Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. Available in weekly or daily dosage. |
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Looks legit, darn it by SirJ Saturday, August 16, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re Keep the Russians out by SirJ Disney would likely have some clause forbidding wearing company clothes during non-working hours. So, yeah, looks like they would have an excuse to fire those who are in costume while protesting. Acquiring a marriage license isn't the same as getting married. As John McCain got the license while still married to his first wife, but divorced her before he remarried, the charge of his being a bigamist doesn't hold up. From http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-divorce11-2008jul11,0,6546861.story:
Arizona marriage licenses are good for one year, and there is nothing in the statute requiring that applicants be single on the date the application is filed. 25-121. Marriage license; application; affidavit Everything looks legit to me. Darn! SirJ What do you make of this? Helen & Harry
Most convincing by Herb Ruhs, MD Saturday, August 16, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Confusion is the most convincing symptom of honesty. Herb Ruhs, MD  That terrible clang as the huge iron gate swings shut by The Alchemist Saturday, August 16, 2008 PERMANENT LINK You see, the communists are smart. They know that if they were to cut your food down to 500 calories a day, everyone would revolt, and even though they had guns, there were far more of us, and a mass rebellion would have overrun them. No, they did it gradually. 1900 the first week, then 1800 and so on. But eventually you were starving on a cup of rice a day. The Alchemist Suburbia by Chris M. Saturday, August 16, 2008 PERMANENT LINK What is the future of suburbia?
This article tries to put forth some possible outcomes but none of them really hits the point. First let's look at why "Suburbia" came about. Before WWII there were small towns, cities and rural areas. The "burbs" did not really exist. Housing in the cities consisted of (what was called) apartments -- which one usually owned, rather than rented... though the poor generally rented -- zero lot-lined housing -- rather like what Archie Bunker lived in... these did have fairly large back yards. My cousins live in such a house on the west side of Cleveland. There were also row houses which were large brick structures carved vertically into separate units. Very narrow and multiple stories high. After WWII with the returning vets looking for housing away from the city (and the influx of African-Americans into the city), developers started putting up large housing units just outside of metro areas on farm land and undeveloped wooded areas. These were primarily purchased by middle and upper middle class families and -- to a lesser extent -- older retirees. All was hunky dory for the "American Dream" as sold by the local real estate agent. Or so it seemed for about 40 years or so. In the last 20 years these same "burbs" started to morph into "gated communities" strictly for the upper classes. Middle class and immigrants need not apply. Now the luster is beginning to fade (along with the paint and siding) on these communities with rising gas prices, outsourced tech jobs and plunging property values. So those who live there are having second thoughts about their life style. Some city living is become fashionable again. So now (and for the last ten years or so) these upper class (white) folks are "discovering" the cities and towns again. What was also taking place in a few areas in some cities is a gentrification, if you will, of those areas once abandoned by these fine folks. They started buy up those "run down" properties and fixing them up and moving in. Causing the property values to rise, triggering others to buy up in the same area... quite often for speculation... fixing up... and on and on. This has also been happening to small towns. I know because I visited the one I used to live in recently. It looked like a small artist community with "funky" small shops and coffee houses etc. All very nice except for a couple of things. The tech bubble popped, housing went flat, the poor that were living there could no longer afford the real estate taxes and were force to leave, causing the property values to begin falling. The dodgy mortgages started coming due on these over priced houses. And the "burbs" themselves -- now too far to commute to and from and having no real support, relying on the stores etc. in the cities -- are being abandoned also. All these things are coming together at once. The burbs will look like overpriced, overbuilt shanty towns. The banks can't or most likely won't keep the housing up. And yet will want the same outrageous price they lent on it. No-one will want to live there saying they are too far from the necessities of life and cannot supply these things themselves. The small towns will once again become small towns. And we all know what is happening to the cities. All our lifestyles will have to change. The auto will need to be replaced by more economic mass transit and our food and other necessities will have to be supplied locally. But getting people to give up the fantasy of the "white picket fence" in a large collection of other "white picket fences" will be difficult.
The little boxes are falling apart and the plants inside are all dead. Chris M. Another lie by Brick Pillow Saturday, August 16, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re Keep the Russians out by SirJ My parents always made sure that we knew Santa Claus was a myth, not real, so I never had that sad, sinking moment I've heard from others, when they realized that it was all a lie. But I do remember visiting Disneyland as a child and loving it, something similarly exposed years later (years ago) as another lie... Brick Pillow Semantics by Wig Saturday, August 16, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Analysis: How to legalize an outpost
Lying via semantics. Wig Just plain unadulterated evil by Paula A. Saturday, August 16, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re Keep the Russians out by SirJ There are thousands of thoroughly corrupt all-criminal corporations running America, but I'd put Disney near the top as among the very most un-American and just plain unadulterated evil. At least the other monstrosities, the Blackwaters and General Motors and Boeings and all that, they don't pose behind cuddly cartoon characters and target their monstrous products at 9-year-olds. If anybody does more damage to America in more ways that Walt Disney Inc. I don't know who it is. Paula A. |
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