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Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
What is the sound of 250,000 signs yelling?
New York City must change every single street sign because the federal the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices adopted a rule against all caps. 250,000 signs X $110 per replacement.
Now, now. It's a lot of money. But you know all caps is the same as yelling.
Now, now. It's a lot of money. But you know all caps is the same as yelling.
"Too many bills, hippies moving to the hills, people all over the world, are shouting..."
Motoring in northern Wisconsin.
"I miss nothing more than just driving right along Lake Shore Drive. I would love to hop in a convertible right now."
Obama's lament. (One hopes Michelle, who's been vacationing, conspicuously, without him, doesn't take that the wrong way.)
If you're traveling in the north country...
... where Highway 63 meets Route 2... there is a café... Casablanca Traders...
... where the nice lady kept the place open for an extra 15 minutes so that Meade could have a smoothie and I could have a peppermint tea with a shot of internet. We were the only customers, and Meade said you must do very well in wintertime, and she said that's what she, a transplanted San Diegan, thought when she moved up here and opened the place. But the truth is, no one comes in the winter. The customers come on the sunny warm days (which are few, up north).
In winter, where does everyone go? Don't they want to be somewhere cozy? We drove quite a ways in the Chequamegon Forest. And what we saw were bars, bars, bars. Bars and bowling alleys. The culture up north isn't so much about coffee and WiFi. It's more about beer and bowling. That was my observation, as I drove by....
... with my vision admittedly blurred... by speed, not beer. I was on peppermint tea...
... and to-go chocolate cake, leftover from lunch.
... where the nice lady kept the place open for an extra 15 minutes so that Meade could have a smoothie and I could have a peppermint tea with a shot of internet. We were the only customers, and Meade said you must do very well in wintertime, and she said that's what she, a transplanted San Diegan, thought when she moved up here and opened the place. But the truth is, no one comes in the winter. The customers come on the sunny warm days (which are few, up north).
In winter, where does everyone go? Don't they want to be somewhere cozy? We drove quite a ways in the Chequamegon Forest. And what we saw were bars, bars, bars. Bars and bowling alleys. The culture up north isn't so much about coffee and WiFi. It's more about beer and bowling. That was my observation, as I drove by....
... with my vision admittedly blurred... by speed, not beer. I was on peppermint tea...
... and to-go chocolate cake, leftover from lunch.
"Jail booking policy today calls for reporting directly to immigration authorities any inmate who can’t produce proof of being in the United States legally."
In Madison, Wisconsin!
The Dane County Immigration Task Force in May recommended an end to routine reporting to ICE at booking. Weeks later, the Madison City Council went on record in overwhelming opposition to the jail reporting policy, recommending that only inmates charged with felonies be flagged for ICE.
Meanwhile, also in Madison, Wisconsin:
[Dane County Sheriff Dave] Mahoney says he won’t change his policy. “I have a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure the security of everyone in my institution,” he says....
Local professionals who work with undocumented immigrants, mostly Latinos, speak passionately of how fear of deportation because of the jail policy affects lives of immigrant families.
The fear can paralyze, says Prudencio Oyarbide, coordinator of Clinica Latina at Mental Health Center of Dane County, a nonprofit agency serving low-income people. He says that some of his clients greatly fear making a misstep that brings them to the attention of police, to jail, and then to deportation: “They have significant impairment. They can’t work, they can’t sleep, they obsess all day long about making a mistake that ends life as they know it.” He estimates that 10 percent of his caseload of 45 to 55 clients shows fear that rises to this level of disorder.
Amy Kucin oversees Mental Health Center programs for adults with drug and alcohol issues. She sees how the fear of deportation complicates the challenges of kicking a habit. “I have a client who was arrested for drinking and driving and is working on sobriety,” she says. “He has so much fear about being out in public that he has to remind himself that his problem is drinking and driving — not looking Latino in public. The anxiety around that is really a struggle. He drives to work and goes home. Other than that, he does not go out."...
Gov. Jim Doyle denied a request Tuesday by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit against Arizona over its new immigration law.
If you really believed in global warming, you would turn off your air conditioning.
Permanently. Hot? Sit still, drink water, and stop being so selfish. Stan Cox promotes the joys of going AC-free. But it's just a pep talk. And anyway, why should you feel joy, sinner? It will feel bad. It should feel bad. The only good feelings that are appropriate are: 1. Expiating your sins, and 2. the sheer impact with reality.
AND: Here are some more things I want to see from you to prove that you really believe in global warming.
1. Your weight should be at the low end of normal, indicating that you are not overconsuming the products of agriculture.
2. You should not engage in vigorous physical exercise, as this will increase your caloric requirements. You may do simple weight-lifting or calisthenics to keep in shape. Check how many calories per hour are burned and choose a form of exercise that burns as few calories as possible.
3. Free time should be spent sitting or lying still without using electricity. Don't run the television or music playing device. Reading, done by sunlight is the best way to pass free time. After dark, why not have a pleasant conversation with friends or family? Word games or board games should replace sports or video games.
4. Get up at sunrise. Don't waste the natural light. Try never to turn on the electric lights in your house or workplace. Put compact fluorescent bulbs in all your light fixtures. The glow is so ugly that it will reduce the temptation to turn them on.
5. Restrict your use of transportation. Do not assume that walking or biking is less productive of carbon emissions than using a highly efficient small car. Do not go anywhere you don't have to go. When there is no food in the house to make dinner, instead of hopping in the car to go to the grocery store or a restaurant, take it as a cue to fast. As noted above, your weight should be at the low end of normal, and opportunities to reach or stay there should be greeted with a happy spirit.
6. If you have free time, such as a vacation from work, spend it in your home town. Read library books, redo old jigsaw puzzles, meditate, tell stories to your children — the list of activities is endless. Just thinking up more items to put on that list is an activity that could be on the list. Really embrace this new way of life. A deep satisfaction and mental peace can be achieved knowing that you are saving the earth.
AND: Here are some more things I want to see from you to prove that you really believe in global warming.
1. Your weight should be at the low end of normal, indicating that you are not overconsuming the products of agriculture.
2. You should not engage in vigorous physical exercise, as this will increase your caloric requirements. You may do simple weight-lifting or calisthenics to keep in shape. Check how many calories per hour are burned and choose a form of exercise that burns as few calories as possible.
3. Free time should be spent sitting or lying still without using electricity. Don't run the television or music playing device. Reading, done by sunlight is the best way to pass free time. After dark, why not have a pleasant conversation with friends or family? Word games or board games should replace sports or video games.
4. Get up at sunrise. Don't waste the natural light. Try never to turn on the electric lights in your house or workplace. Put compact fluorescent bulbs in all your light fixtures. The glow is so ugly that it will reduce the temptation to turn them on.
5. Restrict your use of transportation. Do not assume that walking or biking is less productive of carbon emissions than using a highly efficient small car. Do not go anywhere you don't have to go. When there is no food in the house to make dinner, instead of hopping in the car to go to the grocery store or a restaurant, take it as a cue to fast. As noted above, your weight should be at the low end of normal, and opportunities to reach or stay there should be greeted with a happy spirit.
6. If you have free time, such as a vacation from work, spend it in your home town. Read library books, redo old jigsaw puzzles, meditate, tell stories to your children — the list of activities is endless. Just thinking up more items to put on that list is an activity that could be on the list. Really embrace this new way of life. A deep satisfaction and mental peace can be achieved knowing that you are saving the earth.
A bus driver told a 20-year-old Madison man — whose underwear and buttocks were showing — to pull up his pants...
Public transportation in Madison, Wisconsin:
"[Larry] Wilks and three other unidentified subjects began to verbally attack the 45-year-old bus driver," said police spokesman Howard Payne. "He said 'You can't tell me what to do, and you better drive this bus.'"...IN THE COMMENTS: Sofa King said:
Wilks told police that he "didn't have to do anything" and allegedly got into a fight with the officer before being put into handcuffs, under arrest.
Others at the scene, apparently angered over the arrest, encircled the officer and Wilks, prompting the officer to call for backup.
"After the scene was calmed, Wilks stated he was not afraid to go to jail, and that proved to be directly in line with the officer's decision," Payne said.
See, this is why I drive a car.Oh, but what if we invested a billion dollars and got some wonderfully sleek and spiffy light rail trains? Surely, the Wilks ilk would pull up their pants.
The world is so pretty and all a-glow...
... when you're drunk.
ADDED: Via commenter Seven Machos, the AV Club says:
ADDED: Via commenter Seven Machos, the AV Club says:
Landscape painter Thomas Kinkade—known as the “Painter Of Light” because he trademarked that phrase for himself, and as a purveyor of patriotic and Christian-themed images that are meant to contain a “larger moral dimension”—has been busted for drunk driving. It’s part of a pervasive pattern of self-destructive behavior for Kinkade, whose innocuous, assembly-line images of peaceful cottages, Jesuses, and snow scenes have made him the nation’s self-described “most collected artist,” which is sort of like Velveeta bragging that it’s “America’s most sought-after cheese.” As Kinkade himself once said, “We have found a way to bring to millions of people an art that they can understand,” which just about sums up his Norman Rockwell-meets-Walmart approach.Go to the link to see a few attempts Photoshop the mug shop into a Kinkadesque vision of light.
Time passes slowly ....
That video is from one of our longtime favorite commenters, rhhardin, who says:
Approaching Turkey in the Straw diagnosed and awaited, video from Monday bike commute.That's from last night's "café" post — the one with the orange flower — where another favorite commenter, Lem, transports us into a long car ride with his wonderful father:
The business model is doubtful, with the kids safely indoors in modern times.
Anyway.. I had a good time driving my dad.. for about seven hours.. he drove the rest.The conversation was, I think, in Spanish.
I caught a sign in PA that said "where is the birth certificate?"..
We both happen to see it and when I finally did a half hearted ha ha (because I didn't get it right away) my father asked me what do you think?
..he eventually told me about what he calls the "American Concupiscence of Obama".
and of course he told me ther is a price to pay for that kind of thing.
He told me that "codicia" (lust) is not only a material, nor only a sexual mater the way people like to pretend.
He said that [like] any object of desire that is able to overcome fears, it is a (for lack of a better explanation) godlike.
According to my father.. the seemingly "impossibility" of Obama becoming president played right into his theme of "hope and change".. So that when it did happened (he became president) people assigned to it a divine like experience/intervention.. and now with the spill he is (unlike Bush) "uniquely qualified" to stop it.. or everything they believed is in jeopardy.
I wish I could put it to you all in the poetic way my father does.
When he spoke.. it was as if I already knew it.. It felt good.
For people to blame themselves for the spill is a stretch.. it is the only thing keeping Obamas hopes alive.
If people blame Obama.. in their minds (says my father) they might as well blame themselves.. specially if they voted for him (i said) ... and my father said after a pause that seemed jarring dislocated.. my father voted for Obama.
I didn't react to that.. (thank God) It would have been disrespectful to him.. the fact that he told me it was not so as to give me an opportunity to call it into question. I think it it was more to brace waht he had been telling me about.. "The American Concupiscence of Obama" had been real enough to carry him away like a Hoover Dam Relief.Concupiscence.
I wish Lem could capture that poetry on video. I picture Lem's father as a YouTube wise man.
Some commenters told me that the flower photograph looks like a painting. I've been a painter in my time, and the truth is: It doesn't look like a painting at all. I said:
The reason this flower looks like a painting is because it lacks something that — ironically — I would put in if I were doing a painting of it. There are no black/gray shadowy areas demarcating the depths of the folds. It's just more orange. It's not what the brain thinks will be there, but it's what the camera sees.You could look at that photograph and paint without thinking so much and thereby produce a painting that looks like a photograph. Artists have done that, creating the illusion that some photographs look like paintings. But it is, most assuredly, the other way around.
Time passes slowly up here in the daylight
We stare straight ahead and try so hard to stay right
Like the [orange] rose of [late spring] that blooms in the day
Time passes slowly and fades away...
Lightning hit a 62-foot-high Jesus Christ at the Solid Rock Church in Ohio and burned it down.
Pics of "Touchdown Jesus" and video of the fire at the link."
As fire gorged the iconic statue, several motorists along I-75 pulled over to photograph the sight....Plastic foam and fiberglass... at the Solid Rock Church.
The sculpture stretches 40 feet wide at the base. It was made of plastic form and fiberglass over a steel frame.
A pond surrounding the statue that used to be full of fish is now filled with remnants of the structure, made of fiber glass and foam. All the fish are either dead or dying....No miracle for these fish. I was going to Google some relevant stuff about the miracle of the fish, but Google being what it is, a search for "miracle of the fish" turned up things like:
How Miracle Whip, Plenty of Fish Tap Lady Gaga's 'Telephone ...Ah! The world is strange, but perhaps God is trying to tell us something.
Mar 13, 2010 ... At least nine different brands make appearances in Lady Gaga's nine-minute music video, "Telephone," from HP Envy to Miracle Whip and Wonder ...adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=142794 - Cached
"'Chick Cars' Don't, in Fact, Castrate Men."
That's Mother Jones objecting to some press release purporting to identify the top 10 "chick cars" that men should never drive. MJ sayeth:
Ah, I see. The real problem isn't the gendered object. It's the way men avoid feminine things.
I suppose it’s not that surprising that the idea of a gendered car exists or that certain members of the doucheoisie wouldn’t be caught dead in a Mini Cooper. After all, driving is fraught with gender stereotypes and assumptions....I don't see anything wrong with thinking about the masculinity and femininity of the inanimate objects you associate yourself with. I can decide to wear a frilly dress or a mannish pantsuit or to paint my living room a girlie pink color or a manly dark gray. So what's wrong with shopping for a car and thinking about whether I want a chicky Mini or a tomboyish pickup truck?
[I]sn’t it time we shifted male virility away from large, gas-guzzling automobiles, especially in light of the recent, horribly costly, and damaging oil spill in the Gulf? Maybe the sexes will never agree on who’s the better driver; but can’t we at least, for the sake of humanity, retire the phrase “chick cars” and the embarrassing PR it inspires?
Ah, I see. The real problem isn't the gendered object. It's the way men avoid feminine things.
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