Category: These United States

July 3 – scared, paranoid

scared, paranoid
exaggerate fears, worries
end of compassion

There are mornings I wake up and I feel like the country I grew up in is gone.

There are nights when I watch the evening news and I feel like the country has lost its mind.

There are too many times when I feel like the country has lost its heart.

Am I just an old guy?

Wistful for what was and what I grew up with?

Why does Jeff Daniel’s opening soliloquy in ‘The Newsroom’ resonate?

Daniel’s says, “we didn’t scare so easy.”

What are we so scared of?

Here is the text (with a video link below)

“Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world?
It’s not the greatest country in the world. That’s my answer… [turns to a panelist] Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck, but he gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn’t cost money, it costs votes. It costs airtime and column inches. You know why people don’t like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose so goddamn always? [turns to another panelist] And with a straight face, you’re gonna tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom! So, 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom. [turns to the student who asked the question] And yeah, you… sorority girl. Just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there’s some things you should know. One of them is: there’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number 4 in labor force and number 4 in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies. Now, none of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are, without a doubt, a member of the worst period generation period ever period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! Yosemite?!

It sure used to be… We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reason. We passed laws, struck down laws, for moral reason. We waged wars on poverty, not on poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest. We built great, big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists AND the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn’t belittle it. It didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn’t scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed… by great men, men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.” 
― Aaron Sorkin, The Newsroom Script Episode 1

July 2 – Celebrate the Day

Celebrate the Day
Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires
Forward forever!

John Adams wrote to his wife, suggesting that the day of a Declaration of Independency, “will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival”,

Adams continued, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.”

The vote we all have seen in the movies was taken on July 2nd, 1776, approved this resolution originally introduced by Richard Henry Lee, “Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

The United States Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776.

Cover me with grits and call me stupid but I still love the scene regardless of how inaccurate it is.

There is a majestic poetry in the roll call.

June 25 – Traffic, like weather

Traffic, like weather,
everyone talks about it
no one does nothing

Past Spaghetti Junction, the GDOT Alert Signs warned 4 lanes blocked due to a car fire on I85 at GA400.

I85 at GA400 is also the location of my exit.

It wasn’t the best of times but it wasn’t the worst of times.

I was able to negotiate (great way to explain driving in Atlanta – you don’t drive as much as you negotiate) my way to my exit.

The last half mile took 6 minutes at 5 miles per hour.

But I got here.

From my office window I can see the traffic still stopped and hear the helicopters overhead.

Brings the joke to mind, “If you put all the cars in the world end to end what would you have?”

“ATLANTA!”

AND,

“Traffic Engineers can’t fix traffic, but they can spread it out over a larger area.”

June 24 – Runaway truck ramps

Runaway truck ramps!
See them on mountain highways.
Why not daily life?

You see these in the mountains.

The last place you want to be is between one and a runaway truck.

Until I looked them up online, I didn’t realize there were 4 major types:

Arrester bed: a gravel-filled ramp adjacent to the road that uses rolling resistance to stop the vehicle. The required length of the bed depends on the mass and speed of the vehicle, the grade of the arrester bed, and the rolling resistance provided by the gravel.

Gravity escape ramp: a long, upwardly inclined path parallel to the road. Substantial length is required. Control can be difficult for the driver; problems include rollback after the vehicle stops.

Sand pile escape ramp: a short length of loosely piled sand. Problems include sudden, forceful deceleration; sand being affected by weather conditions (moisture and freezing); and vehicles vaulting and/or overturning after contacting the sand pile.

Mechanical-arrestor escape ramp: a proprietary system of stainless-steel nets transversely spanning a paved ramp to engage and retard a runaway vehicle. Ramps of this type are typically shorter than gravity ramps, and can work even on a downhill grade. These systems tend to be costly, but may save expensive real estate in crowded areas, and prevent even more costly crashes.

The purpose of the ramp is the same regardless of design and that is that the ramp allows a moving vehicle’s kinetic energy to be dissipated gradually in a controlled and relatively harmless way, helping the operator to stop it safely without a violent crash.

Sounds like just the thing for every day life.

Maybe there is an app for that or maybe I should design one.