Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Winterthur; Kidney Stone; Mae West; The Pope; Koch Brothers; Biology; Wendy's; Sculpture Trap; Pet/Master Burial; Triggering; Dead or Alive

Nice day... sunny, windy and warm.


"How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
How pleasant it is to have money."


Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)''


01.  Winterthur


Yes, the DuPont's had money, lots of it.  Elaine and I visited Winterthur yesterday on a bus tour.  We took a tour of the mansion (now a museum) and saw all of the goodies that money could buy in the 1920's.  This is, of course, where the US is heading these days.. the moneyed "haves" and the poor "have nots"..  and this mansion with it's 53 beautiful rooms of antiques and Americana reflect affluence..  indeed, this mansion was where the US State Department sent foreign visitors to let them see how the "average rich American" lived during the 1920's.


After the house tour, we ate some lunch and then came back to the museum for the Downton Abbey Costume Exhibit.  I had wondered how they would be able to make an exhibit out of costumes actually worn in the show.  But it was very well done.. with clips from the television sequences in which each costume was worn. It was extremely interesting.  I had to hustle Elaine out of there or we would have missed the bus.


Incidentally, in attendance were 500+ women of Red Hatter age and 5 men of indiscriminate age.




02.  The Agony.. no Ecstasy


Per Chuck Shepherd:  Steve Grossman,  running for Governor of Massachusetts, was at a candidate forum recently and answered questions of all kinds, while simultaneously passing a painful kidney stone.  (Give that man a medal!)


3.  Naughty Advertisement


"If you get an erection lasting four hours or more, call me."  Mae West


4.  Over Flight


Only 2 World War  II airplanes showed up at the Westminster Air Port last weekend for the Wings of Freedom Tour.  The Carroll County Times says that it costs $5,000 each hour to fly one of those air crafts.  I wonder what it cost in WWII, when petroleum was a lot cheaper.


5.   The Pope and Catholicism


Jim Hightower:  "Like a hurricane, a new pontiff - and a new ethic - hit the Catholic hierarchy.  Pope Francis lives a Spartan life and goes openly and gladly among the masses, while stressing simplicity and personal humility as the proper demeanor for the clergy."  Archbishops are already arguing about this... some want to retain the "kiss my ring" philosophy. 


Archbishops and Cardinals are kind of conservative anyway, and kind of funny sometimes too.  When I was about 8 years old, my friends and I would listen to the Archbishop of Boston recite the Rosary on the radio.. and we would crack up because what he always said was:  "Hail Mary, full of grass..."  We certainly were irreverent little bastards, and we knew that Grass meant Pot at the time. 


6.  The Koch Brothers


Progressive Populist:  The Koch brothers "control the Republican Party from sea to shining sea, and have made clear their agenda:


They don't believe in climate change, and want no regulations on their oil companies;


They want their taxes reduced to almost nothing;


They oppose reform and regulation of Wall Street;


They don't believe in a minimum wage;


They don't believe in unemployment compensation;


They don't believe in student loans;


They don't believe in Social Security;


They don't believe in Medicare;


They don't believe in Medicaid;


They think public education should be privatized."


7.  Biology Class (for incoming Freshmen)


David P. Barash in the New York Times:09/28/14


Argument from complexity:  "As the existence of a complex structure like a watch demands the existence of a watchmaker, the existence of complex organisms requires a supernatural creator."


Darwinian rebuttal:  "An entirely natural and undirected process, namely random variation plus natural selection, contains all that is needed to generate extraordinary levels of non-randomness.  Living things are extremely complex, but still within the range of a statistically powerful, entirely mechanical phenomenon."


Argument from centrality: "Human-beings are distinct from other life-forms.. made in God's image."


Darwinian rebuttal:  "Even though species are identifiable, there is an underlying linkage among them, literally and phylogenetically." 


Argument about theodicy:  "Efforts to reconcile belief in an omnipresent, omnibenevolent  God with the fact of unmerited suffering; (see: Job)"


Darwinian rebuttal: "The more we know of evolution, the more unavoidable is the conclusion that living things, including human beings, are produced by a natural, totally amoral process, with no indication of a benevolent  controlling creator."


 Note:  I have altered Mr. Barash's words a little, but I believe I have kept the meaning intact.


8.  Wendy's


As a shareholder of Wendy's, from time to time I visit one of their shops to see how they are doing.  Last week I went to the one in Westminster, Maryland and this was my experience:


Elaine ordered 1/2 Asia Salad


She got a whole Asia Salad
Chicken was hard and dry.
Edamine was burned.
No cashews.
Asked for cashews, got spicy nuts.. not cashews.''


Elaine ordered raspberry lemonade, she got a non-mixed mélange of bad tastes.


I ordered a hamburger.. absolutely no cheese.   I got a hamburger with a slice of cheese on top and a slice of cheese underneath.


The clerk was new obviously and paused after every item was ordered or prepared.  It took a long time to get our food and we opted not to complain because we felt it would take more time to be resolved.


Now.. why am I writing this?  Because I also am a shareholder in Tim Horton's, the Canadian firm that Wendy's will be matching up with.  Tim has a lot more sales in Canada than Wendy's has in the US.  How will that work?  I don't think Wendy's will succeed in Canada unless they start  to do a better job of training their personnel.


Meanwhile, I'll try another Wendy's to see if our experience was an exception .. if not, I will write to the corporate headquarters. 


9.  Home to Mama


Harper's Index:  An American student became somehow trapped in a 32 ton sculpture of a vagina in Germany.  It took a whole firefighting company to free  him.


10.  After Blessing Your Pet


Harper's Index:  It costs $795 to be buried beside  your pet at the People and Pet Gardens in Hermitage, Pennsylvania. 


11.  Dangerous Workshop?


Carroll County TimesIMA World Health, a faith-based international non-profit, is based in New Windsor, Maryland and is sponsoring a workshop on sexual and domestic violence.  One sentence about the workshop says "Some workshop content is sensitive and may cause 'triggering' for survivors and those affected by violence."


12.  Is he really dead?


Chuck Shepherd:  James Jordan died in Brooklyn, New York in 2006, but police officers have pushed themselves into his home 12 times since then, looking to arrest  him.  Police have said that they don't believe his death certificate, which is taped to the front door.. and continue to search the home for him. 





No comments: