. Obviously you sautee those added things in butter first, then soften the stuffing with clam broth or fish stock. Salt and pepper, and parsley.
3. The sauce: Sautee in plenty of olive oil: chopped onion, chopped garlic, maybe chopped leek, some chopped red or green pepper, then add chopped plum tomatoes, some tomato paste, white wine, oregano, a little rosemary - and cumin to taste. The comino is the key. I use plenty of it. Some salt and pepper, of course.
4. Dump some of the sauce into the baking pan. Shape the stuffing as a bed to fit under each filet, and mound it on top of the sauce. Place the filets on top. It is normal to top the filets with onion and green pepper slices. Salt and pepper, and a shot of white wine to moisten.
5. Bake 25-35 minutes at 400, depending on thickness of filets, until they begin to flake properly. Never overcook a nice hunk of fresh Codfish. Baste with pan juices or white wine while baking.
Make sure each plate has a good dose of sauce, with the stuffed cod on top. Serve with pan-roasted potatoes or boiled potatoes with parsley. It's often served with spaghetti, but that makes no sense to me. And no vegetables, please. Vegetables cause cancer - but everybody knows that. But if you have to add a vegetable, I think a sauteed sliced yellow summer squash might fit in well, along with some bread to soak up all the sauce. Bread is a healthy vegetable, isn't it? This hearty dish deserves a red wine, not a white. (Whites and champagne go with shellfish, but not with real salt-water fish.)
If you are off carbs, make it the same way but forget the stuffing. It's almost as good that way.
Of the 33 states granted a waiver (from No Child Left Behind) last year, 27 now have different achievement goals for different groups of students. And the Obama administration fully supports this measure, “as long as the low-performing students are required to make greater rates of progress, so that the gap between struggling students and high-achieving students is cut in half over six years.”
Different performance standards depending on skin tone and eye shape? They have gone insane. With the President being 50/50 white/black, to what standards should he be held? I suppose he should be held to the lower dark standards, because that's his skin tone.
My Dad died this week in the same way that my Mom died in February: complications following emergency hip surgery. A generation gone in little more than four months.
He and my Mom raised five half-decent kids and educated us all privately and to the max.
I'll tell you just a little about Dad. He was a grad of Phillips Andover and Harvard College (which he entered aged 16), served in the US Army from 1942-45, went on to graduate studies at the great University of Chicago and then was called back to the Army from 1951-53. After that, he began an academic career combined with private consulting and retired as a full Professor at Yale with a folder full of teaching honors and awards and two generations of grateful students to his credit.
His devotion to intellectual pursuits and lifelong learning have been an inspiration. I clipped this bit from the obit my sibs are working on:
He was known for his sharp wit, brain power, and intolerance of fools. He was an omnivorous reader and a life-long student. A confirmed atheist, he could quote the Bible (and Shakespeare) at will. A Christian at heart. He did not care for TV and for most of his life would not have one in the house or at the farm. He had no patience for movies. He loved outdoor labor, planting trees, his vegetable garden, liberal politics, all sorts of conservation causes, The New York Times, The Metropolitan Opera, ballet, Shakespeare, travels to England, Tuscany, and Scandinavia, the Tanglewood Music Festival, Cape Cod, the farm in Massachusetts - and his beloved wife of over 50 years and his large family (12 grandkids plus a great-grandson) which was always around.
Dad was 6'3", wiry but muscular, and good with chain saws, farm tractors, and tools in general. An inspiration and an impressive, masculine, tough, frequently caustic, hard-working and good man. Some thought he resembled Gary Cooper. He was stern, and not a "have a nice day" sort of person. He was good with firearms, but after two wars he had seen enough of them and quit them after training us kids. A New England Yankee born and bred, he disdained the pursuit of money, and ostentation. His intolerance of things of which he disapproved could be intense. As his kids, he was highly effective at keeping us scared straight, mostly.
We'll be keeping his apple trees at the farm pruned for many years, God willing.
Photo is my photo of a photo of Dad at the farm a while ago.
Emergency help on the street did work for Gerard, but the one time I did a sidewalk CPR the 45 year-old ended up with brain damage, but alive. Of course, the most difficult part for amateurs is to diagnose the need for it. People who turn pale and faint do not need CPR.
From the article:
Many veteran physicians have begun to opt out of the resuscitation practices they often administer to their patients. In a 2012 article published in The Guardian, "How Doctors Choose to Die," retired physician Dr. Ken Murray reveals that members of his profession frequently turn down everything from chemotherapy to CPR.
He notes that years of witnessing and administering "medical care that makes people suffer" leads many doctors diagnosed with terminal illnesses to choose to spend their last months or years at home and without medical treatment. Murray recalls some fellow physicians who go as far as getting tattoos that read "no code" to remind rescuers to forgo any attempts at revival.
Murray is still an advocate for learning CPR, but he warns against hoping for miracles.
As a kid, I spent one summer trying to get the hang of this near-impossible, absurd, pointless, and extremely fatiguing stroke. Never could.
In the summertime, it is fun, though, to see the kids' swim teams do their best with it and, at high levels, it's more interesting to watch than any other stroke.
I found myself wondering who was to blame for this monstrosity, which seems to have been invented around 1933.
A pal of mine who is deeply committed to, and involved with, urban education and to Amistad Academy (a charter school in New Haven, CT) in particular, emailed me this thoughtful comment:
My brief experience with black kids consists of a couple of overnights with some Outward Bound crews from Flatbush and my time spent in Achievement First schools. These experiences bear zero similarity to this teacher’s report, so I believe what you’re seeing is a particular manifestation of a culture in the context of a US urban public school. From an educational standpoint, those schools are a total failure based on the data and reports like these. I once heard Geoffrey Canada say “there must be a less expensive way to transition young American blacks from childhood to prison than our public high schools”.
In my experience, the kids were fun, bright, and displayed the same range of personalities as my own kids and their friends – some loud, some quiet, some funny, some serious. My first experience at Amistad was walking into an 8th grade English class and sitting in on a discussion of Romeo and Juliet. The kids chairs were arranged in an open circle and one tall lanky black boy, he must have been well north of 6’ and south of 130 pounds, was folded into one of these chairs with a little attached desktop made for middle school kids. As a middle age white man, my brain registered that tinge of warinessI get when encountering strapping black kids. He spoke quietly, a bit shy, with a New Haven wrong-side-of-the-tracks accent, but he delivered a short verbal essay on Shakespeare’s use of repetitive language as a way of heightening dramatic impact and conveying first-person perspective in the balcony scene. The kid was fantastic, better than most of the kids I met in college English.
I’ve walked into dozens of classrooms at Amistad Middle and High School and I’ve never run into any disorder. They do have disciplinary issues, but they are managed effectively. The “Whatever It Takes” professional culture also creates some extraordinary expressions. The middle school teachers were concerned about alienation among the black boys, so the male teachers decided to have an overnight in the gym, “men only”. Each boy was invited to bring an adult mentor, a father, older brother, grandfather, whatever, and the boys who didn’t have anyone to bring were matched with a teacher. They spent the night talking, telling stories, and exploring the topic “what does it mean to be a man?”, how do men treat women, how do they express themselves in society, what does it mean to take responsibility? This was very effective in forming deeper bonds in the school community, in particular, those crucial bonds between students and teachers. It wasn’t a cure-all, but it gave the kids positive ways to think about themselves that many of them reflected in their subsequent behavior.
For several years, I've felt the need to drop most of the spare pounds I've been carrying. At six feet tall and weighing anywhere from 208 to 215, I was never obese but I was definitely overweight. My doctor would ask the same question every year, "You don't look like you're over 200, where are you hiding it?"
It was true. I am naturally thin and once I reached about 185 pounds, the difference between that weight and 210 was not terribly noticeable. Except to me. I was slower on the tennis court, my back gave me problems on a regular basis, and my clothing might still fit but was awfully tight. I used to play two man beach volleyball in tournaments, but there was no way I could even consider this after I passed the 185 mark. I would have been worn out in no time.
I'm pleased to say I recently returned to the 185 pound level and I have a goal of 178 pounds. I remember crossing the 200 line the day I was heading down to attend the Preakness, and feeling proud of that small achievement. So far, I've lost 25 pounds in about 16 weeks.
The only sure and healthy way to lose weight is diet and exercise. However, there are more diets on the market than you can shake a stick at and plenty of exercise gurus who want you to give them money. I chose to focus on reducing caloric intake rather than just removing carbs. I wasn't interested in changing my diet radically.
My method was to engage portion control and self-discipline. I downloaded an iPhone app called "LoseIt". It's free, and all you do is set your goals (I wanted to lose 1 1/2 pounds per week). It's simple. You log your exercise and the food you eat. It will calculate the carbohydrates, protein and fats as well as the calories. I've had an average intake of about 20% protein and 50% fat for the last 16 weeks. I've been going to the gym at least 4 times a week for an hour and a half and mixing bike work with lifting weights. Early on, I did more cardio, and as I lost weight I began to focus on muscle development (which can burn slightly more calories over the course of the day).
There are plenty of apps which do the same thing, and ultimately it will come down to desire, discipline and will-power. I haven't skimped, I haven't starved, and I haven't changed my diet dramatically. All it took was the realization that this would be a good thing to do for myself. I've learned that being aware of what you eat, and counting the calories, actually helps you eat less. Weight Watchers is on to something, it would seem. I don't see the need to pay anyone to help me lose the weight. Except the gym, and only because I sit at a desk for at least 40 hours a week, and usually more.
In New England, haying - or at least the mowing - is generally done by the 4th of July depending on the weather. It's been a wet Spring but it's drying out now.
At the farm, we wait until a few weeks later so as not to destroy or disturb the nests of the meadow-nesting birds. We have Bobolinks, Savannah Sparrows, Woodcock, the occasional Meadowlark, and Mallard and Black Duck in the tall grass along the stream.
For our wild brushy fields, we'll brushwack them anytime we can between August and October.
Here's a detail from that painting. Peening, I think:
Here's our reader Buddy's scythe. I do not think he has used it lately.
"General College students were normally required to take 17 hours a semester to remain enrolled, a tough load during the Vietnam War draft from 1965 to 1972. To matriculate out of General College at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill, students had to complete four semesters of science (with lab), two semesters of English and English literature, two semesters of math, four semesters of a foreign language, two semesters of physical education and two semesters of Western Civilization - the course that contributed the most to the failure rate.
The radical scholars recognized Western Civ had to be erased to achieve their goal of destroying the old order and ushering in the new "inclusive" inclusive manifesto. (Remember Jesse Jackson's chant at Stanford? "Hi-ho, hi-ho, Western Civ has to go"). In the process, the General College was abandoned - and with it went the foundation of a proper college education."
Dinosaur that I am, that old style is still "college" to meand it is what I expect from job applicants I interrogate interview.
Middle-class Americans tend to lead "child-centric" lives, for better or worse. I think it is often overdone.
I happen to believe that "happiness," however defined, is not necessarily a valid goal in life. Many things are more important. However, moments of joy are always welcome. I am grateful to my parents for having produced and nurtured me. Glad they had sex that winter day. Whether I produced more pleasure or pain for them, I have no idea and would never ask.
I like this refreshingly hot, crunchy Chinese pickled salad in the summer. Here's how I make it:
"Cape Cod Turkey" is Codfish. One of our favorite recipes used to be Baked Stuffed Cod, the way the Portuguese restaurants make it. I was reminded of this by our dinner a couple of Saturday nights ago at the 
My Dad died this week in the same way that my Mom died in February: complications following emergency hip surgery. A generation gone in little more than four months.
