August Angst

Which is my way of saying I'm going to be throwing a lot of different things into this post.  Buckle up and enjoy the aimless ride!

First, another wave of scammers, which I wanted to bring up in part because of one that was almost good enough to fall for- an e-mail from "Comast/xfinity"  that notified "dear customer" that something had went wrong with their last payment, and would you click this link to see how to fix it.  While Laurie called comcast to determine for sure our suspicions, I did my tried and true discovery tool- click the reply button.  The top blue bar gave me the one word confirmation I needed- "Cyrillic".  Another Russian scam, and a damn good one.
In another, Mathew Goora of the Benin Republic advises me that since he can't send the funds that ' I confided with him about' through Western Union, he has literally been moving heaven and earth to make sure I don't lose them.  But I'm going to have to send him a $185 "clearance fee" to get my... oops, I neglected to notice he didn't even tell me how much it is he's protecting from the forces of evil for me.
Also, Mrs. Farida Waziri informs me that she was told by Mr. Gershom Shapiro that I was dead and he wants to be my next of kin over another unnamed amount.  Gersh, ol' buddy, knock yourself out.

Next, I want to mention some famous deaths this week.  Two of them, Jerry Lieber and Nick Ashford, I'll be spending a little time on tomorrow's Time Machine discussing.  The other was the apparent suicide of former Baltimore Oriole Cy Young winner Mike Flanagan.  Mike was part of a great O's pitching staff that put them in the thick of the AL playoff race year after year.  Now that baseball is all about the Yanks, red Sox, and Phillies and their piles of money, the Orioles have had a long stretch of hard times, and Mike worked to try to alleviate that as a GM from 2002-8.  Sadly, many commenters on CBSSports.com seem to think that his failure to salvage the team is what led to his death.  Maybe that had a small part in things.  But I have to believe that for a man with a wife, 3 kids, and a good career in broadcasting and the respect of fans and colleagues alike, there has to be something more than that to make you put a gun in your mouth and blow your face off.  What, I don't know and don't need to.  His demons, his own.  I salute a fallen hero and pray for the family left behind.

Moving on, I saw last night a lady being interviewed by CBS, crying her eyes out because she was having trouble evacing from Hurricane Irene, days and miles away but 'certain to be the east coast's Katrina.'  It appalls me that the media feel that they need to add enough hyperbole to any news story to sell it: any world leader can become a Hitler, any thunderstorm a Katrina, any vent of sulphur in Iceland a Krakatoa.  Let me tell you what Katrina means to me.

No, I was not there.  I was on vacation that week and had recently discovered the weather blogs on Weather Underground.  We watched all that week as Kat worked her way across Florida, through the Gulf, getting bigger and more monstrous with every hour.  Many of us- myself included- sent messages to government officials, newspapers, and other media as we watched Kat's forecast models converge day by day on New Orleans.  We begged them to evac.  This was as early as Wednesday.

Saturday night, with the monster less than 24 hrs from landfall, I was listening to WWL in New Orleans interview Mayor Ray Nagin.  His first words were, "I thought I had a pretty good handle on this hurricane thing.. "  He then went on to describe how he was sitting down to supper with his family when Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center called him.  "You have got to get those people out of there NOW," he was told.  Despite the fact that the rest of the world knew that this was coming for a week, Nagin thought of it as no big deal until that moment.  Because of his attitude, many thousands of his "constituency"  - the poor, black population of the city- paid it little heed as well.  Even then, with the most respected meteorologist in the nation at the time begging him to evacuate, his response was that he would have to get with the city's LAWYERS in the morning before he could start the evac procedures.

FEMA's piss-poor showing and the slow death of the levees have somewhat covered his ass in the media over the years.  His "constituency" rallied behind him as he tried to blame the whole mess on GW Bush.  I know better.  There's a lot of blood on that dumbass's hands.  A LOT.  My blood boils to this day any time Katrina or Nagin are mentioned.  I feel he should have been held criminally liable for this, but apparently having your head up your rectum with lives on the line isn't prosecutable.  God has told me I need to forgive;  and I hope you will all pray for me, because to date I have done a miserable job of it.

That ranted, the media may be right on this one.  WU's Dr. Jeff Masters is the most ironclad authority on these things that I know.  And if you read his blog here, You see he is NOT fooling around here.  If you are on the East Coast, pay attention.  DO NOT let some Ray Nagin lull you into complacency.  If you have someplace to go this weekend, go there. If the Government tells you to evacuate, haul ass.  And if you are a responsible official, make a responsible decision.  The hell with the LAWYERS.

One last thing today, in case I haven't been apocalyptic enough.  I am re-reading Susan Wise Bauer's History Of The Whole World, vol. 2.  If you are any level of history buff, you need this series.  She is the flat best in bringing history that is accurate, well-researched, and entertaining.  Anyhow, I was at the part focusing on the plague of Justinian's time, 536 AD.  I've always been darkly fascinated by plague stories, and have more than one book on the Black Death lying around.  I've often thought about how very few people these days consider the plague a threat.  Our sanitation and hygiene is much better; we've survived similar disasters to the ones that weakened the population in those days without incident (for example Krakatoa 1887 and Tambora).  And now, research indicates that much of the European population that survived the last round did so because they possessed some level of genetic immunity to Y. Pestis, the bug that causes the disease.  But keep three things in mind.  #1, if you are a Christian, consider that if God wants a plague unleashed, He can overcome worldly obstacles to accomplish it.  #2, if you are not a Christian, and believe in evolution, then surely you must believe that Y. Pestis can evolve a new vector.  #3, from Justinian's plague to the start of the Black Death was 810 years.  From the start of the Black Death, 810 years forward is somewhere around 2155.  And trigger disasters?  How many disasters have we been told are overdue and could happen at any time?  The Cumbre Vieja volcano and subsequent tsunami in the Atlantic; the great Yellowstone lava field (which the Branch Davidians believed would erupt signalling the end of the world in 2012); the New Madrid fault, just to start.

Am I predicting anything like that? Who, me?  If I could do that, I'd be hitting lottery numbers in Benin.

what I did on vacation day 11

Today, Laurie and I, and special guest KC, toured Wildwood Nature Preserve near Toledo. This was the former 800-acre estate of the founder of Champion spark plugs, and a tour of his family manor is part of the package.

First we hit the trails- a maze of hiking and biking trails that we spent some 4 miles in.

(the Ottawa River)

They had benches that were paid for as memorials throughout the park. Of course, some memorials you don't want to show KC and I together...

There was a long boardwalk with great overlooks and some odd features...

(The tree is the odd one, BTW...)
( And these berries I can't find anything about...)

Now, let me take you into the Manor. The first picture I took (actually, Laurie took this one) was a room where the servants did nothing but arrainge flowers for the day. New ones EVERY day...

Then there was this AWESOME doll house. I was hoping the plaque came out better. What it says is it took 22 years to build; 18,000 little tiny bricks, mahogany floors, Marble fireplaces, and all electrical switches actually work!

The house pictured was the model, the George Wythe house in Williamsburg, VA (home of the university of William and Mary!)

This next room, the guide explained was the lady of the house's CLOSET...

The ROOM, mind you. The picture doesn't do it justice.

These next two pictures are of the formal garden, from a bedroom window...

Here's our guide, Angela, at the bar (which according to her was usually used to serve ice cream)...

This was downstairs near the game room, which had an indoor SHOOTING RANGE...

Then back into the red room with a 1940 tv/radio/record player...

And back upstairs to the glassed-in all-season patio...

And Finally, the living room with one of two original chandeliers...

And that was the end of the tour. Then we wound our way back down through the garden, into the trail, and back to the car.

We finished it off with a great meal at Calvinos, a nice hard to find Italian place downtown.

what I did on vacation day 3, 4 and 5

Day 3: took a walk, saw 2 deer and one unknown, possibly a spry ground hog. Watched football.

Day 4: Took the "long walk" (down to Coliseum Blvd, over to Clinton, up to Washington Ctr., and home). Watched football.

Day 5: Today we visited the Fallen Timbers Memorial in Maumee, OH. As I am gonna be putting in a LOT of pictures, you can learn about the battle

here. Me, I had more than enough trouble with the google maps, the Ohio tourism sites, and etc. trying to find out what was where and how you got in. The whole thing is set up in 4 parts, of which we visited 3: the actual battle site; the memorial; and Fort Megis down the way. After spending much of day 4 afternoon studying the maps, I was mainly confident of what I was doing; after all, it was 99% on US 24, eh?

We went to the memorial first. The memorial consisted of one main monument and 2 smaller ones. Each side saluted a different group involved. This side saluted Little Turtle and the indians.

Here's Laurie at the main side.

Cool, no?

The next monument was the Indian monument. This included Turkey Foot Rock, whose story you can read on the plaque.

This was to the west of the monument. On the east was the soldiers' monument, with all the names of the fallen, except for ten men they couldn't name.

Trails led far and wide down a bluff that was a good two miles from the river, despite one

website's claim that it "overlooked the rapids".(link)

The little white speck is the monument from the valley floor.

A foot bridge over 24 led to where the actual battle took place.

It was only when we got to the other side that I learned why the "access points" weren't on the map: And here I am showing the scofflaw streak we'd need later on.

So next we went on to Fort Megis, which withstood 2 out of 3 sieges by the Brits and their drunken indian footsoldiers in the War of 1812. There was an awesome monument to the soldiers from Pennsylvania who died here:

And here's the Fort itself. Not much different inside form outside, save for the monument.

If Laurie looks a bit nervous, she was. You see, the visitor's center is closed on Monday and Tuesday, and so when we got to the fort's gate, we saw:

However, we also saw that the gate was wide open:

and went right on in. I wasn't coming back tomorrow, damn their eyes!

At any rate, then it was time to eat, and we went to the Fallen Timbers Mall, which is store-wise a lot like Jefferson Pointe. But the layout kicks JP's butt!

After a satisfying meal at Red Robin, it was home again and another well deserved nap.

The repetition of history, part two

I've been reading a book called "The Twenty Year Crisis 1919-1939" by Edward Hallett Carr. I ordered it in my attempt to collect post-WWI history, but soon found it to be mainly an econ text and set it aside for like six months. I cracked it open last week. Now the gentlemen on the back cover (a prof. W.P.Maddox and former harvard president A. W. Griswold) descibe it as "...sane and detached... utterly devoid of national bias..." (Maddox), and "...an admirable introductory text for any college course in diplomatic history or international relations..." (Griswold). My first thoughts were, "Is this guy a communist?" (Martin). Sure enough, when I looked up Prof. Carr, I found that after this book was first printed (1939, just before the second war broke out), he began to drift more and more into sympathy with the Soviet Government, especially after Stalin passed the scene.
While not suprised that this book, which leans well left of "sane and detached" to me, was recommended college reading, I found holes in his theory, which basically goes like this: prior to his time, government and economics were fueled by two things: power- military or economic-, and morality or ethics, which morphed into "whatever the powerful do is the right thing to do" as the industrial revolution evolved into mass production. He critisizes governments for believing that a laisse-faire mode of business will give freedom for the powerful to "do the right thing" for everyone. Carr believed that this mythical "harmony of Interests" could only be achieved when "interests must be artificially harmonized by state action... it is clearly the business of the state to create harmony if no natural harmony exists." (Page 51) He believed " ..as Marx said,...'and therefore the higher development of the individual can only be secured through the historical process, in which individuals are sacrificed.' " (Page 50, from Marx, "Theorein uber den Mehrwert") So, you have to force people to do right, and a government must do that- even though he alwready postulated that the governments of his day were incompetant to do that. Then he quotes an interesting line from Lord Balfour: "... a complete harmony between 'egoism' and 'altruism', between the pursuit of the highest happiness for oneself and the highest happiness for other people, can never be accomplished by a creed which refuses to admit that the deeds done and the character established in this life can flow over into another, and there permit a reconcilliation and an adjustment between the conflicting principles which are not always possible here." (Balfour, "Foundations of Belief") Another words, You cannot seek harmony on earth without a belief in heaven and hell- a wise statement which Carr discounts as basically a belief in illusion, or worse. Later on he quotes the deacon of St. Paul's in a 1937 article in the London Times, "The principles of the Sermon on the Mount " would mean "Sudden death to civillized society."
So where am I going with that? Recently, I had opportunity to look over the career of one Alexander Dubcek. He was the head of the Communist party in Czechoslovakia during the "Prague Spring" of 1968. He began with a trickle what threatened to become a torrent of reform in eastern Europe by trying to build what he called "Communism with a human face". Of course, the Soviets knew where this would lead, and so they invaded Czechoslovakia from every direction, overthrowing Dubcek and exiling him for 21 years. Where it would have lead is wher it did lead for Mikhail Gorbachev two decades later- to the fall of Soviet Communism. Because Balfour was right; and you cannot put a human face on a doctrine that requires atheism without it collapsing under its own illusions. The Soviet system decayed from within, and that decay started with the removal of God from the government. It didn't require, and neither did Parthia, help from the terrorists to crumble. And what have we tried to do since 1948? And why is it Cuba and China are constantly under attack on human rights abuses? Because they know- Communism given a human face and faith in God will put them right with the USSR, Parthia, and the dinosaurs.
Also, as some of you know, I had a blog for fanstasy football on CBSSports.com, but since I'm here anyway... With our season over, I decided just for fun to see how much our teams can score the last week of the season and through the playoffs. The standings after the last game of the season are: KCAs, 67; Ragin' Rhinos, 62; B2s, 59; SVA, 57; State Ducks, 43; Arden's Angels and Buzz Lightyears, 40; Sunset Rangers, 37; Fiery Beagles, 36; T-Cubs and Clock BBQs, 29: and Elks, 20. By team owner, that's Chris with 169; Shenan with 148; KC with 106; and Laurie with 90.

What comes around...

Let me tell you a story about a nation. For many years, that nation had been defined by its struggle against another nation; they were the planet's two superpowers. The other had begin to slip from that power due to internal decay; but this nation was not without its own decay. But what brought this nation down were the terrorists. They seemed to be everywhere, at every border, causing chaos within and without the nation. And at times they even blended in, becoming valued members of society. To a certain extent, they took over the real workings of the nation, while its people sat back and got fat on the good life, or else worked like slaves to pay the taxes that supported the fat people's good life. And when the terrorists threatened, all the tiny little nations around this nation flocked to it for help; but let the terror ease off, and they declared independance from "those bossy people" of this nation. One day the terrorists got tired of the farce that was this nation's government and running it from behind the curtains. They overthrew the leadership, and the nation died, throwing the world into chaos for a long time.
Is this an apolcalyptic vision of the USA and where its going? Maybe. But I was actually telling the story of Rome, its rival Parthia (which is basically what the ancients call Persia and we call Iran), and the barbarian German and Hunnish tribes that ended up overthrowing them. Still, put this way, is the story of the USA, USSR, and Islam any different? Funny how history repeats itself just by substituting "USA" for "Rome", "USSR" for "Parthia", "Muslim radicals" for "Huns", and "Mexicans" for "Visigoths". Rome buckled under the constant attacks and fought back by recruiting barbarians to fight barbarians, until the barbarians ran the show and the Roman Emperors, like the Mighy and Powerful Oz, said, "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. And we are obviously repeating history in America, just as the USSR repeated Parthia's. The question isn't where we are headed. It's how far down the Yellow Brick Road are we?
Next time, the mistake of the USSR.