Muck Boots are a mite pricey for barn wear, but a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes can cost ten times as much. And they're not as comfortable.

Most of the “research” that makes it into the daily newspaper belongs on the comics page. Some of the topics these “experts” waste time (and money) on are so ridiculous, and so seemingly useless, they’re more hilarious than enlightening. And the results of their scientific research and analysis are often even more puzzling: They spent months and dollars to learn that, when they could have gotten the same answer from a couple of guys sitting in any decent country tavern?

On the other hand, sometimes this nonsense falls right into the lap of a writer who can use it to bolster his biased opinion on some esoteric topic. In this case, the research involves the connection of a woman’s perceived beauty with her happiness, and more to the point, the difference in this correlation  between city women and country women.

The study was conducted by Victoria Plaut, a visiting  assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkley, School of Law, and an assistant professor at the University of Georgia. It appeared in the journal Personal Relationships.

Simply put, attractive city women are happier than their sisters who are deemed less fetching. And we’re not talking about ugly ducklings. A lass who’s even slightly below average can be considered disadvantaged.

But — and here’s the good part — for women who live in the country, there’s no connection! In fact, country gals who are a bit chubbier than average are actually a little happier.

A bunch of thoughtful country guys with a little time on their hands wouldn’t need any advanced degrees or grant money to verify and explain this. Have them flip through almost any women’s magazine and comment on the pictures. I can hear it now: This one doesn’t weigh as much as a feed sack; she needs more meat on her bones. That dress can’t be very warm. What’s wrong with her eyes, some kinda disease? Awful pale, ain’t she? And look at those shoes!

Actually, if a woman has to struggle to look like that, probably including starving herself and undergoing other torture as well as spending a lot of money, it’s hard to see how she could be very happy. It must certainly be a very shallow kind of happiness, and obviously a temporary state. You’d think there’d be a lot of social pressure, and even competition, that would make it even tougher.

Country women don’t have to put up with such nonsense. They know Mom was right: beauty is only skin-deep. And happiness comes from inside, too.

I touched on this in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-sufficient Living. I compared ladies who wear Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo shoes with those who wear Muck Boots. Of course. I could only mention the first two after some serious academic research: I’d never heard of them before.

On the other hand, the city girl editors were familiar with the high fashion, but wanted to lower case Muck Boots, not knowing that’s a brand name.

Yes, Muck Boots are a bit pricey: around $80 for a pair like Diane’s. But Manolo Blahnik? Closer to eight hundred dollars.

You can imagine which brand is the most comfortable, especially when walking on the Good Earth, beyond the sidewalks.  — Jd Belanger

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Apparently that goes double for climate.

Even the optimists didn’t expect that 192-nation global warming pow-wow in Copenhagen to produce much more than hot air. It’s not over yet, but it’s already obvious that the stormy forecast was right on target.

The stack of newspaper clippings next to my reading chair is dominated by global warming stuff, but very little is new. While I’ve learned little or nothing, some of my old information and impressions have been clarified. And my original stance from the 1980s hasn’t changed.

There is really very little debate about global warming, per se. The big brouhaha is about whether it’s man-made or natural. (See note, below.)

And frankly, my dear, I don’t give a care. The world is going to be vastly changed in either case. Most of the din in Denmark has involved economics, with poor nations lining up against the rich. As weather patterns change, floods and droughts increase, sea levels rise, the tensions can only increase, and it won’t matter who’s to blame.

And the economics within the rich countries? Whooee! Trading your smokestack and vehicle emissions for my tree-planting won’t even be in the picture. How will the already fragile world economy deal with the “increased costs of doing business?”

Of course, as we’ve been saying for many years, the costs won’t increase at all: they’ve always been there, but they didn’t show up on the books because they didn’t involve dollars and cents — at that time. Air pollution and other quality of life factors didn’t count. And of course water pollution and waste, the whole energy sector even aside from the carbon aspects, soil loss and degradation — almost everything we homesteaders have been passionate about since our resurgence in the ’60s and ’70s — are all part of the same picture. The chickens are coming home to roost, at last.

This is nothing to cheer about, of course. On the other hand, there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that our homestead philosophy and principles have been on the mark all along. Now the rest of the world has to catch up. For many, it won’t be voluntary. Just as with the current ongoing economic plight, they won’t understand what’s happening or why, they won’t know how to adapt, and they won’t be happy. Many will try to turn back the clock to “the good old days” of constantly rising stock market and real estate prices and all the rest. But those days are kaput, or soon will be.

If this line of thought is new to you, I suggest you read my latest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living, which is now on sale. However, if you look for it at Border’s, don’t be surprised to find it in the “Household Reference” section. This only shows that even book publishers and sellers still don’t have a clue. No wonder so few people know what’s going on.

Note: The Dec. 7 Wall Street Journal had an excellent article titled “What Global Warming? A look at the arguments skeptics make — and how believers respond.” While the skeptics say scientists are in sharp disagreement, “In a recent survey of more than 3,000 Earth scientists, 82% agreed that human activity is a ‘significant contributing factor’ in changing global temperatures. Specialists were in greater agreement: 75 of the 79 climate scientists who actively publish in the field — about 97% — agreed with the statement.”

Only yesterday I posted a blog about my take on global warming. (It would be one way to end the insanity of the consumer society and endless growth.) Today, there’s a story on MSNBC about global cooling. But hey, I’m adaptable: I can handle that.

For the past two years, William Patterson, described as an “isotope biogeochemist” (what does your daddy do?) at the University of Saskatchewan, has been looking at tubes of mud taken from ancient lakes in Ireland. It’s basically like the core you get when you take a soil sample, but much deeper of course. And it’s examined in slices about half a millimeter thick. Since this mud was laid down as sediment, each layer offers a snapshot of geologic history. Patterson and his colleagues have been studying this history, and they say the climate cooled — very, very  rapidly — about 12,800 years ago.

That ice age (scientifically the Younger Dryas) is well-documented, of course, and non-controversial, mostly. The “news” is that it might have occurred within a matter of months, or a few years at most.

And it was caused by global warming.

It was news to me that this was “news,” because a sudden Ice Age was one of the main themes of my book, The Place Called Attar, published in 1990. The theory was (and still is) that a vast influx of fresh water into the Gulf Stream turns off what climatologists call the “conveyer belt”, that “river within an ocean” that carries warm water from the Caribbean to the North Atlantic, and makes Maine and Nova Scotia, as well as most of Northern Europe, a more hospitable climate that what we have here in Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, even though we’re farther south.

Twelve or 13 centuries ago, that fresh water came from North America’s Lake Agassiz, which held more water than all of the Great Lakes combined. Today, it could come from the melting polar icecaps.

When warm tropical water is no longer flowing north on that “conveyor belt,” those balmy climates of Maine, Nova Scotia and Northern Europe revert to where they should be, being even further from the equator than Wisconsin. Result: An Ice Age. And it could happen in months, not eons.

My point here is that I’m not taking sides. Global warming — or cooling — might or might not be happening. But either one would devastate what I call The Establishment, that stifles sane living, which I call homesteading. Therefore, even the prospects of either one interest me as a devious means to an end.

Here’s an amusing and personal little aside: In Diane’s last year of college, she needed one more science course for her RN degree. I suggested climatology, which I was taking as part of my geography minor. I figured it would be a snap course, which she deserved after a grueling 5-year nursing program – plus a year off for maternity leave.

In addition to the novelty of a married couple being students in the same small class on a (then) 12,000 student campus, I thought it would be interesting and perhaps even useful, long before tv meteorologists started educating us all about weather phenomena.

Little did I know what a hot topic that snap course would become, 50 years later!

Oh, by the way, The Place Called Attar has been out of print for years. I was happy to get rid of the second printing… until recently. I’ve been getting requests for it again. They’re selling on the web for $35 a copy. I have none left. Some guys just can’t get anything right.