On occasions like this, it’s fitting even for citizens of a republic to say, Long Live the King!
Here’s the image of Elizabeth II that I like best.
That’s for strictly personal reasons: I picked the coin up in change in Australia over 30 years ago.
I was glad to see 50-cent pieces in circulation somewhere.
Back to posting on Tuesday, since of course Juneteenth is a holiday. I just found out that since last year, there’s been a mural in Galveston commemorating the issuance of General Order No. 3 by (Brevet) Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, who would be wholly obscure otherwise. The artist, Reginald C. Adams, is from Houston.
Something to see if I ever make it back to Galveston, which is more likely than, say, Timbuktu. But I don’t believe I’ll go to Galveston in the summer again.
I downloaded a National Park Service image (and thus public domain) today of the road near the north entrance of Yellowstone NP, showing the damage from the recent flooding. Damn.
Many more pictures of the flooding in the park and in Montana are here, along with a story about the curious absence of the governor of Montana.
“Aerial assessments conducted Monday, June 13, by Yellowstone National Park show major damage to multiple sections of road between the North Entrance (Gardiner, Montana), Mammoth Hot Springs, Lamar Valley and Cooke City, Montana, near the Northeast Entrance,” the NPS says. “Many sections of road in these areas are completely gone and will require substantial time and effort to reconstruct.”
No doubt. We entered the park at the north entrance back in ’05 and spent some time in that part of Yellowstone. The Gardiner River was much more peaceful then.
“Just south of the park’s north entrance, there’s a parking lot next to the Gardiner River. Just beyond the edge of the lot is a path that follows the edge of the river, under some shade trees,” I wrote at the time.
“The river is very shallow at that point, with a cold current pushing over piles of very smooth stones… piles of rock moderated the current a little, so that you could sit in the river and let it wash over you. It wasn’t exactly swimming, but it was refreshing.
“Along the road, just at the entrance to the parking lot, there were two signs: ENTERING WYOMING and 45TH PARALLEL of LATITUDE HALFWAY BETWEEN EQUATOR and NORTH POLE.”
Wonder if that sign is still standing.
Oddly enough, our microtrip to South Bend last weekend wasn’t much of a trip to South Bend. Our motel was in the city, near the airport, and we drove through town a few times, but mostly we were in Norte Dame — which is a town besides being a university of that name — and Mishawaka.
Still, we had a few South Bend moments.
Also, on Sunday morning, I went by myself to the South Bend City Cemetery, because of course I did. On the way I took a short look at St. Paul’s Memorial Church (Episcopal), because of course I did.
With John 12:17 over one of the doors.
The cemetery is a few blocks away. Founded in 1832, with about 14,800 permanent residents, mostly from the 19th century, though I spotted a scattering of 20th-century burials.
An aside: I read this week that Kane Tanaka, regarded as the oldest living person, died at 119. Born in 1903. Though it’s clearly been true for a while, I just realized that means that no one who lived any time at all in the 19th century is still alive. No one whose age is verifiable, anyway.
Except in the sense that we still remember, personally, people who lived at least a little while in that century, such as my grandmother. Is someone not well and truly dead until everyone who remembers him or her is too?
South Bend City Cemetery, the entrance.
The cemetery office, I assume. Handsome little structure.
Not too many large memorials or much funerary art, but well populated by a variety of weathered standing stones. As usual, I was the only living person around. Not even groundskeepers on Sunday.
As I said, the cemetery’s pretty near St. Paul’s, which is in this image.
A handful of mausoleums. No name on this one.
A boarded-up mausoleum. Not something you see much. I like to believe that the cast-iron door that probably hung there went to a scrap drive and did its tiny part to defeat Hitler. But I also suspect that it might have been stolen one night instead.
Large to the small.
The worn, broken stone of Peter Roof, the first recorded burial. Roof, I understand, was a veteran of the Revolution.
There’s a poignancy in time eating away at memorials as surely as it did those memorialized. Worn lettering, old-time symbols, dark smudges of pollution and dirt.
Rust, too. Such is the condition of the GAR stars I saw. This is the kind of cemetery that would have them. Rusty, but they endure as a faint echo of the camaraderie of men who fought and won the day for the Union.
As you’d expect, at least one Studebaker has a sizable memorial. South Bend was their town.
The memorial has lasted much longer than the company of that name.
I didn’t come looking for the car-making family. I had someone else in mind: Schuyler Colfax.
Good old Vice President Colfax of Grant’s first term, famed in — well, neither song nor story. Still, his contemporaries thought highly of him. They must have. Not only did he get the main stone, he got this.
And this — close to our time, in 1978.
Order of Rebekah? Now you know.
Leaving the cemetery, I was glad to see that it’s on Colfax Ave. It’s a more modest street than Colfax Ave. in Denver, but South Bend is a more modest town.
Best for Easter. Back to posting on April 19, in line with my conviction that Easter Monday should be acknowledged.
Comment sections, at least when it comes to important news stories or political issues, are known to be arenas of bantamweight intellects, to put it politely. So I’m always glad to find more astute comments now and then.
Such as commentary on a news video produced by CNN, “General explains significance of possible strike on Russian ship,” which was posted earlier today. It might not be wise to be too much an armchair general, but I don’t think you need to be a general to see it as a pretty big damn deal.
The ship is the Russian warship Moskva, which recently found a new home on the bottom of the Black Sea. Some choice comments:
The warship Moskva has not sunk it has simply been reclassified as a new type of one-way submarine and is on a special underwater mission. — RickTheClipper.
For me, claiming that ‘as a result of a fire, ammunitions detonated onboard Moskva cruiser’ is more embarrassing than admitting it was a Ukrainian missile hit because it would mean the Russian navy is run by clumsy, drunken sailors. — Almond Trees.
This is what happens when [a] country’s resources are embezzled and turned into super yachts and private jets. — Ian Home.
A wry, obscure joke:
It was, of course, a complete co-incidence that the ship went on fire. The fact that there is a war going on had nothing to do with it. I believe that. — PanglossDr.
There’s also a lot of good material for paraphrasing. Well, I’m pretty good at that, so here are some paraphrases. I haven’t made any effort to verify any of them. I’m just citing them as well-done comments, not as part of a news item.
In this war, the Ukrainians clearly understand the power of propaganda, says PCBacklash. They could have targeted any of a large number of Russian vessels in the Black Sea, but picked the flagship of the entire Black Sea Fleet.
Moskva had the best anti-air and anti-missile defense in the fleet, says Leprecon Zeleniy, with S-300 mid-range missiles. He adds that with the sinking of the flagship Moskva, all remaining Russian ships anywhere in Black Sea are now more vulnerable, since they all only have short range anti-air protection or none at all.
On Sunday, I drove into the city with Yuriko, who attended her cake class in the Humboldt Park neighborhood and made some delightful orange pastries.
While she did that, I had a few hours to kick around. Temps were only a little above freezing, but the sun was out and there wasn’t much wind, so it turned out to be a good day for a walk. So I went to the Ukrainian Village neighborhood to see, and document, signs of solidarity with the beleaguered people of that nation. There were flags.
Many flags.
Banners and signs.
Ribbons and bows.
And more.
The neighborhood is reportedly the home of 15,000 or so Ukrainians and the outpouring is highly visible. I could have spent all day taking pictures of blue-yellow bicolor displays.
Time for a spring break, even though it isn’t quite spring yet here. Proto-spring is more like it. That winter-spring tug o’ war has started, with winter still having the upper hand, and the most visible result being mud puddles. Anyway, back to posting around March 13.
Mostly I remember metal showman Dee Snider for sparring with what-about-the-children Tipper Gore in the mid-80s over naughty words in popular songs, and for testifying before the U.S. Senate (along with interesting bedfellow John Denver) in favor of free expression. By all accounts, the Twisted Sister frontman acquitted himself well in those spats.
Also, I like that he goes by “Dee.” Still, metal has never really been my cup of meat. Even so, I took the occasion this week to listen to “We Aren’t Going to Take It,” Twisted Sister’s best-known song (released 1984) and something I haven’t heard in years. Apparently a number of groups have taken inspiration from it over the decades, and I can see why. Though the Twisted Sister video frames the song in terms of teenaged rebellion, most of the lyrics are broad enough to apply to most any resistance to authority or oppression.
We’re right
We’re free
We’ll fight
You’ll see
They’re also simple enough to be easily understood, even if English isn’t your first language. No wonder some Ukrainians have taken up the song. Snider reportedly has approved. But he doesn’t approve of every group who wants to use the song.
“People are asking me why I endorsed the use of ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ for the Ukrainian people and did not for the anti-maskers,” Snider said recently in a tweet. “Well, one use is for a righteous battle against oppression; the other is a[n] infantile feet stomping against an inconvenience.”
Snider continues to acquit himself well.
Until the other day, I thought of Kyiv as merely an alternate transliteration of the capital of Ukraine, but I am willing to revise my opinion. Apparently the Ukrainians insist that it is the correct one, as opposed to the Russian-inspired Kiev, and as the bombs fall on that city, it only seems fair to write it Kyiv.
“This rush to Ukrainianize spellings is not only a response to Kyiv’s sudden newsworthiness,” says an article posted by the Atlantic Council in 2019. “It represents the latest chapter in a long-running campaign to secure recognition for the Ukrainian-language versions of Ukrainian place names, and is part of a much broader post-Soviet drive to assert an independent Ukrainian identity.”
As I recall, the Ukrainians also insisted that “the” be expunged from the nation’s name in English 30 years ago, as an affront to their nationhood. Most English-language publications went along with that. That’s OK, but it still rings a little funny without the “the.” That’s only because I grew up in the days of the Ukrainian SSR and old language habits die hard.
Further down the Atlantic Council article is this useful nugget about the political history of the region:
“For hundreds of years, successive Russian leaders sought to absorb Ukraine into their country’s national heartlands, exploiting the cultural closeness between the two nations to overwhelm and incorporate the historically Ukrainian lands to the south.”
Old Soviet apparatchik he may be, but clearly Mr. Putin’s a traditionalist when it comes to classic Russian expansionism.
“Rain in the evening will transition to a wintry mix overnight,” the weather savants say. It’s already pretty wet out there already, more of a late March rain than mid-February. But not to worry: it will devolve into snow and ice by tomorrow.
I’ve read a number of PJ O’Rourke books over the years, as well as other writings of his, such as the highly amusing (unless you’re a pearl-clutcher) “Foreigners Around the World.” I even remember recommending Parliament of Whores to an Australian friend of mine to help him understand American politics. RIP, Mr. O’Rourke. You were a humorist who was actually funny. No mean feat.
We had some Korean-style chicken not long ago, acquired in a bright yellow box that says it includes joy, too.
ToreOre is a brand of Korean fast-food chicken, available in metro Chicago at the small mall attached to Super H Mart in Niles, a suburb that functions as the region’s Koreatown these days.
“Thanks to patented mixed-grains crust and fryers bubbling with 100% vegetable oil, the finished product is trans fat–free and nearly greaseless, but far from tasteless,” Time Out Chicago notes about ToreOre.
I agree. We got one of the spiciest selections this time around, and may tone it down a notch next time. But it made for a satisfying meal all the same.
In South Korea, the brand is much bigger than a mere suburban outpost. Nonghyup Moguchon is the food-processing arm of South Korea’s state-run National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (Nonghyup), and oversaw the rapid growth of ToreOre beginning in the early 2000s.
“ToreOre, Nonghyup Moguchon’s main restaurant franchise business, opened the first outlet in 2003 and had grown exponentially with the number of outlets reaching 1,000 in just five years,” Korean outlet Pulse News reported in 2018. “But it was forced to reduce the number of its restaurants to 700 amid intensifying competition in the country’s fried chicken business and has remained at a standstill for several years.”
Shucks, I forgot to miss the Super Bowl on purpose. I just forgot about it, period. Outside at dusk on Sunday I caught a nice view of the near-full moon over bare trees, though.
Pleasant to see, not so pleasant to stand around outside to see it. But the days are getting longer, the very first harbinger of spring. Otherwise, no hint of that season yet. We’re in winter stasis.
Am I right in thinking that this year’s Super Bowl is later than usual? I couldn’t let a question like that go unanswered, not when the uber-almanac that is the Internet is available.
This year is in fact the latest ever, and a major jump further into the new year from last year’s February 7. In fact, any game in February is historically late. Back in the early days of the contest, mid-January was more likely, and January was the norm for the 20th-century games. The earliest the Super Bowl has ever been was January 9, 1977.
According to this handy table from ESPN, the first February Super Bowl was only in 2002, when it was on the 3rd.
That season the league’s schedule was pushed back a week by the September 11, 2001 attacks. Wiki puts it this way: “Rescheduling Super Bowl XXXVI from January 27 to February 3 [2002] proved extraordinarily difficult. In addition to rescheduling the game itself, all related events and activities had to be accommodated.
“This marked the first time in NFL history that the Super Bowl was played in February; all subsequent Super Bowls (excluding Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003) after that have been played in February.”
The games from 2004 to 2021 were played on the first Sunday in February, after which the NFL expanded its season from 16 to 17 regular season games. So this year’s became the first to be played on the second Sunday of the month, which looks to be the schedule for the foreseeable future.
Nice to know, I guess. Maybe someday it’ll drift into early spring. I don’t think I’ll be watching, whatever day it is.
Compare and contrast, as my English teachers used to say.
Dusk on February 1.
Dusk on February 2.
For comparison, about the same framing — the view from my back door — but a whole lot of contrast. We caught the edge of the aforementioned winter storm on Wednesday morning. Not a huge amount of snow, just enough to be the usual pain in the ass.
Speaking of which, wankers are on the loose. They always are. Taken at a NW suburban gas station recently. No doubt posted by a true believer, unwittingly on behalf of the listed grifters.
One objection to the Covid-19 vaccine I find particularly irksome — one quasi-rational objection, that is, as opposed to the microchip ‘n’ such crackpot ones — is that it was developed too quickly.
True enough, it was developed much more quickly than any vaccine in history. Know what I’d call that? Progress. You’d be mistaken in believing Progress can cure all of mankind’s many ills, but it does a pretty good job in treating a lot of literal ills.
The other day I read about a woman who favored certain famous quack treatments for a relative dying of Covid-19, and who pestered his no doubt overburdened health care workers about it. One commentator on the situation said that the woman had attended the Dunning-Kruger School of Advanced Medicine.
Next, something a little lighter. Some time ago I was watching a video of “Puff the Magic Dragon,” sung in by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1986. At 2:53, the camera points toward a fellow in the audience, the one with dark curly hair — and instantly I recognized him.
That’s Dave, an old friend of mine I met in in the mid-80s Nashville, where he was from. Later we hung out in Chicago, since he went to graduate school there. These days he lives in Minnesota and teaches art. According to his Facebook page, he’s also a fellow at the Center for Residual Knowledge, Division of Other Things.
Bet I could get a fellowship there.
I didn’t realize the Winter Olympics were starting today until I saw it mentioned online. Upcoming events, according to the site, include figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hockey, snowboarding, curling, bobsled and Uyghur internment, which is special to these Games.
Genocide aside, and that’s a big aside, I can’t muster much interest in the Games, except maybe for luge and skeleton, the events most likely to inspire spectacular accidents.