Search This Blog

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

a wee bit worried

 As you know CNN is on here from waking to sleeping, I read several; political websites, two newspapers and a couple of magazines and every one of them tells me there is no way, despite Trump's wriggling and spitting, he is not going to be getting the boot in January.  There was one possible maneuver that has worried me.  A state government can decide, for whatever reasons, they don't think that their primary was run fairly and choose their own slate of delegates, but I just heard that this won't work because it is the house that decides whether to seat the primary or state-determined slate.

I would have thought that the reps would be glad to have this stinking blob of rotting meat taken off their necks but instead they are clinging to it like what they truly are, a bunch of maggots.

So yeah I am a little worried. 

Monday, November 9, 2020

Dangerous Dan McGrew

I'm pretty sure that Dangerous Dan was playing solitaire, and that there was no money involved at this point.  Later, the mysterious stranger "tilted a poke of dust on the bar and called for drinks for the house", but this story is about much more than money.  I could have quoted the whole poem from memory, but it was easier to provide a link to it.

 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45082/the-shooting-of-dan-mcgrew



Monday Muttering

The COVID crisis hit close to home when my brother-in-law died of the virus yesterday.

I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Beagles.  It's a little awkward for a relative stranger to offer condolences in such a personal matter but it's all I got; my deepest sympathies to the Beagles family.

-----

It ain't over 'till it's over and it ain't over yet.   I think we have to wait until December, that's when the electoral college closes the door on this mess.  But who knows for sure?  There could be some obscure loop hole that will throw everything back to the legislature or courts.  Anyone who tries to predict Trump's behavior is playing a sucker's game, I think.  He is apt to say or do anything, and I mean anything, just to see what happens in the hope of saving his bacon.  The specter of pending prosecutions looms large and we are still in for quite a ride.

-----

I wasn't aware of the connection between O. Winston Link and the Norfolk & Western Railroad until Uncle Ken mentioned it.  There was an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College back in 1986, "O. Winston Link: Ghost Trains, Railroads of the 1950’s" and that was where I first saw his work.  Beautiful prints, maybe 16" x 20" with plenty of detail.  My favorite photo was the image looking out of the window of this lady's living room, with a big steam locomotive a little too close for comfort, in my opinion.  But Hester Fringer was not in the least bit disturbed.

Final locomotive fun fact: prior to a 1938 record-breaking speed run in England, the engineers of the Mallard added aniseed to the bearing lubricating oil in order to produce a "nasal" warning if bearings overheated.  Clever chaps, wot?



a brand new week

 I've reread those last couple posts about my reaction to the election and I don't get what was so hard to understand.  I went to bed that night in the dumps because I felt that we were going to lose the election, moped around the next morning with CNN in the background of my activities, and then they said that Wisconsin had turned blue.  My my, what was with that?  And then I saw that the red was like the proverbial tip of the iceberg and underneath that there were all those mail in votes that where overwhelmingly blue and as the blue spread across the map my spirits soared.

But wait, what happened to the big blue wave?  It was not that big at all.  Reading those pre election polls I had cradled the hope that the American people, the vast mass of that flag waving sea, had seen the light, seen through the torrent of lies and bad behavior, and now were ready to march with Sleepy Joe into the brave new world.  But it was hardly so, our margins were so slim along the reclaimed blue wall, that they could have easily gone the other way.  And worse, we hadn't taken  the senate.

So I was in a bit of a funk Wednesday afternoon through Thursday when I realized that even though the margin was slim we had defeated Trump.  And even if the odds were daunting we had a chance of taking the senate.  All in all it could have gone so much worse.  My mood brightened through that day and Friday and the early morning of Saturday.  By then I figured it was in the bag, and paid hardly an ear to CNN relating the story a handful of votes at a time.

There was another load of votes coming in from Pennsylvania and maybe that would be a big story, but they had been saying that all day, and then the screen went black for a second and then there was that huge BREAKING NEWS screen with music to match, and then Wolff was calling it for Biden.

No big deal, I had been expecting this all along, but hearing it was like a great weight leaving my shoulders.  No more Trump, no more of that whiny sneering voice, no more Bill Barr, Stephen Miller, Rudy "The Gnome" Guliani and that whole shitwagon of thugs and thieves and swaggering low lives.  Oh my God.  

It was a beautiful day, the middle of an extraordinary sweep of Indian Summer and my door was wide open to gentle breeze and now the cars were honking.  I walked down to the Jewel and it was all smiling faces.  The honking increased, a happily jeering crowd appeared across the river from Trump Tower.  It went on deep into the night.


I know there was probably nothing like that going on in the bustling streets of Cheboygan let alone on that lonely road leading out to the swamp, but I am not gloating, I am just sharing my uncontrollable joy,  And now I am done.  There are many hard roads ahead, but like a guy who has had a boil lanced I am much calmer and I hope that in future conversations of a political bent I will not be going at with the white hot fury that disturbed even me.


And I didn't think that poetry was hard to understand at all,  All Gerard Manly Hopkins was saying was that no matter how dark the night the sun will rise in the morning.  He credits the Holy Ghost for this, which is where we part, but otherwise I think the meaning is clear.

That truth and beauty thing, well that could mean anything and I take issue with the idea that truth and beauty are just two sides of a coin, I think they are almost opposites, but we can take that up at another time.

What I am wondering is what kind of solo game is Dangerou Dan playing?  I can only think of solitaire and how would money be involved with that?

Well another fine morning is beckoning,

Sunday, November 8, 2020

Okay, Now It's Over

 Well, it won't officially be over until the Board of Canvassers in each state does whatever it is they do to make it official but, for all practical purposes, it's over.  Trump's legal challenges might uncover some irregularities, but I doubt it will be enough to change the outcome.  

In Michigan, the Republicans were able to maintain their majority in the state legislature, but not in the state supreme court. According to our local paper, Cheboygan County voted overwhelmingly Republican, which is what they usually do.  The map I saw the other day showed that most of the rural counties in Michigan went red, it was only the urban counties that went blue, which is also par for the course. 

The COVID crisis hit close to home when my brother-in-law died of the virus yesterday.  He had been in a nursing home with Parkinson's disease for the last five years.  Last I heard, about 50 others in the same home tested positive, but I don't know if any of them have died besides my brother-in-law.  As far as I know, the home has been following all the procedures, but they had this outbreak anyway.  

Sorry Uncle Ken, but I didn't make any sense out of your poem.  I'm not much of a poetry fan except for Robert Service and Rudyard Kipling.  

"A bunch of the boys was whoopin' it up in the Malamute Saloon.                                          The kid that handled the music box was hittin' a jag time tune.                                                 Back of the bar in a solo game sat Dangerous Dan McGrew                                                   And, watchin' his luck, was his light of love, the lady that's known as Lou."

Now that's poetry!

  

Friday, November 6, 2020

I hope this makes everything clear.

 The fat lady has advanced way beyond the scales.  She has adjusted her horned hat, shifted her spear, taken a surreptitious cloud of throat spray and taken a deep breath and quick as a cat can wink her eye will be singing her sweet song.

I see where Beagles was confused about the content, in transposing from my fb page I had somehow dropped the snippet of Gerard Manly Hopkins.  Here it goes:

And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

I hope that makes everything clear.

Other than that I don't see what was so hard to understand, but sometimes I just get jiggy with it.


Is Beagles hinting that maybe I have watched to much coverage of the election?  Probably guilty.

Thursday, November 5, 2020

It Ain't Over Yet

 While the fat lady may be practicing scales in her dressing room, she has yet to step out onto the stage and sing.

I don't know how to respond to Uncle Ken's posts today.  Maybe it's me, but I found them to be confused, almost incoherent.  This might be the reason why:

https://a.msn.com/r/2/BB1aJTGK?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare