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.
Many have already read George Will's fine essay, Pencils and Politics. It's a brief intro to Econ 101. A quote:
Producing this simple, mundane device is, Ruth says, "an achievement on the order of a jazz quartet improvising a tune when the band members are in separate cities." An unimpressed student says, "So a lot of people work on a pencil. What's the big deal?" Ruth responds: Who commands the millions of people involved in making a pencil? Who is in charge? Where is the pencil czar?
Her point is that markets allow order to emerge without anyone imposing it. The "poetry of the possible" is that things are organized without an organizer.
Yes, it's the miracle (or poetry, or spontaneous order) of markets and the free flow of goods and services. Read the whole thing. Another quote:
The spontaneous emergence of social cooperation the emergence of a system vastly more complex, responsive and efficient than any government could organize is not universally acknowledged or appreciated. It discomforts a certain political sensibility, the one that exaggerates the importance of government and the competence of the political class.
When I think of trade and markets, I think of the paleolithic (500,000 years ago) trade in amber (for jewelry) and flint (for tools). Scandinavian amber being found in Italy. Or obsidian from Idaho being found in Indian sites on Long Island.
But when I think of pencils, I think of the Thoreau Pencil which, in the 1830s, was the finest pencil made in America. Thoreau supported himself during most of his life by working at that Pencil Factory. There is no reason to think that he enjoyed a minute of that work, but everybody has to make money.
We have to give Henry David Thoreau credit for this, though: He was a practical Civil Engineer and inventor and not just a dreamy transcendentalist with a love for nature and a way with words.
"...my eye caught The Gospel of John. Now this was the film I meant to see in February 2004 when The Passion of the Christ came out, but I missed the brief window of opportunity for catching it here in Fresno. Slasher flicks play for weeks and weeks and weeks at the monsterplexes, but at the brave art theater, gospel films (without Mel's name attached), sad to say, don't."
While I do not believe that a parent owes a kid a free college education, I think it can be a heck of a nice present for a kid who is eager for it, and can use it. Those without an avid hunger to learn things in a formal format need not apply.
Nothing is more costly, or more over-priced, than education today. At the same time, knowledge has never been more available and accessible - few people remember more about Plato from college than they can read as a refresher on Wiki. (I always believed in reading an encyclopedia entry on a topic before studying it, to get oriented.)
With some gracious grand-parental assistance, we have paid for private college 2 1/2 times thus far - one half to go. Prep-schools too, but that's another story. (Like the Obamas and Clintons and most Dems, we are not huge fans of government schools when it comes to our own kids. It's an investment - we expect them to take care of us in our old age when we are broke or broken-down - and will be happy to do the same for our parents if and when they want it or need it.)
Because most colleges and universities today have relatively few standards about what a college-educated person ought to know, I had to do it myself. Re-inventing the wheel, you might say, because Socrates and Aristotle might have made a comparable list.
Here are Bird Dog's Basic, Minimum Requirements for payment for his kids' "higher" educations, whether in school or outside of formal schooling (high school AP counts, as does a serious approach to a Teaching Company course):
1. Calculus 2. A Shakespeare course 3. The Bible 4. Physics, Chem, and Bio. I would have liked to see some Organic and Biochem in there too, so they could understand what's in the newspapers. These are not "difficult," but require some simple discipline. 5. Western Civ, Hammurabi thru Plato through Nietzsche 6. Western Lit, The Book of the Dead and Gilgamesh thru Homer and Hesiod through Melville 7. Art history 8. Music history 9. English Lit, minimum of 2 courses 10. Econ, macro and micro 11. Intro Geology 12. Intro Philosophy 13. American history (not from Zinn or some Lefty nut, but the real deal) 14. European history 15. One classical language - Greek or Latin, plus one modern language 16. Basic Business and Accounting (unfortunately, most of my kids' schools are too elite to offer such mundane and practical courses, but they need to learn this somewhere.)
I put "higher" in quotes because this doesn't sound very higher, does it? My requirements leave plenty of room for a major in Underwater Basket-weaving or Female Studies. (When I was in college, we did our studies of females mostly on weekends with beer, and usually flunked the quizzes.)
My kids have mostly kept to this. In my view, if you don't know this basic stuff, you are not fully schoolin'-eddicatedand not fully and cushily prepared, as the cliche goes, "for a lifetime of self-education and informed citizenship." After all, this stuff is just foundational and all of it could be self-learned, but college makes it more likely to happen, and a good guide is always helpful.
When you think about it, a decent high school ought to be able to do most or all of it. After all, they take four years to do two full years' worth of hard work. Why else did they call it "high" school? (My theory is that they slow it all down to the pace of the stragglers and slackers.)
I also advise them that any random course with a great teacher who knows everything about everything is worth many courses with ordinary profs in subjects they think they are "interested in." How do you know whether you are "interested in" something until you dig into it? Everything is interesting, in my opinion.
Finally, I expect them to earn their spending money. Jobs during college. (My lad bussed tables at the B-school faculty dining room while being reporter, editor, then Editor in Chief of the newspaper and running a softball team. My middle pupette was a restaurant receptionist, then a part-time assistant at Merrill-Lynch - while playing Div. 1 Tennis and majoring in Econ and Math. I don't know how they did it all. I admire their energy and initiative. My little one would too, but there are no jobs in a tiny college out in the lovely woods and fields of central Ohio. She works hard in the summer, though.)
What do you require of your kids?
(Pic is an old one-room schoolhouse in Westport, CT. Those kids could learn more than our kids do, as witness Abe Lincoln, John Adams, Tom Jefferson, etc. Of course, exceptional individuals who were highly motivated.)
The Jewish Bible is full of miracles from G-d. Yet, in the Book of Esther, G-d’s intervention is not mentioned.Rabbinic commentary says that the hand of G-d is hidden but manifest in the saving of the Jews from the genocide plans of Haman.That may well be so. However, if there was divine intervention, it took the trembling will and the actions of a few of his earthly humans to bring about the good outcome.
Reminds me of this story. On January 1, G-d tells a very good, pious and observant man that in reward he will win the lottery that year. The man waits and waits, and on December 31 asks G-d why he hasn’t won the lottery yet. G-d answers, “meet me halfway, buy a ticket.”
It is up to us, each and everyone of us, regardless of religion, to buy a ticket, to speak and act for safety from sworn enemies and to further justice in this world. This year, the reading aloud in our synagogues of the Megillah, the scroll of the Book of Esther, is on Saturday and Sunday. Haman’s name is drowned out by noisemakers, groggers, and Mordechai and Esther’s names are cheered. Purim is accompanied by celebrations for the children – to fix the meaning of Purim in their minds, and the adults giving food packages to the needy and to friends – to build community and spread blessings of plenty and caring.
In an apparent connection made by Hitler between his Nazi regime and the role of Haman, he stated in a speech made on January 30, 1944, that if the Nazis were defeated, the Jews could celebrate "a second Purim".[51][50] Seconds before he was hanged, Streicher called out "Purim Fest 1946!"[51]
Haman exists in every generation, and must be confronted, or allowed to prevail. We are G-d’s hands.
Purim is a fun holiday, so here’s SpongeBob’s version of the Megillah.
My friend Mark Safranski's blogZenPundit is one of my favorites. Its focus is on foreign policy, and more specifically on military affairs. The breadth and eclecticism of its links and discussions, agree or not, are of the highest order and center on rational discussion of complex issues. Most of us value the rational discussions we have, unfortunately though not often enough, because all parties come away with new appreciations and better understandings.
I found this graphic there, a flowchart of whether you are having a rational discussion.
Yes. It used to be that Psychiatrists were the only ones who would talk to a distressed person with some depth of understanding. Nowadays, everybody can be a "therapist," and the "New, Improved" Psychiatrists don't want to get to know who you are. They want a symptom for the right pill.
I kept going on doing what I knew how to do anyway – just kept "doing what I did before and what I loved." I was a late arriver, having had another career first, so I was never around for the days of wine and roses to "go backwards, moneywise, in [my] career." I’m retired with "the lifestyle that my wife and I have been living for the last 40 years." I live in a log cabin. We travel and buy the things we want. It was a modest life with a modest retirement. I wouldn’t have had it be much different. I get calls from Therapist friends often who want me to help them find a "good Psychiatrist" who will do their "meds." I don’t even know what to say. Good Psychiatrists don’t "do meds," they treat people.
In my view, all docs should treat people, not diagnoses and not symptoms. People aren't "cases" - not even to good surgeons and anesthesiologists. No two "cases" are the same. Medicine is a humanistic, humanitarian art as much as it is science, and people are too complicated for simple formulations - unless they are bleeding out in the ER or some such. As I read the medical literature, most people don't even take their prescribed medicines.
I take note that the current head of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Carol Bernstein, has problems with the DSM model.
So do I. I have some hope for it too, but believe it to be of limited utility. It's largely pseudo-scientific, and pseudo-certain. "Sex Addiction"? Give me a break.
As 1 Boring Old Man says, "Don't mistake the pointing finger for the moon."
From Vietnam to today, the majority of US public opinion has supported confronting active threats to US security. And, naturally, Americans sympathize with the oppressed and their human rights. However, as the costs rose, time elapsed, and foreign policy dilettantes recoil from the realities of armed intervention, other firmer supporters increasingly bemoan the restrictions imposed by the half-hearted and the saboteurs of winning that not only cost more US military lives but place the end-goals in jeopardy.
In short, the inherent contradiction in US foreign policy is between those willing to undertake the burdens and those who undermine that will. This leads to initial enthusiasms that fade to regrets, and has created a new isolationism among many who favor strong actions but – having paid the price -- are unwilling to become wasted cannon fodder. This is particularly felt among many veterans who have felt the anguish of their efforts being undercut and frittered.
Most – but not all – of the usual advocates of an assertive US foreign policy argue for the US to be clearer and more forthright in standing by those in the Middle East fighting against its satraps – whether allied to or opponents of the US. The situation in Libya is the current front, while those in Tunisia and Egypt fade from the short attention span of the front pages.
The incoherency of President Obama’s foreign policies, from inauguration to now, however, undermines from the get-go the expectations of focus, perseverance, adequate means, and thus favorable results. The only consistent behavior shown by the Obama administration has been weak and dithering resolve to protect US interests coupled with rewarding enemies and undercutting allies.
There is nothing in the Obama administration’s handling of the current revolts in the Middle East that indicates a meaningful learning or reversal of this course.
Indeed, the ongoing dithering and waffling in the face of events only reinforces the view of an administration at best adrift in confusion, ignorance and denial, and at worst purposely dangerous in furthering US interests abroad.
There are good arguments to be made for the US intervening more actively and forcibly in the Middle East revolts, but in my view they pale before the lack of confidence that the Obama administration has labored so hard to deserve.This is especially so given the likely outcomes just enmeshing the US further in the Arab world’s self-inflicted dysfunctionality, with not even any worthwhile gratitude to result.
It is not easy nor consistent with our decency to see innocents or rebels slaughtered. It is less easy to send our sons and daughters into the cauldron created by the Arabs themselves, with only slightly marginal lasting results the best outcome and more likely not even that.
P.S.: Andrew McCarthy at National Reviewgoes into more detail. Read it all, and think, think, think.
Country folk call them "Fisher cats," and blame them for the decline of Ruffed Grouse populations in the Northeast (about which they are wrong. Grouse and Fishers coexisted for millennia. I blame the grouse population drops on fire suppression, habitat loss - and the dang Coyotes who would not be here had we not killed all of the wolves).
Fishers are large members of the weasel family (the Mustelidae - stoats, badgers, otters, martens, mink, weasels, wolverines) - kinda like mini-Wolverines.
With the return of woodlands and the decline of fur trapping, Fisher populations are rebounding in the northern US, especially in New England (same as with the Black Bear). They are one of the few animals that kills Porcupines.
...perhaps the most troubling aspect of this new federal intrusion in the higher education marketplace is its underlying assumptions about the best way to control college costs. Whether it has been efforts to increase Pell Grants, or now this student loan fix, President Obama and his allies in Congress, driven I believe by the best of intentions, have assumed that increasing federal aid will help students better afford college. And there is no doubt that college costs have skyrocketed recently, more than doubling the rate of inflation over the past twenty years. However, every time the federal government has increased aid to students, colleges have turned around and raised tuition and fees accordingly.
Aided by the government-encouraged extension of credit, education costs have skyrocketed. In fact, it is fair to describe today's higher education price tag as having been reduced to a formula - where tuition seems to equal all the money a student can pay plus all the money a student can conceivably borrow. And, this same access-for-all government policy has made loan-eligible middle- and lower-income students easy prey for aggressive higher education and student-loan marketing. The end result has been an unprecedented, debt-fueled wealth transfer from students of modest means to the increasingly affluent higher education industry and its student-loan lenders. Unfortunately, as this damage continues to reveal its depth, its consequences are likely to become more evident by the day.
A generation of students has been reduced to the equivalent of the underwater homeowner: resigned to a fate where the amount owed to finance their schooling might be greater than the value of the education they received (and, therefore, beyond their capacity to repay it).
Government student loans and grants are little more than indirect handouts to the academic institutions in whose pockets they end up.
The BD family contains avid snorkelers, but only Mrs. BD is a skilled scuba diver. But even snorkeling, she can swim down 20 feet easily to inspect something. Loves it.
But about the peas. On good advice we bought a big bag of frozen peas at the Cabo WalMart, filled a plastic water bottle with them and then added water to the bottle. When you are diving or snorkeling near rocks or a reef, just squirt a few peas out of that bottle. You will be swarmed with tropical fish. Works like a dream. Like tossing bread to pigeons in a park. Fish were crashing into me, some over a foot long, and one bit Mrs. BD while trying to get to the pea bottle. Very cool thing to try. Wish I had had an underwater camera.
We had to go on a goofy party boat to get to a good snorkeling area, and they provided the equipment. Unlimited free drinks. It was jolly. On the way back, Mrs. BD danced the Macarena and YMCA without touching a drop of drink (not a photo of her). I didn't, and I did.
Lawns are dumb things to have, but almost everybody has some. It's expected nowadays, but gardens and plantings are more interesting, look more natural, are more inviting to birds and other friendly critters, and offer more privacy - and shade. On the other hand, everyone needs a space for croquet and badminton.
Once the preserve of the wealthy, lawns became de rigeur for the aspiring middle class during the 20th century, as new homeowners attempted to create miniaturized versions of grand English estates on 1/4, 1/2, 1- and 2-acre building lots.
The orgin of lawns was sheep-grazed fields. Sheep are the primitive machine which transforms grass into wool and mutton.
But the subject assigned to me is top dressing. (Bear in mind that I am talking about Northern and mid-western lawns with Bluegrass and fescue in them. That's all I know about. Southern lawns are an entirely different breed.)
I top dress my lawns every spring, and I know Bird Dog does too. He does it casually, but I do it methodically. I mix about 1/4 leaf compost, 1/8 light sand, 1/8 topsoil or potting soil, 1/4 peat moss and 1/4 composted manure in the big wheelbarrow and toss it around the ground after around the second grass cutting of spring. Probably plain peat moss or composted manure would do the trick just as well. Ideally, it all should be rather dry, but life is never ideal. Then I lightly rake it in - or have the lawn guys rake it in - so it doesn't compress the grass. I apply it rather heavily, and use around 40 wheelbarrow loads for the lawn areas I care about.
It's about stewardship of the land, and not a cheap nitrogen-intoxicated superficial green. We have to remember that lawns are not natural things, but they aren't plastic either.
Met the pupette in NYC yesterday to take her to brunch and to take her to look at some Kandinsky at the Guggenheim. Clever of those Guggenheims to buy so many Kandinskys before he became too well-known, but you have to figger they got rich by being perceptive.
Readers know that I am a Kandinsky fan.
Mrs. BD wanted to get lunch first at the Viennese cafe, Cafe Sabarsky, in the Neue Gallery up the street. Having been in Vienna last summer, I can say that it sure feels like Vienna in there. Wonderful. Gallery worth visiting too.
Not that he needs one. There's a line waiting down the sidewalk for supper at Maro's, for his simple menu of grilled shrimp and lobster. And for his Bulldog cocktails. It's like a rustic Cape Cod seafood joint.
It's not our Yankee lobster - it's the lobster that grows down there. Yes, you order by the kilo.
The world of gender studies has never before had to confront anyone quite like this solitary rogue male professor of politics. Critics will rail against his excesses and feminists will be indignant and offended. But many women will be charmed by his effrontery, and grateful for the truth and wisdom in Mansfield's elegant treatise.
Every guy aspires to be a strong, gallant, valiant fellow. It's not easy to do.
Once the US was the New World of promise. After World War II, with optimism and skills, we successfully led the Free World. Since the surrender of Vietnam, and the power of a masochistic elite became entrenched in our media and academia, with a brief and fragile intermission for Morning In America, we've become the Lazy World. With the embattlement of our economy and the fecklessness of our current administration, we're the Retrenching World. What's next? Wayne's World or The New Beginning at keeping the promise?
Catrina dolls and other wonderful death dolls at Mi Casa Restaurant. They are hand-made, of painted clay appropriately enough, and expensive.
Whever I want something but have no use for it and don't want to spend the $, I just take a snap of it. Then I own it, in a way. I am trying to teach Mrs. BD that approach to things - symbolic possession by internalizing an image or idea. But does it work for designer shoes?
Haidt is the Liberal academic who has shaken up the academic world with his self-analysis and self-criticism. He applies the tools of his discipline to his own stifling academic world. From Neili's Two Bombshells for Social Psychologists:
It is almost impossible to overstate the courage, intellectual clarity, and simple wisdom involved in Jonathan Haidt's challenges to his social psychology colleagues. His message is as uncompromising as it is uncomplicated: open up the discipline to viewpoints outside the narrow, left-liberal mainstream, learn from people who have political and moral views different than you own, treat religion more fairly, and stop acting like an insular tribal cult and act more like the open-minded science profession you claim to be.
Apparently it takes "great courage" not to think in lockstep nowadays, in academia. It's a fascinating essay.
Governments are packed with foolish and self-important jackasses who mostly could not run a corner candy store. I tried to link this article at Pajamas again, and the link still doesn't go through. It's What We’re Talking About When We Talk About Big Government - Behold: the structure of redundancy, stupidity, and unconstitutional power the 100-year fog of leftism has created.
Scroll down a bit at Pajamas, and read it there in the left-side column. One quote:
Conservatives — Originalists — speak of Big Government always: an aversion to it is deservedly the driving intellectual thesis behind conservatism. We despise Big Government, more than anything, and I can’t emphasize strongly enough that I don’t believe the left has any clue why. They have theories about guns and fear, psychological weakness, bigotry, and the like, and these are all weak arguments against Big Government, which makes them easy to dismiss and continue to be a leftist. They are not, of course, our arguments. There is a disconnect between what we say, what we mean when we protest Big Government and what we are thought to mean by our political opposition.
Editor Dog addendum: Government needs to support the cause of cowboy poets. Sheesh. If cowboy poets want a handout, we are done for as a country. Kaput. I do not recall Robert Frost asking for taxpayer money - but he was a New Hampshire fellow: Live Free Or Die.
I would add, "Don't treat a test result." I have seen that end badly many times.
I wrote yesterday about how Psychiatry is tending towards treating symptoms rather than people. Perhaps it is a general tendency in medicine today to retreat from the personal to the technological. See Treat the Patient, Not the CT Scan.
Medical care is not science. It is applied science - and an art. No checklist of symptoms, blood tests, and CT scans can sum up what is ailing an individual human, whether physically or mentally.
It must be clear by now that the dehumanizing trend in Medicine is something that I deplore. Good docs have to be more than good technicians who follow consensus protocols.
More on that in a letter to the New York Times here.
One day last week we drove an hour or two north to Todos Santos. Todos Santos is an artsy oasis village in the desert, with a rare fresh water lagoon a few miles east, just behind the beach. Some Americans and Europeans move there to truly get away from it all for good. Like that retired CIA spook on NCIS.
Our little group had lunch at Posada La Poza, a tiny boutique hotel out in the boonies with a rooftop restaurant. We requested that they make us a mixed seafood platter of whatever they had on hand. They brought us Tuna Tostados, grilled marinated shrimp, fried scallops, and grilled Sea Bass which they cooked rare - as good fresh fish should be cooked. Salad too, with peas and corn in it. Real Mexican food. Margueritas, of course (for the Vitamin C), which they mixed on the strong side:
Here's the outside of Posada La Poza, where they have to turn many people away for lunch despite its remote location. They only have 5 tables for lunch -
Lots of fun pics of that side trip below the fold -
No, Virginia, there is not a little pill to fix everything that ails your heart and soul. It's the new fad, however. Your soul isn't troubled: you just have a little chemistry problem. Better living through chemistry!
It's not just about money. It's more complicated than that, but it's all very sad, in my opinion. I will not go into all of the reasons now other than to say that any doctor, Psychiatrist or not, who doesn't take the time to know you, and just wants to know your disease, isn't worth your time or your hard-earned money.
OK, now I'm depressed by my profession. Where's the pill for that?
Many have already read George Will's fine essay, 
While I do not believe that a parent owes a kid a free college education, I think it can be a heck of a nice present for a kid who is eager for it, and can use it. Those without an avid hunger to learn things in a formal format need not apply.
That is, of course, the title of 
Country folk call them "Fisher cats," and blame them for the decline of Ruffed Grouse populations in the Northeast (about which they are wrong. Grouse and Fishers coexisted for millennia. I blame the grouse population drops on fire suppression, habitat loss - and the dang Coyotes who would not be here had we not killed all of the wolves). 
Lawns are dumb things to have, but almost everybody has some. It's expected nowadays, but gardens and plantings are more interesting, look more natural, are more inviting to birds and other friendly critters, and offer more privacy - and shade. On the other hand, everyone needs a space for croquet and badminton. 
No, Virginia, there is not a little pill to fix everything that ails your heart and soul. It's the new fad, however. Your soul isn't troubled: you just have a little chemistry problem. Better living through chemistry!