Kind of rainy day at 94 degrees.
"The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."
Robert Louis Stevenson
01. Corbit's Charge
Stalwarts of the Pipe Creek Civil War Roundtable put on their uniforms and performed at the annual reenactment of Corbit's Charge, last week. Some of these good folks look exactly as they would have looked in 1863, especially Ned Landis.
Captain Corbit and his Delaware Regulars engaged Jeb Stuart's men in Westminster, Maryland, and caused them to be late in reaching Gettysburg to help General Lee. The brave but costly delaying tactic helped the North achieve victory in that battle. Bullet holes from that encounter can be seen here and there in one of the buildings that is still standing.
02. Hurricane Arthur
The first hurricane of the season is getting ready to hit North Carolina and people are evacuating.
03. The Dow Jones Average
The Dow Jones Average is once again nudging the 17,000 mark. Within 50 points of reaching that target.
04. Nyet, Tovarich!
On Tuesday, Russia instituted a ban on swearing in films, plays and books. I guess they will never get to see an American movie again. "Films with filthy language will be banned from 'wide release' and books containing swear words will be sold in sealed packages containing warning labels."
Once, when I was taking a spoken Russian class, I had to recite a story I had made up. I wanted to spice it up, but I didn't know any Russian swear words. I still don't.. and now I never will.
05. Hey, Nick!
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is back in the news. He's being investigated for influence paddling and other election time crimes. (I wonder if he is still summering in New England?)
06. Uber Alles
Diane Rheem hosted people talking about UBER, AIRBnB, and other APPS, and new ways to do things in this Cyber Age we are in. UBER takes over from taxi service.. one can use one's cell phone to access UBER to get a vehicle of your desire to come to your home, pick you up, and take you where you want to go. AIRBnB allows you to look through files of thousands to find someone who would like to either rent a room from you, or swap locations with you, or move into your house while you are on vacation. Elaine's daughter and her family are doing this right now. They are vacationing in Canada, while another family is renting their home so they can vacation in Baltimore.
They like this peer-to-peer activity, either with new friends or with people they already know.
This kind of activity doesn't work with old folks who have lived through the Great Depression. We know what it is to not have many possessions, and so, we don't want non-family folks living in our houses and perhaps damaging our hard-earned "stuff."
UBER is probably a great enhancement of city living.
Some drawbacks:
Some people lie on questionaires and applications.
The picture you see, may not be your renter's picture on his application.
There may be problems in handicapped accessability.
There may be insurance problems.
etc.
07. More Dandelions
On the radio, someone said they couldn't decide on whether to buy red dandelions or green dandelions. Huh? I thought that all dandelion leaves are green and all dandelion flowers are yellow, and all dandelion seeds are white. What a beautiful flower!
08. Grocery Delivery
On DC's Kojo show today, they discussed organic food in the DC area. In that venue, people go crazy for kind-of hard to get organic food, while we in Carroll County, Maryland, have lots of it, for sale at small tables in farm driveways. We are lucky that we have such good food in our neck of the woods. That reminds me of the equality of things... like ice...
Rich folks have ice in the Summer
Poor folks have ice in the Winter.
DC people are rich, so they can buy organic food in any season and they don't even have to leave home. They can use an APP to order food and have it delivered. Soon by Google and Amazon.. on drones.
09. Equality for 50 years?
Today was the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. It's funny, but Congress was quite different then than it is today.
In 1964, Southern Democrats were dead-set against this legislation.
Today, Democrats think it was a good thing and don't want it to be chipped at.
In 1964, Republicans were still "the party of Lincoln" and wanted the legislation passed.
Today, Republicans are working overtime to weaken voting and other civil rights.
10. Dove for your Skin
My daughter, Diane, gave Elaine a coupon for a Dove "beauty session." (Read: day at the spa?)
The coupon had a code and instructions to go online and submit the code. I did so.. but nothing happened. I waited a little while and called their 800 number. They had no record of me entering the code, and the time period was closing that very day. After they listened to my crying and whining, they gave me another code and told me to submit it around June 30th. However, in the website, there was no place to key in the code.
So, I called them up today, and of course, they told me that the ending date was June 30th. I explained that I had tried 20 times to key in that code in the last little while... and now they did find a record of my email address and somehow knew that I did try to submit the code. They told me that they would do me a favor and let me try to enter the code again, but the "beauty session" would now be reduced to just a "facial" and it would have to take place in Walkersville, Maryland, wherever that is. I told the nice lady to forget it. I'll pay for Elaine to have a "beauty session" somewhere around where we live.
Why am I telling you all this... because, even though this cannot be called a "scam", what you have to go through to redeem a coupon, in this case, is a super pain in the ass!
11. The New Cosmos
Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson is the host of the new relative of Carl Sagan's Cosmos series. The show will have 13 episodes, on the Fox Channel, of all places. Rob Patterson, noted Texan reviewer writes about the new show and Atheism. He says: "It in no way disputes atheism, and the weight of the atheist accent on verifiable and provable facts about our existence is a welcome force against the all but childishly moronic belief that the Bible, a book ridden with contradictions, is all actual fact and composed by the inerrant hand of God. Cosmos basically explains what is and why and how within that as we can best ascertain or theorize through use of the scientific method."
12. Cheer Wisdom
"Hey, what's goin' down, Mr. Peterson?"
"My cheeks on this bar stool."
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