I’m deadlining madly for the next two weeks. And when not making my way through a pile of assignments, I’ll be making my way to Montana and back. It’s a whirlwind trip; just a few days. But the cause is excellent. A rancher — and blog reader — and his wife (who he says is a much nicer person than he is) are giving me a side of organically raised grass-fed Highland beef and are paying part of the cost of the freezer to house it. All I have to do is cover the butcher’s fees. My friend L., whose…
15 CommentsLiving Freedom Posts
“Five Financial Lessons You’ll Learn from the Zombie Apocalypse.” Uh … yeah. Bovard on raising hell in subsidized housing. Typical government solution to a government problem. I’ve been wondering how long it would be before commentators started predicting the killer-rabbit moment. “Pope Tells Pilgrims to Stay True to Faith.” Why is this “news”? Why on freaking earth is this news? It’s right up there with the headline the MSM prints every six months or so: “Pope Prays for World Peace.” I mean, nothing against Catholicism. As religions go, it was one of the best I ever tried out. The pope…
5 CommentsAn alien-abduction lamp. From dollar-store materials. Is that cool, or what? I found it (and directions for making it) here. And I found that in an article about “dollar-store culture”. Egads. Only the New York Times could discover that it’s trendy to be poor. This is not the only cool homemade lamp I’ve seen lately. I’ll soon be blogging about one I received. Very creative …
4 CommentsWell, not exactly a roundup because we’re talking only two books here. But two good ones. First, we’ve got three new segments of Jake MacGregor’s novel The Advisor this week, beginning with Chapter 29. We’re reaching the point where a few mysteries are starting to be resolved. (Always like that part of a book — especially when the author has been so artfully, maddeningly withholding in the early going.) —– The second book, I want to mention before I have to send it back to the library. I’ve been conniving to keep this little volume in my hands much longer…
15 CommentsAt twilight one day five or six years ago, a pick-up pulled into the driveway of Cabin Sweet Cabin. “This your dog?” the driver asked, nodding toward a shadow in the back. She was a big Lab — yellow, almost white — and obviously already elderly. A blackish tumor, egg-sized, hung from one leg. She shouldn’t have been pretty. But she had the deepest, kindest eyes I’d ever seen. “Nope, not mine.” “Damn. She’s been sitting right beyond the edge of your property all day and everybody just figured you must be missing one of yours.” By everybody he meant…
15 CommentsOne of my old, old articles that still draws occasional questions is one I wrote back in the golden (so it now seems) pre-Patriot Act days — an article about working without a social security number. The questions always carry a tone of desperation. They’re from people trying to do the right thing for themselves and their families and feeling increasingly pressured. I have no good answers. So many doors have closed in the last 10 years. Here’s the latest such letter. My response, such as it is, is below. If you have anything better, fire away in the comments…
18 CommentsIf this post isn’t 100 percent coherent or perfectly spelled, it’s because my friend L and I just celebrated with bloody Marys (and I didn’t make either of them as “lite” as she requested). Work this afternoon is going to be … interesting. One year ago today, at precisely this hour, I dragged my U-Haul trailer into town after a trip that was more eventful than I might have wished, but ended well with a little help from my friends. I paused at the title company long enough to sign papers. I popped into the real estate office to pick…
19 CommentsLately there’ve been a lot of articles like this one compiling various polls that show that Americans are fed up, ticked off, and righteously furious. You know the sort I mean: “A new Rasmussen survey has found that 85 percent of Americans believe that members of Congress ‘are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping other people’”; “A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll discovered that 73 percent of the American people believe that the nation is ‘on the wrong track’”; “A recent poll taken by Rasmussen found that 68 percent of Americans believe that we are actually in a…
7 CommentsOr Next time you think I’m showing too much sunshiny faith in humanity, remind me of this so I’ll get real again. You may recall that I handle email for a local animal-rescue group. Well, here’s the latest to cross our mailbox. Names changed to protect innocent and guilty alike: Hi my name is [Moronia] and I adopted two kittens from you about two months ago their names were [Oliver Twist] n [Poor Pitiful Pearl]. I hate to have to ask if I can return them but seems like that is my last option. We started seeing signs of fleas…
25 CommentsIn their impossibly good book Money, Markets, and Sovereignty (2009), Benn Steil and Manuel Hinds make the point that over the last four thousand years, the only period in which humanity has not consistently based its currency in metal, specifically gold, is the last forty. That’s right. Ever since President Richard M. Nixon announced forty years ago today, on August 15, 1971, that the U.S. would no longer officially trade dollars for gold, we have been enjoying a new era of human history. Quoted from “August 15, 1971: A Date Which Has Lived In Infamy” And more here. I linked…
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