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.
There's a long-distance train rolling through the rain, tears on the letter I write. There's a woman I long to touch and I'm missing her so much, but she's drifting like a satellite. There's a neon light ablaze in a green smoky haze, and laughter down on Elizabeth Street And a lonesome bell tone in that valley of stone where she bathed in a stream of pure heat. Her father would emphasize you got to be more than street-wise but he practiced what he preached from the heart. A full-blooded Cherokee, he predicted to me the time and the place that we'd part.
There's a babe in the arms of a woman in a rage And a longtime golden-haired stripper onstage As she winds back the clock and she turns back the page Of a book that nobody can write. Oh, where are you tonight?
The rest of the astonishing lyrics are below the fold -
How do you carve nature at its joints, when there are no joints? This is good, from Sailer: If race doesn't exist ... He quotes:
...as any psychiatrist involved in the making of the D.S.M. will freely tell you, the disorders listed in the book are not “real diseases,” at least not like measles or hepatitis. Instead, they are useful constructs that capture the ways that people commonly suffer. The manual, they go on, was primarily written to give physicians, schooled in the language of disease, a way to recognize similarities and differences among their patients and to talk to one another about them. And it has been fairly successful at that.
and
“The D.S.M. has been taken too seriously,” another expert told me. “It’s the victim of its success.”
The wife of a friend of mine was recently made to feel uncomfortable while visiting her freshman daughter's dorm to see fellows walking around the halls with towels or undershorts with long-neck beers in their hands as if the dorm were some sort of downscale Roman orgy.
I commented that co-ed showers would be the next new thing. The idea of that is, indeed, titillating.
In my paleo view, co-education itself was a bad idea. It ignores the reality of adolescent sexual tension, the reality of distraction, and the distortion of behavior that can ensue. Speaking for myself, the idea of trying to study or sleep knowing that some leggy blonde was in the next room three feet away, alone and perhaps feeling lonely, would make studying Plato a difficult thing to do.
Why is the US exceptional? Because it focuses on freedom from the state. That remains a revolutionary notion in an era in which so many want the State to be a beneficent God.
The greatest of storytellers, with an eye for vivid details of life and character types, and a tendency for unlikely dramatic plots.
He had no formal education after age 15, when he went to work. Sold his first book at 21, and fame and fortune ensued for this lad whose dad was in debtor's prison.
London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
He wrote casually, effortlessly, humorously. You can learn all anybody needs to know about human nature from Dickens. He had been there and done that.
I had to laugh at that, because America is still far from providing a meaningful high school education to the average kid:
The cheerful confidence in face of utter ignorance is the most impressive aspect of this video. You can either blame the schools, the parents, or simply accept that these kids simply are not interesting in knowing much. You can lead a horse to water...
These kids don't need college. They need remedial grammar school. As Black and Right says: "We fund public schools. I demand my money back"
As Gingrich attacks Romney for being successful, and Romney proves too slow on his feet to talk about his admirable business career without apologizing or making gaffes, the Republicans cede the narrative to Obama.
... here's another term that I think deserves to be said out loud: Forced education. Like the term prison, this term sounds harsh. But, again, if we have compulsory education, then we have forced education. The term compulsory, if it has any meaning at all, means that the person has no choice about it.
The question worth debating is this: Is forced education--and the consequential imprisonment of children--a good thing or a bad thing? Most people seem to believe that it is, all in all, a good thing; but I think that it is, all in all, a bad thing. I outline here some of the reasons why I think this, in a list of what I refer to as "seven sins" of our system of forced education...
AVI in Education Changes is sympathetic to Gray's case, and does not wish his kids to have the (seemingly very good) college experience that he had. He says
...what hit me hardest about Grey's essay was what it described about me. I really was one of those who thought my role was to be amazingly brilliant and wait for someone to discover me. I really did think I was better than most of the rest of you. To see in print that this is what our current system encourages in the personalities of some bright students - and to be ready to hear that - was unpleasant. I use my education to entertain myself and others. The only direct application to my job or any useful activities is my ability to string sentences together - which may come more from reading rather than going to school.
"Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn't afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."
"Farewell to Penn Station," New York Times editorial, October 30, 1963
There was a fervor for tearing down old buildings in urban American during the 1960s and early 70s. Many historic, but dilapidated, downtowns were bulldozed, as were countless wonderful "Union Stations" - and anything else that seemed "old".
Today, we cherish towns like Savannah which were left untouched by the government scourge of "urban renewal."
19th century housing was replaced by "modern" Soviet-style planned and government-subsidized housing projects (which finally are beginning to be dynamited themselves, for good reason). And the buildings were replaced with parking lots and sterile semi-high rises, and malls - that horrible concept which turns its back on the town in an effort to create an unreal, soul-less consumer paradise for the masses.
When you drive through downtown Bridgeport, CT, Hartford, or Nashville, you will be hard put to find an old building. Lucky towns escaped this frenzy of "modernization," which I term "dehumanization." Nobody wants to be in those sorts of downtowns.
Pennsylvania Station on the West Side of Manhattan - one of the masterpieces of the beaux-art movement -did not escape the epidemic of destruction. Grand Central Station escaped - but only barely. Just tell me - where would you rather wait 40 minutes for a train to meet your girlfriend or boyfriend - the new Penn Station, or Grand Central?
Photo below of the 1910 McKim, Mead and White Penn Station, from this site of NYC architectural images. Who would have the nerve to knock this thing down and replace it with the new (and truly terrible in every way) Madison Square Garden?
Truth be told, this whole commentary was just an excuse to post this photo:
Everyone enjoyed The Firesign Theater, but I have not seen any weed for more years than I can count. Never inhaled. Shoes for Industry! Papoon for President! One organism - one vote.
Bert and I did downbeat Down East humor. Guys who can do that schtick are not uncommon, especially as aging alcoholic cooks in Maine hunting camps. Man, have I heard some good ones, spellbinding for a 30 minute absurd story, provided you keep the guy's glass full.
Uncle Ed and I will never forget the shaggy dog story of the kid who grazed a buck in an orchard up the road, and rode it home on his bicycle draped over the handlebars until the deer came to, and began pedaling the bike himself and rode it into the center of town. These stories fade from reality into fantasy so that you do not quite know where you are. Bert and I made famous the Maine response to the city folk in their fancy car who asked for directions from the farmer: "You can't get there from here."
Bob Bryant and Marshall Dodge made records of this sort of good stuff. Try a couple of the short samples here. You can buy them here.
Why is Maine "down east"? You should know by now. I will not explain it again.
40:21 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in;
40:23 who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
40:24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
40:25 To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
40:26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.
40:27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"?
40:28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
40:29 He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
40:30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;
40:31 but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
If you want to see a kickass World War II movie, then Red Tails is your ticket. Saturday morning, after dropping Jason off at Little League Umpiring School, candy bar in hand I slipped into a seat at the local Bijou and was transported back to the exciting WWII movies I enjoyed as a kid, and which haven’t been made since.
It’s the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, enduring racism on the ground and fighting Germans in the air. After I got home I scanned the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. The negative reviews were mostly by relative youngsters who found it over the top or the characters too wooden, or some who not bothering about other films’ literal transgressions searched for them in this one. The more favorable reviews, however, got it. The film is unabashedly about heroism and patriotism. And, the dogfights have you at the edge of your seat, hands sweaty. Well worth the price of admission into when Hollywood made these movies regularly. This isn't about so many of today's so-called youth "heroes" who revel in lewdity and are rewarded with lewd sums of money that they flaunt. This is about real men who risked and gave all for what they believed, with little recompence except self-respect, and did it with dignity and discipline.
During the movie I wished I’d brought 11-year old Jason with me. It seems the movie was actually made for him.
George Lucas, unable to get film companies’ funding, made the movie out of his own pocket, $58-million invested in uplifting youth. As Lucas tells it, "For those of us in my group of filmmakers, like Steven (Spielberg) or Ron (Howard) or Marty (Scorsese), we want to make movies that enthralled us when we were little….It's corny. It's über-patriotic. And it's a really exciting action-adventure movie." But, more than that, “"I have only one agenda, and that's for a lot of young people to see this movie…" The report continues: “The good-vs.-evil, duels-in-the-skies aspect is what makes the movie especially timely, Lucas says. For many young people today, heroes — be they athletes, entertainers or presidents — aren't defined by skin color.”
Go see Red Tails, and take your son, daughter, grandchildren.
I must confess I always thought the Rascal's Groovin said "You and me and Lesley" - figured Lesley was either a dog, or a reference to a menage a trois, or his little sister. Neo's "Sugar fried honey butt" for "Sugar pie, honey bunch" (Four Tops) gave me a giggle. There is a website devoted to mondegreens: Kiss this guy.com. Also, "A girl with colitis walked by" was a pretty good one, too, Sippican: a good nose for them gastro-intestinal mondegreens.
My favorites from my own ears are "Lead us not into Penn Station, but deliver us from evil," and "Rain, rain, go away. Come again on Mother's Day."
And the Stones' "Hey, hey. You, you - get off of my cow."
An annual reposting, now at the end of another duck hunting season.
WHATEVER YOU DO IS WRONG
When you sit in the blind awaiting the flight Of the white-breasted northern sprig, While they circle high and think to light, And they look so close and big, You whisper your pard, as you both crouch low, “Now! – Don’t wait too long!” You shoot – too far – and off they go; Whatever you do is wrong!
Then you curse yourself for a fool greenhorn, Your pride has had a blow; Sullen you sit and smoke and mourn, When – in comes a bunch, fair low! You watch them circle ‘round and ‘round, “Just let them work along!” When – off they swing, southward bound; Whatever you do is wrong!
And so, through life, a poor wretch tries To do what he thinks is right, To place his funds so that when he dies His family’ll be sitting tight; To raise the young with the best in mind, And sometimes it works like a song, But often he finds like the man in the blind, Whatever you do is wrong!
Still, I think that our God who sits in His sky, And watches each man in his blind, When it comes time for the hunter to die, Surely, He’ll keep in mind That each tried to do what it seemed he ought, And He’ll put us where we belong; For He’ll understand the fellow that thought, Whatever he did was wrong!
By now, you've all heard the good news. It's been on the news everywhere, and the market jumped dramatically. This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that job growth exceeded everyone's wildest expectations. 243,000 jobs were added, far more than the expectation of 140,000. More importantly, 257,000 private sector jobs were added, while 14,000 government jobs were lost. Unemployment dipped from 8.5% to 8.3%. All of this is very good news. Even those who oppose the president and his methods of handling the economy will not serve themselves to disparage this growth. I certainly won't. What I will say is that the general media is great at reporting headlines, but not digging into the numbers or providing historical context.
The media won't dig in, but others have in order to see what the numbers behind the numbers say, particularly since the CBO's report earlier this week was so lackluster.
The first bit of perspective comes from the Democrats, who spent most of the early 2000's disparaging the job growth of the Bush years as "McJobs". I notice none of them are speaking right now. Which is odd, because while we added about 90,000 very good paying jobs, over 113,000 of the jobs added were clearly "McJobs", or low wage labor. Any job growth is good, so I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I just want to know why "McJobs" were bad 9 years ago, but good now? If any Democrats would like to comment on this, they are more than welcome.
Another bit of news that went overlooked was the surge in part-time and temp work. Again, any job growth is good. I have nothing but good feeling for people who have been out of work but have managed to wrangle a paycheck. But if Obama's goal is "An Economy That Works", I'm sure he didn't mean "Works Temporarily and Part-Time"
A third, though somewhat justified question, is why the BLS has actually increased job growth estimates by a very large amount over the course of 2011. It's possible preliminary numbers were low, but by 23%? Revisions are always needed - by why so many positive adjustments? Usually it's "seasonal fluctuations". Which means...?
It's about bubbles - things with form but lacking in substance.
Most "homeowners" have mortgages, if not second mortgages, or at least lines of credit against their homes. If you have a mortgage, you are essentially a renter - but a renter with the capital risk and the maintenance costs and risks. The ownership is an illusion and, if the place is paid off, you lose your interest deduction and so what have you gained by that process of eliminating your leverage? Well, if you are retired with lower income, you have gained the ability to remain in the house if you can cover the property tax.
The American Dream of home ownership is and has been a foolish ideal. However, it was an ideal which expert salesmen sold us since the 1950s. A sentimentality sales job, like cars. Chances are, you ain't buying no family estate that your grandkids would want to own.
Expert salesmen, again both in government and out, also sold us the college degree bubble. Once a meaningful social marker, it has become so diluted that it no longer means anything at all, or, I should say, can mean a lot or can mean nothing, depending on what was learned. I know, because I interview people for jobs. I have seen college grads who don't know what it means to graph a f(x), don't know the difference between RNA and DNA, and have never read Chaucer. Oh, I see. They have a BS in Business Administration. Is that "college"? Oh, somebody wrote a term paper about Virginia Woolf? Wow. I guess they can write a sentence. What is meaningful is a rigorous High School degree. From that, you have the foundation to learn anything you want to.
Is a college degree job training, a few additional High School years, a social marker, an expensive prolonged adolescence, a merit badge, a haven for dedicated scholars, or what? Nobody knows anymore, but it is widely sold as a necessary qualification. Hence a piece like this in the NYT: Why go to college at all?
My theory used to be that a college education should prepare you to understand, in depth, every page of the Sunday New York Times. I don't buy their paper any more, which is their loss. Mine also, to some extent.
But Mitt, like Republicans in general, needs to reclaim the language of compassion for the poor. It’s not compassionate to leave the very poor tangled up in our social safety nets. It’s not compassionate to promote dependency. What is compassionate — what actually serves the interest of the very poor, as well as everyone else — is unleashing economic growth that brings greater opportunity, better values and better compensation for everyone. The very poor are not doing fine. They’re drowning in the unintended consequences of liberals’ good intentions — their families are falling apart, their spirits and creativity are languishing, and the economic virtues are withering from their communities because of the perverse mis-incentives of government largesse.
Mitt needs to learn how to be America’s foremost expositor and defender of the power of the free market. He’s not quite there yet.
Mitt is a bit out of touch. Obama was out of touch too. They are both bubble guys.
America's waning influence - Any honest diplomat will tell you that American power and global influence is waning, and if we shy away from acknowledging that fact, we'll only speed up the process.
Kids take the time to develop special useless talents. This one is really special. HT Navy linguist The Mellow Jihadi, who knows how actually valuable this skill can be.
When people think of Maslow, they tend to remember two things: the notion of "self-actualization," and his hierarchy of motives.
Maslow made several mistakes (one being the assumption that everybody is just like him, and another being his relative discounting of unconscious motive), but what is most interesting is how some of his ideas became absorbed into the culture in distorted ways.
To what extent Maslow studied Nietzche I do not know, but his post-modern glorification of "self" owes plenty to Nietszche. In the brave new world, Self replaced God, and the value of "self-actualization" replaced - for some - sturdier old values such as duty, honor, perseverence, integrity, decency, and - yes - selflessness.
To what extent Maslow played a role in todays pop-culture "It's all about me" theme I can not say, but what I can say, from speaking with a great many people over the years, that the idea that the person must strive to become a heroic manifestation of his Self has led far more people onto the rocks of life than I can count. One reason is, of course, that nobody's "Self," however talented or untalented, is really all that great, and is packed with the flaws with which each of us stuggles daily.
Furthermore, the culture's version of Maslowism leads to much feeling of failure. After all, if I have not fulfilled my potential" or "become who my inner self really is" or "fully actualized my precious self," a person can feel like a failure in life, a certain narcissistic defeat. We all use our gifts as best we can, given our ambition, inspiration, and industriousness, but I view "sef-actualization" as a false idol.
What don't "they" want to regulate? Call for Sugar to Be Regulated as a Toxin. That is not from The Onion. Well, I suppose if "they" want to regulate CO2, a basic and necessary ingredient of air, then why not sugar?
Some researchers argue that saturated fat, not sugar, is the root cause of obesity and chronic disease. Others argue that it is highly processed foods with simple carbohydrates. Still others argue that it is a lack of physical exercise. It could, of course, be a matter of all these issues.
Oh, so the scientists are not sure? So what? It's the precautionary principle, and we brain-dead masses can not be left alone with their own food. I can regulate my own sugar, thank you very much. And my own body, too. What do the Feminists say: "Government's hands off my body."
"Give me Social Security and Medicare, or give me death."
Not Patrick Henry
One must wonder how people survived and thrived here in America for hundreds of years without food stamps, government benefits, or a maternal government. Perhaps they had a different mind-set.
Mrs. BD loves flowers and all that - she and her pals call it "plant material" because they use all sorts of things in their design efforts.
Often, however, she will just toss flowers in a vase without too much design except basic color coordination and texture variation, and it is very pleasant.
Here are her tips to keep cut flowers looking good in water for a week or more:
- A fresh sharp cut to each stem at a 45 degree angle, and warm water
- 1 tsp of bleach per quart of water (prevents rotten, cloudy water which destroys the blooms)
- 1 tablespoon of sugar per quart of water (feeds the flowers - they aren't dead yet)
- Never let a leaf be submerged - but you can submerge blooms for cool effects
In Arizona he said, "An economy built to last also means we've got to renew American values: fair play, shared responsibility." Wild applause. For those who think they have facts on their side, it will be maddening and enraging to watch other Obama audiences across the country cheer and applaud "An Economy Built to Last." Get used to it.
The GOP is appealing, as its candidates so often do, to the American brain. Barack Obama is happy to be left by himself, going for their hearts. If he wins, the Republican will wail at the unfairness, irrationality and illogic of what beat them.
One of these days, Romney is going to say something like “Obama just doesn’t understand how the real economy works, partly because he’s never had a job.” And the New York Times will run a front page story, quoting Al Sharpton and a bevy of psychologists, about how that is racist code. Make book on it.
The mandate by the Obama administration that contraception must be provided by the medical plans of religious hospitals and schools even if contrary to their religious doctrine may influence the Supreme Court’s decisions on ObamaCare.
On a fundamental level, the mandate exhibits the intrusiveness of Obamacare into aspects of private belief, its practice, and freedom of choice. This is at the heart of the portion of the Supreme Court’s deliberations into Obamacare’s individual mandate to buy medical insurance or be fined. The issue is whether Congress exceeded its federal powers.
The intrusiveness of the individual mandate into private rights may or not be held by the Supreme Court to be inextricably linked to whether all or some of ObamaCare should be struck down. The Obama administration brief says that only the guaranteed enrollment and community-rating provisions of ObamaCare may be affected. However, the contraception mandate under the Obamacare requirement to provide preventive and wellness care exhibits the wider impact of Obamacare’s intrusion into private choices.
Until the hearings it cannot be known whether contending counsel will raise the issue of the contraception mandate or whether a Supreme Court justice will. Still, it is reasonable to suppose that it will be on the minds of one or more Supreme Court justices in reaching their decisions.
It has been pointed out that six of the nine Supreme Court justices are Catholic. It is speculative as to how that may affect their judgments. It is interesting to note, however, that a Jewish justice, Elena Kagan, concurring (with justice Alito) to the unanimous decision in the Hosanna-Tabor case upholding the “ministerial” exemption from EEOC, says, “…-it is easy to forget that the autonomy of religious groups, both here in the United States and abroad, has often served as a shield against oppressive civil laws.” Although the Hosanna-Tabor case entails differing discrete matters of law, Kagan’s expressed understanding there of a correct limit to federal power may be reflected in her or other justices’ considerations.
The Supreme Court has waffled back and forth on whether there should be a dividing line between faith and practice, most recently finding for a division if there is a compelling state interest. The Obama administration’s argument, in both the ObamaCare hearings and in the contraception mandate, is that there is a compelling state interest in intruding into the choices of private people or entities. The Hosanna-Tabor decision may indicate that the majority of Supreme Court justices will find otherwise.
The contraception mandate cannot have helped the case for ObamaCare, and may abort ObamaCare.
Support your local poet! A Berkshire neighbor, a poet, has come out with her first book, How Will They Find Me.
Here's a sample:
Croquet
A scarlet dusk, the lawn speckled with light. The players are my family. With mallets and colored balls they move about the field. The klock of mallets and balls, someone’s poison. A branch loosens the kite caught hours ago. It flutters and sinks to earth. A heron flies lazily over us, its feet tucked neatly beneath it. My sons tumble about in the grass. The day melts in my hands.
The protest sign in the piece says "Koch kills democracy."
How the unassuming, philanthropic, and low-profile Kochs were selected as bogeymen of the year I do not know. They are known to be supporters of Libertarian and free market organizations so I suppose, by a certain sort of logic, the Left must always demonize defenders of freedom.
As we have noted countless times here, the Left never includes individual freedom in their political calculations (unless it's about sex). That is not an oversight; it's because We The People are viewed as the feckless masses requiring Ivy League overlords to make our decisions for us. To which we peasants say "Basta!"
Is real democracy consistent with maintaining liberty? The ancient Greeks said it wasn't. They believed that democracy was mob rule, and our Founders decided that they were correct. The modern Greeks are proving it again.
As we have also repeated claimed here, individual liberty, unlike money, really is a zero-sum game. Every drop accrued by the State is a drop taken from me whether it is meant to be "for my own good" or not. We're all here for the freedom, not for the government. The American Spirit is to be annoyed with government, and to view it as a necessary evil but limited in its powers.
Still, it seems odd to me to select a couple of wealthy Libertarians as targets.
The real legacy of Obamaism is the effort to turn the U.S. into a managed society, run by elite technocrats who are exempt from their own policies and sermons — all premised on the notion that collective unhappiness is the result of unfairness and someone else’s having more than the government-approved norm. In other words, we are supposed to be uniform and static peasants, always on the lookout for “them,” who somehow cheated to get one more pig than we have.
If David Brooks isn't being facetious here, then he's gone nuts:
I doubt Murray would agree, but we need a National Service Program. We need a program that would force members of the upper tribe and the lower tribe to live together, if only for a few years. We need a program in which people from both tribes work together to spread out the values, practices and institutions that lead to achievement.
If we could jam the tribes together, we’d have a better elite and a better mass.
Mao called it the Cultural Revolution, enforced by the Red Guard at gunpoint. It did not work out well. And what's with "mass"? I think he is calling my parents the "mass." He ought to meet them sometime. They sacrificed everything, and worked two jobs, to put us kids through U Mass (we all had jobs during school to help out) and have never had any money to spare or to save. Good habits and decency, however.
I've always been 'Green'. Not "I recycle and you should stop driving an SUV and if you don't you're evil" Green. I'm more of a constructive 'green'. In my youth I did ecological projects with the Boy Scouts, planting trees, cleaning parks, learning about nature by hiking the Appalachian Trail. I figure it's better to improve than scold, and you should start at home anyway. It's better to be concerned about how you do things and let other people worry about how they choose to live. If people want to be 'green' because they fear Carbon Dioxide, that's their choice and I'm OK with it. I don't agree with them, and I really don't appreciate when they decide their way is better and want to force me to do things their way.
My teen years were marked by two contrived events now known as "The Energy Crisis". Political situations had led to a belief that oil prices would rise forever and we'd run out of fossil fuels by 2000 (technically, we were supposed to hit Hubbert's Peak in 1979 - but Hubbert didn't count on various factors which extended his timeline). All kinds of crazy stories in the 1970's drove many to the point of hysteria. Not dissimilar to what we're being told today, except back then the world was cooling, not warming. It doesn't matter which way the temperature was going, because ecological consciousness was, and is, part of the 'correct' cultural identity. As I matured, I learned it's not just about ecology. It's about efficiency.
To the American liberal, riches are not a matter of economics, but of identity. Wealth is a moral entity, not an economic one. What distinguishes pious millionaires like Warren from the heathens who make their money the old fashioned way is that the former achieve it through the moral pursuit of the public good, which is all the more pious for taking them to a Harvard professorship or a job in government, while the latter achieve it through economic transactions in the private sector. The former is a form of public service, the latter is public exploitation.
But a closer look at the bones and carcass of this system turns those definitions on their head. It is the Warrens who are the exploiters, consuming the wealth of a nation and spawning more committees, regulations and regulatory committees to keep on feeding off the wealth. What they give to us in exchange for what they take is not a service, it is oppression masquerading as feudal protectionism.
The wife of a friend of mine was recently made to feel uncomfortable while visiting her freshman daughter's dorm to see fellows walking around the halls with towels or undershorts with long-neck beers in their hands as if the dorm were some sort of downscale Roman orgy.
The greatest of storytellers, with an eye for vivid details of life and character types, and a tendency for unlikely dramatic plots.
Rubio Leads Charge as 
WHATEVER YOU DO IS WRONG 
Most "homeowners" have mortgages, if not second mortgages, or at least lines of credit against their homes. If you have a mortgage, you are essentially a renter - but a renter with the capital risk and the maintenance costs and risks. The ownership is an illusion and, if the place is paid off, you lose your interest deduction and so what have you gained by that process of eliminating your leverage? Well, if you are retired with lower income, you have gained the ability to remain in the house if you can cover the property tax. 
Mrs. BD loves flowers and all that - she and her pals call it "plant material" because they use all sorts of things in their design efforts. 
Isolated Peru tribe 
Croquet
The protest sign 
