This is my first full spring in the desert and I’m not loving it. I knew, from word and brief visits, that it could be windy here in springtime. “Heck, it’s windy anywhere that time of year,” I thought. But wind here is something cosmic — even worse at times than the howling gales that are part of Wyoming’s very identity. We’re under high-wind warnings two to three days a week right now. And that’s not to say that the other days are calm. Merely that they’re windy enough to be annoying and to make havoc of both your housecleaning…
Category: Miscellaneous
I don’t care what their stated intentions are, or how innocent the people involved. To call this tasteless would be like calling the Titanic’s iceberg encounter “a scratch.” I’m no particular Rand Paul fan. But the flap over his “racism” is nothing but a nonsensical refusal by the media to recognize that public issues are subject to nuance. What kind of world is it in which “yes” or “no” are the only possible answers to every question? It’s good to see David Weigel of the Washington Post defend Paul on exactly the right grounds. Let me get this straight. Priests…
Okay. It’s Friday. It’s May. The weekend is coming. The sun in shining. It’s a good day for being naughty here at the blog. Don’t tell Dave Duffy (aka The Boss), but today let’s cover things strictly illegal and fattening. To wit: You just know cannabis is finally out of the Reefer Madness days and inching toward the mainstream when the New York Times runs a straightfaced article on how chefs’ and other staffers’ personal use of the herb is influencing both food and atmosphere at restaurants. Well, makes sense. Cannabis. Munchies. Yeah. And along those lines: Dan D. Lyon,…
Is this the best fake-ID site on the planet? So some have said. On a more respectable note: Has anybody here ever used SmartyPig.com, the goal-oriented savings site? It pays higher interest than your local bank probably does, and for amounts that can be very small. (But as with the fake-ID site, I don’t have any personal experience. So caveat emptor and all that. And “high interest” these days is still, relatively speaking, a joke. Trillions go to foolish, but well-connected banksters; peons pocket a pittance.) More from Freedom’s Phoenix: Gotta love that Ernie Hancock. Here’s what happens when a…
Sometimes when you travel the backroads, you end up at the Bates Motel. Other times, for a pittance in some old tumbledown place, you get blazing-fast wifi, a no-charge stay for your dog, and a picture window through which you can watch the sun set over mountains. Not bad. Then some woman (apparently in charge of rousing the members of a work crew) knocks on your door at 4:32 a.m. Apologizes. And comes back 10 minutes later and does it again. This time with no apology. Just turns and walks off when she sees you’re not the person she wants.…
Last night I stayed at the Bates Motel. Seriously. It was better than its namesake because — obviously — I survived the night. However, I dared not take a shower. Not from fear of knife-wielding weirdos, but because, as Mr. Bates himself disingenuously explained, “We have two other guests and they might have used up all the hot water.” I don’t know what the other guests did (if they existed, they were very quiet), but this was definitely a cold-water experience. It was the only open motel in the itty-bitty village where I stopped, though. I was too beat to…
Well, since it appears that the U.S. stock market isn’t going to crash — yet — this morning — okay, for the next couple of hours, at least — I’m going to sit down and take up a much more serious, but slower-paced, problem that’s been on my mind. I’m talking about the national, even global plague of “do somethingness.” You know how people are always trying to find solutions to gigantic problems, and (because their only tool is government), making a worse mess of everything? Blame “do somethingness.” If we could only end the “do something” plague, clever, independent…
I’m sorry for not blogging the last few days. Last-Chance Gulch had company from far away and we were busy doing wild-n-crazy things. I intended to blog about the visit and our flamboyant visitor. But as I considered what to write, I realized that our activities — while harmless — were nearly all illegal, immoral, or fattening. Or at least some of the above. Now that I’m recuperated, I may take time and use my better judgment before writing up any of our scandalously fun behavior. Or not. In the meantime, I’ve been collecting. And some of what I’ve gathered…
Nothing heavy-duty today. No depressing politics. No personal adventures. Just a picture to share. While working on my first illustration job in … well, more years than I care to count, I ran across this drawing I did last year and forgot all about. It’s not Great Art, but I did like the way the blue paper becomes part of the drawing and contributes its tones to the complex colors of the fur. Anyhow, this is Nadia (aka Nadja, Naja, etc.), my Noble Beast of a dog, who has the thickest, most lush ears, an extraordinary coat, and the demeanor…
You recall that “health-care” bill that had to pass so we could find out what’s in it? Well, Cato discovers yet another “mandate” in there that will land hard on every, single business person in the entire country. Weird one, too. Not exactly a paperwork reduction act. Yep, that was a “health-care” bill, alright. For the health of the IRS.