I wanted to use this yesterday but couldn't figure out to do it using my phone. This notebook is a little more user friendly.
All The Good Names Were Taken
Random thoughts about roadside art, National Parks, historic preservation, philosophy of technology, and whatever else happens to cross my mind.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Low information voters
The S.O. and I have been trying to get our heads around the fact that the Human Yam managed to win the election despite being an incredibly vile human being and obviously sliding rapidly into full blown senile dementia. Given my usual cynicism I was leaning toward Americans in general being too stupid to recognize a grifter even when he tells people explicitly they're all dumb as rocks.
My belief in Stupidity as an explanation met with confirmation recently. I was at an event where a group of people were chatting about contacting our U.S. Congressman- a carpetbagger named Jack Bergmann (he's from Louisiana but claims his primary residence is a deer camp here in the U.P.). It'd been less than 2 weeks since the election but a couple people had no idea who Bergmann is. He's been our Congress critter for 4 terms now. He's pretty useless in general but his staff is apparently competent at helping constituents, hence, the suggestion to contact his office.
So my question is basically just how willfully ignorant do you have to be to not know who the local Congress critter is when the election just happened and we've been inundated with nonstop advertising for months? And if you don't know who the Congress critter is what are the odds you've got a Made in China red hat and think that immigrants are barbecuing cats?
Back a gazillion years ago I had acquaintances from inner city neighborhoods who referred to cats as "roof rabbits." That label always made me wonder about the ingredients in traditional Southern cuisine. You know, is the deep fried chicken really chicken? Made me resolve to stick with just cole slaw and fries if I ever got asked to dine in a local eatery on Chicago's Southside. But, as usual, I digress.
Bottom line is that Americans in general tend to be on the dumb side so the spectacle of them voting for the guy who 4 years ago had most of the country wondering if coffee filters would work as toilet paper wasn't a huge surprise. Disappointing, yes, but a total shock? Nope.
I am, of course, amused by the MAGAts who think that Donny Convict is going to lower gas prices. Given that his pick to head the Department of Energy is head of a fracking company does anyone seriously believe a fossil fuels executive is going to push for cheaper gas? Right now gas is going for about $3 per gallon. When the price doubles next year you know they'll blame Biden. Or Obama. Anyone but the fools who voted for Trump.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
How to spot a racist
Here's a clue: if upon seeing a 55-year old photo of a local woman, a person who has been dead for decades, the first words out of an individual's mouth are "You know why half her kids were so dark? She had affairs with the porters on the train." Holy wah. Talk about bad re-runs of infantile gossip from the local junior high's mean girls table.
Of course, the person regurgitating this ancient piece of junior high crap said it in total seriousness. Again, holy wah. It was remarkably stupid back in the '60s and it's remarkably stupid now. It was (and no doubt still is) a reflection of the steeped into the bone.anti-Native prejudice still much too common in an area that includes an Indian reservation and has always had a significant percentage of Anishinaabe students in the L'Anse and Baraga school districts, including the woman's children who were probably classmates of the racist. Odds are the dumb cunt* who spouted this nonsense first heard at the mean girls table back in 7th grade and has been sure it was true ever since.
And, on top of the evidence of the idiot's ingrained bigotry, it also sets some sort of record for sheer stupidity. The S.O. and I both have railroad backgrounds. We joke that the family coat of arms includes a switch broom. I used to take the train a lot. As a dependent of a Chicago & Northwestern employee I got to ride for free, which I did on a regular basis. I know what conditions were like on passenger trains 60+ years ago. The idea of any porter, black, white, or purple, managing to do the nasty with a non-passenger even one time let alone multiple times gives a whole new dimension to the term ludicrous. The porters worked hard and did not have a lot of time for spending the two minutes the train stood in a station banging any of the locals. Then when you toss in the issue of sundown towns. . .My dad explained sundown towns when I asked why the African-American dining car waiter never got off the train in Ironwood even though it was a station where the train sat in the station long enough for the rest of the train crew to get off and hang out on the platform swapping gossip with the depot agent and chain smoking unfiltered cigarettes. (Male bonding in action.) Bottom line: It truly is the type of shitty stupid slur that can be generated only by middle school students or people with fewer brain cells than the typical hamster.
FWIW, this particular photo has been seen by literally hundreds of museum visitors over the twelve years I've been volunteering. This being a small rural community many elderly visitors remember the woman. Universally, everyone who remembers her or knows her family says something positive. Until this one dumb cunt*. You know, I can't help but feel a little sorry for her. How sad and empty must her life be if as a septuagenarian she feels compelled to share 60-year old racist gossip. And what was the point?
*I've been watching the most recent season of "The Boys." Billy Butcher seems to be influencing my vocabulary.
Monday, April 8, 2024
It's Rapture Day
Monday, January 1, 2024
Wednesday, February 15, 2023
Happy birthday, Val
It's my youngest sibling's birthday today. I think this was her kindergarten photo. She has a different hair style these days.
Friday, February 3, 2023
Pulitzer Project: Independence Day
This Pulitzer winner turned out to be another remarkably readable book. Two in a row. Amazing. The Garland County Public Library does have the next book on the list sitting on its shelves. I'm wondering if I should tempt fate by having Tammi check it out, too. Although I am going to give myself a short break before tackling it and indulge in some mind candy first, like reading one of the books in the Murderbot Diaries, before going back to more serious prose.
Independence Day is the middle book in a series of three novels that Richard Ford wrote about Frank Bascombe, a former sports writer and current real estate agent in this particular work. It won the Pulitzer for Fiction in 1996.
The book covers three days in the life of its hero. It's the 4th of July weekend in 1988 when Frank tries to juggle his responsibilities as a divorced dad, a realtor with clients he's trying to reel in, issues with his ex-wife, and a changing relationship with a current female friend. To be honest, if I wasn't working my way up a list and had read a plot summary that said the book chronicled a holiday weekend in the life of middle aged real estate sales guy I would not be real interested in pulling it off the library shelf.
Of course, I hadn't read a synopsis before starting the book. I try to go into each Pulitzer winner not knowing much, if anything, about it. I do occasionally end up doing some Googling to learn a little more, like if I'm thinking a book is pretty much a complete waste of paper and ink I'll go looking to see what reviewers had to say about it. Not surprisingly, my reaction to a book tends to be a bit different than the ones who get paid to review books for the New York Times. Professional reviewers have a bad habit of mistaking an incoherent piece of crap for a masterrpiece.
Not that Independence Day is incoherent. It's actually quite well written and fairly easy to read. I got sucked right into it despite it being essentially one middle-aged guy musing on life as he takes care of various chores in the lead up to the Independence Day weekend: shows a house to potential buyers, tries to collect rent money from a difficult tenant, checks on a small business he owns. It helped that Ford gave his protagonist both a wry sense of humor and a dislike of right-wing politicians.
Independence Day reminded me a little bit of the piece of unreadable dreck that won the 1982 Pulitzer, John Updike's Rabbit is Rich, in that it looks at what's going on in the head of a pretty average middle class white male, There is, however, one huge difference: Frank Bascombe is likable, he seems like a decent guy, and you find yourself hoping things work out for him. Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, in contrast, came across as a rather sleazy weasel.
So how would I rate this book and do I recommend it? The overall quality merits a high 7, maybe a low 8, and, yes, I recommend it. It's decent reading. Not super exciting but not boring either.
Next up on the list: Martin Dressler, which is yet another book by an author I'd never heard of before starting the Pulitzer Project. The local library does have it on the shelves so now I get to decide if I want Tammi to check it out tomorrow or if I indulge in a little more escapist genre fiction first.
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Out and About in Arkansas, Part II
AKA the State and Federal Parks edition. In addition to the obvious national park, the one that's the easiest to get to*, the incredibly photogenic one from the view point of a former architectural historian (see photo above), we've visited a couple other parks in the past couple of weeks.
We did enjoy checking out the exhibits in the courthouse (pictured above; it stopped being the county courthouse when the town of Hope won a local election that moved the county seat) and then ambling around town admiring 19th century architecture. There is a replica blacksmith shop commemorating the invention of the Bowie knife, although to be honest I'm not sure just what would make a Bowie knife much different than any other knife available at the time. I did some googling and it appears the blacksmith (James Black) celebrated in Washington did make a knife for Jim Bowie that incorporated some improvements on previous versions of a common type of hunting and/or fighting knife, which isn't exactly inventing the knife, but close enough for the super short sound bites common on signage at state parks. Whatever Black did or did not do, he developed a reputation for good quality work and built a successful business producing knives better than the usual ones available in the 1830s.
Sunday, January 15, 2023
Out and about in Arkansas
One effect of the transfer case falling out of the truck has been to make me extremely reluctant to go anywhere or to spend any money. No trips to the local quilt shops, no wandering around flea markets, limited casual browsing at Books-A-Million, no going to see "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" in an actual theater. Just general frugality because we still have no idea just how much the truck repairs are going to cost. A lot, obviously, and even though it probably wouldn't make much of a difference if we indulged in an occasional frivolous expenditure, part of me doesn't want to part with a single dime until after we've got the truck back.
Still, as the Younger Daughter likes to point out, it's not good to just sit in her living room binge watching "Maine Cabin Masters" and brooding about the possible outrageous prices of miscellaneous Ford parts. It will not do anything to improve my mood if I have time to spend wondering just how many payments the mechanic has left on his bass boat. We need to go out occasionally, venture out into fresh air and sunshine, and the venturing out should involve more than just going to the closest Dollar General for toilet paper and milk. So we've been doing things like checking out campgrounds and RV parks as possible sites for Magee and visiting state and national parks.
We've done windshield tours of several privately owned RV parks in the Hot Springs area. One struck us as acceptable, another was slightly better, and then there were the "Holy wah. People actually pay to stay here?!" gems. When the sites are uneven gravel and the RVs are parked so close together you have zero privacy you really wonder what the attraction can be, especially when none of the privately owned parks are cheap.On the other hand, there are a couple campgrounds in the Ouachita National Forest that aren't bad -- well maintained, lots of space between the sites, and best of all, Free -- that are tempting. They're basic -- no amenities other than the availability of a privy -- but Free when I'm busy stressing about money sounds pretty good. One campground looked okay to me, although I had qualms about the road in there. It's barely one lane wide with no where to go if you meet a vehicle. Someone would have to back up, and that could be a headache when towing Magee. The Forest Service does put a 14-day limit on how long you can stay on one spot, but even limited Free is better than paying every day.
We also checked out a Corps of Engineers campground near Lake Ouachita. It's small -- only 9 sites -- but has full hook-ups. Our geezer pass would get us half-price rates, which would make it cheaper than any of the private parks, and it's got a nice lay out. Lots of space, no feeling like you have to worry about hearing every belch a neighbor emits. Photo above is from the COE campground. There were only three RVs there when we did our inspection tour. I checked on recreation.gov. Lots of open dates, including some really long blocks. The Corps sets a 14-day limit, too, but there's a loophole. It might be possible to do almost two full months without having to move Magee, or at least not move out of the campground, just shuffle over to a different site, because it's the off season.
At the moment I'm definitely leaning toward the COE campground. Now all we need is the truck. As soon as we hear from the garage I can go online to make reservations so when we're able to pick up Magee we'll know where we're dragging him.
Friday, January 13, 2023
Pulitzer Project: The Stone Diaries
It's been awhile since I bothered reading any Pulitzer Prize fiction winners. Back in 2021 I hit a couple that were such duds that I lost interest in bothering with Interlibrary Loan to work my way up the list. But after we got to Hot Springs, a city large enough to have a public library that hasn't overdosed on Danielle Steele, I checked the online catalog and then asked the Younger Daughter to check the 1995 winner, The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, out for me.
The book turned out to be surprisingly good. Not great, but definitely readable. Shields could write. The book is structured as a faux biography (or possibly memoir) of/by Daisy Goodwill Flett, a woman born in a small town in Manitoba in 1905 who manages to make it into her 80s before a bad fall triggers a decline in her health.