Another day down at the barn shearing sheep. It still amazes me to see them step on the stand looking like ragged clouds and step off sleek as a greyhounds. Tonight I plan to soothe aching muscles and settle down with a copy of Theodore Dalrymple's Life at the Bottom, a collection of bleak but wonderfully written essays on the life of the self-perpetuating underclass in contemporary England. After almost twenty years of the practice of criminal law on both the prosecution and defense side, I experience the shock of recognition on almost every page. The pathologies he describes may be more acute in urban Britain, but they are progressing nicely even here in rural/suburban small town Virginia. I would recommend the book, but if you want to sample Dalrymple's writing on-line, try here.