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.
In the lecture halls of the University of Edinburgh Medical School
in the late 1800s, students witnessed something extraordinary. A man would walk into the room. He hadn't spoken yet. He hadn't been examined. But before he could utter a single word, Dr. Joseph Bell would look at him — really look at him — and begin to speak. "You've
been working as a cobbler," Bell would say. "Recently in the north of
England. You served in the military. A Highland regiment, perhaps a
bandsman." The patient would stare in disbelief. And Bell would explain. "Notice
the way he walks — a slight limp. The calluses on his thumbs and
forefingers? That's from holding leather tight while stitching. The clay
on his boots is reddish — from the golf links on the south side of
town. The tan line on his wrist suggests he recently wore a watch —
military men wear them. His posture is upright, disciplined. He carries
himself like a soldier. And the calloused fingertips? Those are from
playing a brass instrument." The room would fall silent. Then the patient would nod. "That's exactly right, sir." This wasn't magic. This was Dr. Joseph Bell.
Born in Edinburgh on December 2, 1837, Joseph Bell came from a family of surgeons. His great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were all Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Medicine was in his blood. Bell attended Edinburgh Academy, then enrolled at the University of Edinburgh Medical School at just sixteen. He graduated in 1859 with his medical degree. He was brilliant. Driven. And he possessed an unusual gift — the ability to see what others missed. By his late twenties, Bell was a lecturer in surgery. By his thirties, he was senior surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He edited the Edinburgh Medical Journal for twenty-three years. He served as President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He founded Scotland's first nursing training program. He was Queen Victoria's personal surgeon whenever she visited Scotland. But it wasn't his surgical skill that made him legendary. It was his mind.
Bell taught his students that observation was everything. "Use
your eyes," he would say. "Use your ears. Use your brain. The patient
is a book written in a language you must learn to read." He believed that close observation was the key to accurate diagnosis. That the smallest details could tell you everything you needed to know. He would pick strangers from the hospital and, in front of his students, deduce their entire lives. A woman walks in. "You've
been working as a domestic servant," Bell would say. "Recently in a
household with coal heating. You've spent time scrubbing floors. You're
right-handed. And you've recently been to Fife." The woman would gasp. "How did you know?" "The
coal dust under your fingernails. The roughness of your knees. The
slight enlargement of your right hand. And the red clay on your dress —
that's from Fife." He was right every time. His students called it miraculous. Bell called it science.
One of those students was a young man named Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle enrolled at Edinburgh Medical School in 1876. He was nineteen years old. In 1878, during his third year, Doyle became Bell's outpatient clerk at the Royal Infirmary. It changed his life. Doyle watched Bell examine patients. He heard him deduce impossible truths from tiny observations. He
watched Bell pick a man from a crowd and say: "You've been working as a
linoleum layer. You came here by tram. You have three children at
home." And he watched the man confirm it, stunned. Years later,
Doyle would write: "He would sit in his receiving room with a face like a
Red Indian, and diagnose the people as they came in, before they even
opened their mouths. He would tell them their symptoms, and even details
of their past life, and hardly ever would he make a mistake." Doyle was mesmerized. He studied Bell's methods. He watched how Bell's eyes moved — scanning for clues, cataloging details. Bell, in turn, considered Doyle one of his finest students.
After graduating in 1881, Doyle pursued medicine. But he also began writing. In 1887, he published a novel: A Study in Scarlet. It introduced the world to a detective named Sherlock Holmes. A man with extraordinary powers of observation. A man who could deduce a stranger's profession and secrets. A man who solved crimes through logic and scientific reasoning. A man who was, unmistakably, based on Dr. Joseph Bell. The book was a success. More stories followed. Holmes became a sensation around the world. In 1892, when Doyle published The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, he dedicated it to Bell: "To My Old Teacher, Joseph Bell, M.D." That
same year, Doyle wrote Bell a letter: "It is most certainly to you that
I owe Sherlock Holmes, and though in the stories I have the advantage
of being able to place him in all sorts of dramatic situations, I do not
think that his analytical work is in the least an exaggeration of some
effects which I have seen you produce." Bell was both flattered and amused. He gave interviews. He wrote articles. He even made suggestions to Doyle for future stories. There's a photograph of Bell wearing a deerstalker cap and a long cloak — the iconic Holmes outfit. No one knows if Doyle borrowed the look from Bell, or if Bell adopted it after Holmes became famous.
But Bell wasn't just a lecturer and surgeon. He was also a pioneer of forensic science. At a time when police relied mainly on confessions, Bell advocated for scientific observation in criminal investigations. He believed that crime scenes held clues. That evidence could be gathered, analyzed, interpreted. He was occasionally consulted by police on difficult cases. In
1893, he assisted in the famous Ardlamont Mystery — a suspicious death
in Scotland — working alongside forensic expert Professor Henry
Littlejohn. And when the Jack the Ripper murders terrorized London in 1888, some sources claim Bell reviewed the case. According to reports, Bell studied the evidence and submitted his findings to Scotland Yard. Within a week, the Ripper murders stopped. The case was never officially solved. But the timing was striking.
Bell continued teaching well into his sixties. He wrote textbooks. He mentored students. He gave lectures on the importance of observation. In
an 1894 interview, Bell explained his methods: "I always impressed upon
all my students — Conan Doyle among them — the vast importance of
little distinctions, the endless significance of trifles. Most men have a
head, two arms, a nose. It is the little differences, such as the droop
of an eyelid, which differentiate men." On October 4, 1911, Dr. Joseph Bell died in Edinburgh at age seventy-three. Arthur
Conan Doyle issued a tribute: "I shall always see him very clearly; his
stiff, bristling, iron-grey hair, his clear, half-humorous,
half-critical grey eyes. His skill as a surgeon and his charm as a
lecturer are, of course, proverbial." In 2011, on the centenary of Bell's death, a bronze memorial plaque was erected at his former home in Edinburgh. It was organized by the Japan Sherlock Holmes Club. The plaque explains Bell's connection to the detective he inspired.
Today, Dr. Joseph Bell is remembered as a pioneer who proved that observation and logic could unlock invisible truths. The University of Edinburgh established the Joseph Bell Centre for Forensic Statistics in his honor. And Sherlock Holmes — the character he inspired — remains one of literature's most beloved figures. But unlike Holmes, Joseph Bell was real. He walked the halls of Edinburgh. He examined patients. He taught students. He solved puzzles. And
he left behind a legacy that continues to shape how we think about
observation, deduction, and the power of a truly keen mind. Sometimes, as Bell himself proved, truth really is more astonishing than fiction.
It's a southern Italian bean soup/stew. Real, non-Americanized Italian peasant food. If you are from around Napoli, it's pronounced something like "fazool." Otherwise, "fajole." Fagiole are la Carne dei Poveri. (No, I am not a paisan but I married a half of one.)
I see recipes online which include meat, but Pasta Fagioli is best made with meat broth (chicken or beef), and properly has no meat in it. When it was a meatless Friday meal, of course veg. broth. Why did the RC's get rid of meatless Fridays anyway?
This recipe about gets the basic version, but I use canned cannelini (white) beans for convenience - stupid not to - (no chef, unless cooking for hundreds, would waste time with dried beans), and chicken or beef broth instead of vegetable broth. I am not enough of one of the poveri not to have meat broth around.
Another recipe includes tomato sauce. I've never had a Pasta Fagiole with tomato in it other than a tablespoon or two of tomato paste, and believe it ought to be without the tomato. It's meant to be pleasantly bland, cheap, and filling. If I make it, no tomato but I'll add some hot pepper flakes to give it a little zip.
Any small pasta works in it, but I like to use the small shell pasta. Serve with a plate of simple crostini, eg with oil and garlic and maybe some herbs on them. You can put some shaved parmesan on top of your soup if you want.
The thing with Italian cooking is that you make it your own way, and never follow a recipe after the first time.
No, my Mom never made this or ever heard of this, but my wife's Grandma made it to please her husband who required it weekly to feed his Neapolitan soul. Mrs. BD kindly claims my version is better than her nonna's.
4:12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.
4:13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali,
4:14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
4:15 "Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles--
4:16 the
people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who
sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."
4:17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
4:18 As
he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is
called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for
they were fishers.
4:19 And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fisher of people."
4:20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
4:21 As
he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and
his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their
nets, and he called them.
4:22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
4:23 Jesus
went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and
every sickness among the people.
40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry.
40:2 He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
40:3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.
40:4 Happy are those who make the LORD their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.
40:5You
have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts
toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of
them, they would be more than can be counted.
40:6 Sacrifice and
offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt
offering and sin offering you have not required.
40:7 Then I said, "Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
40:8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."
40:9 I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD.
40:10 I
have not hidden your saving help within my heart; I have spoken of your
faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast
love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.
40:11 Do not, O LORD, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.
The Jet Stream Conundrum: 
