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.
Maggie's has been fortunate in gaining a goodly number of new readers over the past month. We are pleased by that, and offer y'all a hearty welcome to the Farm.
If you enjoy Maggie's Farm, the best holiday present you can give us is to send our site around to anybody who might enjoy it. A growing readership, and readers' feedback, are our only tangible rewards for our (usually) enjoyable efforts.
Remember - you do not have to be a right-wing wacko to find our rationalist, centrist site an interesting addition to your day. We aren't all about politics, and plenty of Libs read us just for the fun of it. There's more to life than the sleazy soap opera of politics (despite our little, old-fashioned hang-ups about political and economic freedom and minor details like that).
Thanks -
Bird Dog, Editor Dog in Chief
(If you happen to be Chinese, so much the better. Why our China readership is so low is difficult to understand unless we are blocked by the government: we're a pretty good sample of ordinary American life for the curious. We would love to have a good-sized Chinese readership.)
I'm opposed to any new income taxes. It matters little if they are assessed on my income or a much wealthier person's income. The average person is overburdened.
I feel the same way about corporate taxes, too. The oddity, in both personal income and corporate taxes, is how little people actually pay and how few of us pay. There are a myriad of reasons for this. Loopholes, primarily, but also the manner in which taxes are assessed. After all, capital gains and investment income are not taxed in the same fashion as earned income, for many good reasons. It is money at risk, and money at work. It must be treated differently.
My personal belief is that a flat income tax, with no (or very few) loopholes is transparent, easy to employ, and would reduce the need for a large bureaucracy chasing the average citizen. It would generate more, or at least equivalent, revenue but not cost the government as much. All told, it's a money saver. This is a preference that I'm unlikely to ever see, as many people don't fully understand the benefits of a flat tax, in particular its very 'fairness' (a vague term, but defensible in the manner I'm using it).
A flat tax alone probably isn't enough, though. To truly have an impact and get people focused on longer time frames, I've always felt a Tobin Tax would be useful. Capital gains taxes would be eliminated and replaced with a Tobin Tax on currency trades and a Transaction Tax on investments. There are many reasons to not like this, given the nature of Wall Street behavior today. However, as part of a broad tax overhaul, it would probably yield tremendous results. Bruce Krasting disagrees, as does the House of Lords. It's possible this is because the current concept would be to implement a Tobin Tax in addition to the existing tax structure, rather than as part of an overhaul. As part of a complete restructuring of the tax code, these taxes would focus investors on longer buy and hold periods, reduce High Frequency Trading, stabilize currency exchanges, and generate considerable revenue for the government. The problem, of course, is the level at which the tax is set. .03% is perhaps too high. Then again, OWS would complain it's too low.
It would be intriguing to see someone elected who is willing to alter the tax code so it more naturally meshes with the way business is done today.
I was listening to All Things Considered on the car radio and heard this very beautiful, haunting Franz Schubert song, "Hurdy-Gurdy Man" in English, a Hurdy-Gurdy Man playing a stringed instrument to attract attention to his wares or to get charity. On the show, it was recommended by a son remembering his father trudging 10-miles through cold and snow to a menial job to put food on the table. The Youtube has the English translation.
There are many who are unfortunate through little fault of their own. In this season of extra giving, it is well to remember them and donate to worthy charities that help them.
The All Things Considered story is worth the read.
The story of the transition from Judaeo-Christians to Gentile-Christians. Jesus taught only to his fellow Jews, but the history of the expansion to the gentiles, and the discomfort between the Jewish Christians and the gentile Christians made for interesting drama and conflict.
Eventually, the gentile-Christians dominated the faith. Most Christians today were pagans in their ancestral histories - hence our Saturnalian December Christmas (Jesus likely born in April, but it doesn't really matter) - and the good old pagan Christmas trees.
Today, Yahoo! asked if I am I better off than my parents? Do I have more opportunity and a better life overall? These are questions that politicians will be asking the next few months. They are questions pundits continually ask. But posing these questions doesn't really inform us.
Depending on how I define 'better off', I could reply yes or no to both questions. If all I did was pay attention to the broad statistics and ignore my personal situation, then no. I should join OWS and complain incessantly.
Am I earning more in real terms than my father at a similar age? No. I do have much more saved for retirement, but at my age my father was finishing putting two boys through college, and looking to pay for three more children. He had a larger home and a nicer car, and he went on some very nice vacations (sometimes with us, usually without). The problem is, no matter how well off he was, his life is not mine. I can't compare how well I'm doing to him, because we entered very different professions and made very different choices. Do I feel better off? Yes. Do I live very well? Yes. So whether I am better off or not is a vague question. It is not dependent purely on statistics. Answering the two original questions will beg other questions rather than providing a concrete response.
After all, we tend to have very short memories about our situations and how we've progressed.
The studies like this, of course, are more correlation than causation, but, in my experience, red-blooded men require more than three. The healthier fellows will be more vigorous and horny, so they will have more of these things. Strong young men in energetic relationships seem to need 2-3 per day.
But what about women? How many orgasms per week correlate with health and well-being?
Many forms of atheism, and plenty of atheists appear to attend church or synagogue for all sorts of reasons - including the hope that faith might be contagious. One quote from Novak's post:
Some years ago I read a book on atheism, by a devout atheist (if that is the right word), who had found to his surprise that a large majority of those Americans who call themselves atheists actually believe in some more-than-human power, force, intelligence in all things. This is a position not altogether unlike the ancients (and the moderns) described in #3 above. The ancients did not call such persons atheists, but held them to be theists, albeit under a vague and unclear sort of deity, but intelligent and powerful and drawing all things toward the good.
"Higher Power"? That is certainly a form of theism albeit undeveloped.
It's gift time, and I have been thinking about my own gifts, such as they are. Besides being fairly tall, possessed of regular features, a Victoria's Secret killer shape despite 3 kids, and a functional IQ and an athletic nature, what are the gifts with which God has endowed me? Am I doing justice to those gifts?
I have recently made a project of listing my strengths and weaknesses, and my special abilities which I view as my gifts. Middle age will do this to a person. Like most people, my list of weaknesses and of abilities is long, but my talents are f.
Do I use my semi-talents well, those gifts of the spirit, and do I use them in service of the Lord? Do I neglect them, or do I use them only for my foolish personal wants? I do love my foolish personal wants, however pointless they may be. Like a certain Michael Kors handbag. For what?
Back at the barn after a long days' hunt today in the Hudson Valley with a pal and his business partner. Venison stew for lunch with a Bloody with extra horseradish, shot lots of birds over my pal's excellent Lab, saw three Bald Eagles (one of which, we suspect, stole a bird from our bird pile), smoked a cigar, had a few good beers and some very good conversation too. I shot quite well today, which I do not always do. I always find that an Irish Coffee or a Bloody helps my shooting.
Advent is hunting season too in this neck of the woods.
Thanks, pal, for hosting such a fine day. Les tres riche heures du Bird Dog, blessed as he is with good dear friends who like to do things. (On the other hand, he did chastise me, gently, a little for not monetising Maggie's Farm.)
The first keyboard I ever approached was an 1800s Mason & Hamlin single manual reed organ, technically a harmonium. The wind is generated by vacuum-generating bellows (hence "suction reed organ") pumped by the feet of the organist. From a technical standpoint, these are like upright accordions with an organ-like sound.
My Grandpa salvaged it when the local Congregational church bought a new organ. He kept it in his living room, and the elderly, old maid church organist would stop by, unannounced. to play the old thing until she died.
Today, old reed organs are thrown in the garbage, but I think it's a shame. They are of an era when these were all small congregations could afford. Some folks had them in their homes, too: "Parlor organs." You can find them cheap on eBay, but often people will be grateful if you will just take them away.
Did I mention that mice like to live in them? My parents finally threw the old thing in a dumpster because I failed to take it away myself in a reasonable period of time. My fault.
This fellow explains how to use the foot bellows to affect the playing of a reed organ:
The first tune I learned to play on it was the hymn Work For The Night Is Coming. It is not just a song of toil and death, but a song of toil in God's fields and pastures, and I still love it. Here's the only half-decent version I could find on YouTube (on piano, not reed organ - lyrics here):
In World War II, the United States did not have clear postwar goals for Eastern Europe. The brunt of this meant Eastern Europe suffered as Soviet satellites for almost half a century. The illusion of President Roosevelt about Stalin bears substantial responsibility.
The US held a moral stance toward eliminating Germany’s Nazi leadership and German rule over Europe. But, aside from desires, the US placed its eggs in the basket of a better postwar relationship with Stalin, rather than the freedom of Eastern Europe.
During the war, President Roosevelt had to deal with Churchill, who had a closer and clearer appreciation of the impact in Central and Eastern Europe of potential Soviet domination. But Roosevelt largely overrode Churchill. Roosevelt chose to deal with the paranoia of Stalin that (like Stalin had in 1939) the US and England would strike a deal with Germany short of its utter defeat. To the very end of his life, Roosevelt vainly believed, with vanity, that accommodating Stalin would yield trust and improved post-war relations. The fate of other peoples was secondary.
An illustration of Roosevelt’s haphazard policy making occurred at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943.
"Locus of control" is a psychological concept popularized and studied by psychologist Julius Rotter. It refers mainly to the extent to which a personthinks of himself as master of, or at least as prime determinant of, his life and fate. Captain of his ship, so to speak, or at least Navigator.
In America, we consider an "internal locus of control" as a sign of character strength (associated with determination, a can-do spirit, resilience, etc), and "external locus of control" as a sign of characterologic frailty (associated with blaming, excuses, scapegoating, dependency, complaints of unfairness, etc).
I say "in America" because some cultures support external localization while some cultures disparage the tendency to attribute unwelcome results to external forces, whether human, luck, God, or whatever. Northern European cultures tend towards the "no excuses," "take your lumps and learn from them" end of the spectrum.
Character is Destiny, or so claimed the ancient Greeks - and Freud.
People who tend towards the external side of things (in my field, we term it "externalizing," or "externalizing defenses") are often less successful in pursuing their goals. These are the people who are unlikely to admit "I screwed up," or "I was wrong," "I failed at so-and-so," "I handled that poorly," or "I don't understand it." The externalizing sorts of defenses are most commonly used to maintain a positive, or inflated, self-image in the face of disappointment but, on the other hand (revealing the internal contradiction) such people are the first to take credit for their successes and achievements.
The modern classic line which dramatizes the two ends of the spectrum is Jimmy Buffet's "Some people claim there's a woman to blame, but I know it's my own damn fault." In America, rightly or wrongly, our traditions respect those who say "It's my own damn fault" instead of blaming external circumstances, life history, bad luck, etc.
We preach that every move we make, or do not make, is a decision for which moral and practical responsibility must be taken, and the consequences of which we must man-up and deal with. Women must man-up, too.
The American ideal of self-reliance and self-responsibility comes into regular conflict with Christian views of God's will and evil forces, with ego-enhancing psychological defences, and also with dependency and victimization attitudes, ideologies and politics. It all keeps life interesting.
Nobody really believed that Obamacare would do anything to improve our health-care system or, even more absurdly, "bend the cost curve." By vastly increasing the number of insured and therefore of demand for medical care, it could only drive up costs. Remarks like Nancy Pelosi’s about having to pass the bill in order to see what’s in it showed that they weren’t really interested in what was in it — and nor was the President, who left all that up to congressional Democrats. What they cared about was the establishment of the progressive principle that the government should be in charge of overseeing health care. The details would be worked out later as history pursued its inevitable course of increasing government control over people’s lives.
Leftists take the long view, the Gramscian approach. At one bite at a time, their growing Leviathan wants to consume all that it can of private life in America. It's never enough, and never will be.
That's the essential problem: there is no end-point.
Readers may not have heard much about Heritage Turkeys. There have been many breeds of farm turkeys over the years, but today the bland Broad-Breasted White breed is the mass market turkey.
Heritage Turkeys are genetically closer to their wild ancestors, have far more flavor, and run to smaller sizes. Their meat is redder than that of the Broad Breasted White. They are growing in popularity because they do not taste like cardboard. In fact, their flavor is similar to Wild Turkey.
It's like the difference between a supermarket tomato and a home-grown variety.
You can buy Heritage Turkeys online at Dean & DeLuca or D'Artagnan. Some Whole Foods have them, but I won't go to Whole Foods, due to a Whole Foods allergy.
Wow. I just found out that D'Artagnan even sells Free-Range Wild Turkeys. Man, that saves a lot of otherwise-wasted time sitting in the woods.
These birds cost a little more, but they are hardly the same animal as the supermarket Broad-Breasted White. They taste like a game bird.
Steve Diamond made an interesting post last week describing the longstanding tension between the brain/behavioral and the mind/psychodynamic camps in psychology as a civil war. I have written here a number of times about this conflict, one that is at the heart of what is happening in psychiatry as well (if you are interested in the state of affairs in mental health, you really should read 1BoringOldMan who does a superb job of taking apart the trail of studies and inflated promises that got us here). I wish that what we are in were a civil war because then at least there would be active debate and engagement on these issues, but the takeover of psychology by the cognitive behavioral/brain folks is near complete on the academic level so that many younger clinicians have no idea of what is/was missing in their training. My side, the psychodynamic/mind side finds voice mostly through blogs like this one and those of other likeminded psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists. But together our voices are far less audible than those of the pharmaceutical and insurance companies and those of mental health professionals whose careers have been built on the effort to topple us. And the average person seeking help has no idea that these issues even exist. Yeah, it makes me kind of pessimistic at times.
I often feel that same way. Much of Psychiatric writing today has become so "medicalized," or "pseudo-medicalized," that you get the sense that it is check lists being treated rather than real people. Indeed, the two views of the patient - the hurting person - have developed different languages such that they cannot communicate well, and the alienation has become so extreme that I have heard them accuse eachother of malpractice.
Some of us attempt to straddle the divide, but it is difficult to rapidly alternate world-views.
The below is copied from Home Of Heroes. I hadn't heard this story before. On this day, 70-years after Pearl Harbor, take some time to navigate around the site, and find many stories you may not have heard before. And remember. And resolve for our future that lays in the hands of our Presidents to come and our servicemen and women who rise to the challenges for us all.
At 7:58 A.M. Paradise was shattered. The first of two separate waves of Japanese fighters and bombers unleashed death and destruction on the city below. Amid the bullets raking her deck, the men of the Nevada stood in formation without breaking ranks until the flag had been raised and the "Star Spangled Banner" finished its refrain. Then they begin what ultimately became a two hour struggle for survival. They watched in horror as the first bombs hit their sister ship the U.S.S. Arizona. A few minutes after 8 A.M. the Arizona sank beneath the surface of the harbor taking 1,103 men of its 1,400 crew to a watery grave.
Caught completely unawares, the devastation was unbelievable. By 10 o'clock 7 of the Navy's heavy battleships had either sunk or were severely damaged. Of 394 airplanes on the island, 140 were destroyed and 80 more damaged. The island lay in smoky ruins, 2,330 Americans killed, 1,145 wounded. Smoke from the Arizona filled the morning sky bearing mute testimony to the total destruction wrought by the enemy. But through the pall of smoke one image remained, the flag of the United States of America. It was the one symbol of hope, a reminder that freedom had survived and would ultimately triumph. When it seemed that all hope had vanished with the last whisps of smoke from the Arizona, the Red, White, and Blue still waved over Hawaii.
While America's first colleges were built mainly to produce ministers, by the late 17th- early 18th Century they had evolved towards something akin to a Brit "Gentleman's education," with curricula including math, some sciences including anatomy, Rhetoric, Ethics, Georgraphy, Christianity, Latin and Greek. Thomas Jefferson, an aristocrat more-or-less, attended the College of William and Mary for only two years, but was mainly tutor-educated and self-educated as were most ambitiously-curious folks in the time, and up past Abe Lincoln's time. He, after all, never saw a college.
Gentlemen, would-be clergy, and the rare would-be teacher attended colleges (but did not necessarily bother to graduate). And the prosperous, up through Teddy Roosevelt's time, were tutored at home while the practically-oriented primary schooling was for the working classes. (I don't believe TR ever attended school until he entered Harvard College. He had to pass their Greek and French test, along with other exams, for admission.)
The rise of public libraries, beginning in the early 18th C, had a huge impact on self-education up through the early 20th Century. For those who could not afford to buy books, these were like the internet for learners.
The research room in the NY Public Library. America's libraries are where many accomplished people without means received all of their "higher" education since 1730:
The evolution of American higher ed is fascinating as these institutions attempted to keep themselves relevant and in demand and to ultimately create a monopolistic if meaningless credential. American higher ed borrowed from the European, but has always been quite different. My reading suggests these phases in its evolution:
Does a math professor at California State University, Northridge, have the right to use the university’s web server, the url being the university’s, to post a hate page against Israel and Jews?
The webpage says, “Israel is the most racist state in the world at this time,” Israel engages in “ethnic cleansing”, says “No” to the question “But aren't Palestinians equally responsible for the violence?”, posts links to other similar charges from the usual assortment of Israel-haters, and calls for a boycott of Israel.
According to the California State University’s legal counsel, “The California State University is committed to protect against the misuse of its name.” He continues on “Misuse of the CSU name”, "It is inappropriate to use the CSU name without the written permission of the institution for any purpose, including:…Advertising any meeting or activity that has the purpose of supporting or opposing any strike, lockout, boycott, or political, religious, sociological or economic activity…"
Yet, according to the Cal State Northridge president, retiring this month, a review of the professor’s webpage, spurred by many letters of complaint, “raised many difficult issues, it found no such violations.
Several neighbors kindly stopped by last weekend and dropped off the NY Times Sunday Magazine. The cover had a picture of ME! How exciting. Not quite as exciting was the article about how, in my current state, I may well be doomed. The article offered several solutions on how my breed may be saved.
I've owned a bulldog for 17 of the last 18 years, and currently own my second. I grew up with collies, german shepherds, and golden retrievers. Never did I expect to fall for a breed such as this. In fact, the original purchase was a Christmas gift for my new wife who loved the breed. We lived in an apartment, and they are excellent apartment dogs.
Neither of my dogs have had major health problems. More importantly, regarding the article, I've never met a breeder who would disagree with some of the commentary the article provided about the breed. All of them are upfront and honest about the difficulties bulldogs present. I purchased my current dog from Cody Sickle, who is quoted in the article. He is well known for producing healthy dogs. My vet is a former breeder, and his partners have all adopted the bulldog as their 'specialty'.
The key point of the article, however, is that the standard needs to be changed. Here, unfortunately, breeders and the AKC have not taken the necessary steps. Undoubtedly, the breed needs some refinement and some steps should be taken. But can you really question the majesty of such an animal as this?
This morning on the way to Sunday School, my boys complained at my classical music radio station, "There's no words." Our Maggie's Farm pinup Marianne wrote me later about a childhood experience:
I wonder whether you’ve ever heard Rosa Ponselle. She is the first opera singer I ever heard and the one who made me fall in love with singing. Caruso discovered her on “the Borscht Circuit” where she was singing duets with her sister. They called themselves “Those Italian Girls” and they simply bowled Caruso over. He arranged an audition for her with the manager of The Metropolitan Opera, and he was bowled over by the beauty of her voice and her skill in singing and immediately offered her a contract. Talk about a fairy tale! In the early 1930s, I was just a little squid, and had to take a nap every afternoon. I had smuggled my Mom’s radio into my room and one Saturday afternoon, I found the Metropolitan Opera broadcast, which absolutely astounded me. That’s when I fell in love with opera.
I went to YouTube, listening to many of Rosa Ponselle's recordings, and went to WikiPedia to learn more about her. To sum it up, Maria Callas called Ponselle, "The greatest singer of us all." The New York Times critic called her voice "vocal gold."
Here's Rosa Ponselle in one of her greatest, demonstrating her unique range:
And, as Sunday comes to a close, here's Rosa Ponselle with one of her fitting non-operatic entries:
Every day that I know Marianne is a perfect day. Including one like this when she helps me get vengeance on my boys.
For competitive college admissions, it is tough for Asians to dodge the Asian quotas by labelling themselves as "white." Goes to show how insane this preoccupation with race has become.
What race is a half-Asian? What race is an American Indian or an Eskimo? (Asian, right?) What race is Obama, who "passes" as black to his great advantage in life?
In my opinion, private colleges can do whatever they want (eg Morehouse College), but taxpayer-supported schools should be racially blind. After all, our taxes are racially blind. Ignore race and ethnicity, and just think about their potential to benefit from, and to add something to, the place.
As you go through your list of end-of-year charitable contributions, please consider adding FIRE to your annual giving list.
They do good work on a shoestring with, as I understand it, quite a lot of volunteered legal time. As I see it, FIRE is continuing the work of the Berkeley Free Speech movement of the 60s. In fact, I am considering offering myself to them for occasional free counsel.
In my view, few things in life match the pleasure of giving money for the things one cares about. The freedom to do so is a gift itself, and a privilege. Like many or most of the conservative persuasion, we like to give until it hurts, but without going into debt to do it. The widow's mite: my charitable check sizes range from $50 to $1000, depending on how I feel and where I see the needs, but I have to whittle my list down to 12-15 of my favorite charities.
The great Charles Dickens would, I am sure, be amused that his casual novelette, A Christmas Carol, would be one of his most popular works. It's a story of a cranky sinner becoming a reborn Christian, and the best testimony ever along with being one of the best movies ever made.
From covetous, cheerless insanity to joy in life, the loving "life in abundance" that we are promised. Non-Christians and atheists mght be able to get a sense of what it is all about from this film, even though it is never overtly Christ-centered.
This is somewhat edited, but contains the gist of it:
This past weekend, my elder son asked me to drive him to the outlets so he could get some Ralph Lauren shirts at a reduced cost. Frankly, I don't know where he got this penchant for name brand clothing, but it's his money, not mine. What is my money is the gas it takes to drive an hour to the outlets and the time I gave up to make the 2 hour (round trip) drive. I thought it would be a good lesson for him on 2 levels. First, I could teach him about opportunity costs by showing him why the trip was frivolous. Second, he'd get some driving practice so he could get his license in 2 weeks.
I wound up getting to fulfill my goals, he got his shirts, and we both learned a valuable lesson.
No good deed goes unpunished. In other words, Murphy was right. You can almost count on unintended consequences.
I know it's been said by many people many times, but I'll say it again: Sometimes, cameras do not record things - they create them. Reader reminded me of the Palliwood video below, which reminded me of OWS: would those people have been there without the nightly TV cameras, and all the attention from all the people walking by taking their pictures? I doubt it.
Thus the thousands of mostly cheerful people who swarmed into Macy's on Thanksgiving weekend to enjoy giving up their hard-earned money to evil corporations were not a meaningful meme, but thirty scruffy malcontents still at Zuccotti Park got their daily TV notoriety, maintaining the deeply meaning meme. The former activity does not require the presence of cameras, the latter does and therefore is Palliwood.
Greedy for visual content, those with the cameras create the news. Then they create the narrative to go along with it. Yes, we all know this already.
Maggie's has been fortunate in gaining a goodly number of new readers over the past month. We are pleased by that, and offer y'all a hearty welcome to the Farm.
H/t 
It's gift time, and I have been thinking about my own gifts, such as they are. Besides being fairly tall, possessed of regular features, a Victoria's Secret killer shape despite 3 kids, and a functional IQ and an athletic nature, what are the gifts with which God has endowed me? Am I doing justice to those gifts?
The first keyboard I ever approached was an 1800s Mason & Hamlin single manual
Readers may not have heard much about Heritage Turkeys. There have been many breeds of farm turkeys over the years, but today the bland Broad-Breasted White breed is the mass market turkey.
