8.6.2021 – crossroads, street corners

crossroads, street corners

Not much better place to stand

Watch the passing show

If I had to pick ONE place in all of America where I could stand and watch the parade of American history pass in front of me there might not be a better a place than where I took this picture.

This is the Ohio River near Ravenswood, West Virginia.

My wife and I were driving from South Carolina to Columbus, Ohio when we crossed over the river.

Few places have seen the history float by like this place.

The Native Americans without numbers, the French, the British and the Americans and who knows who else took this nearly 1000 mile east-west super highway.

Quiet today.

Ignored today.

A backwater today.

But think of what you would have seen in the last 1000 years from this little river crossing.

8.5.2021 – human moods subject to

human moods subject to
rigid, unforgiving logic
ignore at peril

Adapted from the book, A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary (2009, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton, and the passage:

Yet it was more than a little disingenuous for the airline to deny all knowledge of, and responsibility for, the metaphysical well-being of its customers. Like its many competitors, British Airways, with its fifty-five Boeing 747s and its thirty-seven Airbus A320s, existed in large part to encourage and enable people to go and sit in deckchairs and take up (and usually fail at) the momentous challenge of being content for a few days. The tense atmosphere now prevailing within David’s family was a reminder of the rigid, unforgiving logic to which human moods are subject, and which we ignore at our peril when we see a picture of a beautiful house in a foreign country and imagine that happiness must inevitably accompany such magnificence. Our capacity to derive pleasure from aesthetic or material goods seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional and psychological needs, among them those for understanding, compassion and respect. We cannot enjoy palm trees and azure pools if a relationship to which we are committed has abruptly revealed itself to be suffused with incomprehension and resentment.

Part of the series of Haiku inspired by from A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary (2009, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton. I discovered this book entirely by accident. When searching for books online, I will use the term ‘collections’ and see what turns up. I figure that someone who has taken the time to gather together the etexts of any one author to create a collected works folder is enough for me to see what this author might be all about.

In this case I came across the writing of Alain de Botton. I enjoyed his use of language very much. Much of the words he strings together lend themselves to what I do.

As for his book, I recommend it very much though written in 2009, it misses the added layer of travel under covid but still the picture of the modern airport is worth the read.

8.4.2021 – bringing attention

bringing attention
mecca for unique culture
to experience

Adapted from the quote, “It’s certainly bringing more attention to the fact that this is such a mecca for outdoor recreation and a unique culture that people want to experience.“

A quote from Shelby Laubhan.

As you might have guessed, Ms. Laubhan was talking about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

What else, where else could she have been talking about.

According to a recent article in the Houghton Daily Mining Gazette, Gordon Ramsey some how found himself in the UP and made an episode of his show, Unhcharted, about being in the UP.

I cannot argue that Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is indeed “a mecca for outdoor recreation and a unique culture.”

It is that last part of the quote I have a problem with.

The part that states, “that people want to experience.”

8.3.2021 – that boy called wolf

that boy called wolf
but remember the last time …
there really was a wolf

I was reading an article this morning that titled, “The Anatomy of a Rumor.“

The abstract stated, “The rumor that the President was plotting to use election-eve violence as an excuse for massive repression of students and blacks, mass arrests, and suspension of Constitutional guarantees to keep the dissenters behind bars… The rumor was really saying that a Reichstag fire was in the works.”

Okay, that wasn’t the real abstract.

The real abstract states, “The rumor had Nixon plotting to use election-eve violence …”

Can’t make this stuff up.

The story was from the Village Voice online archive and had been originally published on November 5, 1970.

You can click on the link and read if for yourself if you want too.

The premise is that, “The original newspaper story explained that Nixon was alarmed by the Bank of America burning, the 11th Street “bomb factory” explosion, the Weatherman blast at police department headquarters, and the sudden wave of bomb scares, and concerned about possible bombing of polling places and other left wing attempts to disrupt the Presidential campaign. But the rumor that preceded the story and mushroomed all over the country afterward had Nixon plotting to use election-eve violence as an excuse for massive repression of students and blacks, mass arrests, and suspension of Constitutional guarantees to keep the dissenters behind bars. It was a rumor not so much about cancellation of elections as it was about cancellation of the left itself.”

It is a fascinating read.

The story also had that quote from Attorney General John Mitchell, “This country is going so far to the right you aren’t going to recognize it.”

Mr. Mitchell said that back in 1970.

A case of plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose I guess.

One short line in the story that I found most chilling was, “The important thing to remember about the story of the boy who cried “wolf” is that there really was a wolf there that last time.“

Lots to worry about today.

A lot more voices are crying WOLF than just the one little boy.

So many voices.

So many wolves.

I feel I should be concerned.

I feel I should be aware THAT THAT LAST TIME THERE REALLY WAS A WOLF.

But know what?

Boy do I really find it hard to believe that this is that last time.

The Shepherd Boy & the Wolf

A Shepherd Boy tended his master’s Sheep near a dark forest not far from the village. Soon he found life in the pasture very dull. All he could do to amuse himself was to talk to his dog or play on his shepherd’s pipe.

One day as he sat watching the Sheep and the quiet forest, and thinking what he would do should he see a Wolf, he thought of a plan to amuse himself.

His Master had told him to call for help should a Wolf attack the flock, and the Villagers would drive it away. So now, though he had not seen anything that even looked like a Wolf, he ran toward the village shouting at the top of his voice, “Wolf! Wolf!”

As he expected, the Villagers who heard the cry dropped their work and ran in great excitement to the pasture. But when they got there they found the Boy doubled up with laughter at the trick he had played on them.

A few days later the Shepherd Boy again shouted, “Wolf! Wolf!” Again the Villagers ran to help him, only to be laughed at again.

Then one evening as the sun was setting behind the forest and the shadows were creeping out over the pasture, a Wolf really did spring from the underbrush and fall upon the Sheep.

In terror the Boy ran toward the village shouting “Wolf! Wolf!” But though the Villagers heard the cry, they did not run to help him as they had before. “He cannot fool us again,” they said.

The Wolf killed a great many of the Boy’s sheep and then slipped away into the forest.

Liars are not believed even when they speak the truth.

The Æsop for Children from the Library of Congress

8.2.2021 – frazzled atmosphere

frazzled atmosphere
broadcast televisual
vomit on viewers

while understanding
fundamentally nothing
of what’s going on

perhaps some measure
of discombobulation
inescapable

I haven’t watched much of the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Maybe when I see all the commercials for the 2020 Summer Olympics I think they must have happened a year ago.

Who would delay an event for one year and then not change the name to at least indicate the current year?

I did read a review of the broadcast coverage of the Olympics.

Even without my covid jaded eyes and already snippy attitude I would have found this review to be a delight just in the writer’s vocabulary.

After 20 years in the news business I can without fear of contradiction say that ‘ televisual vomit’ has never ever been used before in a story let ALONE A HEADLINE.

But there it is in “NBC paid $7.75bn for its Olympic rights … and we got televisual vomit” by Aaron Timms.

For me, the paragraph, “But instead of sticking with single events throughout primetime – introducing them, highlighting the stakes and the protagonists, getting the viewer comfortable with the quirks of competition – NBC has deployed this vast arsenal of broadcast resources to spray America’s households with a kind of inescapable Olympic televisual vomit.” can stand next to Mark Twain’s account of the mate on a Mississippi River boat would issue commands.

Mr. Twain wrote, “He felt all the majesty of his great position, and made the world feel it, too. When he gave even the simplest order, he discharged it like a blast of lightning, and sent a long, reverberating peal of profanity thundering after it. I could not help contrasting the way in which the average landsman would give an order, with the mate’s way of doing it.“

Mr. Twain then wrote, “… he would roar out: ‘Here, now, start that gang-plank for’ard! Lively, now! what’re you about! Snatch it! SNATCH it! There! there! Aft again! aft again! don’t you hear me. Dash it to dash! are you going to sleep over it! ‘Vast heaving. ‘Vast heaving, I tell you! Going to heave it clear astern? Where’re you going with that barrel! For’ard with it ‘fore I make you swallow it, you dash-dash-dash-dashed split between a tired mud-turtle and a crippled hearse-horse!’“

And as Mr. Twain closed this passage, I also say about the words in the above quoted sports story, “I wished I could talk like that.”

This was truly a difficult Haiku to create from the text.

You know why?

I am not sure I have read anything of late or in the past that used SO MANY 5 and 6 syllable words.

I take my hat to Mr. Timms.

I stand and applaud Mr. Timms.

I do have to point out, Mr. Timms IS Australian.

Some how that seems to make it even better.