(Enlarge.)
... you can be as sullen or sharp-edged as you like.
Showing posts with label trees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trees. Show all posts
"As sunbeams stream through liberal space/And nothing jostle or displace..."
"So waved the pine tree through my thought/And fanned the dreams it never brought."
Who wrote that? I asked aloud. Meade guessed the name of one of our regular commenters.
I laughed. "Emerson! You know why I'm reading that? I'm reading this letter to the editor of the New York Times from 1853, and the reason I'm reading it is that I did an archive search — you can go back to 1851 in the archives — for 'facetious' and 'bowers,' because I was looking for that quote in the law case Bowers v. Hardwick that uses the word 'facetious,' which is something I wanted for that post about argument by laughter."
Thereupon, I read the verbose and goofily palpitating paean to nature that begins "I have a penchant for grass and trees. A facetious friend intimates, it is on account of some natural affinity — mentioning a certain color by way of illustration." And so forth. The word "bowers" is in there:
Who wrote that? I asked aloud. Meade guessed the name of one of our regular commenters.
I laughed. "Emerson! You know why I'm reading that? I'm reading this letter to the editor of the New York Times from 1853, and the reason I'm reading it is that I did an archive search — you can go back to 1851 in the archives — for 'facetious' and 'bowers,' because I was looking for that quote in the law case Bowers v. Hardwick that uses the word 'facetious,' which is something I wanted for that post about argument by laughter."
Thereupon, I read the verbose and goofily palpitating paean to nature that begins "I have a penchant for grass and trees. A facetious friend intimates, it is on account of some natural affinity — mentioning a certain color by way of illustration." And so forth. The word "bowers" is in there:
Oh! happy is the man that has many of these spots to dream over, when the real of existence becomes too real! I have a few, and they are bowered with holy feeling — as beautiful and beloved as nests of singing larks in bowers of roses.Oh, well, okay... I think I know what you're saying in that crazy-ass pre-Civil War way. The temperature has shot up to 10° here in the northland. I don't know if the real of existence becomes too real here at my desk with my computer-screen view of the internet and my peripheral view of a wall of windows looking out onto the "liberal space" of Madison, Wisconsin. I don't think it will be such a dreamy escape from the real to go out there, but we will. It's time for that. When I'm trying to write about law and sodomy and laughing and I tumble back into 1853, the pine trees are waving to us.
About that Christmas tree.
I said it's okay — and green enough — to get an artificial Christmas tree. Then Professor Yin came in with some scary stuff about lead, and Professor Bainbridge says don't get a tree at all, and don't even get presents — give it all to charity.
The rent-a-Christmas-tree business.
A live, potted tree is delivered to your house and, later, removed, to be kept, potted, on a lot, and tagged with your name, so you can be sure to get the same tree year after year.
We're told this arrangement appeals to "eco-minded consumers seek a natural tree without the possible guilt of dumping it curbside later." But — hello! — trucks have to drive around delivering and picking up these things, and growing them and preserving them in pots takes some doing. Possible guilt. What nonsense! Why not buy a cut tree and have it ground up into mulch in the end?
But "eco-minded consumers" are people with money to spend on their own good feelings about themselves. It doesn't matter what's really "green," only what they think is green. These people pay $100 a year for the scrawny tree. And how does said tree feel? Permanently pot-bound.
Here's a clue: Buy a nice artificial tree.
It's totally eco-friendly, in an honest and non-self-indulgent way. You'll save hours of trouble every year. I wouldn't have done this myself. I thought you had to buy a real tree. Oh, the many years when I put up the real tree — often by myself, which is not easy — and once I got a husband who could help me, he — my horticulturist husband — pushed me into getting an artificial tree!
You can have your possible guilt. I've got my possible irony.
We're told this arrangement appeals to "eco-minded consumers seek a natural tree without the possible guilt of dumping it curbside later." But — hello! — trucks have to drive around delivering and picking up these things, and growing them and preserving them in pots takes some doing. Possible guilt. What nonsense! Why not buy a cut tree and have it ground up into mulch in the end?
But "eco-minded consumers" are people with money to spend on their own good feelings about themselves. It doesn't matter what's really "green," only what they think is green. These people pay $100 a year for the scrawny tree. And how does said tree feel? Permanently pot-bound.
Here's a clue: Buy a nice artificial tree.
It's totally eco-friendly, in an honest and non-self-indulgent way. You'll save hours of trouble every year. I wouldn't have done this myself. I thought you had to buy a real tree. Oh, the many years when I put up the real tree — often by myself, which is not easy — and once I got a husband who could help me, he — my horticulturist husband — pushed me into getting an artificial tree! You can have your possible guilt. I've got my possible irony.
The high-speed rail boondoggle at its worst — in California.
Via Instapundit, Reason has the nauseating details:
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, we just elected a new governor whose central election promise was to say no to $810 million connect Madison and Milwaukee by high-speed rail:
But, anyway, we have a nice train in Madison:
A train and a Christmas tree in the Wisconsin State Capitol.
The California High Speed Rail Authority is committed to breaking ground on a leg of the train that will serve passengers between the unincorporated town of Borden and the half-incarcerated town of Corcoran.Corcoran!
Whether you call it the train from nowhere or the train to nowhere, nobody will be riding it even when it’s done. That’s not libertarian cant: The actual plan for the $4.15 billion leg is that upon completion it will sit idle until other sections of track are completed.$4.15 billion!
Background: The CHSRA needs to break ground by September 2012 or lose $2.25 billion in federal funds. The U.S. Department of Transportation has for reasons of its own favored the sparsely populated Central Valley for this first leg of the thinly imagined high speed rail project.Reasons of its own? Can we get an investigation?
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, we just elected a new governor whose central election promise was to say no to $810 million connect Madison and Milwaukee by high-speed rail:
Scott Walker has made no secret of his aversion to high-speed trains, but before he goes any further with his plans to derail the planned Milwaukee-Madison line, Walker might consider some earlier chapters in Wisconsin's transportation history. They indicate that the governor-elect could be putting his state in reverse.Connections! We're all about relationships among people.
As long as there has been a Wisconsin, residents have labored mightily to establish connections with each other and with the world beyond the state's borders. Although disputes often arose in working out the details, the general trend was unmistakable....
The idea seems oddly nostalgic at first - why build passenger trains in the 21st century? - but it actually fits an emerging settlement pattern. Not in my lifetime but perhaps in my grandchildren's, and for better or worse, an interconnected megalopolis will sprawl from Benton Harbor, Mich., to Minneapolis-St. Paul. As the empty spaces fill in, there will be a demand for some form of transport that's faster than cars but has more frequent stops (and fewer exasperating waits) than airplanes.The columnist — John Gurda in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — is imagining a megalopolis in the future and telling us what people then will want. But people don't even want trains now. We drive cars. Or we take planes. There's also the bus. True, a bus doesn't go at a speed in between the speed of a car and a plane, but come on. Pick one. Road or air.
But, anyway, we have a nice train in Madison:
A train and a Christmas tree in the Wisconsin State Capitol.
At the Bright Orange Café...
... you're here with the folks who choose not to plunge into the orange that blazes everywhere out there in the 3-dimensional world.
Fall color...
... reflected in the devil's lake.
(Enlarge for better color.)
Talk about whatever you wan in the comments.
UPDATE: Woke up Saturday morning and saw the typo. Was going to correct it but it seems like a pun in a post about color.
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