These parental obligations sneak up on me. I’d forgotten, until late afternoon, that I’d agreed to take Kate to yet another nightclub show, and so off to St. Andrew’s Hall we went in the dinner hour, for the Summer of Ska tour — the Maxies, Suburban Legends, Big D and the Kids Table, Reel Big Fish. I took my iPad and made real progress in the nightstand book, mainly because there was no wi-fi network to hop onto. I gotta tell you: I’m tiring of e-books. The constant availability of other distractions — email, Twitter, Facebook — as close as a touch is giving me, has given me, the attention span of a toddler. There are times in reading all but the least challenging books when you need to buckle down, reread, flip back a few pages, and sometimes put it aside and think for a minute or two. Everything about the iPad/Kindle Fire discourages such things.
On the other hand? I just pre-ordered the new Laura Lippman, which will be on my device the day it’s released. Curse you, modernity! Curse your conveniences!
Also, it’s a lot harder to read a book in a dark nightclub. Well, I’ll have both.
A brief announcement: I’ll be taking the rest of the week off, for a mini-break with my husband following the deposit of our offspring at summer camp. Fortunately, I have some linkage for you.
First, two from yours truly: A piece on creating local food systems in Michigan, and an interview with the director of the Eastern Market. Something interesting I’d never considered before, from the latter piece, a Q-and-A:
Is it possible to imagine a world in which this 20 percent of small-scale producers can compete with large-scale producers? Yes, it’s already happening, with beer. In 1980, we had 101 breweries, and microbreweries were less than 1 percent of American consumption. In 2012, we went past 2,000 breweries for the first time since the 1880s, and microbreweries are just under 10 percent of market share by value. The only growing part of the American beer economy is microbreweries, and what’s especially impressive is, it’s consumer-driven demand, not government regulation. And despite massive advertising budgets, (big corporate brewers) haven’t been able to stop losing market share. That’s inspirational.
Nice analogy there.
OID: Dance with a cop, get shot to death. Without anyone even pulling a weapon:
Adaisha Miller, who would have turned 25 Monday, was dancing with Officer Isaac Parrish, 38, when she hugged him from behind during the fish fry, said police. A .40-caliber handgun, held in Parrish’s waist holster, fired and struck Miller in the lung and heart.
This has been going around for a few days, but maybe you haven’t seen it yet: A tick-tock on the reporting of the ACA decision, by the editor of Scotusblog. Very long, but very interesting. Explains how the sausage-making of live-TV breaking news is done, along with a lot more, including the fact the site was targeted by hackers in a DDoS attack that very morning. Some people. I mean.
Off to work, laundry and packing. Have a great week, all. Back Monday.
Julie Robinson said on July 10, 2012 at 9:13 am
In this case, it may be that the book you’re reading doesn’t inspire full concentration. That’s how I found Jacob de Zoet, and ended up skimming through it; something rare for me.
I can see food distribution changing when I see my daughter, who runs a community garden at her church, buys from her local co-op and farmer markets when she can, and rarely goes into a standard issue grocery store. Of course, if this was your co-op, and it was a five minute walk from your place, it would be easy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx8LmtULfDg
Hope you have a refreshing break.
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brian stouder said on July 10, 2012 at 9:14 am
I gotta tell you: I’m tiring of e-books.
Three Cheers for Nancy!
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
Those things hold no charms for me; and I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those people who sit in a restaurant and incessently poke at their hand-held device (and we’re now holding off on the too-easy ‘hand held’ puns).
Bleh!
Aside from that, here’s a non-sequitur, wherein I was nonplussed.
I pulled into a gas station, and was busy fueling the minivan, when a Jeep rolls in and a guy jumps out and says to me “Say – do you want to buy a home entertainment system?”…and I can see boxes stacked inside his Jeep.
It looked like they were freshly stolen off of WalMart’s dock (or wherever) and I reflexively said “No, thank you”.
The automatic “thank you” apparently encouraged the guy, who continued his pitch, as I turned away from him.
We finished fueling, and drove away, as the Jeep guy continued hawking his hot wares to others.
I suppose I should have dropped a dime on the guy, but I didn’t.
But good heavens! Presumably this fellow will be a prisoner, soon enough
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Prospero said on July 10, 2012 at 9:56 am
Julie’s co-op video reminds me of a Woody Guthrie song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJjvB9jURyM&feature=related
Brian, maybe the guy just got duplicate birthday gifts.
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Prospero said on July 10, 2012 at 9:57 am
Gunslinging on Jordaniand TV
http://www.newser.com/story/149778/politician-pulls-gun-on-debate-rival.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=huffpo&utm_campaign=strangestuff_rss
Reminded me of this great moment in American TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8
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LAMary said on July 10, 2012 at 10:09 am
It bugged me all afternoon that I hadn’t thought of whose voice my golden retreiver mix, Poppy, had. It occurred to me last night. She’s Cindy Lauper. She just wants to have fun.
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MarkH said on July 10, 2012 at 10:15 am
More to Nancy’s point about ebooks/iphones/tweets/whatever, is this fairly in-depth look from Newsweek about such things really driving us crazy. We all seem to be acquiring ADD whether we like it or not.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/07/08/is-the-internet-making-us-crazy-what-the-new-research-says.html
I still use only a retro cell phone (Motorola flip) much to the chiding from my friends and business partners. I merely remind them of how they look when they’re in a group silently looking at their devices for long periods and NOT TALKING TO EACH OTHER. My phone has only voicemail, phone directory, two games, no camera. Imagine my surprise in a recent meeting when three of the other five pulled out similarly beat-up antiques and agreed with me that they need nothing else.
EDIT – and a notebook computer.
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brian stouder said on July 10, 2012 at 10:37 am
A Michigan story, which is worth pondering, as that Keystone pipeline goat-roping exercise continues to bound around…
http://www.chem.info/News/2012/07/Environmental-Controls-Feds-to-Reveal-Likely-Cause-of-MI-Oil-Spill/?et_cid=2739782&et_rid=44004269&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.chem.info%2fNews%2f2012%2f07%2fEnvironmental-Controls-Feds-to-Reveal-Likely-Cause-of-MI-Oil-Spill%2f
an excerpt or two:
Federal investigators are expected to present their findings Tuesday on the likely cause of a pipeline rupture that spilled more than 800,000 gallons of crude oil into a southwestern Michigan river nearly two years ago….
Oil began leaking from the line July 25, 2010, into Talmadge Creek near Marshall, about 60 miles east of Grand Rapids. It spread across roughly 35 miles of the Kalamazoo River, fouling wildlife habitat and closing a large swath of the river to boaters and anglers….
and the kicker:
The agency said crews in Enbridge’s control center in Edmonton, Alberta, waited 17 hours after receiving initial alarms from its Marshall pumping station before closing valves to isolate the damaged section of pipe. Enbridge is seeking approval from Michigan officials to replace and enlarge the entire line, which runs from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario.
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Dorothy said on July 10, 2012 at 10:46 am
I agree, Mark, that most of us need to curtail the bent-head-over-the-cell phone syndrome that afflicts so many of us. However when we did not have power for 4 nights and 3.5 days, I could plug in my phone with my car charger and read email updates from my electricity provider, updates from my employer regarding conditions on campus (we didn’t need to come to work on Monday since they didn’t have power yet), friends who didn’t have power and needed help, I could stay in touch with my elderly mother and our kids, which lessened the anxiety we had in the midst of baking temperatures, no water, and food that spoiled quickly in 90+ degree temperatures. It was my life-line. I mean no disrespect but people who cling to using older model cell phones are not doing themselves any favors when they dig in their heels and refuse to get the newer technology. You have to eventually – those phones don’t last forever. To me it’s the modern day equivalent of the cranky old neighbor who keeps yelling at the kids in the neighborhood to Keep It Down! I’m trying to REST!
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Prospero said on July 10, 2012 at 10:47 am
Treme’s back:
http://www.vulture.com/2012/07/treme-season-three-boardwalk-empire-september-premiere.html?mid=agenda–20120709
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alex said on July 10, 2012 at 10:49 am
MarkH, I haven’t gone the smartphone route yet either. I have a flip phone and a great story to tell about it. I went swimming this past Sunday and didn’t realize until I’d been in the water about half an hour that my phone was still in my pocket. I freaked. I handed it up to someone in the boat. A little while later it rang, a friend picked it up and answered it and it functioned perfectly. Still does. And it’s just gleaming and clean now. If it had been an iPhone I’d have been f*cked.
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mark said on July 10, 2012 at 10:54 am
I agree with you, Mark. And not in the way Dorothy does, which is not at all, but in the way the definition of “agree” suggests agreement. And my agreement requires no caveats about “no disrespect intended,” since my agreement doesn’t come with accusations about clinging and digging in of heels, or comparisons to cranky old neighbors yelling at children.
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brian stouder said on July 10, 2012 at 11:01 am
Mom isn’t gonna be happy, if we have a food-fight before we even get to the lunch hour, on her first day away!
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Julie Robinson said on July 10, 2012 at 11:07 am
As soon as I can get the new Verizon pricing figured out for our family I’m getting a smartphone. There have been multiple times over the last couple of months when I wished I had one; not just the power outage, though that is a great example. When I was driving my mom and sister in Iowa there were a couple of times we weren’t sure about roads to take. I had printed out all kinds of maps and in a real pinch I could have called someone with computer access, but it would have been less nerve-wracking. Also, when visiting my uncle who keeps his wifi locked up and I had no access for two days.
That being said, I’m going to try not to look at the thing when I’m in conversation with others. That’s just obnoxious.
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Danny said on July 10, 2012 at 11:09 am
Funny, I cannot believe how many of us are fellow travelers with MarkH with not having smart phones. I too only have a beat up flip phone with a cracked screen and friends and business associates are always on me about it too. I just hold it up in all of it’s damaged-yet-still-working glory and tell them, “Dumb phone, smart guy.”
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MarkH said on July 10, 2012 at 11:10 am
To Dorothy’s point, I forgot to mention that I have text capability (preferred by my son) and both my wife and I are wired in to the local emergency message network, which is how we receive those updates. Which is a good thing lately with the all the fire danger around here, still rated very high, though there has been some moderation from recent rainstorms. We have three in the region that are slowly being contained.
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Danny said on July 10, 2012 at 11:13 am
Lower-case mark. Hilarious. Get off of my lawn!
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Connie said on July 10, 2012 at 11:22 am
My phone is so old it says Cingular on it. In addition to voice and voicemail I can text and take pictures. The only thing I can do with such pictures is send them to your phone for a cost not included in my plan.
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Kirk said on July 10, 2012 at 11:29 am
I don’t own a cellphone, and I’m good with my life. They do have their uses, and someday I might get one. But with all due respect, my eyes mostly see them contributing to society’s hellbent trend toward obnoxiousness, incivility and self-absorption.
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Dorothy said on July 10, 2012 at 11:34 am
See, I agree with all y’all about (as Kirk so aptly put it) obnoxiousness, etc. But I maintain if you don’t keep up with the technology, at least every 3-4 years, you’ll fall hopelessly behind. I intend to try to keep up as I age. I want to be one of the cool 80 year olds, in 25 years, who knows how to run the spaceship correctly.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 10, 2012 at 11:51 am
Diving back into the largely unconnected cosmos until next Monday or Tuesday, may I pop up and plead with my fellow Americans and beg them to come to Zion, Bryce, and the Grand Canyon? I’m loving, for myself and my son, the international experience (got to discuss with a French businessman the other day a book he was reading by a Simone Wampler about France’s coming bankruptcy a la Greece, etc.), but you would think that the Germans won WWII and conquered us entirely. Three of five people you hike near, sit by, or eat next to are Germans; the French are close behind, Scandanavians as a group are up there, and met our first tranche of Italians, plus the Chinese & Japanese plus a scattering of Singaporeans are in the mix. But even they ask the three of us, in polite, accented but excellent English: where are your fellow Americans? Why do they not love these views and walks and experiences as we do? I hate to answer “they’re at home, thumbing their smart phones,” but maybe I should.
Come on out, if you’re up canyon or above 6,000 feet, the heat’s not bad at all. Or check my Facebook page for pictures (it’s just “Knapsack”). Seriously, Americans are hardly around; the campgrounds are $15 a night, and the restaurants nearby Zion are amazingly cheap. If I meet an American in the campground, they’re likely speaking Spanish, and laughing about Anglos and the heat, and asking if my pasty son needs some of their sunscreen. Of course, their families have been here since the early 1600’s . . . another source of laughter about who’s the illegal immigrant! (And here, have another Cerveza.)
If you make it here, the Polygamy Porter is delicious. Made by Utahns with a sense of humor, not the humorless practitioners, whose largest Jeffs-related enclave is not far southwest of here, and doing fine — no one knows what the religious issue is with the altitudinous “up-do” for the women in the ankle length, one color, handmade dresses, but you see groups of them in the park and at the Albertson’s down in Hurricane all the time.
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Dave said on July 10, 2012 at 11:53 am
Don’t have a smartphone either, in my current, retired state, I simply fail to see the need for one. I’m home a great deal of the time and the only time I ever find myself yearning for one is when we travel by car, would be nice to look up lodging, restaurants, etc., before we get there. We do text and we do take pics and send to one another.
Julie Robinson, the Verizon plan, the least expensive one, would make our monthly bill go up and we can’t think of many reasons to support Verizon any more than we already do. Just what they reap in profits on texting alone should keep them going.
Your uncle won’t let you use his wifi, my goodness. Isn’t it your uncle who brags about the one book in his house, it surprises me that he would even have any ‘net providers.
Kirk, I have a brother who has no cellphone, refuses to get one. I worked with a man who wouldn’t have one. My daughter’s father-in-law saw no need for one but his wife made him start carrying one when he had some health issues.
At Thanksgiving, we were all gathered together and there were almost all of my nieces and nephews bent over their ‘droids and Iphones. I, unlike Dorothy, have given up on being cool, you update because they assault you with, “You need this” on some level. I was probably never that cool to begin with. I can call, I can text, and take pics. Good enough for now.
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Julie Robinson said on July 10, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Dave, that’s the other right-wing uncle. This one has wifi but refuses to let anyone use it; to go online you have to ask permission and wait for him to connect you to the dial-up on his computer(!). Only a lack of hotel rooms made me stay there this year.
We have a family plan with four people, and two already have smart phones but one has the old unlimited data plan, and another has a small data plan with a semi-smart phone. We’ll have to weigh out all the possible combinations, but for us I think it could work.
Jeff, it’s been a few years since we went to the Grand Canyon but it was super busy then, and we were constantly hurried along by rangers.
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paddyo' said on July 10, 2012 at 12:18 pm
I’m with MarkH @ 6 on this one. I’ve been resisting the not-quite-overt (yet) pressure at my employer (a federal agency) to get a Blackberry so I’ll be tethered 24/7 to email. I’m guessing that the minute I succumb, they’ll probably shift to another smartphone “platform” (there’s already talk . . . ).
But the last time I checked, a cellphone does still work as, y’know, a phone, and last time I checked, anybody and everybody who needs to reach me outside the office (and many who don’t) do have the number to it. It works well enough, and hey, I’ve got a modest “texting plan,” too, though I’ll readily admit that my replies can be s-l-o-w using a telephone keypad. But my thumbs still work.
I completely get where Dorothy’s coming from. It’s a miracle in your hand, indeed — a potential lifesaver, even. And it doesn’t mean I won’t eventually get a smartphone. But for me, my plain ol’ text-capable cellphone already is a miracle device (see Louis C.K.’s great Give It a Second routine).
This choice isn’t hey-you-kids-get-off-my-lawn stuff. It’s just personal preference in a world where Next Big Things aren’t always SO big that everything else is instantly obsolete. And given the Google-gasmic availability of information on all fronts, I think you can keep abreast of the tech and not fall hopelessly behind, as Dorothy puts it, without diving in completely just now.
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paddyo' said on July 10, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Oh, and Jeff TMMO —
I discovered delicious Polygamy Porter while covering the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. I still have the T-shirt (twin slogans: “Why Have Just One?” and “Bring Some Home to the Wives”). The Beehive State folks also made a pilsner called “St. Provo Girl,” but they had to drop the “Saint” part after the St. Pauli Girl folks threatened to sue. I think it’s still around as “Provo Girl.”
And you’re right about Zion, Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon. They’re among the top national parks for international visitation. In fact, there’s a local scandal in Springdale, UT, the “gateway” town to Zion, over the local constabularies targeting foreign visitors with speed traps, demanding cash payment on the spot under threat of arrest, and then pocketing (or at least, losing official track of) the cash. Apparently this went on for years. That the international visitors keep coming is a testament to those amazing canyonlands . . .
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alex said on July 10, 2012 at 12:44 pm
The large number of German tourists is also a testament to their nation’s affluence. Even with their “socialized medicine” they kick the U.S.’s ass in terms of living standards.
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Prospero said on July 10, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Jeff tmmo, last time I hiked the canyon with one of my brothers, we stayed overnight at Phantom Ranch.On the way to steak dinner, after smoking weed, we ran into a newly -arrived large group of teenaged Japanese hikers. They had little English, but eventually asked us to direct them to Blight Anger Rodge, which is of course back up on the rim. We managed to get them a place to stay since it was already getting dark, and trying to hike out would have meant inevitable death. Anyway, next day on the way out, the kids passed us at Indian Garden, and were in a much happier mood. On the way down S. Kaibab, we had run into two folks hiking out, by the ridge, around 4pm, with no canteens and dressed like Snooki and the Situation. They did both sport Walkmen. I’ve often wondered where their bones are bleaching. Kaibab is tough descending, but I wouldn’t even think of trying hiking out that way. Bright Angel Trail is hard enough, and the last several switchbacks are just brutal. Chris and I came out in less than three hours, and those kids were long gone when we plopped down in the bar at Bright Angel Lodge for the best beer I ever drank. I have a friend who’s an architect in Boston that runs the canyon with some buddies in early spring, from North rim to South. That’s borderline insane. My mom and dad hiked in and out in a single day, in their 70s. Astounding.
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Sherri said on July 10, 2012 at 1:25 pm
I have a smartphone, as much because I like computers as any other reason. I’m still amazed that I can walk around with a computer in my pocket that’s much more powerful than the huge computers I learn to program on. I love reading on my Kindle, too, though I generally do most of my book reading on an eInk Kindle where there aren’t any other distractions.
My refusal of modernity is Facebook. I just don’t like the company, and prefer staying in touch with email and phone calls.
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Charlotte said on July 10, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Jeff — why go to Canyonlands in summer when you can go in the fall? Or early spring? Summer is brutal — which is why the only ones there are Germans (that and their childhood attachment to Karl May stories). I did my graduate work at the U of Utah, and once went to Arches with a guy I was dating who’d moved here from Germany as a child — he did a running commentary on the regional dialects of Germans we passed on the trail … pretty amusing.
I like my iPhone in part because it means I don’t have to lug my laptop to the cabin in case something comes up for work — now I can see emails, meeting invites and call in from the iPhone if I need to. Which means I actually spend a lot less time online than I was before (I try to log off of everything at dinner time). My sweetheart, who doesn’t go online if he doesn’t have to, has a flip phone, and is happy with everything except the audio quality. Why we no longer make phones you can actually *hear* on is annoying …
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 10, 2012 at 1:52 pm
Alex – ja, und they haben much more emphasis on die time of vacation denn wir gehen. Fun to talk mit they are.
Prospero, North Kaibab tomorrow wir gehen!
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Bitter Scribe said on July 10, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Sherri: Amen to Facebook. There’s so much about that company I don’t like, starting with Mark Zuckerberg’s face.
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Prospero said on July 10, 2012 at 2:25 pm
Nice E. Borgnine photos. My favorites were playing a creep in Bad Day at Black Rock, and Cabbie in Escape From New York. Oh, and L’ Horde Sauvage, and Emperor of the North with the great Lee Marvin.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-life-and-career-of-ernest-borgnine/2012/07/08/gJQADs1gWW_gallery.html#photo=1
Visual art by writers.
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Suzanne said on July 10, 2012 at 2:45 pm
I visited the Grand Canyon for the first time last fall. Unbelievable! Lots of foreigners, but let’s face it, if you are from another country and visit the US, you’re going to hit the hot spots, like New York and the Grand Canyon, not Toledo, OH or Fort Wayne, IN.
I have an incredibly dumb phone. I want a smart phone, but I dont’ want to pay for the data plan.
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Prospero said on July 10, 2012 at 2:59 pm
This Kate Middleton cover on New Republic is apparently causing the vapors in England:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2169848/Kate-Middletons-teeth-PhotoShopped-look-rotten-US-magazine-cover-The-New-Republic.html?ICO=most_read_module
I’ve had the magazine for a week and never even noticed it until it was pointed out to me.
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brian stouder said on July 10, 2012 at 2:59 pm
let’s face it, if you are from another country and visit the US, you’re going to hit the hot spots, like New York and the Grand Canyon, not Toledo, OH or Fort Wayne, IN.
True enough, true enough; but let me just say that Fort Wayne’s ‘big hole in the ground’ never fails to impress people, when I take them out to see it. (I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to hike into and/or out of it, though, even leaving aside the blasting and so on that they do there…)
http://www.mindat.org/sitegallery.php?loc=15949
http://thewaynedalenews.com/featured-waynedale-news/hanson-aggregates-quarry-is-spectactular.html
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Joe K said on July 10, 2012 at 3:04 pm
How do you get shot in the lung and heart if your hugging from behind a police man with a holstered gun pointing down??? Ricochet???
Pilot Joe
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nancy said on July 10, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Joe, the latest update now says she was “on her knees” behind him, doing an “exotic dance.” The story seems to change hourly.
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Prospero said on July 10, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Arlo Guthrie’s birthday’s today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g266Uwp6ZnI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yomALUHERYw
Good question Joe.
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Scout said on July 10, 2012 at 3:40 pm
I love my smart phone. It’s the coolest thing to be able to carry a computer in my pocket. I am never lost, uninformed or bored. The least used thing about it is the phone itself, I usually have the ringer off. I have come to prefer texting, but I treat it the same way I do phone calls- if I’m with people they get my full attention. Calls and texts are returned when I am alone. But no worries, I don’t judge the dumb phone or no phone folks out there, rather, I am fascinated by the near extinction of your breed! 🙂
Nancy, enjoy your getaway. We’ll try to behave.
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Joe K said on July 10, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Sounds like quite a party, will be in Port Huron Friday around 4pm till Sat around 11am hear there is a sailboat race. You and Alan entered?
Pilot joe
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nancy said on July 10, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Hardly, but so many locals are that they run the standings on the local public-access channel all weekend.
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Catherine said on July 10, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Sherri @27 (on edit: and Scout), I’m 100% on your page technologically. If you don’t have enough reasons to be concerned about Facebook, read this, about how they are mining data: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/microstrategy-michael-saylor/
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nancy said on July 10, 2012 at 3:48 pm
Oh, one word on smartphones: I had a chat with Kate as we walked back to the car yesterday, me doing the urban-awareness thing, her engrossed in the phone. I told her what every cop has told me, that paying attention to one’s phone is something muggers look for when they’re sizing up potential victims.
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Heather said on July 10, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Not to mention that people should always look up from smartphones while crossing the street, etc. Almost ran over someone on my bike yesterday who was too engrossed in her phone to look left or right.
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brian stouder said on July 10, 2012 at 4:36 pm
Paging Dexter and Kirk!
An Ohioan (in Defiance, in fact) hit a financial homerun:
http://www.wane.com/dpps/news/strange/baseball-cards-in-ohio-attic-might-fetch-millions-ob12-tvw_4234653
The lead:
Karl Kissner picked up a soot-covered cardboard box that had been under a wooden dollhouse in his grandfather’s attic. Taking a look inside, he saw baseball cards bundled in twine. They were smaller than the ones he was used to seeing. But some of the names were familiar: Hall of Famers Ty Cobb, Cy Young and Honus Wagner. Then he put the box on a dresser and went back to digging through the attic. It wasn’t until two weeks later that he learned that his family had come across what experts say is one of the biggest, most exciting finds in the history of sports card collecting, a discovery probably worth millions.
and it goes on from there; quite interesting
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JWfromNJ said on July 10, 2012 at 4:36 pm
I like to plug my Virgin Mobile Prepaid plan every chance I get. For $35 a month I get 300 minutes and unlimited text and data, and don’t get throttled. And $5 of that is because it’s a blackberry so in theory i could link to a Blackberry secure server. So for an android or other brand I can get it for $30. That includes prepaid iPhone stuff. For $10 more a month it’s unlimed voice too. no contract.
The only downside is IF you have a customer service issue you have to initially deal with Alex, who is a cylon-robot and clearly is a raging exuberant homosexual. Don’t construe that as anti homosexual living beings. But dammit I don’t want my phone cylon to get all Charles Nelson Reilly when I want to pay a bill or change service.
No dig at our friend Alex intended.
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Deborah said on July 10, 2012 at 4:47 pm
I would be completely lost without my iPhone, in so many ways including literally. I don’t know how I lived without it. I try not to be obnoxious about it, and definitely don’t look at it when I’m in meetings or talking to someone. That’s rude. I agree with what Nancy told Kate about muggers looking for people engrossed in their phones, happens all the time around here.
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MarkH said on July 10, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Prospero, I agree on Emporer of the North, not just one of my favorite Borgnine films, but Marvin’s as well. Ernie’s character Shack, brutally evil:
http://willceau.com/news/2012/07/08/ernest-borgnine-r-i-p/
Borgnine played great heavies, which is why I never bought him being beat by either Montgomery Clift in From Here to Eternity, or one-armed Spencer Tracy in Bad Day at Black Rock, although both films are favorites. For a real departure for Ernie, try to catch the somewhat bizarre Violent Saturday, where he plays a victimized Amish farmer.
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alex said on July 10, 2012 at 6:12 pm
That Saylor story is all the evidence I need to know I made the right choice in regards to Facebook. I have a nom de keyboard and very little info posted about myself; the account is used primarily in my employment for the purpose of getting dirt on litigious insurance claimants. Much to my surprise, however, there’s somebody else out in the world with my name but horrid tastes in music and television and I keep getting complaints from would-be Facebook friends who are angry that “I” don’t respond to them. And I keep thinking I should put up my own page lest anyone think that other Alex is me. But I’m resisting because of the potential downsides. And the colossal waste of time that it is.
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Sherri said on July 10, 2012 at 7:17 pm
All I needed to know about Facebook is that their MO is to screw their users first then see how bad the complaints are to determine how much they have to back off. Once, you can chalk up to the mistakes of a rookie company, twice is a pattern, three times is a business strategy. Besides, I don’t like being lectured about privacy by a privileged child.
(Maybe Zuckerburg reminds me too much of my grad school advisor, who was great as long as your interests and his interests aligned, but would screw you over without a second thought if it would advance his interests. He was a Harvard man, too, come to think of it…)
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Dorothy said on July 10, 2012 at 8:37 pm
Nancy – when my daughter was in college (2001-2005) she used to call me when she’d get off work at the newspaper and talk to me on the way to her dorm. She said it made her feel safer if she was talking to me as she walked. I preferred that she would hang up and pay attention to what was going on around her, but I was also torn because (1) I loved hearing about how her day went, and (2) the weird thought did come to me that if she DID get mugged or assaulted, I’d hear it and could signal my husband to use his cell to call the cops in State College. Thank goodness we never had to do that.
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Connie said on July 10, 2012 at 9:40 pm
Tonight’s township board meeting was more interesting than usual as the board heard a presentation from a Location Manager seeking to use Commerce Township Dodge 5 park for shooting on July 23. The film is AKA Jimmy Picard and it stars Benicio Del Toro as a stressed WWII vet come home to Kansas. From what I got the two scenes they will shoot will be dream sequences, in one of which he kills a bear. They will also shoot a scene involving a school bus in a cornfield on the west end of the township. And lunch is served at 1:30.
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Deborah said on July 10, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Regarding Europeans touring the American Southwest, I have always thought there is an obvious fascination by them for that particular geography/geology. My experiences touring there with lots of Europeans around has been similar to what Jeff (tmmo) mentions no matter the season. I have always thought that it seems that many Americans tend to take it for granted and aren’t that enthused with what that part of the country has to offer in the same way that the Europeans appreciate.
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brian stouder said on July 10, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Well – although I’ve not seen the Grand Canyon yet, let me just say that the most beautiful places I’ve seen include western Maryland, West Virginia, and western Virginia.
While other places surely have their own charms and beauties, I’d say that the Blue Ridge Mountains/Shenandoah Valley have a unique and unsurpassed beauty, too
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Kim said on July 10, 2012 at 11:25 pm
Many cheers for the hike into the canyon (as in Grand) with an overnight stay at Phantom Ranch. We took our kids over spring break four years ago and had a spectacular time, seeing a rescue (fatal fall, which the condors finally pointed out), a dumbass eastern european who was death-marching his very young child all the way down to the bottom and back up in one day with a tiny sippy cup of water, and the best NPS ranger ever (at Phantom) who called the kids over after the nighttime camp talk disbanded to show them how a black light revealed scorpions all over the place.
We headed to Zion and Bryce after the Grand Canyon and spent several days hiking and, for me, experiencing the maternal sphincter issue. That’s what happens when your kids are flying down the switchbacks, skittering this way and that with nothing but fortune keeping them from tumbling to eternity.
I recommend it all, even the gut-check parts.
on edit: Brian, I agree WV and Va are beautiful and the Shenandoah is an especially lovely place. The Grand Canyon is just so different – I was really awestruck by it and expected to be unimpressed by a giant gash in the earth. Arizona itself – ick. But that canyon was something.
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Connie said on July 10, 2012 at 11:35 pm
I saw the Grand Canyon on a family trip when I was 14. My mother always said that her kids walked up to the Grand Canyon and said Oh cool, where’s the gift shop.
I have taken custody of my family’s multiyear history in slides. My husband has been converting a few to digital files. I hadn’t seen them in decades, no one has cried “Let’s show slides!” since my mother died. He showed me a picture of me and my brothers at the Petrified Forest and I barely recognized myself. That girl was far lovelier than I ever remember being.
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brian stouder said on July 10, 2012 at 11:55 pm
He showed me a picture of me and my brothers at the Petrified Forest and I barely recognized myself. That girl was far lovelier than I ever remember being.
My mom, who is 83, has been on a “if you want these items, take them or I’m pitching them out” kick for the past several months; mostly oddball documents and trinkets and old newspapers, but also photographs and so on, including old-old photos.
My standing request to her is – pitch no photos; I’ll take ’em all. I have a particular interest in anything to do with Maude Stouder, my grandmother who I never met; she died of cancer by the age of 52, a decade before I was born. From what I’ve learned (in dribs and drabs) she was an intelligent person and I’m pretty certain I’d have really liked her…although my mom didn’t like her all that much.
By way of saying, in amongst all these old photos are a few of me, much leaner and with lots of hair…and a mustache! (what the hell was I thinkin’, eh?).
And Connie, considering how lovely you are now, I’ve no doubt your old photos are altogether striking!
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Crazycatlady said on July 11, 2012 at 12:02 am
I recently bought the most basic model of Kindle. I love it. I don’t have an iPhone, and I can now carry a whole library of books to the Dr’s office or where ever I want! I often can’t decide what book I want to read at a certain time. I sometimes have 3 different books going on at once.
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Dexter said on July 11, 2012 at 12:47 am
“Honus Wagner”. That’s pronounced HONN-us, but even Brian Williams said HOE-nuss last night on the news. For decades that card has been the Holy Grail…find a Honus Wagner baseball card and you were set for life.
I don’t know the Kissner’s, but they have had a family bar / restaurant forever in downtown Defiance. I used to stop in for a draught beer once in a while, and now I’ll sometimes stop in for a sandwich and a Coca Cola…gee, I guess it’s been a few years…I assume the old place still is in business. So the Kissners can’t be stupid, but Karl sure was ignorant. I’m not a card collector but I sure know the rare status of Honus Wagner baseball cards from 1910! Throw in a Tyrus Raymond Cobb and a Cy Young and probably a Christy Mathewson…damn, you have hit the mother lode, folks.
Rick Harrison recently said the baseball card market has all but disappeared…Karl Kissner’s Honus card probably could have alone commanded $2.8 million five years ago; in today’s market it will take the whole collection to bring that much cash.
Some crazy rich collector just might pay a couple million for that Honus card though…I would sell the Honus alone and bundle all the rest . He still can get a ton of dough for that collection.
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Dexter said on July 11, 2012 at 1:08 am
The last time I attended a Cubs game was May of 2000. I remember a long bank of pay phones on a wall…I wonder if they are still there. Also, in Union Station, many , many pay phones available. I wonder about those, too, if they are still there.
The Chicago Skyway had a call box every mile marker…all gone years ago I’ll bet.
Here in Bryan, we had two pay phones on the court square, and every gas station had a pay phone. There is exactly one pay phone left in Bryan that I know of, and who knows if it works? Not me; I have never used it.
Once my horrible pickup truck just shut down on I-69, in the middle of nowhere. I had no cell phone then. I was flagging down motorists for help for 45 minutes before a state highway truck stopped and carried me to the next exit and a pay phone.
My point is that for most of us, a cell phone is an absolute necessity. I use Sprint with good results, but I toy with the idea of a pre-paid Virgin Mobile deal…we use 700 minutes a month on a two-phone shared plan, though, and it’s just $91 a month. I used to text but my phone doesn’t have a keyboard and it’s a pain, so all I do is talk…I can text anybody I want on my pc anyway. I am retired, though. If I was away from home working 12 hours a day , damn straight I’d get a smart phone, even though they are really poor telephones; the audio is awful, dropped calls are more prevalent, and a flip phone , dedicated to just TALKING works so much better. See, I am a regular caller to radio shows, and while the hosts are always yelling at callers “Your phone blows, dude!”, my calls always are clear as a bell. I have recorded a few just to later check the quality of my sound, and it’s great, and all I use is a Qualcomm/Sanyo flipper.
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Deborah said on July 11, 2012 at 4:17 am
After bragging about how much I love my iPhone, my home button stopped working on it unless I mash down on it very hard. So I’m going to have to go to the Genious Bar at the Apple store and see if they can fix it. I have had the phone less than 2 years and I don’t think I got an extended warrantee, of course. Sigh.
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Linda said on July 11, 2012 at 4:21 am
The average foreign tourist might not visit a “hot spot” like Toledo, Oh, but once, at the reference desk, a young lady with a European accent came up and asked directions to the Toledo Museum of Art. She was a native of the Czech Republic, taking a random bus tour (!) around the US, and heard we had a great art museum (which is correct), and got off the bus in Toledo to see it. In fact, I have a friend who spent several years on the east coast who was astonished at how many great exhibits were only available in New York, the west coast and…Toledo.
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Connie said on July 11, 2012 at 7:26 am
Dexter over the last ten years the phone company showed up unannounced at every one of my branch libraries to the pull the payphone. At least one of them was busy enough to still be making money. All gone. Libraries always could point to a pay phone or two within walking distance. Not any more.
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alex said on July 11, 2012 at 7:38 am
Toledo and Cleveland both have world-class art museums. It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to visit either but they are among my all-time faves, and I’ve seen many. And speaking of foreigners and American museums, I recall taking a visiting relative from Switzerland to the Art Institute of Chicago and she was flabbergasted. She didn’t expect to see a museum in the U.S. of the same caliber as the greatest in Europe. Over there they think we’re really stupid and uncultured and if they’re following our politics I can understand why.
My partner is in Toronto on business this week instructing a bunch of unionized Canadian workers in the assembly of an American product. He tells me they’re all passionately pro-Obama and fear what will happen to their economy if the Republicans are in charge of things over here. He’s impressed that they’re so much more well-informed than their blue-collar counterparts in the U.S. Of course, they have much stricter laws about truth in media.
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Kaye said on July 11, 2012 at 9:28 am
Pay phones: On a recent visit I was surprised to notice a bank of eight to ten pay phones lining the wall at the Air and Space Museum Dulles location. They were not part of an exhibit though I guess you could say they were replicating a back-in-the-day airport hallway.
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Scout said on July 11, 2012 at 9:40 am
The Grand Canyon is one of the saving graces of Arizona. I love going up there in the winter. It is the most beautiful just after a fresh snow. My absolute favorite place in the state, however, is Sedona. It is picturesque, mystical and always 10 degrees cooler than Phoenix. We’d like to retire there, despite its being over run with tourists.Z
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Deborah said on July 11, 2012 at 9:50 am
Across the street from the Toledo art museum is a fabulous glass museum. The buiilding was designed by the Japanese team known as SAANA. The curving glass walls are amazing. Worth a visit to Toledo all on its own.
My spelling is even worse at 3 in the AM, that’s genius not genious.
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MichaelG said on July 11, 2012 at 10:28 am
I think we’ve all had the experience of visiting some famous place and finding it underwhelming and smaller than expected. My experience on first seeing the Grand Canyon was the opposite. It was far bigger, vaster than I could have imagined. I’ve also had the good fortune to fly over it several times. It’s just as majestic from 37,000 feet.
I used to think that Northern California was God’s country. Over the last thirty years I’ve done enough traveling and been to enough places to appreciate that there is beauty all over. Places aren’t better, they’re just different. Every spot has its devotees.
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Kirk said on July 11, 2012 at 10:30 am
Scout, haven’t been to the Grand Canyon, but must agree on Sedona and the nearby Oak Creek Canyon and red rocks. There’s something weird about Sedona; things definitely feel different there.
And I, too, am intrigued by the hastening extinction of my breed as a no-cellphoner. I don’t deny cellphones’ utility and, as a result, I probably will eventually get one — someday.
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brian stouder said on July 11, 2012 at 11:04 am
So – big bonfire near Ohio State in Columbus… (lots of photos)
http://www.chem.info/News/2012/07/Safety-Freight-Train-Derails-Causing-Fiery-Blast/?et_cid=2741717&et_rid=44004269&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.chem.info%2fNews%2f2012%2f07%2fSafety-Freight-Train-Derails-Causing-Fiery-Blast%2f
an excerpt
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Part of a freight train carrying ethanol derailed and caught fire in Ohio’s capital city early Wednesday, shooting flames skyward into the darkness and prompting the evacuation of a mile-wide area as firefighters and hazardous materials crews monitored the blaze.
And
Photographer Chris Mumma said he was more than 10 miles away in New Albany when he saw the night sky brightened by a “huge illumination” that he later learned was an explosion. He said he went to the scene to take photos and saw punctures on top of the train that were spewing flames 20 to 30 feet high. He also noticed an odd odor. “I noticed there was a chemical smell, and I was inhaling it so I backed up a little bit more because I wasn’t sure what I was getting involved with,” he said. Mumma said it made him so nauseous that he ended up at the hospital.
(Hopefully, he’s still on his parents’ health insurance plan…)
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Kirk said on July 11, 2012 at 11:20 am
Inferno actually near the Ohio State Fairgrounds, not so near the education factory.
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 11:28 am
That ain’t just smokestack lightning, Brian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd78tpJuE-8
I’m thinking ethanol would burn off very quickly.
“Honus Wagner”. That’s pronounced HONN-us, but even Brian Williams said HOE-nuss
Dexter, there are still people as knowledgeable as Mike Wilbon who think Brit tennis is played at Wimble-ton.
A bad chemical odor from the direction of OSU? That’s just the brimstone stench from Urban Meyer.
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 11:40 am
Bad chemical odor from the direction of OSU? That’s just the normal brimstone aroma from Urban Meyer.
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brian stouder said on July 11, 2012 at 11:57 am
Well, hell, Pros; then Penn State should be one great big EPA Superfund site…
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Brian, I didn’t mean to denigrate Big Farm U, just the Oversigner General they hired to coach football.
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Sherri said on July 11, 2012 at 12:41 pm
I think the Big Ten+-2 actually sets more limits on oversigning than the pro league known as the SEC, but I don’t think they have any restrictions on the number of players arrested per year, so Meyer should still be fine.
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Sherri,
No teams in the SEC oversign except Auburn, Bama, FLA and LSU. UGA at the moment has 71 of a total of 85 scholarship players allowed by the NCAA. And Cam Newton played pro at Auburn, but the worst thing UGA has been nabbed for is AJ Green selling a bowl game jersey for a$grand that his mom and daad needed. Sat out four games, while the OSU tattoo bandits wre allowed to play all year and in their bowl game. Historically, this goes back to when UGA was one of the schools that sued successfully to break with the NCAA to sign TV contracts. And Urban Meyer and Saban are clearly the worst and most successful oversigning abusers, Sherri. They have it down to science.
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Sherri:
Oversigning:
http://oversigning.com/testing/index.php/recruiting-numbers/
Tennessee bdoesn’t do it. Neither does UGA.
And if the Big 10-1/2 enforces its rules, it will crimp Meyer’s style.
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Dexter said on July 11, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Big Farm U. That’s rich! A few years ago a kid from a farm just an hour north of Columbus was recruited for his hometown team. The Dispatch ran a story on how difficult it was for this hayseed to fit in with all the big-city young men on the OSU football team. So much for local flavor.
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Pretty cool Lolo Jones video:
http://www.bpusathletes.com/meet-the-athletes/lolo/lolo-hello#p=lolo-how-the-little-things-add-up?utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=content%2Blink&utm_content=What%2BFuels%2BMe&utm_campaign=Lolo
Nancy Grace, the harpy with snakes for hair, has struck again:
http://www.examiner.com/article/did-nancy-grace-s-words-kill-vodka-mom-fans-irate-at-hln-anchor
JJ Hunsecker had nothing on this bitch.
And pardon my language, but this harridan is wasted carbon chains, who lied her ass off about her life story to get where she is.
Dexter, they probably meant a white kid that didn’t get Soulja Boy.
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Sherri said on July 11, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Sorry, Pros, didn’t mean to dis your alma mater. There’s the pro division and the other division in the SEC, and you’re right, UGA isn’t in the pro division. Tennessee wanted to be in the pro division, which was the sole reason for hiring Lane Kiffin, but that didn’t work out too well.
I believe Meyer did lead the SEC in players arrested on his teams, though, one being Cam Newton, of course.
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Deborah said on July 11, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Have you heard about the Romney Venn diagram flap? His campaign created a completely wrong diagram, it makes no sense http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/03/mitt-romney-venn-diagram-health-care_n_1647252.html. Of course some folks have made a parody website: http://mittvennandnow.tumblr.com/page/2. I love the internet.
ps. iPhone home button fixed at the genius bar during my lunch hour.
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MarkH said on July 11, 2012 at 2:43 pm
You insult the great JJ Hunsecker with that comparison, Pros.
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MarkH said on July 11, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Romney’s going to be here tomorrow for a big fab confab ($30,000 admittance, please) out at the Cheneys’. I’m going, of course, and will pass along the regards of the citizens at nn.c. Heh Heh.
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 3:27 pm
The story on Cam Newton’s police runin would make for a funny movie scene. He was trapped with a stolen laptop in a dorm room and went out the window running from the cops. Like H.I. McDunnugh running from the trigger-happy 7-11 clerk. Of course, that didn’t stop Auburn from paying Cam’s dad $160 grand. There was smoking gun proof of the payment from boosters through assistant coach Trooper Taylor, but the NCAA said Cam didn’t know about the cash.
Mark H, You have too admit, it’s jarring to see Burt Lancaster playing a character that despicably evil. Legend in his own mind. Like Henry Fonda in Once Upon A Time in the West.
RMoney is more willing to keep repeating thoroughly debunked bullshit than any candidate I can ever remember, aside from $Palin and Bachmann. Mittens, if you try to make an economic point and Krugman says you are making a fool of yourself, have somebody with brains check it out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/mitt-romneys-nonsensical-claim-about-obamacare/2012/06/11/gJQAdGtdVV_blog.html
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Bitter Scribe said on July 11, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Ditto on the Toledo art museum. I visited it more than 15 years ago, on a buisness junket, and it still sticks in my mind.
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MarkH said on July 11, 2012 at 4:57 pm
Jarring, to be sure, Pros, along with Tony Curtis’ sleazy syncophant Sidney Falco. But what a film. Nancy has commented on it here before; it is so dark it is difficult to view, yet you can’t take your eyes off it. And word is that Fonda relished doing that outlaw role, it was so against his type.
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 4:59 pm
My favorite art museum other than MoMA is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The Gardner has an astounding armor collection. It was also once the victim of the biggest art theft in US history (don’t know if it’s been surpassed): two Rembrandts and a Vermeer, a bunch of Degas sketches, and a Manet:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2018649616_apusbaseballcarddiscovery.html
Cops are still trying to retrieve the artwork. The thieves were dressed as Boston PD (maybe they were cops, it wouldn’t surprise anybody that ever lived in Boston).
Another Obama achievement people don’t give any thought to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-got-off-to-a-good-start-in-its-inaugural-year/2012/07/10/gJQAN3TNbW_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads
All the people that belittle the Administration’s accomplishments just ignore stutff like this. And the progressiver than thou that claim Obama’s beholden to the banks should consider the fierce fight banksters put up against Elizabeth Warren and the CFPB. And I’d personally rather have Warren in the Senate than running a bureaucratic entity.
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 5:51 pm
Not to glorify violence, but the next time RMoney or Boner or any other mendacious GOPer uses the term “job creator”, Maxwell Edison should sneak up behind them and whack ’em with his silver hammer.
http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/paris-hilton-is-not-a-job-creator/
And taking time in the House of Representatives to vote to repeal ACA is a certain manifestation of the obsessive compulsive (knee-jerk) aspect of Obama Derangement Syndrome on the part of GOPers:
http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/paris-hilton-is-not-a-job-creator/
When they aren’t more concerned with golf, and they’re on the clock for this idiotic horseshit.
Mark, that Tony Curtis role wasn’t a far cry from Ensign Pulver, except that one is a fundamentally sleazy bastard and the other is a lovable scoundrel.
And the introduction on-screen of Fonda’s character in Once Upon a Time is absolutely riveting. Sttely blue eyes in weathered saddle leather tanned face, closeup. Looks like Tom Joad in Technicolor and then he commits mayhem.
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Jolene said on July 11, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Fabulous pictures of clouds and storms over Nebraska at The Atlantic. Really gorgeous.
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 7:12 pm
I know some of y’all think it’s overboard when I talk about disenfranchising some voters for their utter stupidity. I say, impractical, sure, but not over the top and we’d be better for it.
Noow with the GOPers obfuscating on Obama’s proposal re: extending tax cuts, I will say that any politician that exploits voters to stupid to understand the idea of marginal tax rates should be precluded from holding office, and anybody taken in by thesse charlatans should not get to vote:
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/small_business/2012/07/small_business_tax_myths_most_firms_are_not_affected_by_obama_tax_proposals_.html.
Of course GOPers are doubling down on this by dragging in thtired-ass claim that small business “job creators” would be kept fromm their job creation functions. What they mean by small budnesses in this case are cosmetic surgery LLCs, white shoe law firms and hedge fund management outfits. What jobs any of those phony “small business” tax leaches are going to create is a mystery to anybody sentient. And the ignorance about how US marginal tax brackets work is surely a deliberat fiction being foisted on American idiots by sly GOPers.
The way U.S. income tax brackets work is that taxes are levied on marginal income. In other words, the rate applied to income earned over the $250,000 threshold is irrelevant to the first $250,000 worth of taxable income. If you have $250,010 of taxable earnings then only that last $10 is taxed at the higher rate. In all cases, higher pre-tax earnings lead to higher after-tax income.
Well, no fracking duh. These people will say any ridiculous thing and their ignorant minions will lap it up like Mitch Daniels sucking on Kochs. It’s infuriating. Like this shit from our idot SC goobernor, Nicki “Appalachian Trail” Haley:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/07/10/nikki-haley-calls-battered-and-raped-women-distractions-vetoes-legislation/?subscribe=success#blog_subscription-2
Those are great Jolene. I grabbed the no. 8 with the deep blue clouds for the desktop.
With shit all over the intertubes defending RMoneys foreign bank accounts and refusal to make tax returns public, I’ left with a single question. What would the GOPers have done with similar situations involving Kerry or Gore. Long knives, mofos. Not a doubt in the world.
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Deborah said on July 11, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Gorgeous storm images Jolene, I love to watch Midwestern storms roll in as long as they’re not violent ones. They are beautiful though.
LittleBird told me it hailed today in Santa Fe. Thankfully they’ve been getting rain every day which is unusual this early in July. The monsoon season usually doesn’t start till later in the month. She says it is keeping things quite cool.
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jcburns said on July 11, 2012 at 10:08 pm
Sounds like the Columbus rail explosion/fire was too close to the enormous plaster Cardinal at the Ohio State fairgrounds for comfort. If that had been damaged, my faith in the state of my birth would be, well, soaked in ethanol and set ablaze.
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Prospero said on July 11, 2012 at 11:09 pm
jc, The Cardinal is the state bird of West Virginia. I remember this from some sort of gas station promotional highball glass from when I was a little kid living in Appalachia, on the banks of the Tug River. Unless you’re talking about a statue of Tom Tryon in ecclesiastical gear.
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LAMary said on July 12, 2012 at 12:17 am
I love the cloud photos. Number 21 looks like some beautiful Italian painting.
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jcburns said on July 12, 2012 at 1:05 am
The Cardinal is the state bird of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. The Robin is the state bird of Connecticut, Michigan and Wisconsin. In Georgia, we have the Brown Thrasher, although our NHL team, named for the bird, has left town. But really, Ohio and it’s enormous state fair cardinal is all that matters.
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Kaye said on July 12, 2012 at 1:23 am
No worries JC, the Cardinal is safely located on the north end of the fairground; the train crash was south of the Ohio gate.
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Jolene said on July 12, 2012 at 7:25 am
A follow-up to our stories of visiting the Grand Canyon: The Park Service has been trying to reduce noise from planes traveling over the canyon, but they got beat in the writing of the new transportation bill. There are restrictions, just not as tight as the Park Service wanted. Anyone know how much of a problem noise from sightseeing planes is?
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Kirk said on July 12, 2012 at 9:20 am
The monster cardinal’s eyes watered and it coughed a little, but it’s largely used to huffing ethanol, so no worries.
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alex said on July 12, 2012 at 10:03 am
Excuse me, but the state bird of Indiana is the mosquito.
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Charlotte said on July 12, 2012 at 10:49 am
Okay all you Michigan people — it seems Romney’s father was actually something of a civil rights advocate? Is this true? Could this have contributed to the solid Boo he got from the NAACP yesterday? As in — boo, you know better you weasel? As in — boo, you’re shaming the legacy of your father?
Of course, no one is reporting any of this … but my sweetheart and I were discussing it last night while waiting for a breeze, any breeze …. (also, had our first local fire — no houses burned, but terrifying grass fire flames 20 feet high on a ridgeline above the Yellowstone. And months to go ….)
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brian stouder said on July 12, 2012 at 11:30 am
I think the “boo” he got was as much for his (intentional) spitball use of the freighted term “Obama-care” in front of that audience, as for any defense of the particulars of the Affordable Healthcare Act, itself.
His reference to the boos he got later that same day, in front of different crowd, tells the tale.
It’s not too much to think that he actually wanted to get booed, and therefore succeeded in his mission before the NAACP. Rush and Sean and the other flying monkeys of the right-wing air-waves will be satisfied, for a few days
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Kirk said on July 12, 2012 at 11:37 am
Michigan Gov. George Romney was, in fact, a somewhat liberal Republican who favored civil-rights legislation, opposed the Vietnam War, etc. In fact, numerous media have written about him and his presidential aspirations in the ’60s, comparing and contrasting them with those of his son.
Brian is right about the source of the boos. I doubt that many in the crowd at the NAACP convention (or anywhere else in 2012, for that matter) remembers much about George Romney.
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Connie said on July 12, 2012 at 12:31 pm
As a kid growing up in Michigan I remember Romney as being well thought of and well liked. As Prez of AMC he was asked to chair what was considered to be a very successful state constitution revision and I think that made his reputation, though the only thing I could really tell you about it was that it got rid of justices of the peace.
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Prospero said on July 12, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Actually, Charlotte, I have it from an unimpeachable source, RMoney was booed at the NAACP conference because of his glaring lack of melanin:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/07/11/booed/
And because “those people” just don’t have the wherewithal to understand what WonderBread was telling them.
And here’s another GOPer who’s not a doctor giving medical advice:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/07/10/if-you-have-a-brain-tumor-gop-rep-david-dreier-thinks-you-should-die/
Another hemorrhoidal horse’s ass.
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beb said on July 12, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Boston Globe caught lying about who originated stories about Romney’s continued association with Bain after 1999 (when Romney claims he left the company.)
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/07/ummm_yeah_what_about_that.php?ref=fpblg
Print media is always complaining about blogs stealing their content but aren’t willing to acknowledge when blogs do real reporting.
Louis Freesh has issued his report inverstigating the Sandusky child abuse scandal. It points the finger at Messrs. Spanier, Curley, Schulz and Mr. Paterno. for covering up Sandusky’s 1998 child abuse investigation, and failing to do anything in 2001 when McCreary reported continued child abuse. They had hoped to avoid the hint of scandal, they only succeeded in making it worse.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf–freeh-report-penn-state-key-findings-joe-paterno-jerry-sandusky-.html
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coozledad said on July 12, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Well, it’s far from the first time the Republicans have tried to shoehorn a felon into office. Mitt ought to pick Rick Scott as his
cellrunning mate.http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/12/obama-campaign-severe-consequences-if-romney-committed-felony-with-bain-lies/
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alex said on July 12, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Well the gubmint just ripped me a new gash—in the form of a twelve-foot deep two-hundred-foot long trench to a new sanitary sewer. It’s painful watching my yard be destroyed. My digital camera has gone missing, which doesn’t brighten the mood any. And now I have to pay to poop.
I only had a rough idea of where the septic tank was and no idea that it was so huge. No wonder it never needed to be pumped. It’s a giant concrete thing with enough room in it to hold another sixty years’ worth of waste. Obviously still doing its job. Whereas now, if there’s some malfunction in the public sewer system it could cause shit to back up into my house. Such progress.
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Prospero said on July 12, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Goober-nor Brewski, a gift that just keeps on giving:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/07/11/brewer/
This sort of kneejerk anti-gay prejudice makes me wonder about the idea that people like this are insecure in their own sexual identity, although the term “sexual identity” in connection with this jerk makes me really queasy, like remembering the time that Shelley Winters was staying at the HoJo motel where I worked in college and ran out of her slider naked in the middle of the day, drunk as hell, and cannonballed into the pool. I think cannonball was the only way Ms. Winters could enter a swimming pool in her condition at that time. I was appointed to fish her out, and damn, that was probably my most unpleasant work experience ever.
And RMoney’s experience at the NAACP could have been worse, but he brought shills:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/07/12/romney-campaign-may-have-secretly-deployed-plants-at-naacp-event/
And Mittens committed several felonies when he did his Statie act to detain young women, including kidnapping, for which there is no statute of limitations.
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brian stouder said on July 12, 2012 at 2:17 pm
Cooz – that was an interesting article. Forget jujitsu, when we have an unlimited supply of Romney shit-stew like this
The Mitt Romney campaign is pushing back against today’s Boston Globe report which found that, according to SEC filings, Romney served as CEO at Bain Capital until 2002, despite saying that he left in 1999. “The article is not accurate,” Romney press secretary Andrea Saul said in a statement. “As Bain Capital has said, as Governor Romney has said, and as has been confirmed by independent fact checkers multiple times, Governor Romney left Bain Capital in February of 1999 to run the Olympics and had no input on investments or management of companies after that point.”
And yet, the Romney defense is that the SEC filings are accurate; so that whatever Bain did during that time-period (such as throwing people out of work, and so on) is rightly ascribable to a company he owned and controlled.
At the end of this argument, the only two possibilities are either:
a) Bain did terrible things, but Romney is blameless because it wasn’t his company – and Romney perjured himself on SEC disclosure forms
Or
b) Bain did terrible things, and Romney owned and controlled and profited from Bain, as he affirmed on SEC disclosure forms.
Up to this point I’ve assumed Romney is smarter than he looked during his party’s primary process, but it looks like I was wrong all along.
PS – Alex, I will always, always (always!) insist on living where there is city water and city sewer.
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alex said on July 12, 2012 at 3:12 pm
About spit my drink on the screen when I saw the latest headline at the huffpost: BAIN FART
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LAMary said on July 12, 2012 at 3:27 pm
The skunk is the state bird of my neighborhood. Just ask my children. There’s a story behind this but I haven’t the time right now to tell it.
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Prospero said on July 12, 2012 at 3:42 pm
A fascinating opinion piece by Froma Harrop about the hypocrisy of GOPer anti-regulation rhetoric. The defensive comments are hilarious:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2018663808_harrop12.html
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Prospero said on July 12, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Oompa Loompa Boehner pantsed by the great Ann Telnaes:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/telnaes
Insanely bad Eurotrashpop cover of Lou Christie:
http://obituarytypo.blogspot.com/2012/07/klaus-nomi-lightning-strikes-1982.html
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brian stouder said on July 12, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Mary – I hereby officially (and humbly) request the skunk story, when you have the time to tell it. Pros – followed your link and laughed out loud…but THEN I saw this link –
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/collegesports/2018664379_paterno12.html?prmid=obinsite
and it made me angry. Joe Paterno had the distinct advantage and great good luck to die when he did*, but didn’t have enough sense to shut the hell up while he was at it.
A Joe-pa letter from beyond the grave has surfaced, and more is the pity.
An excerpt from the news article, with emphasis added by me:
“Over and over again, I have heard Penn State officials decrying the influence of football and have heard such ignorant comments like Penn State will no longer be a ‘football factory’ and we are going to ‘start’ focusing on integrity in athletics,” Paterno wrote. “These statements are simply unsupported by the five decades of evidence to the contrary — and succeed only in unfairly besmirching both a great university and the players and alumni of the football program who have given of themselves to help make it great.” Paterno also wrote, “This is not a football scandal and should not be treated as one.”
True enough, it is NOT “a football scandal”; and those decrying “Penn state officials” would agree – it was much more.
To hell with Joe, if he’s not already there.
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Prospero said on July 12, 2012 at 4:55 pm
You know how GOPers love that “Obama wasn’t vetted properly” meme? How we ended up with a Kenyan Manchurian Socialist anti-colonial candidate out to destroy the USA? How did GOPers miss the facts on RMoney and Bain? Will Sheldon Adelson get his money back from Willard to ship to Netanyahu when Windsock is indicted for lying to the Feds. In the grand scheme of SEC violations, Rmoney seems like a far more serious malfeasor than was Martha Stewart, whos chief offense was contributing money to Emily’s List whn GOPers expected her to be a “loyal Bushie”:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/did-republicans-forget-to-vet-romney/2012/07/12/gJQAXrb4fW_blog.html
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Catherine said on July 12, 2012 at 5:30 pm
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2012/07/12/nike-taking-paterno-name-off-child-care-center/SwAEd0nDBg7TnPqLyIUlEP/story.html
About FREAKING time.
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Sherri said on July 12, 2012 at 6:06 pm
The Paterno family should stop trying to spin this; they just look bad. Jay Paterno is saying that the Freeh report contained “no new facts,” just “some new interpretations of things.”
But they’ve lost Sally Jenkins. She got a deathbed interview with Joe Paterno, and wrote a pretty credulous column about it. Now she realizes she was lied to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/2012/07/12/gJQAMUX9fW_story.html
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Sherri said on July 12, 2012 at 6:10 pm
Dan Wetzel’s column at Yahoo Sports gets to the heart of the Paterno mess. Key thought:
Joe Paterno was a great influence on men who were already likely to live great lives, men who could help him win football games.
He was a failure to those Second Mile boys who had no such talents, no such opportunity, no parade of recruiters looking to offer them scholarships. He turned his back on the very kids that were desperate for the kind of hero that Joe Paterno’s former legacy claimed he was all about.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf–joe-paterno-blame-freeh-report-jerry-sandusky-penn-state-tarnished-legacy.html
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Prospero said on July 12, 2012 at 7:47 pm
Which part of this article is unclear?
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/07/12/government_documents_indicate_mitt_romney_continued_at_bain_after_date_when_he_says_he_left/?p1=News_links
RMoney’s campaign is claiming the SEC has made an error, but the documents on which the reporting is based were prepared and submitted by Willard’s attorneys or Windsock himself.
What RMoney wants to keep hidden:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/12/515555/the-bain-job-losses-mitt-romney-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about/
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del said on July 12, 2012 at 8:51 pm
Good finds Sherri on the Paterno affair.
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Jolene said on July 12, 2012 at 9:04 pm
I feel bad for all the people at Penn State who had nothing to do w/ this scandal. The cost to the university in civil suit claims and lost revenue of many kinds will be substantial, and the hit to the university’s reputation will be incalculable. Having spent most of my life in a university culture, I know how important it can be to individuals to be able to say the name of your school at, say, a professional meeting and have people react in a way that lets you know that they know you are at a good school. It’s going to be a long time before anyone can say with pride that they are from Penn State.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 12, 2012 at 9:29 pm
Jolene, it’s not the planes, it’s the copters. They’re not horrible, but if you’re here for the pristine experience . . .well, you wouldn’t be on the porch of the North Rim general store checking e-mail. So I’m not the ideal judge. They mainly buzz low on the outlying stretches of the canyon, which is also where the hardcore hiker/backpackers go to avoid us tourists, aka anyone who isn’t hardcore. So you hear complaints.
This is apparently France week at North Rim; it’s been great for my soon to be 9th grade son taking French 3 next year. Lots of conversational opportunities. Someone asked why come now: mi esposa and i used to always vacation in May, but since she became an administrator with primary responsibility for commencement, and major roles for alumni weekend first weekend in June, and a child in school, we’re stuck in the heart of the heat. Actually, we’ve missed the heat, either above 8,000 feet or deep in a canyon wading thru still cold snowpack melt, but the surrounding terrain (and Vegas, our in/out location) are spectacularly hot. NPS, especially at Bryce Canyon, is doing a very good job of interpreting global climate change and encouraging conversation about “anthropogenic factors” and how nature adapts, and doesn’t. Park rangers are one of our best uses of federal tax money, IMHO.
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coozledad said on July 12, 2012 at 10:26 pm
They say I’m lyin’ or layin’ low
The SEC says I was CEO
Well I can’t say if all that’s true
Ask my attorneys. Maybe they’ll help you.
BAIN
I’ve got you, Bain.
I’ve got you, Bain.
They say that Bain don’t pay the rent
but ships the sweatshops to the orient
I guess you could argue, we’ve made a pot
ripping off the shitty jobs you got
we’ve got horses
with medical care
we’re fitting Brokaw
with our underwear
And when we’re sad
we start to swing
and threaten to blow
up every damn thing!
So let them say I rile the coons
It’s my party, I own the balloons
And put your little hand in mine
I’ll squeeze it till your blood turns into wine
I’ve got you to hold my place
I’ve got you to give me face
I’ve got you to wash my car
Do you know who I am?!!
I know what you are!
BAIN
You’ve got us, babe.
You’ve got us, babe.
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brian stouder said on July 12, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Excellent stuff, Cooz.
As for me, I’m thinkin’ more of a soulful Eddie Vedder/Pearl Jam cover of Last Kiss, for the Mister Mittster….
From where, oh where, does my money come? China mainly, but who’s to say?
Twelve years ago was an awful long time, so go to hell; We’ll count it all up when I
Leave this world.
We started up a Chinese factory; outsourcin’ jobs – unlike my dad (at AMC); We hadn’t been there very long, before making millions in Guangdong; and then, a decade later, straight ahead – my campaign was stalled, the engine was dead.
Couldn’t win on CNN, so I VEERED to the right. I’ll never forget the sound, those
nights. The screamin’ crowds, Newt’s fat ass; Rick Perry’s “oops” that I heard
Last.
From where, oh where, does my money come? China mainly, but who’s to say?
Twelve years ago was an awful long time, so go to hell; We’ll count it all up when I
Leave this world.
After winning the primary, Bain was pourin’ down. There were Vulture Capitalists pokin’ all around.
Something warm flowing through my eyes; bullshit mostly, but that’s just the hard right.
I called into Rush, he took my call and said; “hold me darling, just a little
while”. I held the phone close, I kissed his ass coast to coast; our last kiss. I found the love that I
knew I had missed.
Well now my campaign’s gone, even though I held the Hard Right tight. I lost my race, my love, and my last shred of dignity that night.
From where, oh where, does my money come? China mainly, but who’s to say?
Twelve years ago was an awful long time, so go to hell; We’ll count it all up when I
Leave this world.
And for a palate cleanser:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0B-hJ_gotc
(oh for the days when filthy rich people were only asked “How much?” rather than “How?”, eh?)
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Dexter said on July 13, 2012 at 2:18 am
If you do not have HBO, you probably haven’t seen last year’s Fran Lebowitz documentary on HBO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwPPmqbzA78&feature=related
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Prospero said on July 13, 2012 at 9:19 am
NPS, especially at Bryce Canyon, is doing a very good job of interpreting global climate change and encouraging conversation about “anthropogenic factors” and how nature adapts, and doesn’t.
Five years ago, those rangers would have been gagged, like the scientists at NOAA, or replaced with “loyal Bushies” like US Attorneys.
How do folks that espouse Teabanger “political philosophy” justify voting for the Outsourcer that parks his cash out of sight in Switzerland and the Caymans to themselves? Takes a monumental and delusional suspension of disbelief, or massive stupidity. Hard to say which.
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Connie said on July 13, 2012 at 9:22 am
Penn state deserves the death penalty and Paterno’s statue should be torn down: http://www.suntimes.com/13733985-761/penn-state-deserves-death-penalty-for-football-prison-for-officials.html
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alex said on July 13, 2012 at 9:40 am
The Fran Liebowitz documentary is wonderful. I have it playing right now. She is funny as hell.
Gwen Ifill weighs in on Romney’s NAACP speech and I think her take is more objective—and spot-on—than any other I’ve seen.
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Prospero said on July 13, 2012 at 10:39 am
http://onlineathens.com/national-news/2012-07-12/senate-defeat-likely-business-tax-cut-bills
How do Senate GOPers explain this one? They’re protecting hedge funds, cosmetic surgery LLCs and white shoe lawfirms from paying taxes? What a despicable crock of shit.
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brian stouder said on July 13, 2012 at 10:47 am
Agreed about the Ifill article; good stuff.
Prospero – check this out…it seems that even the mythically great and virtuous Free Market cannot help but look upon fracking as a not-entirely-good-thing, which just makes some folks mad! Nationwide Insurance has a problem with fracking, and that’s just practically communist of ‘em, and stooped, too!
http://www.chem.info/News/2012/07/Safety-US-Insurer-Wont-Cover-Gas-Drill-Fracking-Exposure/?et_cid=2745764&et_rid=44004269&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.chem.info%2fNews%2f2012%2f07%2fSafety-US-Insurer-Wont-Cover-Gas-Drill-Fracking-Exposure%2f
A funny excerpt:
“But practical implications aside, the fact that the company would send out a statement this reckless, and this uninformed, should tell us a lot,” Lomax said in an emailed statement. “For starters, it tells me that I won’t be buying home and car insurance from this company.”
The free market at work, baby!
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Prospero said on July 13, 2012 at 1:40 pm
GOPers think that gold mining, silver mining and uranium mining companies should be exempt from formal environmental review. Most of these companies are Canadian or S. African, and the idea that environmental regulation of operation on federal land for the pittance these bastards pay for mineral rights (like a $buck 2-80 an acre) is going to interfere with employment is absolutely fracking hilarious:
http://www.chem.info/News/2012/07/Environmental-Controls-Republicans-Push-Through-Mining-Deregulation-Bill/
So on reading Ifill, I have to presume Rush was just wrong about booing the white guy. W is just as shiny white as RMoney, and they didn’t boo the Pretzeldent. Funniest thing in that piece is recalling Shrub touting home ownership at tha NAACP. I thought that was all about Barney Frank and the librulls forcing Countrywide and WaMu into making loans to unqualified minority buyers. That’s what the internuts tell me anyway, and Drudge don’t lie, do he?
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Dorothy said on July 13, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Hey friends – have any of you read “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn yet? All I hear is fabulous reviews galore and wondered if anyone here has read it. My sister-in-law recommended a young adult book “Life As We Knew It” and I just picked it up yesterday at the library. I’m finishing up “The House of Tyneford” before I start the next one.
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Deborah said on July 13, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Great Ifill link.
I was going to do my normal three mile round trip walk home for lunch today, started, got two blocks and ended up sitting at the bar of a nearby hotel (the Burnham) having a glass of wine and a salad. Much more civilized than traversing the steamy Chicago streets with the sweaty hordes. But I gotta walk home at the end of the day. Bummer. 91 right now.
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Connie said on July 13, 2012 at 2:37 pm
Dorothy, every library in the country suddenly has hundreds of holds on Gone Girl, including mine. Blame Oprah.
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Sherri said on July 13, 2012 at 2:52 pm
I read “Gone Girl.” It’s interesting, lots of twists, some of which I could see coming and some of which I didn’t. It’s hard to talk much about it without giving away some of the twists, but the two main characters are fascinating. It’s a quick read, clever rather than complex. As I read it, I thought “this is clearly headed to the movies,” and sure enough, the film rights have already been sold.
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Dorothy said on July 13, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Well here in Podunk Town there’s only one person ahead of me so I guess it’ll be in my hands in a week or two, if the reader ahead of me reads it quickly. I had no idea Oprah was smitten – I have seen Gone Girl mentioned in TIME and Entertainment Weekly (I subscribe) – and it’s at the top of the NY Times bestseller list.
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brian stouder said on July 13, 2012 at 3:16 pm
Well, a weekend or two ago, Book-TV was in between interviews and they had a short feature wherein they have an impromptu conversation with this or that author or publisher and ask “What are you reading this summer?” – and I heard a book editor go on and on about “Gone Girl” – so there’s that.
(Speaking of ‘gone girls’, I want the book about Michelle Obama’s family)
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Dorothy said on July 13, 2012 at 3:33 pm
Brian – when I was picking up my book at the library yesterday, right in front they had a display of gardening books, and front and center was the story about the White House vegetable and Michelle Obama’s involvement. I picked it up immediately. I saw the garden in person in early May when I was in D. C. I saw the beehive box (first one ever on the grounds) and took a picture of it with my cell phone, and sent it to my husband back in Ohio. His response? “That was my idea.” (He began beekeeping in May 2011).
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Peter said on July 13, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Deborah – better stay at the Burnham for a while. That’s some storm going through.
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brian stouder said on July 13, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Dorothy, I’ve never been a gardener, at least in the Elmer Fudd sense, but Shelby (the almost-14 year old*) and I have an experiment going.
A few months ago, she somewhat whimsically put a packet of watermelon seeds in the cart at WalMart, so we planted them in a pot, and we soon had seedlings.
There’s a pretty dead corner of our backyard where I&M cut a tree down, and where we’ve had a sandbox (off and on) over the past two decades, so I cheated and bought a bag of Miracle Grow dirt and mixed it into the (very sandy) soil there, and we planted the seedlings (12 of them), and we’ve watered them each day and pulled the never-say-die thistles and weeds every other day or so, and we lost 3 plants to something or another (moles? groundhogs? Bunnies?)
…..and let me tell you – the remaining 8 plants have just absolutely EXPLODED down there!!!
They have sprawled and creeped (and clung to the fence, and anything else they can). If nothing else, we’ve greened up what had been a dead corner.
And the experiment continues…
*14 in 2 weeks
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Prospero said on July 13, 2012 at 3:53 pm
I almost bought Gone Girl from Amazon yesterday, but then I saw that James Lee Burke has a new Dave Robichaux novel out, so I was hooked immediately on that lure. For mystery writing, Walter Mosley and James Lee Burke and (sort of) T. Jefferson Parker are almost instant, reflexive choices for me. I like the Robichaux books, back way back since In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead for the superb nature writing and the theologically-tinged musings the hero is given to, and Walter Mosley, particularly in the Easy Rawlins books, is simply the best writer on race in America since Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin. Creole Belle:
http://www.jamesleeburke.com/bibliography/46.php
Mittens RMoney should read him some Devil in a Blue Dress. Might help him fine tune his spiel as he pursues that elusive perfect 0% of the black vote:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/romney-naacp-booing-if-they-want-more-free
This seems to confirm that Windsock’s intention in going to the NCAA conference was to cement himself with the hardcore racist heart of the Teabangers. Dayum Mittens, that was already a lock, unless you think they find it fishy you were parking gigunda wads of cash where the IRS can’t find them and writing off more for your dancing horse than they get for L’il Bubba Jr. And when he’s talking about “free stuff”, Willard means the same thing every GOPer means: Social Security and Medicare. This latest comment is pure Raygun-worthy racism.
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Prospero said on July 13, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Brian, I seem to remember that sandy soil is salubrious for melons and gourd plants.
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Deborah said on July 13, 2012 at 4:42 pm
OK, I’m hooked. Just read the Look Inside few pages of Gone Girl on Amazon and I want to know what happens. Guess I’m going to have to get the book. The question is hardcopy or ebook? I’m thinking ebook.
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Connie said on July 13, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Hey Brian, 14 in 2 weeks, mine is 25 in 2 weeks.
Watch our for left behind rotten melons, you’ll have a yard full next year before you know what hit you.
One of the few things I miss about living in southern Indiana: melons!
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alex said on July 13, 2012 at 9:37 pm
We’ve learned from trial and error that melons and pumpkins prefer sandier soil, if not a raised bed, and peppers and eggplant likewise. I used to be lucky to get one measly eggplant fruit and this year it’s an embarrassment of riches.
Right now trying to get energized enough to take on the sloppily filled in twelve-foot-deep trench through my yard, which I’m told will need about three months to settle, less if I dump tons of water on it. Years of landscaping ruined. I’m beside myself at the moment.
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DellaDash said on July 14, 2012 at 11:49 am
I’m 54th of 63 holds for ‘Gone Girl’ in Nashville.
Cooz – can hardly believe you’ve got me, babe (sort of) singing out loud this morning
Pros – with you on Mosley and Burke (not Parker)
Dex – thanks for the Fran link…got a taste and am looking forward to taking it all in later
Off to my weekly brain massage (by spanking out traditional west african rythms) in djembe class…
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Scout said on July 14, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Della, how cool you’re a djembe girl! I am just a drum circle hack, but after I turned my 75 y/o Mom to djembe she found classes with an excellent teacher (Tammi Hessen) and is now, 5 years later, a member of a performing troupe. They’re really good, and play at festivals all the time in Central PA. Just last weekend my honey and I visited the Musical Instrument Museum here in Phx where there is a permanent exhibit for Mamady Keita. My Mom has done workshops with him, and also Eubaka Hill. Anyway, have fun drumming, it’s so good for you too!
Oh and I guess I’m late to the party with Girl Gone. Gotta get on the list at my library which is probably months out. Maybe I should just suck it up and buy the Kindle version.
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Deborah said on July 14, 2012 at 12:52 pm
I’m making gazpacho today after walking away from the green market with more tomatoes than I know what to do with. Looking for recipes. Anyone out there got any good ones?
Also got a cantaloupe that smells delicious, peaches, onions, basil and beets. What in the world am I going to do with all of this? I think I will be feeding my husband’s interns. College kids will go through it fast.
Edit: I’ve never made gazpacho before but my husband loves it and one of his interns is from Spain.
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Linda said on July 14, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Happy Bastille Day, everybody!
And Deborah, here’s something you can do with the tomatoes: make tomato jam, via the New York Times recipe. It’s good on red meat, or even bagels. My sister’s family is addicted.
Also, eating 1st tomatoes out of the garden. Arkansas Traveler has performed beautifully in the heat. It should be the official tomato of climate change.
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Sherri said on July 14, 2012 at 1:39 pm
When Paterno was subpoenaed to testify in the Sandusky grand jury in January 2011, he immediately went and reworked his contract with Penn State to assure a generous golden parachute if he left after the 2011 season. His contract was set to run through 2012. The full board of trustees didn’t find out about the new contract until they fired him. After his death, the family asked for even more.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/sports/ncaafootball/joe-paterno-got-richer-contract-amid-jerry-sandusky-inquiry.html
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coozledad said on July 14, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Della: I should have waited until the beltway press demonstrated how deeply they were willing to inhale the Romjock. This Kessler guy is the new Adam Nagourney: no Republican’s nuts are too filthy for that long, loving tongue bath.
What next? Will the Wapo run a story with one of these headlines?
Romney: I was only Giving orders.
Even Democrats say Romney a patsy: Bain’s management conducted from grassy knoll.
Who was in charge? “It’s one of life’s mysteries”, says Bain’s sole shareholder.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/07/is-this-the-silliest-thing-glenn-kessler-of-the-washington-post-has-ever-written.html
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Prospero said on July 14, 2012 at 2:05 pm
When I have an embarrassment of tomato riches and there’s no GOP rally to wing them at, I just chop ’em in 1/4s, toss in a plastic bag with olive oil, roast ’em with peppers, onions, garlic and basil for about an hour, and reduce the whole thing to sauce in the food processor. Fine base for pasta sauce, soup or chile. No need to peel either.
I’m not surprised by any news about Paterno. Always thought he looked like a mafioso. Course had he actually been, Sandusky would have slept with the fishes long ago. Also despised him from a football standpoint from back in the day when he whined about not getting the same respect as, say, ‘Bama or Nebraska, and scheduling Temple, Rutgers and Lehigh every year. I always thought Paterno was a charlatan, and now it seems my opinion is verified. The idea that this could have happened in other bigtime fb programs is a stretch though. Barry Switzer, maybe, but I can’t think of anyone else. Maybe Bobby Petrino. But other coaches that are the scum of the earth as far as personal behavior and things like recruiting, I can’t really see it. Although, if somebody pointed a finger at Steve Spurrier as a molester, I’d probably believe it. Kentucky hoops when Pitino was coach? Maybe, but no responsible adult would let Slick Rick anywhere near kids.
I just read an article suggested by my old fart buds at AARP, and Ecuador looks even more attractive than Mexico, if Willard Windsock gets elected:
http://www.aarp.org/money/budgeting-saving/info-04-2012/affordable-retirement-abroad-ask-sid.html
New Zealand looks good too.
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Danny said on July 14, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Della: I should have waited until the beltway press demonstrated how deeply they were willing to inhale the Romjock. This Kessler guy is the new Adam Nagourney: no Republican’s nuts are too filthy for that long, loving tongue bath.
After all of the loving, thrill-up-the-leg, lapdog-press treatment that President Obama has gotten over the last 4.5 years I have to wonder, Cooze: could you type the above with a straight face … or perhaps one-handed? Incroyable…
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coozledad said on July 14, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Danny: Reagan ass dead. Beastly.
And as far as the press’s treatment of Bams, the killer of “The guy George Bush forgot”, let’s just say, to put it mildly, they took a page from Lee Atwater:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.
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Scout said on July 14, 2012 at 3:10 pm
You gotta be shittin’ us, Danny.
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MichaelG said on July 14, 2012 at 3:17 pm
Deborah, a dash of vodka in each bowl of gazpacho is nice. Just a dash, as in “boop, that’s enough”, not a shot.
My Ex used to make a super tomato jam. I never paid attention to the recipe. No sense in it since I wasn’t going to compete with her.
Never been much of a Mosley fan but I am a charter member of the James Lee Burke fan club. He’s simply great.
I also like T. J. Parker a bunch. His Orange County novels are his best, better than Charlie Hood. Somehow they evoke the OC atmosphere of eucalyptus, citrus, ocean and city along with the geographic and human diversity of the place. He really brings Little Saigon to life. When I read them, I’m there. He creates excellent female characters. See Mercy Rayborn.
And please don’t forget the great John Sandford and the equally great Michael Connelly. Both also have some excellent female characters as in Sandford’s Marci whatshername. From Connelly we have Harry Bosch’s ex-wife Elinore along with Rachel Walling, his sometime FBI lover.
It was in the hundreds for a few days mid-week. It was eighty yesterday and will be in the eighties today. Nice.
I had to go up I-80 to Truckee to visit a site on Wed. On the way back I had lunch at a place in Colfax. It was about 1:00.
Around 3:00 or 4:00 a fire broke out in the canyons east of I-80 and Colfax. As of now it’s a big, scary thing that they are trying to keep from breaking loose to the west. That would be a catastrophe. Fingers and toes are crossed. Colfax is just above Auburn.
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coozledad said on July 14, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Good work here. Fuck little suckups like Ed Rendell.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/new-obama-ad-bashes-romneys-jobs-record?ref=fpblg
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alex said on July 14, 2012 at 4:12 pm
And let me guess—Obama’s getting the lapdog treatment from that “fair and balanced” news outlet whose watchers keep insisting he’s a muslim with a fake birth certificate?
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Linda said on July 14, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Danny, by tongue bath coverage by Obama, do you mean like this Pew report? http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/barack_obama_0
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Danny said on July 14, 2012 at 4:56 pm
Umm, if you guys can’t see it for what it is, I really can’t help you. And “tongue bath” was cooze’s comment, not mine.
You all have a pleasant weekend.
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coozledad said on July 14, 2012 at 5:11 pm
You got to keep in mind it’s a rough weekend for them. They all finally decided that it was OK to hop in the sack with old magic pants about the time he proved to be a felon, and a whiny ass loser to boot.
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Deborah said on July 14, 2012 at 5:44 pm
Made gazpacho with the food processor, fresh tomatoes, green, red and yellow peppers, onion and parsley, a little garlic. Pretty good.
Last night we watched the DVD of the Japanes anime, Spirited Away. Quite good.
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Prospero said on July 14, 2012 at 5:55 pm
We put a dash of anejo tequila (or mescal if we have it) in gazpacho, having had it this way years ago at the Lunt Marble Club in Phoenix. James Lee Burke and Walter Mosley both write strong female characters, I think. I like the T. Jeff novels I’ve read, because a lot of the characters make me think of people I used to know in the ’60s and 70s in a Where are they now? manner. As for Mosley, Raymond “Mouse” Alexander (Don Cheadle in the movie) is as great a character as I’ve come across in detective fiction and Daphne Monet (played to the hilt by Jennifer Beals on film) is a fabulous femme fatale.
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MichaelG said on July 14, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Thing about the vodka is that it’s very subtle. I like the idea of tequila. I’ll have to try that.
Sounds like I should maybe give Mosely another read.
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Prospero said on July 14, 2012 at 6:55 pm
Big brave men with guns. The NRA wants to wield their First Amendment free speech rights in the form of piles of $cash$, with the Roberts Scalito imprimatur. But ask them to identify themselves, and they’re afflicted suddenly with bashful bladders:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/07/13/516229/exclusive-nra-threatens-senators-who-support-campaign-finance-disclosure/
Buck up you heroes. Don’ come on so chickenshit.So the gun is not quite as big as you pretend. Size isn’t everything, cash is. Those socialist union nancies have been naming their names for years. Guess the NRA is a little lighter in the jockstrap. Like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzRIKEGcVlI&feature=related
I remember you in Hemlock Road In nineteen fifty-six
You’re a faggy little leather boy With a smaller piece of stick
You’re a lashing, smashing hunk of man
Your sweat shines sweet and strong
Your organs working perfectly
But there’s a part that’s not screwed on
Weren’t you at the Coke convention
Back in nineteen sixty-five
You’re the misbred, gray executive I’ve seen heavily advertised
You’re the great, gray man whose daughter licks
Policemen’s buttons clean
You’re the man who squats behind the man
Who works the soft machine
Somehow Jagger saw these mofos coming way back 42 years ago.
The other great character in Devil in a Blue Dress is the malignant DeWitt Albright, equal-opportunity thug, played to the malevolent hilt in the movie by Tom Sizemore, who I think may have been typecast according to his real-life personality and behavior.
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DellaDash said on July 14, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Fist bump (along with a slap tone tone base tone tone slap) to ‘me djembe sistren’, Scout and Scout’s Mom.
My local treasure of an instructor (big up Shannon Holland) studied mainly with Mamady Keita, as well as with Famoudou Konate, Babatunde Olantunje, Ladje Kamara, and Alli Sylla. Bolokada Conde from Guinea was just here a few days ago to give a workshop, although I didn’t take it.
If a drum circle is running hot, I’ll be dancing, not playing. Am not disciplined or committed enough to perform. What I do aspire to is that rare million-dollar smile from Shannon when he hears me getting an intricate riddem right…then the thrill of jammin at speed, especially when it’s crazy-fast.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 15, 2012 at 12:47 am
Danny, comment on tomato jam. Like, dislike, either way you’ll get some interesting feedback. And I’m coming to really enjoy drumming at powwows.
Asked at Goulding’s Trading Post & Lodge by Monument Valley, and they said (paraphrased) “Sure, you hear all this German and French now: they take July & August vacations. But 50% of our total tourist traffic here is Japanese — they come all year, rich & poor alike. They’re obsessed with John Wayne & John Ford and the West. But you get well-to-do Germans & French during their vacation season, who all are horrified that we can’t serve any alcohol with dinner (they’re on the Big Rez, no beer or wine sales).”
I’ve gotten to enjoy some increasing ability to mangle my way through courtesy conversations with a number of German families, who all lie wonderfully at how good meine Deutsche ist. Had our picture taken (and in turn) by a Croatian/French couple, and a busload of Italians at Spider Rock were a stitch — “Cosi, cosi” as they hand me their cameras and pose in pairs. Ciao & bon-journo are all I have in their language (me and Kevin Kline in “Wanda”), but we were all fluent in grandiose hand & arm motions. Then they showed up at our hotel in Kayenta tonight, and all around the pool took a stab at “Le Marseilles” (sp?) in honor of three giggling French teens for Bastille Day.
Now it’s just plain cold — ah, the desert. Tomorrow night, Las Vegas at arm’s length, then home the next dawn.
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Dexter said on July 15, 2012 at 3:11 am
Kain-Tuck…this is how they dooze it:
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/13/12724836-kentucky-couple-trades-pickup-truck-for-baby-police-say
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coozledad said on July 15, 2012 at 9:54 am
For Glen Kessler and others at The Gloaming of Caucasia Daily with apologies to Stevie Smith, who was much funnier and brighter than that old racist Larkin.
Our Dood is Mitt, our Dood is Mitt
The Village lowed in unison
But when I asked them why, they froze
Like headlight-frozen venison.
Why do you think your Mitt is dood,
is Mitt dood in deed and essence?
“Because Him rich. Because Him food. ”
They cooed in yobsolescence.
And then within each porcine eye
the light of rage sprung up.
“You want ours cocktail sausages!
You’ll bash ours sippy cup!”
Then, tell me, human napkin rings
which dood suppose Mitt is?
“Him cheese ball, meat plate, plus free drink
That’s what we think dood is.!”
They pawed their ducts
“Our Mitt is one. And we is one with his.”
But when their eyes were dry again
I had already gone.
They moved, a single torpid mass
to tables on the lawn
“Mitt is dood! And dood is mitt!”
They moaned, the ungulates.
And strands of salivated food descended to their plates.
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Danny said on July 15, 2012 at 11:12 am
Jeff, I cannot comment yay or nay on tomato jam, but me wifey tried it somewhere a few weeks ago and did not like .. yet, our culinary tastes sometimes diverge.
On mangling through courtesy conversations, I had a similar experience this week with some Japanese customers. At the end our meeting they had handed me a gift from Tokyo (very gracious of them!) and I responded with my (only) go-to phrase “Domo ariagato, insert-surname-san” — (with a slight bow). Then one of my visitors lied about how good my Japanese was and asked where I had learned, to which I replied, “Well there was this song that was very popular back in the eighties…”
They chuckled and murmured, “Ah, Mr. Roboto!”
Hilarious… and to think I hated that song when it was popular, all the while not knowing that it was preparing me for high-level, international corporate parley. Dennis DeYoung is sooo wise!
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Deborah said on July 15, 2012 at 11:25 am
Is tomato jam savory or sweet? For some reason tomato and sweet do not go together to me. Salty yes, sweet no.
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Prospero said on July 15, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Dexter,
Elvis Costello saw that one coming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHQK3yo9CBA&feature=related
Jeff, My hike in the canyon, we met some German characters halfway down S. Kaibab (Steamboat formation) that wanted to know where the nearest spot to get eine Brewski might be. We pointed at the rim and told them it was about 2k in der Vogelfluglinie, which phrase we both remembered from HS Deutsch (end of chapter idioms lists). Unser Freunde were schwer entauscht (sorely disappointed).
If Dennis DeYoung is wise, how did he mistake all those aliens for angels? And I don’t think I despised Mr. Roboto, I know it turned my stomach and induced bile production. Sometimes, from movies, it appears one could carry on a conversation in Japanese by simply responding to everything by saying “Hai!!!” with a brief bow and a pissed off attitude.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 15, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Pros, you’re way ahead of me auf Deutsche! Met some New Zealanders at breakfast; wanted to know what biscuits were. I’d say our trip total was 1 in 20 were American once we left Las Vegas.
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Prospero said on July 15, 2012 at 1:06 pm
I’d expect tomato jam to be flavored with basil, oregano and garlic, maybe vinegar, or I probably wouldn’t like it. Then again, if you feed somebody tomato with sugar and they can’t see it, it’s supposed to taste like strawberries. Tomatoes are fruit, after all.
Down south, people make jelly out of hot peppers like jalapenos. Really good stuff on a Triscuit with a little cream cheese and pork sausage.
Wo ist der Dom? Der Dom ist gerade aus dan rechts. (Where is the cathedral? The cathedral is right around the corner.) Strange the things that stick with you. I still remember parts of the Mass in altar Boy Latin. Daedalus interea Creten longumque perosus. (Meanwhile, Daedalus despised Crete and his long exile there…)
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Connie said on July 15, 2012 at 1:29 pm
I love pepper jelly. I was served the best jalapeno marmalade with my crab cake order at a bar in Seattle. And will be stocking up on cherry pepper jelly when I get to Cherry Republib on vacation in a few weeks. http://Cherryrepublic.com
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Prospero said on July 15, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Linda Ronstadt is 66 today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2pAfJy1lTo&feature=related
Pretty good backup singers, great song.
Millie Jackson is 68:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ13jHp7_P4
And one of the greatest Detroit Lions ever, Alex Karras, is 77. Karras has a very funny Wikipedia entry. On a MNF broadcast, when a camera came to rest on Raiders maniac bald-headed Otis Sistrunk, Karras famously announced “Otis Sistrunk, University of Mars”. Second funniest thing anyone ever said on MNF. His story about half-foot kicker Tom Dorsey with the heavy-foot shoe kicking a 63 yard FG is hilarious, as is his story about playing against his brother Ted in college and almost maiming him because he couldn’t see him without glasses.
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Prospero said on July 15, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Celeste Holm died. Exceptionally classy actress, stage and movies, and lotsa 70s and 80s TV (parbly guest starred with Jessica Fletcher):
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/15/entertainment-us-celesteholm-idUSBRE86E0CU20120715
She won an Academy Award for Gentleman’s agreement, a great movie, with Gregory Peck, directed by the snake in the grass Elia Kazan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2eAXa7rNXw
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coozledad said on July 15, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Next time your boss catches you playing minesweeper on company time, try the “retroactively retired” gambit.
http://www.dependablerenegade.com/dependable_renegade/2012/07/retroactive-facepalm.html#comments
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Prospero said on July 15, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Retiring retroactively sounds a great deal like self-deporting. Maybe that’s where RMoney got the idea.
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Deborah said on July 15, 2012 at 6:15 pm
Not to keep talking about food but this afternoon I made a late lunch early dinner of pasta with fresh pesto made from basil I got from the market yesterday and sun dried tomatoes. So good. So simple.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 15, 2012 at 6:54 pm
My son is amazed to learn there really is a Route 66. In Williams, AZ having just done original route thru Flagstaff past Parks. Sweet.
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Sherri said on July 15, 2012 at 7:14 pm
If you want to understand why I think it’s unlikely that the NCAA will do much of anything to Penn State, read Dan Wetzel’s column: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf–graham-spanier-penn-state-freeh-report-joe-paterno-curtis-enis-jeff-nalley.html
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brian stouder said on July 15, 2012 at 10:41 pm
Danny – I’ve an honest macro-political question for you.
First, let me say that, yes, other than at Fox News and on right-wing talk radio, Senator Obama/President Obama got generally positive press…and indeed, Romney generally gets every benefit of every doubt on most media, possibly excepting MSNBC (although those people would roll over for him, if he ever would go on their air, or even send an official minion or two…but we digress)
In fact, I’ll say to you that Romney strikes me as Not Crazy, which is tremendously better than Newt Gingerich or Rick Santorum or Rick (Oops) Perry, etc. (the point being, this is not an attack on Mitt Romney, but a question about the national Republican party at this moment)
My question for you is – do you think it’s possible that Romney is the 2012 Republican version of the 1968 Democratic presidential nominee, Hubert Humphrey?
I mean this question in the 30,000 ft altitude sense, in that the Democratic party itself, in 1968, was in national disintegration mode, with radical elements breaking away while the establishment portion rallied to an utterly bland (and not distinctively unifying) figure like HHH.
Romney looks like just such a place-holder, to me. I am not saying that I think he cannot win; but instead, even if he DOES win, the Republican party in congress is not likely to be any less combative with him than they have been with President Obama.
Maybe that’s my real question. Do you agree that the Republican party is coming apart? It looks to me like the centrifugal stresses that the party is now withstanding will only increase in the short term, just as they did for the Democrats after 3 decades of power (in the war-40’s, anti-commy 50’s, and war-60’s).
My Republican party spun me off the merry-go-round after the war-0’s and 10’s, and the incompetent governance of those same years that lead to the Katrina debacle, the pointless war in Iraq, and the deregulation and economic crash.
I honestly think that the Republican brand has another decade of wood-shed/wilderness time to do, before they re-emerge as a national, cohesive, can-do party, instead of the ‘party of no’…unless their fate is to disintegrate (like the whigs did, 150 years ago), and some new national party label emerges, with a can-do message.
What say you?
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MichaelG said on July 15, 2012 at 11:53 pm
“Linda Ronstadt is 66 today.” I’ve had a major crush on this woman for over forty years. I first encountered her in a club in Berkeley called the New Monk. I had just gotten out of the Army and it was 1969. The joint was a store front dive on University Ave. just before it dead ended at Oxford. The band stand was about a third of the way in on the left with the street at your back.
The booths on the right and the bar was in the back. Linda wore a scanty pair of cut offs and a bandana print blouse unbuttoned and tied. Like on that album cover. She was maybe twenty feet from where I sat. She sang and undulated and was incredibly beautiful and incredibly sexual and incredibly entertaining and I knew she was going to be a star. When she introduced the band she introduced one member as “Dick. Balloon Dick.” Everybody in the place laughed guessing at the genesis of that comment. I have maybe ten of her albums. The other times I saw her were in big – well, you know what shows are like. I’ve always wondered about what transpired between her and Jerry Brown. Sex or no sex it had to have been a very cerebral relationship. I doubt that there has been a singer who has stretched and explored and tried more things than Linda Ronstadt. I still have the hots for her today.
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