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Monthly Archives: October 2011

Sales Resistance and Killing Chipmunks.

27-Oct-11

approximately Wendell Berry says that in the preface to his very interesting book Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community that his book about “sales resistance,” a term which I think he never uses again (I do intend to look at the book again and review it).  I presume he means by this term a life less economically […]

Applejack.

27-Oct-11

Toamasina I’ve written before about home-fermented beverages, and how I’m especially partial to apple-fermented drinks, because they are entirely local and use the tons of otherwise unharvested apples around here.  Pictured here is a bottle of applejack (“Jersey Lightning”) made by my sister’s father-in-law.  She was quite willing to part with some of hers, due to […]

Aristotle, Sullivan, Occupy Wall Street, and the Middle Class.

27-Oct-11

From Andrew Sullivan’s superb piece on Occupy Wall Street: There is simply a limit beyond which economic inequality threatens democratic life, when the majority suspect that a tiny minority has fixed the system beyond repair through the existing institutions, and when the powerful minority begins to think of its own interests as distinct from the […]

The View From My Window.

26-Oct-11

Dawn over Red Hill.

Down on Wall Street.

26-Oct-11

I was in New York City last weekend, and made two trips down to Wall Street to see what was going on.  I arrived first on Saturday, and found Zuccotti Park jammed.  People with signs with standing around everywhere, some signs indicating personal distress, others witty, others pithy.  One sign featured a long quotation by […]

Pawpaws, the Northeast’s largest fruit.

26-Oct-11

Pawpaws are the largest fruit native to eastern North America; they were part of the diet of the native Americans, but like most of the native foods of this area they are almost unknown today.  The trees are not easy to grow: the seeds are favored by rodents, the seedlings can easily be killed by […]

Chesterton, a giant among men.

26-Oct-11

“People are only hungry because they are healthy.”  Said G.K. Chesterton, whose weight “hovered between three hundred and four hundred pounds.”

Catskill Park Signs.

26-Oct-11

While driving through Massachusetts recently, I was struck by the signs they have at the edges of their townships: they are not flashy or special, but in terms of aesthetics, class, and a relationship to human signmaking traditions they are a step above the normal American roadsign.  Well apparently someone in the Catskills felt that […]

Strange Odd Coincidence.

24-Oct-11

Down at the Occupy Wall Street protests, I passed a woman I knew from somewhere, but I couldn’t quite place where.  She was deeply engaged in a conversation, and I remembered from talking to her once that it wasn’t the most astounding connection of my life, so I passed on without making any fuss about […]

Occupy Wall Street.

24-Oct-11

From Reuters.  I generally don’t like using children for propaganda purposes but when I saw this girl down at Wall Street I did not mind it at all – it seemed to be the point, really.