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.
My old friend Bob Turner served in Vietnam in various capacities. He then went on to law school and teaches national security law at the University of Virginia, having also headed up that section for the American Bar Association. Want to be impressed? Read his bio at the link of his name above. Below, he writes about the last days of South Vietnam and what brought them about. This is slightly edited from another piece he recently wrote.
Congress did not totally cut off assistance to South Vietnam in 1975; but as a scholar who has been studying and writing about Vietnam for more than forty-five years (who was the last congressional staff member to leave Vietnam during the April 1975 final evacuation), I can assure you that the U.S. Congress was the most decisive factor in the Communist conquest of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in 1975.
To keep things in context, it is important to note that in the post-war era, Hanoi has repeatedly admitted that its leaders made a decision on May 19, 1959, to open the Ho Chi Minh trail and send tens of thousands of soldiers and countless tons of equipment and supplies south to "liberate" South Vietnam by armed force. That was more than 5 years before the U.S. decided to send combat units to Vietnam, and our purpose was precisely the purpose for which we sent troops into South Korea in 1950 -- to uphold the non-aggression principles of the UN Charter and oppose the expansion of Communism by force.
Viet Cong defectors used to laugh and express shock at how successful their campaign to portray the "National Liberation Front" to the west as something other than a classic Leninist "front" organization had been. (Hanoi actually published an English-language translation of the proceedings of the Third Party Congress in 1960, including the resolution it approved calling for "our people" in south Vietnam to set up a front under Party leadership three months before the NLF was allegedly formed by non-Communist resistance leaders in Ben Tre.) American "scholars" who fell for this ruse should be ashamed of themselves.
I first went to Las Vegas in 1954. Somewhere in my garage are the black-and-white photos I took with my Kodak Brownie. We stayed at the TravelLodge on the Strip, where the Imperial Palace now stands. The Strip ended a short way south from there. Most hotels had a Western theme. Downtown, there was only the Golden Nugget and Fitzgeralds, now the Fremont Experience of lights and tacky. After 5PM, men wore suits or sport jackets, women wore cocktail dresses. Dinner and a show, with top headliners, was $10. All-you-can-eat Prime Rib was $1.99. Gorgeous women in skimpy outfits served free drinks to gamblers. Pit bosses gave free decks of used cards to kids. When my poor family in Detroit migrated to LA in the 1930s, my trusting great-uncle Sam was suckered out of a week's wages, a few dollars, for a tiny parcel of desert land. In the mid-'60s, he got twenty-thousand dollars for it, equal then to two-years of middle-class salary, where the Luxor now stands. For twenty-years I stayed at the Desert Inn, until it was the last of traditional, classy Las Vegas, and haven't returned for 17-years.
Now? Don't ask. OK, I'll tell you anyway. The hotels are humongous and glitzy and expensive. Almost everyone is in jeans and shorts and T-shirts. Has-been shows cost a small fortune. Buffets are $15-$30. There are half as many cocktail waitresses and, really, most are 40-70 years old. One moved so slow, we looked around for her walker. (The pretty young things are off-Strip, like at the Rio.) Used decks of cards have to be bought for $5 or more. Corporate Las Vegas squeezes every penny of costs and dollars out of tourists. Fortunately, always being with my pesky, wandering boys, and my eagle-eyed wife, probably saved several thousand dollars, as I never escaped to the tables.
It's still chilly up here in Yankeeland. 30s (F) at night, low 50s at midday. An Irish coffee is good way to begin - or end (or both) a celebratory day.
- 1 or 2 shots of Irish whisky - 1 or 2 tsp brown sugar (I like that crystallized brown sugar called "Sugar in the Raw") - strong, hot fresh coffee - lightly whipped or shaken cream - not fully-whipped cream
Put brown sugar and Irish whisky into a coffee glass, or a wine glass with thick walls. Add hot, strong coffee up to 1 cm (1/3 inch) from the glass rim. (If you are cautious and don't want to risk cracking the glass, leave the spoon in the glass to absorb some of the heat.) Carefully add the lightly whipped cream over the back of a tablespoon.
Alternatively, you can make it the way some Irishmen I knew in NYC did it: Pour 1/3 of your cup of deli take-out coffee into the gutter, and splash some Seagram's 7 into it to fill the cup. Tastes disgusting, but it is warming and the right combo of upper and downer.
Now to marinate our leg of lamb (7 lbs., bone in) overnight. Sounds like Easter dinner, not brunch. Roasting it medium-rare is always a trick, even with the meat thermometer. 130-135 is about right, but the dang thing always keeps cooking after you take it out. Nobody likes brown lamb except the dog.
Professionals use Milorganite for their lawn fertilizing. It is also a good deer-repellant to put on things like Hostas.
It doesn't smell good for a day or two, but it is slow-release (8 weeks), organic, and it cannot burn a lawn. Milwaukee has been producing it since 1925. It is, basically, made from the pee and poo of the population of the great city of Milwaukee. Big eaters and, one might suppose, big poopers.
People from there say they are from "Mwawkee" like people from NYC say they're from "Nyork" or, if from the boroughs, "Nyawk."
Several years ago, my wife purchased a gift card as a Christmas present for my parents. It was for a meal at Rat's Restaurant on the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ. My parents used the card 2 years ago, they have since returned twice. Their third visit was two weekends ago, and we joined them. Unfortunately, some personal issues limited our time on the grounds prior to dinner, but for 45 minutes we wandered among the artwork. What we saw was impressive and enjoyable.
The Grounds for Sculpture opened in 1992, the vision of J. Seward Johnson (of the Johnson & Johnson family). He took 42 acres, formerly the NJ State Fairgrounds, and transformed it into part botanical garden and part sculpture garden and museum. Johnson creates some of the work, though most is provided by other artists. It is an eclectic mix of styles, designed to fit within the existing environment, although at times the environment is altered slightly to work with the art.
In 1984, J. Seward Johnson, sculptor and philanthropist, envisioned a public sculpture garden and museum in Hamilton, NJ. His desire was to make contemporary sculpture as an art form more accessible and to offer people from all backgrounds the opportunity to become comfortable with contemporary art. Grounds For Sculpture was conceived as a place where audiences could experience sculpture in a familiar, accessible, and informal setting.
I've seen some migrating Ospreys in the past couple of days. Heading up along the lakes, rivers, and coasts to their summer cottages.
Ospreys are Fish Hawks. They can handle a big fish once they get to carrying it aerodynamically, but they have been known to be drowned by latching onto really big ones.
Thus (obviously) if you are 20 lbs. overweight, your knees experience it as equivalent to an 80 lb. backpack - plus the normal effect of the rest of your ideal weight. Knees were not designed for 80-lb. backpacks 24 hrs./day. Over years, the damage increases of course until, one sad day, you finally begin to feel the accumulated damage.
...individuals who lost 10 lbs. would be subject to a total of 48,000 less pounds of pressure for every mile walked.
Walking when overweight is brutal to knees and, from the knee point of view, probably is to be minimized until losing weight. Driving is kinder. Being carried by slaves in a litter is even better because it is kinder to Gaia.
Besides trauma (eg accidents, athletic injuries, athletic overuse and related overuse as in dance), extra weight is the main cause or exacerbation of knee arthritis. It's all about gravity and the pounding your knees take with every step.
Unless the idea of knee replacement appeals to you, the kindest thing you can do for your knees (or your hips, for that matter), is to lose weight - or to be carried around town. Or, like you see in WalMart, maybe Medicare will buy you a $25,000 electric wheelchair.
Americans eat too much, and far too many carbs than is good for them. (Soon, I'll repost the Dr. Bliss diet which I follow diligently to stay under 130 - plus lots of athletics. It is essentially carb-free, except at Birthday Parties and special occasions. Absolutely no fruit allowed - fruit is sugar and a sugary dessert, and there is nothing "healthy" about it.) Here are some links about weight and arthritis.
I read the headline of this article, and expected to see a discussion on why Wall Street is indispensible. Instead I found a discussion on the election and specifically Romney. It's clear he's going to be the Republican nominee, so it's probably best to start cleaning up his somewhat tarnished image. I agree with much of the commentary. But there are a few comments and insights which should be shared.
First, the economy can function without Wall Street. You don't need a capital market in order to have a functioning economy. It's useful to have a capital market, it makes acquiring capital for progress much easier. In fact, stock corporations were originally performed to raise revenues for large projects which were determined to be 'outside the scope' of government responsibility. What most people are critical of is the very concept that Wall Street considers itself indispensible, and uses that as a lever to charge very large fees and pay outsized salaries. These are not required for a fully functioning economy. I'm not opposed to a person making, or earning, whatever he or she can. But even the corporate titans of the Gilded Age put some of their more public displays on hold during times of economic duress.
Second, as a Libertarian, I'm usually opposed to the government regulating anything. But I admit there are some instances where oversight and enforcement are required. The question is - what KIND of oversight and enforcement? Certainly not the kind we're seeing out of this administration:
Ross refers to the Dodd-Frank Act as "at best a very generalized blueprint" that addresses regulators' concerns, and he worries that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established as part of Dodd-Frank, will have unforeseen consequences for Wall Street and Main Street.
"I think the regulatory uncertainty and the growing fear that this agency (CFPB) will be witch-hunting are definitely impeding bankers' willingness to make loans," he says.
Sarbanes-Oxley has done nothing to stop the fraud it was supposed to stop. It has added several weeks of work to the audit process in many companies, though. In other words, usually regulations result in nothing but increased costs of doing business.
Finally, I was amused to see Bain Capital misspelled as 'Bane' at one point. I would hate to say this is deliberate, but given my cynicism toward journalists today, I am likely to believe it was. Then again, spelling isn't a strong point with journalists these days. It's a rather unfortunate sign of the times.
Glenn Reynolds, with his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, captured something yesterday that I had been collecting a few links about, in Faith in science? Why skepticism is rising. A quote:
...while one should trust science as a method — honestly done, science remains the best way at getting to the truth on a wide range of factual matters — there’s no particular reason why one should trust scientists and especially no particular reason why one should trust the people running scientific institutions, who often aren’t scientists themselves.
In fact, the very core of the scientific method is supposed to be skepticism. We accept arguments not because they come from people in authority but because they can be proven correct — in independent experiments by independent experimenters. If you make a claim that can’t be proven false in an independent experiment, you’re not really making a scientific claim at all.
And saying, “trust us,” while denouncing skeptics as — horror of horrors — “skeptics” doesn’t count as science, either, even if it comes from someone with a doctorate and a lab coat.
There are a number of reasons it makes good sense to be always skeptical of scientific claims (as scientists are trained to be). Here are a few:
1. Careerism and greed - there is big money to be made in science these days, especially if you come up with the "right" results 2. The use of computers for data-mining - which is not the scientific method 3. The reluctance of journals to publish negative results in favor of positive results 4. The lack of scientific literacy in journalism 5. The impression that scientists often have an ax to grind and cannot be impartial about their pet ideas
There are others. Those are just for starters.
Without getting into the huge global climate boondoggle, here are just a few examples from my medical profession:
On Tuesday, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences heard testimony that the number of scientific papers that had to be retracted increased more than tenfold over the last decade; the number of journal articles published rose only 44 percent.
Ferric Fang of the University of Washington, speaking to the panel, said he blamed a hypercompetitive academic environment that fosters poor science and even fraud, as too many researchers compete for diminishing funding.
"The surest ticket to getting a grant or job is getting published in a high-profile journal," said Fang. "This is an unhealthy belief that can lead a scientist to engage in sensationalism and sometimes even dishonest behavior."
44% is not very good. More on that story: Can Most Cancer Research Be Trusted? - Addressing the problem of "academic risk" in biomedical research
Well ok. You might expect a Con Law teacher to remember the date of Lochner but, giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, I think he is simply spewing spin and propaganda, hoping most voters won't notice.
How many voters care about Lochner? Or even about the Constitution? Even the President, who did swear to uphold it, admits he doesn't really approve of it.
Perhaps his back-up plan is to run against the Court - and the Constitution. It could work. Politics ain't beanbag.
Is a life without some form of spiritual (I hate that word) communion a half-dead, or dead, life? Many who partake of it would say that it is. Christ offered "life in abundance" (John 10:10) - and he did not mean toys, money, entertainment, comforts, food, or trinkets.
We got on this topic of communion at my men's Bible group on Friday (we were reading Mark 14 - a key chapter in the NT).
I thought I had recalled that the communion had first been a reference to the communal meal at the end of the early house churchs' worships, of which, of course, bread and wine were part. A "love feast." A communion with Christ, or with brethren? Both, I'd suppose. It's all the same.
The Eucharist ("Thanksgiving") as a formal church ceremony and a sacrament to the Catholics emerged hundreds of years later. The communal, celebratory meal became a symbolic meal and then, in the Catholic Church, a miraculous meal as was made official dogma at the Council of Trent in the 1500s.
(In my Protestant church we do both the symbolic meal and a serious, carb-packed breakfast spread afterwards which I term "the cocktail party." No vino, however - because it's too early in the day for most of us.)
Christ's simple instructions, followed by the "Do this in remembrance of me" at the last supper (Passover) were altered versions of the Passover traditions, in which, in claiming His New Covenant of salvation and anticipating his death and resurrection, Christ related it to himself (I will not get into the topic of the Trinity because it's over my head, nor will I get into the symbolic cannibalistic imagery).
So a question we had in mind was whether the remembrance is for every meal, for communal meals, for special times like Passover (which my church celebrates with a traditional Passover meal, in silence), for church ceremonies - or even whether it might apply to our Bible study's coffee - but not to confuse Dunkin' Donuts with the church's Welch's Grape Juice. We also wondered whether the tone is best solemn, or celebratory (our church does the solemn).
As a Protestant, I tend to think Christ was asking to be remembered at every meal with brethren. However, I have been wrong often. I'd welcome any enlightenment on these topics from readers because I am probably wrong about much of this.
Most Protestants use these words, quoting Paul:
"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'
In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again."
A pal of Mrs. BD was astonished that Mrs. BD was not a Downton Abbey follower, so she obtained the 2010-2011 episodes.
I watched the first episode. It's an Upstairs, Downstairs-like drama, beautiful to look at, but perhaps more of a chick thing. Maggie Smith is great. The BD daughter would say "perfect production values."
Perhaps it's about nostalgia for the Britain of the past, comfortable warts and all.
For 70 years, since the court in 1942 said the government could limit the amount of wheat farmer Roscoe Filburn could grow on his own land to feed his own animals, it has been generally assumed that the federal government's power to regulate the economy had no limits.
That assumption survived in liberal precincts even though the court in 1995 overturned a law banning guns in schools and in 2000 ruled unconstitutional parts of the Violence Against Women Act.
But the arguments, developed by Georgetown Law professor Randy Barnett and others, that it is beyond the powers conferred by the Constitution for Congress to mandate the purchase of a commercial product -- health insurance in Obamacare -- were certainly taken seriously by a majority of Supreme Court justices last week.
And the government's lawyers were unable to answer the questions of both liberal and conservative justices: If Congress can do this, what can't it do?
That question is likely to linger even if the court upholds Obamcare.
Economists say that diet and exercise have a greater effect on taxpayer spending on healthcare than rates of ownership of insurance, so if anything healthy-food and gym-membership mandates have greater constitutional warrant than what we’re dealing with now.
So when will the Feds try to mandate gym membership? For the greater good, of course?
...yes, Wall Street may have a significant percentage of self-serving, ruthless, and manipulative psychopaths and almost psychopaths. And, yes, this fact might be of considerable importance in assessing the "moral fiber" of an investment bank. Whether this is a new phenomenon, though, is a separate question. And, in the current zeal to castigate Wall Street, let us not lose sight of the fact that about one out of every 100 people is a psychopath and 15 out of every 100 people are almost psychopaths. They are husbands, wives, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and store clerks.
And they are a lot closer to you than Wall Street.
Silver views psychopathy (aka Antisocial personality) as a spectrum, from little to lots. That fits my life experience and my professional experience. When I encounter "almost sociopathy", I term it "antisocial traits." The world of finance, indeed, has no monopoly on sociopathic traits. I suspect the world of politics has far more, proportionately.
An interesting feature of antisocial traits, like narcissistic traits, is that their owners tend not to know they have them. People who worry about having them probably don't have much of it.
As if we conservatives don't have enough to worry about (Obama, Biden, Michael Moore, Pelosi and the list goes on), I have been prepping in case of a zombie attack. Now I know some may think it trite or not possible, but if the Dark Shadows movie with Johnny Depp coming out in May is successful, we may be in for a run of the un-dead, dead.
So, in an effort to be prepared (as we good conservatives try to be), I've put together my zombie protection rig. Most rigs are built around the AR 15 platform, a solid, wise and dependable choice. However, being a conservative, I am also a bit more "old school".
The M1 carbine was produced in 1944. It has seen some use, but is reliable and will hold a pretty good group of 3 inches or so at 100 yards, which is plenty good enough for zombie killing. That is a Colt Commando revolver, manufactured during WWII for use by defense plant guards, OSS, etc. The one in the picture was shipped in 1943 to a government warehouse in Reading, PA. Box of 38 Special loadings and an extra box of Vietnam War era production, .30 Caliber Carbine ammo and I am ready. In case they get too close, the carbine has a bayonet and if that fails, I have my pilot's knife. I think I am well-prepared.
Obama claims that free-market capitalism doesn't work. Some retort that it has not been tried lately. Obama certainly never tried it (except with his ghost-written books), but I tried it. Easy to do. Here's how I joined the 1% and got filthy rich in the intertunnel through the miracle of free-market Capitalism (with good tips for other bloggers and website owners):
- Dunkin Donuts pays me $100 k per year for publicity. That's a good deal for them. Plus I get free coffee and jelly donuts, like the cops do.
- Bob Dylan pays me around $100 k per year for free publicity, plus free concert tix. Don't care much for his musical efforts, but the money's good and my kids appreciate the tix. OK, OK, he does have some decent lyrics
- Best Nest offers $1000 per link up to four per year, but also sends me free stuff. I have bird houses coming out of my ears. Ouch. Splinters. They need better sanders.
- D'Artagnan compensates us with $500 of their wonderful produce per link
- my contract with Amazon pays me a paltry $500 per book or item link.
- Sippican pays me $600 per link, limited to 1/month. I would try to squeeze more out of the guy, but I like him and his family so I don't. Pays me double for each Rumford Meteor link - best little newspaper in Maine.
- Brooks Brothers pays me $10,000 for one annual advt., plus one free three-hour shopping spree during their January sale and a bonus for each additional link. What do I need the clothes for? I live in my Brooks Brothers pajamas...and I never go outdoors. There are bears out there.
- Costco pays me $4000 per mention. Cheap SOBs. Evil big business taking advantage of us toilers.
- Don Surber's paper pays us a lousy $75 per link, which is why I link Surber so often - I have to make it on volume or the invoice is hardly worth the stamp! He's pretty good, though, so it's OK despite his liberal slant. Gateway Pundit pays better, per link. Insty doesn't pay a penny, so I hate to link the darn guy. Vanderleun, TigerHawk, Mead, Theo - too holy and pure, or too cheap - to put up the necessary, but our persuasive VP of Sales will visit them again soon for cocktails and dinner at the truck stop lounge of their choice. As for Zero Hedge - he pays us double what we ask for but in the currency of his choice. Filthy Capitalist. Obama needs to raise his taxes.
- Home Depot pays us $8,000 per linked mention, limited to 3/year. Nice check, but always arrives late. I still have to pay when I get stuff there.
- Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce: $750 per Cape Cod photo posted. I have lots of Cape Cod photos, so they limited me to one per month
- What do I get from Big Oil and Big Gas for pretending to be a climate skeptic? My contract with those good old boys prevents me from making the details public but I can say that it is a satisfactory arrangement for now. Plus they fly me down private to Texas and treat me to bird or pig hunts and barbecue anytime I am free. Sent me a custom cast-iron smoker too. Not as good a deal as Anthony Watts gets, but not bad at all.
- Exploitation of workers: I pay our eager contributors nothing (suckers). I am a tough negotiator. My plan for 2012 is to begin to charge themper wordfor each post. After all, our virtual ink and paper costs are going up, as are duct tape costs to hold our servers together - not to mention Obamacare for our elves and farm hands and the rapidly-increasing cost of paying Google to keep us on the top of "Maggie's" searches.
OK. That makes for a profitable day thus far. Heck, everybody has to make a living somehow, and a little extry comes in handy (the girls all want Loro Piana and Anne Fontaine stuff for their birthdays as I am sure your girls do too - there's two more quick n' easy payola ka-chings for me!). Please patronize our benefactors, and assume that every link we provide is paid for in some manner. I don't have time to list all of the rest of the good payola and kickbacks I benefit from at Maggie's, but it is enough to keep my banker on Grand Cayman busy processing the check and (preferably) Fed-Exed cash payments.
All it takes for website success is a good, sweet-talkin' VP of Sales with an appealing product and who just likes to have fun - and thanks for the check, John Deere:
We served only two side dishes at dinner last weekend: Wild Rice with Apple and Cranberry, and simple String Beans.
At our house, we only eat those skinny string beans that come fresh in packages. French String Beans, Haricot verts. No strings in them. We eat them like candy. Costco sells them in big packages, and our supermarket overprices them in smaller bags. We steam them all up and they are good green food for a week in the fridge. I feel that the full-sized string beans that I was raised on are not really fit for human consumption.
We do them the Italian way:
Steamed for a few minutes until tender but still bright green. Drain, then tossed in the best olive oil you have, with sea salt. In Italy, simple is the best when the ingredients are the best.
Obamacare so far is a political flop and shows ominous early signs of being a policy misfire as well. The benefits don’t seem to measure up to the hype, more people are going to lose their existing insurance, premiums are going up and the impact on the deficit is going to be worse.
This is a horrible piece of legislation — as misbegotten and useless to its friends as it is menacing to its enemies. The question is: why? Why did the blues write such a bad law? Why, given a once in a lifetime chance to pass a program that Dems have longed to achieve ever since the New Deal, did they craft a sloppy mess that nobody understands and few admire, and then leave their law so unnecessarily vulnerable to constitutional challenge?
The answers tell us much about why blue progressive thinking is losing its hold on the body politic — and why blue methods generally aren’t working as well as they used to.
I can certainly understand when anyone spends more time or energy on defending his or her own ethnic group or race or affinity group from unfairness. I do, regarding Jews and Israel, and Marines.
But, at the same time, if one does so even when evidence points another way, ignores the rights or rightful claims of others, even adversaries, it – at least – indicates a narrowness of perspective and inadequate interest in justice for all, which reduces credibility. It clearly spills over into racism when attacks or defense use racial or ethnic stereotypes, jumps to conclusions based on race or ethnicity, especially in the absence of facts or connection. When one tolerates such, even defends such, even encourages such, then one is choosing to affiliate with racists and is properly grouped with them. I think that is where President Obama falls. By dint of his repeated one-sided and unsupported words and gestures, and his inadequate attention to the facts or rights of others, President Obama is a racist. By dint of his high public position and influence, those repeated words and gestures make him a hatemonger, as well.
Besides "social media," it's interesting to me how others keep in touch with their old friends, how they reach out and make new friends, and, in general, how they keep their interpersonal lives alive, vibrant, and stimulating.
Readers know that I like to host parties at home, both formal and informal. Even if it isn't a time to have deep, intimate conversations as one does in other settings like in restaurants or clubs, it's a way of letting people know that that you view them as a part of your life that matters. That is an important signal to send to people (assuming that they care).
I know the Bird Dogs like to host formal dinners, and especially big semi-formal multi-course game dinners for 25-30, but that sounds like work to me. Sounds like a holiday effort, but they seem to be used to doing it joyfully and without much expense, and take it in stride.
At my house, we are partial to hosting semi-stuffy formal dinners for 12 at least monthly from October to March (why else have a formal dining room?), and casual family clambakes, barbecues, pig roasts, or the like in the summertime. Sometimes in the winter it is good to host a decadent after-church brunch with champagne and bloodies, with a guy making omelettes to order, and bacon n' sausage n' pancakes. A big brunch at home is not an expensive party, and people love to come in the winter for good cheer with the fireplaces blazing. People have been known to get good new jobs at our get-togethers.
Every few years, I think it's a good idea to find an excuse to throw a big cocktail party or Christmas party and cast a wide net of hospitality. Inviting people into your home, however humble, means a lot to people. Doing those things right, of course, can be a little bit costly but makes life much more fun.
I enjoy people. If I don't do it, who will?
Friends of ours, recent empty-nesters, have come up with another idea which I like. They term it "Suppertime." Once a week, they just call a couple to join them for an ordinary supper on the kitchen table after work. A cocktail by the fire first, of course. Nothing fancy, no big deal, just a visit for an hour or two at most. Salad and spaghetti, or a grilled ribeye and mashed potatoes, or whatever, and some fruit for dessert.
The SG talks about liberty: "millions of people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease, and as a result of the health care... they will be unshackled from the disabilities that those diseases put on them and have the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty." There's freedom inside all this compulsion and coercion, because when the government supplies your needs, then you can enjoy life. That's the argument!
The other day, a woman walked into a mall. She visited several stores, among them Macy's, Starbucks, Nordstrom's, an interior design shop, a paint store, and finally the Apple store.
She didn't buy in each one, but in cases where she did, she gave quite a bit of information about herself to the store in order to make her purchase. In fact, she gave quite a bit of information to each store and she didn't realize it. It wasn't long before she was inundated with coupons, offers, ideas for purchase, calendar of sales, and various other items related to her trip to the mall. It was as if she returned to her car and found all this under her windshield wiper. These coupons and offers were from the stores she visited, but from other stores that offered the same or similar products. At first she wondered, "Is someone following me?" At that point, her smartphone buzzed, and she had an email. Target was letting her know there was a sale on dresses from a designer she had recently purchased.
The mall the woman walked into was the internet, and there was somebody following her. But that somebody wasn't just one person. It was a large number of people. Faceless, nameless people collecting data on sites she visited so they could tell what she was interested in from her clicking, what online stores she visited, on her purchase decisions, whether she got to that store by clicking on an ad, as well as other data points. If this had happened in real life, as described above, how would you react? Certainly there are laws against this, you'd think? Not really. If I chose to sit in the mall and just pay attention to where you went, then visited each store to peek and see what you purchased, and then leave coupons on your car, you are limited in your ability to stop me. Laws exist to prevent stalking, but if I'm sneaky enough, you may never even notice me.
As I mentioned a while ago, there isn't much Medieval to see in northern Italy except for some churches and monasteries, and some fortifications.
The wealth and urban renewal during the Renaissance is the reason. The narrow roads and alleys are often of medieval origin, but the old buildings are pretty much all Renaissance or later.
We did find one Medieval-era home in Orta San Guilio a couple of years ago (we drove our tiny rental over the mountains from Stresa for a day trip. I don't know how the lad fit his long legs into the back seat of that tin can, but he will put up with anything to explore new places):
The main reason Maggie's Farm exists as a 25-30% political site instead of as a 0% political site is to assert what we consider our Yankee views of freedom. We assume that governments, having nothing better to do, will seek to accumulate power and money. That's what organizations tend to do.
For each smidgen of accumulated government power, a smidgen is lost to the citizen. Power, unlike wealth, is a zero-sum game. It only seems to ratchet in one direction with the State as the beneficiary. We had a revolution about that sort of thing against our (then) democratic Parliament.
Variously attributed to Tom Paine, Tom Jefferson, and Tom Hank Thoreau: “That government is best which governs least.” Indeed, We The People are not retarded, and many of us do not have the submissive genes which the benevolent welfare state welcomes or requires.
The Obamacare argument is, or will be, that medical insurance is a uniquely "necessary and proper one." However, I could make the same argument for legal care, or housing-repair care, or auto insurance, or anything else that seems important at a given moment.
The argument that government power grabs are well-intentioned, or "good," or "for the greater good" is a non-argument to me as an American. We were designed to be a nation of sturdy and proud people, unlike our European ancestors. They think we're rubes: we think they are lame.
As we often remark here, the Libs, the Progressives, and the Left never introduce freedom arguments into debates (unless it involves sex). We put freedom factors into policy equations, and they do not. That's the basic difference.
Allan Bloom
Each 
I read the headline of 
"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
:
We served only two side dishes at dinner last weekend: Wild Rice with Apple and Cranberry, and simple String Beans.
Besides "social media," it's interesting to me how others keep in touch with their old friends, how they reach out and make new friends, and, in general, how they keep their interpersonal lives alive, vibrant, and stimulating. 
The main reason Maggie's Farm exists as a 25-30% political site instead of as a 0% political site is to assert what we consider our Yankee views of freedom. We assume that governments, having nothing better to do, will seek to accumulate power and money. That's what organizations tend to do.