Tagging RVs

Driving cross-country with Tyler we discuss how satisfying it would be to be able to tag each RV we approach and pass.

If we were able to hatch this plan, we would replace idyllic but inappropriate RV descriptors like Voyager or Bounder with a more fitting moniker like Aluminum Shit Box.

In this way graffiti is more of a public service than a crime.

As I transition into irrelevance, it seems increasingly imperative I pass on this wisdom.

GOP Carved Like Sunday Roast

Richard Dawkins carves up Rick Perry and his ilk like a Sunday roast. In Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a fact, Dawkins adeptly peels back the under-cooked meat of the Republican party with this razor-sharp indictment:

Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.

Personal Historic Perspective

The first Republican President of my political consciousness in the 1970s was Richard Nixon. By all accounts this President was sinister and corrupt. I still have a mint condition Impeach Nixon bumper sticker inter-leafed in my high school yearbook.

But Nixon, deceitful political animal that he was, wasn't an intellectual featherweight like today's unseemly brand of Republican hucksters (e.g., Palin, Perry, Bachmann). Nixon graduated from Duke Law, served in the House and the Senate, served as Vice President under Dwight Eisenhower -- all prior to a semi-successful presidency.

May the gods of reason and progress taze me with thunderbolts, but Republicans used to be capable of a modicum of people-friendly policies.

How how far right has the Republican party drifted since Tricky Dickey? Nixon did two things that would make him un-electable in a 2012 Republican primary:

1. He enforced desegregation of Southern schools and 
2. He established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Civil rights and environmental protection are a two-headed demon to today's Republican lap dog. Richard Nixon would have to be a Democrat to have a shot at the 2012 Presidency.

Drift Boat

My grandpa built a 13' wooden outboard with my uncle. It had a 10 hp Johnson motor. At full throttle, the Johnson had just enough giddyap to plane the boat.

On my bucket list is to build a McKenzie River Drift Boat in my Saint Paul garage, tow it to Montana, then float the Madison in early fall when the cottonwood leaves are brilliant yellow.

Dear President Tone Deaf

Dear President Obama,

Sorry to get hopey/changey on you, but please reconsider your vacation plans.

That summer blue blood bastion of beach reading - Martha's Vineyard - ain't gonna resonate with middle-class schlubs like me who, if they're lucky enough to still have gainful employment, ain't had a real vacation in years.

It's the jobs, stupid

Sincerely,
The Rest of Us

Producing Art

Producing simply clever art, or producing simply provocative art, or producing simply self-obsessed art seems finitely insignificant.

Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.
~ Banksy

Producing art that connects you to a community, while also finite, seems meaningful -- if not significant.