Saturday morning cartoons: I looked forward to those during my youth in the 70s. Between cartoons there was a Schoolhouse Rock tune I enjoyed--The Great American Melting Pot.
What happened to those ideas? They clearly worked. Why, then, are they passe now?
I believe it, in part, has to do with the generation that followed the Greatest Generation. The hippies that were spawned by that greatest generation, a generation that suffered a depression and world war, rebelled in mass against their elders. These people not only rejected their parents (normal in itself) but, as a group, as a movement, as Hippies, they rejected their inherited culture. They became counter revolutionaries and turned their backs on the culture of success that preceded them. In unity, a generation said no to what had worked before, no to American strength, no to moral certitude, no to religion, no to individual responsibility, and finally said no to American Exceptionalism.
I have grown to despise the Hippie movement and the reverence with which they are treated in general. Although individual Hippies are mostly well intentioned, their good intentions do not transmit through soulless government bureaucracies. Good can only be done through non governmental community. So unlike all previous generations before the Hippie generation has done more to harm to the American Experience than good. They have relentlessly attacked the common bonds that tie the US.
Where once churches and community helped the down trodden we now funnel that help through a soulless government.
Where once we had a melting pot we now have cultural Balkanization.
Where we once had the crisp suit of moral certitude we now have the tie-dye of moral relativism.
Thanks Hippies.
out
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
More Vegas 6/25/2009
Kat's planning and our agreeing to drop Joshua Tree got us ahead of schedule, so had to tread water in Vegas for a couple of days as our reservations in Yosemite were a few days later.
Our campsite had to be changed. The first one was chosen in near total darkness and was at such a grade as to make sleep difficult. I got a picture of it, then quickly retracted the landing gear and prepared to move. With the morning light we were able to pick out a better site just across the r
After the move I got a few more pics of Elise and some flowers while Kat settled in and prepped for the day. I pushed for returning to Ve
As it turned out the day was something of a mild bust. Some pre-flight instruction in the ways to best immerse one's self in the joys of Vegas (snark) would have been helpful. The traffic was worse than the night before and the parking seemed worse than that. Most of the casinos had valet parking: something I am utterly unfamiliar with and leery of attempting. Eventually we found an entrance to the Tropicana that was labeled "self park ". Once inside, though, we were threatened with the heavy club of towing. We took the chance.
So...we were walking the strip, riding up and down escalators outside in the full view of the sun, and at one point found ourselves on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was warm, but not hot even though noon
I enjoyed the people watching in the McDonald's. From a couple of women with freaky big casino champagne glasses, to a cross-dresser, possible transvestite, to Germans, there was a plethora of personality. One nice fellow cleared a table with a partially emptied coffee and headed for the trashcan with it. He opened the flap and made like he was tossing the coffee only to leave with it at his lips. I know it wasn't his. I saw the original purchaser leave without clearing her table: a Mickey D's sin. I saw no poverty in his demeanor .
We ate quickly and hurried back in the direction of the Tropicana. Unfortunately the whole walk had been tarnished by the fear of loosing our van to some unknown parking authority. We were happy, though, to find our van waiting for us and decided to catch our breath back at the campground.
It was around mid afternoon by the time we got back to the campground and it was already filling with the pressures of an approaching weekend. In the site we had given up earlier that morning was a huge camper with a few tents pitched nearby. The party took up two sites and they weren't the only ones who did so. Just below them there was a popup that had also taken two sites. We learned much of this after chatting off and on with our new neighbors in the hours before nightfall.
It turned out the folks in our old site were locals. Manuel (Mannie) who was a Las Vegas cop and his wife who raised their children. They both knew Vegas well and after today's misadventure their knowledge was welcome. Mannie's wife told us that the casinos provide parking in the rear and do not tow so as to draw in customers. She also informed us that there were a number of good free shows and Mannie knew which casino had an antique car museum we were interested in. The last bit of info she passed on was in reference to the Hoover Dam. Go early.
The people in the popup were interesting primarily because the boyfriend was the spitting image in appearance (and mannerism) of the sham-wow/"slap-chop" guy. "He's wired." Mannie commented later while throwing a skeptical eye toward the wired guy's site. I think wired was polite euphemism for high. Also there was his girlfriend's wonderfully sweet daughter Emily. She and Elise instantly befriended one another and played like old friends until bedtime.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Bureaucracy's Folly
From Yahoo:
Obama declares swine flu a national emergency
Excerpts:
If removing bureaucratic impediments are helpful in the delivery of care, I ask: Why are they there in the first place?
Obama declares swine flu a national emergency
Excerpts:
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency, giving his health chief the power to let hospitals move emergency rooms offsite to speed treatment and protect noninfected patients.Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius now has authority to bypass federal rules when opening alternative care sites, such as offsite hospital centers at schools or community centers if hospitals seek permission.
Some hospitals have opened drive-thrus and drive-up tent clinics to screen and treat swine flu patients. The idea is to keep infectious people out of regular emergency rooms and away from other sick patients.
Hospitals could modify patient rules — for example, requiring them to give less information during a hectic time — to quicken access to treatment, with government approval, under the declaration.
If removing bureaucratic impediments are helpful in the delivery of care, I ask: Why are they there in the first place?
out
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Vegas Baybeeee!!..... 6-24-2009
Cities, like people, have personalities. A few are interesting, some unappealing, but most seem intent on being lost in the crowd. That was fine with me as I generally avoid cities when traveling, but there were two that I wanted to introduce my kids to. One was the flawed San Francisco and the other was the equally, although differently, flawed Las Vegas.
The temperature dropped to around freezing the night we stayed in Cedar Breaks, but we would never have known it inside our li
On a final walk around the campground while waiting for
The night before we worked on the Cedar Breaks Junior Ranger books as a family. We wanted the kids to earn their badges, but a visit to the visitors center was required first. The books had to be checked and our little Junior Rangers had to be quizzed. Badges aren't just given away.
Once we were packed and ready to go we visited the visitors center. Getting in wasn't easy, though. We had to pass through a gauntlet of Fo
Back at the parking lot the Model Ts had multiplied. There must have been thirty of them at that point. Apparently the genesis of all
As we descended the mountain we stopped at a couple of pull outs, one to check out a creek we had been shadowing and another to let the brakes cool. We stopped while in Cedar City Utah for lunch at a Mikky D's. Food, a play place with playmates and air conditioning was hard to resist.
Our next stop was Zion National Park. We took I-15 S., the first interstate we had been on in eight days, from Cedar City. We immediately missed our preferred smaller, slower roads. It wasn't long, though, before we were near Zion. We parked a little outside the park as the roads within the park were closed to private traffic in the summer. They open the roads to
Once near the gate we left our bus behind and entered the park. Ian was beside himself, but to his relief we were soon climbing the steps of another bus. This was one of the many buses the park used within the park itself. At anytime we could hop off, check things out, then catch the next bus. They all run the same circle. Along the way the bus played a running commentary of the sights. It was nice, although I never discerned how they kept it in sync with the view outside the window. On another bus the commentary was done by the driver and was more entertaining.
Zion is a beautiful valley carved by a small river. It benefited from a land slide in it's past that created a lake. Sediment built up at the bottom of the stilled water, and once the lake had drained, the sediment had created large fertile flat areas on the valley floor.
We eventually made our way to the "end" of the road where the buses turned around and made their way back to the entry gate. One of the things I wanted to look for was a log. Yea, a log. On my only other visit to Zion around 12 years ago I took a picture of a tree that had been recently felled by a beaver. At the time the tell tale wood chips were were scattered around the stump. Would it still be there? It was. I saw no beaver sign beyond the one log so I guess the park deemed the critter unacceptable as it's activities don't conform to their goal of keeping the park in a form of unnatural stasis.
The path we were on took us to a wading area in the river. The kids did their thing. I wanted to join them but my foot was still healing
One spot of interest was a European couple who were sunning themselves on a large rock. I say European because American women aren't prone to sunning themselves topless...unfortunately. Sorry,no pics. My distraction irritated Kat. Go figure. ;)
The children continued wading in the river, Kat guiding them upstream , away from the sun bathers. We joined another family with their own young waders and caught a "rock bug" before catching a bus and riding back to the van.
On another, later, visit we hope to explore the canyon a little deeper. Kat and I wouldn't trade the company of our children, but they tend to diminish the spectrum of possibilities. We watched a lot of hikers as we strolled along the river bank and rode the buses. We watched them return from trails we would never enjoy ourselves. Of course, some of the hikers were posers, hikers in clothing only. Others, though, were sweaty
That left us with more time in Las Vegas, and as far as the children were concerned our visit in Vegas began with a drive down the strip. The sun was setting and the traffic heavy.
I was nervous navigating the unfamiliar city roads with our home in tow. The spectacle of Vegas had its impact on the children. Unfortunately the few pics we took were poor. I was hoping to post a couple of pics of Vegas as the city is a little known jewel. ;) Oh well, we managed to get a snippet of video.
With the children introduced to Vegas we left for a campground north-west of the city in the Humboldt Toiyabe National Forest. Once again we arrived in a mountainous campground in darkness. The site we chose was a pull through and convenient to drive into in the dark but it was not level and beyond our camper's ability to correct. We slept with our feet high that night.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Wild Things
If soundtracks have any predictive value in cinematic releases, Where The Wild Things Are will be a wild ride.
I'm smitten with this trailer.... I'm convinced someone reached into my imagination and splattered it across the screen.
out
I'm smitten with this trailer.... I'm convinced someone reached into my imagination and splattered it across the screen.
out
Friday, October 9, 2009
There's a Prize for Unicorn Diplomacy...Who Knew?
Obama receives the Noble Prize for......rhetoric.
but...
Freeing a nation to exercise free choice yields derision.
Translation-
If it weakens or leads to an impotent US, it is good. And Barack Obama is good.
On the other hand,
S-n-L now has something to add to his "accomplishments"
Update:
Riddle- Why didn't Barack Obama receive the Noble Prize for literature?
Answer- He wrote two books.
Random thought:
The more I watch our president the more I feel he is our Mikhail Gorbachev.
but...
Freeing a nation to exercise free choice yields derision.
Translation-
If it weakens or leads to an impotent US, it is good. And Barack Obama is good.
On the other hand,
S-n-L now has something to add to his "accomplishments"
Update:
Riddle- Why didn't Barack Obama receive the Noble Prize for literature?
Answer- He wrote two books.
Random thought:
The more I watch our president the more I feel he is our Mikhail Gorbachev.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
A Mid Summer's Snow Ball 6/23/09
Waking to the sounds of a mountain stream instills, for me, a desire to own it..........That's not for us.
Oak Creek Campground was definitely a place we did not want to leave. It was a cool morning and it made my breakfast cereal al
Although leaving was hard, it suited us to do so. When driving the NC coast I often find myself longing for ownership. I'm unwittingly seduced into wanting a little piece of that coastal beauty. It seems to be an automatic desire that I subsequently recoil from; I have seen the result among friends. We know folks back home who have access to family beach houses and, although fortunate, they seem to be wedded to repeating the same vacation year upon year. There is no exploration and little that is new when following that path. But still, I seem to be easily seduced.
After leaving Oak Creek Campground we shared this overlook with a biker....
Then we unexpectedly entered the Escalante Canyons along the spine of this ridge with nearly vertical cliffs dropping hundreds of feet from the road's edges....
We pulled off at this Escalante Canyons' overlook and soaked in our path taken.
Then pulled over by this river bed to kick rocks just shy of Bryce Canyon....
We were teased by hints of Bryce Canyon but turned off by the crass commercialism outside it's entry gate and left; our greatest error in the trip...
We shopped in Panguitch Ut, a town overrun with quadrunners and other larger versions of the same. I fueled up while Kat bought food. A bag boy helped us load the food in the van. Service.
We, by God, did not leave Panguitch by way of HWY 89!
And we saw sights that were not on Hwy 89. Some were green and lush while others were black volcanic glacial deposits....
It seems that a mid summer's snow is also not found on Hwy 89. Apparently Ian is unaffacted by altitude as he ran the entire distance to the snow without stopping at 10,500 ft above the ocean's surface. Simply conversing while lounging sets me to deep sighs. Sigh.
Nearing sunset we hit our final overlook in Cedar Breaks National Monument.
We found a home for the night at Cedar Breaks Campground and attended a ranger talk on lightning by a rather youthful ranger. His presentation followed by a star party. The night was crisp, moonless and we were at around 10,500'. Star views don't get better.

A day of exploration! Oh, how seductive ownership is! Staking a claim on a piece of beauty. The problem: we want it all; we want to explore it all. It seems that the two are mutually exclusive. And we are glad we left the wonderful Oak Creek Campground.
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