Elephants Never Forget

Every so often Russ, a friend from work, sends me an email.

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University ..

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee, inspected the elephants foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter could not help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing, and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

Bane, RIP (Please)

Well put, and enough said

Comment Controversy

I first started reading blogs years ago. One of the first and best blogs I've found is Vox Day. He's a columnist for World Net Daily who bills himself as a Christian Libertarian. Agree or disagree, he's a pretty sharp guy and has a perspective you won't find anywhere else.Today's post is about comment boxes.

For myself, I like comment boxes. I've found the comments section of several blogs to be more interesting and entertaining than the posts themselves. I find it a bit pretentious that some blog authors want only "serious" discussions in their comment section. The internet is for everybody. Intellectuals, trolls and all those in between. Freedom of speech not only accepts the comments of idiots, it requires them. How would anyone know the difference between good and bad ideas if only one set of ideas are heard?

Communication is more than just sending a message. A message is only a sender and a receiver. Communication requires the receiver to respond, either in the comment box, or leaving comments on the senders blog. Finding like minded people as well as people to have disagreements with is the whole point of blogging. Identifying idiots is just an added bonus.

New Google Gadgets

I've been wanting to add some economic charts to the sidebar since I started this site. There's not much one can use, at least not legally. This week, Google/Blogger announced they are offering a huge amount of new gadgets, so I've been looking them over. They list 370 new gadgets in the finance section alone. Upon further review, about half of them aren't working or are under construction. Several are in foreign languages and there are about 15 or so that get repeated fairly often. I'd say there are about 50 new usable gadgets.

I thought at first I had finally found what I was looking for. On second thought, I have much better sources than google for these things, and the idea occurred to me that I should just build my own. I'm somewhat contrarian so I don't look at the same numbers as the rest of the herd. I know just enough HTML to be dangerous, and what's a blog for if not to try out a few experimental ideas? The more I think about it, the better I like it. So, I'll spend my weekend building an economic section to the sidebar. On a scale of 1 to 10, how geeky is that?

The Lion of 4th Street

With the dearth of conservative blogs in northern Nevada, and the general lack of interest in the inter-net among Republicans, I've had to content myself with reading the competition. The most creative and labor intensive site I've found so far is Zeke says so.

Humor is Zeke's weapon of choice (always a good thing). He seems to post at least once a day (no easy task). Call it creative destruction. Even though he is well to the left of anything I believe, and 4th street isn't a place I would go, even in daylight, he still gets a laugh and is worth reading. And so, against my better judgement, I'm adding Zeke to the "Sites of Interest" aka Hall of Fame.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Butter Trays

From 1977 to 1992, I worked in television production out in Colorado. The pay wasn't much, so most of my vacations involved throwing a tent, sleeping bag, and ice chest into the back of my pick-up truck, picking a direction and just heading out. No schedule, no timetable and no particular destination. I'd stop at every historical marker, museum, and point of interest turned cow pasture on whatever road I was on. I've been to quit a few out of the way places; from Missoula to El Paso; from California to Kansas. The best museums are not the one's that have the fancy goo-gah's and ornate foo-frah's. The best museums are the one's that have the worn out, common everyday items. The things people actually used. It's the simple, and the unadorned, that can give one insight and appreciation for the "lives of quiet desperation". They are most often found in small town museums; towns where the two lane highway doubles as main street. Little one room museums around the corner, that don't charge an entrance fee, but just have a donations jar on the desk when you walk in. I always know I'm in the right place when I see the donations jar.

Take the butter tray as an example of the common and unadorned. Old butter trays have a compartment underneath for shaved ice. Nobody saved these butter trays on purpose. Nobody ever said, "We need to save this because some day they'll invent electricity, and refrigeration, and soft spread margarine, and whatever that stuff is that you can squirt out of a tube right on to your sandwich." They survived by luck of the draw, by their own tiny share of cosmic significance. Set on a shelf in some little room, with the shaving bowls and hand drills, collectively shouting "We're still here."

Ice production was a huge industry at one time. The United States was once the world's leading exporter of ice. Loaded by the ton onto sailing ships, packed in sawdust, and sent around the world. The English in India considered the possession of American ice to be a sign of "proper breeding." Boca Reservoir, west of Reno, was built specifically for ice production. It wasn't built by the state for the enjoyment of fishermen and pic-nickers. It's not a green zone financed at taxpayer expense. It is the remains of a business. It was created by a guy looking to make a buck. There's nothing left of the old ice house now. Nothing, save the reservoir itself. The foundation stones near the highway are from a brewery that came later. Nothing remains but things like butter trays, waiting for someone to wander in and make the connection.

My mother was responsible for taking care of some of the previous generation while they were dying. One result of this was, she inherited quit alot of old stuff. Enough antique furniture to redecorate her house, and literally stuff her garage to the rafters. At one time, you could barely open the garage door, much less walk around in there. Mom has a good eye for furniture, fine linens and such. She can spot the difference between the regular silverware and the good silverware, that sort of thing. I, on the other hand, have developed an eye for what can only be described as "curiosities". My main function in the family is to act as a kind of clearing house for the oddball debris of human life. As my brother Steve once said, "If Ron doesn't want it, it must really be worthless."

Sometimes mom will offer me something from my own childhood. Several years ago it was a set of books; a collection of Anglo-American literature published in 1927, about 30 books in all. (Hawthorne, Tennyson, Longfellow etc.) Mom bought them at a second-hand store to decorate her new house in the 1950's. Being a young mother of three, having a little literature around certainly wouldn't hurt, and besides, their red cloth covers looked good in the bookcase. They are mostly from what I think is called "The Romantic Era." There are also "Transcendentalists." I don't know much about that, I just like a good story. They serve as a kind of museum unto themselves. I call it "The Museum of Love and Glory." Today, as it was growing up, when there is nothing much to do, I pick one off the shelf at random and see if there's anything in there that I can understand. I was wandering in the Ralph Waldo Emerson wing of my little museum, looking for a tie-in to all of this political stuff I've gotten myself into lately, when I found this little butter tray of an idea. It seemed appropriate for the occasion. So, Happy 4Th of July to any and all who are still reading this.

ODE SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL
Concord, July 4, 1857

O Tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire;
One morn is in the mighty heaven,
And one in our desire.

The cannon booms from town to town,
Our pulses are not less,
The joy-bells chime their tidings down,
Which children's voices bless.

For He that flung the broad blue fold
O'er-mantling land and sea,
One third part of the sky unrolled
For the banner of the free.

The men are ripe of Saxon kind
To build an equal state,
To take the statute from the mind,
and make of duty fate.

United States! the ages plead,
Present and Past in under-song,
Go put your creed into your deed,
Nor speak with double tongue.

For sea and land don't understand,
Nor skies without a frown
See rights for which the one hand fights
By the other cloven down.

Be just at home; then write your scroll
Of honor o'er the sea,
And bid the broad Atlantic roll,
A ferry of the free.

And, henceforth, there shall be no chain
Save underneath the sea
The wires shall murmer through the main
Sweet songs of Liberty.

The concious stars accord above,
The waters wild below,
And under,through the cable wove,
Her fiery errands go.

For He that worketh high and wise,
Nor pauses in his plan,
Will take the sun out of the skies
Ere freedom out of man.

Friendly reminders and future projects

Marion continues to inspire. She has added my little hole in the wall to her "Blogs I always read" list. There are some very talented and accomplished people on that list, so it is very high praise. I'm not used to that kind of company, but I'll do my best to keep it interesting. One thing I find interesting is how this blog has changed just in the month or so that I've been doing this. My first few posts were generally negative. That's the influence of the kind of blogs, and other commentary, I was reading. It was kind of like one of those cable TV shows where everybody yells at each other in between commercials. Then my posts become increasingly less antagonistic. I have to admit, when I googled Washoe County Convention, and found Marion's blog, I thought "nice post, but what's with all the hiking pictures?" I didn't get it. I think I get it now. We choose the blogs we write, like we choose the lives we live. It doesn't have to be a dogfight all the time. I've met a few friendly, positive, and encouraging people at the various Republican meetings of late, but I think my communications with Marion have had the most influence on my change in outlook. Thanks for the reminder of why we're all here.

I went to the precinct captains training session last night. I am pleased to announce that I am now the newly minted captain of precinct 3031. (Insert a hearty round of applause here). I'm going to document my progress, or lack thereof, through election day. I'll be meeting about 1,000 or so strangers which should be interesting to say the least, unless they slam their doors in my face, in which case I'll have some exciting door slamming stories. I won't start the story until next week because I'm also planning a little 4Th of July Tribute which I better start tonight, if I'm going to finish by tomorrow. I'm also planning a serious upgrade of the profile. I thought at first that being anonymous would be best, but since I've inadvertently wandered into a friendly group, it would be good if you knew more about me.

The Blog Roll

When I started this blog, I made the conscious decision to keep it simple. I like the minimalist look. Some other blogs have very long favorite sites entries. This is supposed to be helpful in finding other bloggers with similar interests. However, I've found, as a general rule, that the longer the list, the more likely half of them are inactive. This is very irritating. For this reason, my "Sites of Interest" has been, and will continue to be, noticeably short. Mine will be more like a Hall of Fame, as opposed to a list of every blogspot I've ever visited.

Resolved: I, localsoandso, acting as Permanent Absolute Monarch of this blogspot, nominate, second, and approve by unanimous consent, the addition of "Marion" to the Sites of Interest.

I've never actually met Marion, but we have crossed paths at various Republican Conventions over the last several months. Since Republicans in Nevada seem to hold monthly conventions, we're bound to run into each other at some point. Having worked for Sun Micro-Systems, she is a technologically advanced life form. Being retired, she seems to spend most of her time gallivanting through the forest with someone named Duke. Who can blame her?