Dipping into the Golden Oldies vault?

I see by recent headlines that Trump has decided to return to one of his favorite themes: Hillary bashing. Or accusing. And maybe I shouldn't just label it as a Trump obsession. For reasons not discernible by rational beings, the right wing in general keeps viewing Hillary Rodham Clinton as being the embodiment of everything that is wrong in their world. When reality turns too stark and actual facts are unpalatable it becomes time to once again Blame Hillary. You name the crime, she has apparently committed it. Nonetheless, she's still walking around free.

I've said it before. I want her superpowers. She is obviously the most powerful person on the planet or its most cunning criminal mastermind, which kind of begs the question of Why did she lose? It's a mystery. 

The love of using Hillary as the grand unifying theory of everything violates a long standing norm Presidential blaming: if things are screwed up now, it's always the former guy's fault. You know, when George W. Bush was in office, if there were issues with anything it was always Bill Clinton's fault, not his wife's. When Obama was in office, the left blamed aWol for anything that wasn't going quite right. So then Trump got elected, and, yes, there were definitely Republicans who blamed Obama for various woes, but there were a lot more people on the right who blamed Hillary. And they're still blaming her for everything and indulging in lock her up fantasies. It's an odd deviation from the standard pattern.

Of course, the truly bizarre part is Trump spent a fair amount of time on the campaign trail back in 2015 and 2016 encouraging the Lock Her Up chants. Then he got elected and did absolutely nothing for four solid years. If there had been a reason to lock her up, it seems like she'd be wearing orange jumpsuits now. But, nope, despite being President for a full term the Donald never quite got around to punishing Hillary for anything. Now he's simply the Former Guy who's busy worrying about how to continue sucking money out of MAGAt bank accounts while dodging process servers. The Congressional committee investigating the January 6 riot at the Capitol, the U. S. Attorney for the southern district of New York, and the New York state attorney general are all getting closer to making Trump's life thoroughly unpleasant so what does he do? Circle back to blaming Hillary. Doesn't make his own situation any better, but it keeps his fan base happy.

I'm going to take this as a sign that he's actually worried about acquiring attire that matches his skin tone. A girl can dream, but she won't hold her breath.

Still waiting for the mining money fairy

The S.O. and I have had to do some driving around our end of the Upper Peninsula lately -- south to Stephenson, west to Ironwood, and east to Marquette -- and have noticed one constant: yard signs supporting mining. There seem to be a lot of people who are fantasizing about a magic mining fairy waving a wand and showering local communities with a sudden infusion of ca$h.

Granted, there has been more interest shown in mining in the U.P. in recent years -- Rio Tinto is developing a nickel and copper mine in northern Marquette County, and there are rumors other sites are being explored. This isn't really news; there have been rumors for years that mining is coming back to areas that boomed 100 years ago. Ever since Calumet & Hecla closed its last mine in the Copper County in 1968, there have been rumors that abandoned mines were going to be dewatered and reopened "soon." The same has been true of various played-out iron mines: talk of a possible open pit iron mine in northern Wisconsin has folks in Gogebic County fantasizing that mines will re-open in Jessieville or Ramsey or Wakefield. Lots of people don't seem to understand that copper and iron ores don't grow back; malachite and hematite aren't mushrooms that pop back up if they're left in the dark long enough. Nonetheless, the dreams continue.

And so do the nightmares. A local environmental organization, Friends of the Land of Keweenaw (aka FOLK), has been researching mineral rights in Baraga County and creating a publicly accessible database with the information, an action that was inspired by reports that Rio Tinto has been quietly buying up those rights as they continue to explore possible mining sites. FOLK quite rightly worries about the environmental consequences of mining, particularly for copper sulfides. Still, I'm not sure why FOLK is building its database (most landowners already know whether or not they own the mineral rights) but if they want to pay fees to the county for the privilege of searching land records, I'm sure the county can use the money. The folks at FOLK are rather naive most of the time so it probably hasn't occurred to them that their work could have unintended consequences. The end result of their labor -- a publicly accessible database -- might be more useful to mining companies than it is to individual property owners. It'll save the mining companies the work and expense of having to do title searches themselves for blocks in which they may be interested.

In any case, without much overt fuss, the local community is splitting into two camps: people who fear the environmental damage that inevitably accompanies mining and people who fantasize about jobs that pay more than minimum wage and don't depend on tourism. The Chamber of Commerce as a whole lusts after the flood of dollars mining might bring in or new industries it might spawn; individual Chamber members worry about mining hurting their existing tourism-oriented businesses.

Given the rather weak mining history that Baraga County has compared to surrounding counties in Upper Michigan, I have a hunch both camps are wasting their time imagining a future that's never going to happen. Through some geological fluke, Baraga County manages to fall between the copper range to the west and northwest and the iron ranges to the east and south. There have been mines in Baraga County in the past, but they weren't particularly productive. The Taylor Iron Mine only lasted a few years; the ore body simply wasn't good enough to be economically viable. The Ohio, Webster, and Spurr mines on the eastern edge of the county (and the extreme western end of the Marquette iron range) operated longer, but played out decades ago.

Every so often, though, rumors will start that the trace amounts of mineral found in Baraga County are going to lead to a mining boom. Back around World War I, the discovery of vanadium in Arvon Township had speculators briefly excited. In 1950, there was a uranium boom: a minute amount of uranium was found and suddenly geiger counters and speculators were popping out of the woodwork. Roads were renamed to reflect the coming boom, newspapers as far away as Milwaukee touted L'Anse as the next mining boom town. It never happened. No uranium mines, no sudden wealth. The story of mining in the U.P. has been one of steady decline, and Baraga County's been no exception to that pattern. Where Baraga County is an exception is it never really had a boom to begin with. Ontonagon, Houghton, and Keweenaw Counties all had copper in massive amounts; Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson, and Marquette had iron. Baraga County had fantasies.

Minor piece of trivia: where do I fit into the map? In the general vicinity of the arrrow under the M in Marquette Iron Range..

The month of magical thinking

I went ambling through Target last night after work.  My mission was a simple one -- pick up a gallon of milk -- but being a good American consumer, I had to make a loop through the entire store, not just the dairy section, checking out the clearance shelves and bargain hunting in a rather unfocused way.  The store had Valentine's stuff on display, but that's such a minor holiday it doesn't take up much space.  Instead, the corner of the building where they go all out with "seasonal" merchandise appeared at first glance to have no unifying theme.  There were displays of storage containers, an aisle full of exercise equipment, another aisle with a zillion bottles of Tide and other cleaning supplies . . . and then it hit me.  The marketing geniuses at Target have figured out that January is the Month of Magical Thinking.

January is the month where we all make resolutions:  I'm going to lose weight, eat better, finally clean the house, get my stuff organized, make various lifestyle changes, walk the dog more often, finish writing the Great American Novel, change jobs, go back to school, . . .  and whatever the resolution might be, Target had it covered. 

Going to straighten up your messy house?  Buy some of these plastic storage tubs and organizers.  Want to tone up and exercise more?  Here are the videos, exercise mats, weights, water bottles, and whatever else you might need to do that.  Feeling the urge to spring clean a little early?  Take home some giant bottles of Tide and Lysol. 

I will confess I lingered in the pilates section of the fitness gadgets and goodies.  I was sorely tempted by the exercise balls.  Then I remembered my experiences with the yoga DVD (still in the box, plastic as virgin as the day I bought it), the yoga books, the cardio-glide (it made a great clothes rack), the exercise bike (also a great coat rack), and the dust covered Richard Simmons "Sweating to the Oldies" video tape.  For me it's never been a full month of magical thinking -- it's more like five minutes between making the resolution and forgetting it.  From the size of the store displays, though, Target is counting on most people still being optimistic enough to believe they'll stick with something long enough to get it out of the box.  I'm just not one of them.