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.
The last few weeks since Edward Snowden released not only the data he had, but also made his name and face public, have been quite interesting. It has caused many heated discussions in my household, as well as between myself and friends. After all, the US is split regarding whether Snowden did something 'wrong' and put our nation at risk. But I don't think anyone properly understands the case. I'll include myself, because I don't think anyone can fully grasp the various threads of law which surround the story. Primarily, though, it's because this involves classified documents and laws regarding these are arcane and biased toward the support of governmental authority rather than Constitutionally derived freedoms. Regardless, there are some essential facts which even the most simple of us can understand and make good judgements based on.
The most common arguments against my stance, which supports Snowden's actions, are these:
We don't have any privacy, and in never having it, we shouldn't worry if the government sees anything if we have nothing to hide. One part of this argument is almost correct but meaningless, the second part is downright frightening if we're so naive as to believe having nothing to hide is a useful rationale.
Snowden broke an oath, and in breaking that oath made the US less safe. Again, a portion of this is correct, but if it's important to you, you must stretch your moral guidelines regarding what an oath is designed to do, and the second part is just plain wrong, even after the NSA has listed its "successes" in thwarting terrorist plots with PRISM.
Sexual interest is obviously one of the primary human motivators. Blame it on biology, or God, or whatever. Wherever you put people together, especially young people in their prime, sexual curiosity will be in the air. This epidemic has been forever.
It doesn't matter whether they are gay, straight, or mixed-up. It happens when you put people together. People of strong character do not act on impulse when it is inappropriate, but many cannot resist the pull or just don't want to resist. It's fighting nature, and the addition of alcohol or other substances doesn't help. Neither does being away from home. People do get attached, form bonds, develop partnerships, loyalty, etc but raw desire has no respect for these civilized things. Furthermore, people need, at the very least, some form of "maintenance sex" for comfort but it is no insulation from reckless desires and romantic aspirations.
It seems to me that "sexual harassment" has come to include many expressions of virile or feminine sexual interest, extending the concept far beyond physical aggression (which is illegal. That is termed "assault," and can be felonious) to "unwelcome" advances.
In my life, I have been subject to hundreds of unwelcome advances from both men and women, and some of them were, well, forceful but not physically forceful. Weaker women might view much of it as harassment, but I took most of it in good humor because my brothers, my protectors, taught me about male tendencies. Women learn how to brush them off, but one of those advances turned out to be my husband of quite a few years and up to the present. A good guy, very shy and very smart, but who got up his courage to act like any other jerk because he felt he could not resist me. I could somehow tell that he was a good guy.
Now I read that the US Navy doesn't want guys looking at pictures of girls in the bathroom. What do they want these fellows to do for relief? Do they want an all-gay Navy? Or eunuchs?
When I was a kid, the Good Humor Man came down the street after suppertime, ringing his bell. I was partial to the vanilla thing coated with nuts, and the orange-raspberry popsicles.
How that guy made a living, just in summertime, with those 25 cent treats, is beyond me. Dad would give us each a quarter for them, but not every night. Maybe once a week. You would hear the jingle, and kids would evacuate their houses. Anyway, the union and gas prices put an end to that charming tradition.
Now they have the more urban Mr. Softee. He does not come into our village.
Mayor Bloomberg wants New Yorkers to compost their garbage. Where? In the hallway of the Plaza Hotel?
Who is "we", by the way? Royal "we"?
As we (Royal "We") frequently say at Maggie's, "If you're so rich, how come you ain't smart?"
NYC remains the greatest city in the world, and the most fun to visit with endless interesting things to do and jammed with smart, ambitious people from all over the world, but it has plenty of issues to be tackled: public education, debt, too much welfare, union control of everything, governmental over-regulation of everything including the housing market, etc. However, Bloomberg focuses on the small, elitist, feel-good issues: smoking, composting, diet, salt, gays, illegal immigration, and other baloney. Why?
We suspect it's because he gave up on the hard issues a few years ago, and decided to deal with the little stuff. He's a Jewish mother at heart, and a pain in the ass. "It's raining. Don't go out without your rubbers." "They're in my wallet, Ma." Rainy Day Women.
I agree with Palin that Americans, much less tough New Yorkers, do not need to be treated like children and neither need to be, nor want to be, preached to by anybody other than a pastor, priest, or a rabbi. I lived there for a while and love to visit, and it's not a place for sissies. It always was a good place to meet tall, elegant and refined debutantes with pedigrees acceptable to my Mother. I did, a long time ago, and so far, so good.
NOCD was the kiss of death when I was young. Snobs.
As she says, it's not from The Onion. The guy in the video is smart but pitifully emasculated. I guess it goes with the territory. Every assertion he makes ends with a question mark. Lame, and not a word about education.
When life gets out of control, and there is nothing to eat in the beautiful new Sub Zero fridge (10 year warranty) because nobody has gotten to the market, and you have a day job and the Mrs. has her hands full, it's time for a Thai delivery.
We have mother-in-law in the rehab center with a new steel knee, father in law staying with us, and my dad in the hosp with a new rod in his fractured hip needing rehab as soon as his post-op confusion resolves. Not to mention Father's Day weekend to bury my Mom's ashes at the farm, and not to mention other forms of family medical and other chaos too which I will not mention.
We have two excellent Thai places around, and both deliver. I alternate between the two, because they have different styles. Delivery fellow comes faster if you give a decent tip, which for me is $5. Tonight we're getting this:
Duck Spring Rolls Chicken Satay with hot sauce Penang Curry with Chicken (hot peanut curry sauce) Drunken Noodles with Tofu - plus extra hot sauce, and White Rice (brown rice is disgusting, detracts from the flavor of the dish, and is not fit for human consumption)
Mrs. BD loves flowers and all that - she and her pals call it "plant material" because they use all sorts of things in their design efforts.
Often, however, she will just toss flowers in a vase without too much design except basic color coordination and texture variation, and it is very pleasant.
Here are her tips to keep cut flowers looking good in water for a week or more:
- A fresh sharp cut to each stem at a 45 degree angle, and warm water
- 1 tsp of bleach per quart of water (prevents rotten, cloudy water which destroys the blooms)
- 1 tablespoon of sugar per quart of water (feeds the flowers - they aren't dead yet)
- Never let a leaf be submerged - but you can submerge blooms if you want for cool effects. You can submerge Hosta leaves too.
Amusing, and heart-warming, to see how this gal who gamed the college diversity scam got in touch with her true inner racial identity, and was able to build a career on it.
I think everybody's ideal is to have an internist or family practice doc who knows you well personally as well as medically, and where you can call or come in anytime if you have a concern. For various reasons this has become elusive.
Based on what I have seen, three trends are growing. The first is the Doc-in-a-Box or, more likely, a PA in a pharmacy.
The second is concierge medicine in which, for a modest annual fee, you have unlimited contact - 24/7 - with your generalist.
The third is generalist docs who will not accept insurance but who charge modest fees and will offer a bill that you can send for your own reimbursement, if any. They can charge modest fees because they do not need to hire a large back office staff for coding and billing.
It's a good idea to have a generalist who knows you and your family. With ObamaCare, I think all three of these modes will grow in popularity, especially the last one. They are all working mostly outside the system. They are not likely to want to make time to see you, however, unless they have met you (except for the PA in a box trend).
Generalist physicians, whether Family Practice, Internal Medicine, or whatever, are the ultimate docs. They see everything, major and minor, and know when to refer. People who want to use their Medicare and Medicaid are going to have a tough time with office visits in the future.
I had always aspired to be a country doc, a generalist, in the New Hampshire countryside, but became too fascinated with what I now do. I had dreams of fixing broken arms, stitching up nasty cuts, treating poison ivy, delivering babies, consoling the terminal, sending appendicitis patients to a surgeon friend, etc. It's kind of funny, but my generalist friends tell me that half of their work is Psychiatry anyway.
With the training I had, I suspect that I could still do those country doc things pretty well, but my malpractice insurance does not cover it. In my training, I caught 42 babies. Some were dangerous and complicated. As I have admitted here in the past, I refused to participate in abortions not because I am so religious but because I did not want it in my memory.
I think these teen transgenders are probably just terribly mixed-up confused people. Some days I feel like I am trapped inside a human body, and not a particularly wonderful body either.
But I cope with it. I am taking a cute little gal on a fishing trip off Block Island this weekend. How good is that for June 15? Is that a keeper?
I have written about the history of the concept of retirement several times, over the years. Basically, I tend to believe that retirement is a bad idea for body and soul. My house painter is 74, and he claims work keeps him young and permits him to take better trips than he could otherwise afford.
“Did you kill any babies, Bruce?” As we lay in bed on New Year’s Eve 1970, this is what the girl asked who a friend had introduced me to when I returned from Vietnam a couple of months before. I got up and drove home in the snowy streets from Queens to Brooklyn. I didn’t even try to date another girl for almost a year after. But, I moved past it and didn’t dwell on that night.
Some returned soldiers and Marines had worse experiences and some had better and almost all just blended back in after an initial adjustment. Studies show that most were more successful in their lives than their non-serving peers. But, what the major media and liberal opinion-setters painted was an image, usually grossly ignorant and mendacious, of a mentally and morally scarred Vietnam veteran. The purpose was to reduce support for the US commitment to South Vietnam. It took several decades before this image from the Left was reversed and due pride in veterans’ service returned to America. Yet, that erroneous and harmful image of Vietnam veterans still lingers in many minds.
Aside from the opprobrium poured upon us Vietnam veterans from the Left in the pop culture and academia, the goal of our war was lost and we had little reason to exhibit pride in the outcome of our service as millions of IndoChinese were murdered by the conquering communists in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The perfidy of so many of our Senators and Congressmen, and the indifference of most opinion-leaders, only deepened the alienation from authority, and increased the vulnerability to the anti-Vietnam messagers.
That’s what the fall of Saigon has to do with the life paths of Vietnam veterans.
Rarely do two books appear on widely different aspects of the Vietnam War which based on meticulous research weave an understanding of the still confusing Vietnam War that, as Paul Harvey used to say, tells us “the rest of the story.”
Pr(A|X) = Chance of having cancer (A) given a positive test (X).
This is what we want to know: How likely is it to have cancer with a
positive result? In our case it was 7.8%.
Pr(X|A) = Chance of a positive test (X) given that you had cancer (A). This is the chance of a true positive, 80% in our case.
Pr(A) = Chance of having cancer (1%).
Pr(~A) = Chance of not having cancer (99%).
Pr(X|~A) = Chance of a positive test (X) given that you didn’t have cancer (~A). This is a false positive, 9.6% in our case.
Few summer drinks are more refreshing than the Cape Codder.
I think it tastes best with a little lime squeezed into it, like this recipe. (Come to think if it, most things taste better with a little fresh lime.)
Try a Cape Codder tomorrow, at breakfast.
When you add some grapefruit juice, that's a Sea Breeze. That's healthy too. It would probably be just as tasty without the vodka, but what would be the point?
My mixology research revealed that the Cape Codder is one of a family of cocktails known as "New England Highballs." I didn't know drinks had formal categories. I am still learning about the world.
It's the end of April, the Bluefish are beginning to show up and the Spring Spawn stripers cannot be far behind.
East Coast stripers (called Rockfish on the Left Coast) are an anadromous fish meaning that they spawn in fresh water, but live their adult lives in salt. There are four breeding stocks on the East Coast - Chesapeake Bay, Delaware River, Hudson River and Cape Cod. These four main schools provide most of the striper population along the East coast.
Recently, there has been some investigation about the Thames River (New London and Norwich, CT) over winter school being an addition feeder school to the Cape Cod stock. It is not unknown for the Thames River school to reach tremendous populations over winter and spawning up the Thames into the Yantic and Shetucket Rivers in the Spring.
Striper fishing is one of my passions - fresh water impounds down south or inshore in New England, stripers provide me with the best and the most honest type of fishing. I say honest because striper fishing isn't a case of chasing down a fierce predator like any of the bill fish or tuna. Stripers are basically lazy and thus require patience and knowledge of the bottom structure to obtain the best size.
A few of my favorite spots and techniques are below the fold -
College grads are waiting on tables. Is that a bad thing? Is it a result of the terrible Obama economy? It's been decades since a college degree guaranteed a good career. BAs are commonplace now, and are not as elite as they used to be in the job market. Many graduate degrees aren't worth the cost in cash or time either.
Americans are using restaurants and take-out more than ever. It's a cultural shift in which home cookin' becomes something special and in which diners, McDonalds, and Thai take-out becomes the American middle class routine.
If it's not all about the Obama economy, some of it could be about what Cowen calls economic resets. Not enough work for the cognitively-talented, but I hear that a good chef can always find work. Cognitive talent is not rare, and probably never was. Social class and lack of opportunity kept a lot of it hidden and invisible.
As far as I'm concerned, if you don't know Calc and Stats, if you don't know the Gas Laws and Avogadro's Number, if you don't know about mitochondrial RNA, if you can't discuss Haydn's role in Western music and can't write a brief but elegantly-structured essay on any cultural topic at the drop of a hat, you have a degree but you ain't "eddicated." That's why people like me, who have risen in new businesses to the point of interviewing new hires, ignore resumes and ask probing questions. We want people who know a lot about everything because we are a pioneering business with, as yet, no annoying HR Department.
Writers, like talkers, like to tell stories, and most people enjoy well-told stories. A well-told story is a wonderful thing in life, especially because most of our lives are made of humdrum stories - at least on the surface. The most revelatory stories can be touchstones for a life, eg the Bible stories.
Gerard posted a snippet of the best-told story in American history. It won't make you "good", but it's at least as rich as sausage gravy. I should say, as rich as spermaceti.
A lawn appreciates being plugged annually, spring or fall. This fellow omits one of the reasons to do it, which is the compacting of even good topsoil by people, dogs, lawnmowers, wheelbarrows, etc. Earthworms do a good enough job of this in a meadow, but not in a lawn. You can rent a plugger for a day quite cheaply.
It's easy to forget that lawns are not natural. They are, in fact, grass gardens.
Are summer mixed drinks Chick Drinks, or for everybody?
To each his own. I, however, generally avoid mixed drinks and hard booze except for the very rare Bloody Mary, Martini, Scotch or Bourbon on the rocks. Too much ethanol in them for me for routine consumption. Beer is fine, and a glass of wine at night.
However, with summer coming on we will review a few popular cool drinks, beginning with the dangerously potent Long Island Iced Tea (there is no tea in it).
I grew up down the road from Bernstein's weekend house. My Mom was friends with Mrs. B. and I recall that they did garden designing together. A gay friend of mine who had met him at a party acknowledged that Lenny was "as gay as a Christmas Tree", but I guess he and Mrs. B. worked it out somehow and they had three kids.
Who cares about that? Bernstein was a rock star, and contributed a heck of a lot to American culture. As best I can recall, I only heard him conduct the New York once in youth, but I wouldn't know the difference anyway. Conductors do their interesting work in rehearsal, not on stage. If you want to learn about music performance, attend a rehearsal instead of the final performance.
He loved Mahler. When he grew older, Bernstein devoted himself to musical education. His Young People's Concerts on youtube are valuable to any adult. They were always sold out in NYC. Here's one of his Young People's Concerts at Carnegie Hall:
Bernstein claimed that Copland was his real teacher. West Side Story had to be one of his composing masterpieces, an opera, it is Romeo and Juliet:
Boys are more at risk than girls in the U.S. educational system. A MetLife study stated, "Girls appear to have an advantage over boys in terms of their future plans, teacher's expectations, everyday experiences at school and interactions in the classroom." Boys are less engaged in school, and less engagement means less success in the classroom; in fact, engagement with school is probably the single most important factor of academic success. Boys are more likely than girls to come to school without supplies and without doing their homework. Why aren't boys more engaged in school? According to Sommers, "schools today tend to be run by women for girls. Classrooms can be hostile environments for boys. They like action, competition and adventure stories. Those are not in favor. Games like tag and dodgeball are out; tug of war has become tug of peace, and male heroes have been replaced by Girl Power." Boys receive lower marks from female teachers, according to research done for the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance.
American schools are designed for scholars, and gals. The average guy just does not like to do as he is told, especially by a female. Furthermore, many guys like manual work. It feels good.
Smart guy, and a stunningly-clear speaker. It's time to add Wood to the Maggie's pantheon of pundits.
This helps me understand why my friend's daughter quit Bowdoin after her first semester. I think she felt that the college culture there was sick and insane.
The link to the interview is here. It's worth the time.
Mayor Bloomberg wants New Yorkers to 
Mrs. BD loves flowers and all that - she and her pals call it "plant material" because they use all sorts of things in their design efforts. 
Amusing: 
I think everybody's ideal is to have an internist or family practice doc who knows you well personally as well as medically, and where you can call or come in anytime if you have a concern. For various reasons this has become elusive. 
Where should transgender teens pee when at school? In some precincts, this seems to be a burning civil rights issue.
Few summer drinks are more refreshing than the Cape Codder. 
808 Cities, 2,503 Shows, and 1,007,416 Miles
Are summer mixed drinks Chick Drinks, or for everybody?