I’m blue today, thinking too much, I guess. What about? Well, mostly about how little anybody’s opinion counts. It all started when I read an article in a recent Rolling Stone magazine titled “As the World Burns - How big oil and big coal mounted one of the most aggressive lobbying campaigns in history to block progress on global warming.” I don’t see how any thinking person can deny there is global warming and like the article says big energy companies know they’ll lose in the long run, but they are out to make as much in the short term as they can.
I’m not sure the number of coal trains that pass through Mandan-Bismarck each day headed east, but it must be at least one an hour. They are long trains, 115-20 cars each. Multiplied that makes about 2760 cars per day, loaded to heaping. I won’t venture a guess as to dollar value but the imagination places it in the clouds someplace. Dollars accumulate causing lobbyists to buzz around like flies on a cowpie. I don’t even need to mention the monetary strength of petroleum companies; we’ve all been victims of their price schemes and maneuverings.
Of course, there is more scheming in other industries: health care, pharmaceuticals, military industries, et al. And now we have a N. D. senator saying he wants to retire, which translated I think means he wants a piece of the lobbying pie, too. I’m sure his mouth is watering. And here comes the governor of N. D. saying he wants the senator’s job, and he intends to make things right in Washington. Ha, he without any seniority whatever! What would it take, two terms before he even gets noticed.
So that’s why I’m blue. This modest blogsite isn’t going to print a multitude of examples to prove the point, but our individual insignifance is glaring. My Nation magazine came today and I’ll quote from it: “The EPA ushered in the new year with a dark reminder of the coal industry’s sway over the Obama administration. On January 4 the agency approved the Hobet 45 mine expansion in West Virginia, the largest mountaintop-removal operation in Appalachia. The decision was announced only days before a group of environmental scientists released a long-awaited peer-reviewed study in the journal Science denouncing mountaintop-removal mining and calling for a moratorium on new permits.” I guess it doesn’t matter who thinks they hold the power in Washington. We know where it really lies.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Still Learning
If I live long enough I should learn lots more. At the gym this morning I heard an interesting anecdote. I overheard one of the ladies who regularly comes to workout tell someone that she was late because their power was out this morning. Why? When the heavy frost buildup on the bottom line broke off and dropped away the line danced up and struck the one above it causing it to short out. Who knew that?
I learn other things, too. Our household has decided to donate to the survivors of the earthquake tragedy in Haiti and have been looking around for a trustworthy organization to handle it. We settled on a local organization called “God’s Child.” Their main interest has been Guatemela but have shifted their priority for this event. Anyway, we went into their office yesterday and was met by a nice young gentleman who gladly accepted our check. We visited a bit about different South American countries, and I commented he looked like he probably came from somewhere down there. No, he said his father came from India. Opening my mouth wide and shoving a foot in it I replied I could see he wasn’t a Norwegian. “Oh, but I am. I’m half Norwegian. Mother came from Minnesota.”
***
A few more news items from one hundred years ago:
Now that flying is practical and the North Pole has been discovered, the only thing left for next year appears to be perpetual motion. --- Professor William Klimmick, the Fargo piano tuner, was here last week. This is nothing unusual as Mr. Klimmick has been in Sheldon a dozen different times during the past summer, but this time he had a photograph which he was showing that he prized very highly! It was of the design for the silver service of the Battleship North Dakota. His son Hans is the designer. --- Mrs. Henry Hawk, living on the old Colton farm some 5 or 6 miles southeast of Lisbon was given a severe scare on last Sunday evening. About nine o’clock five masked men entered her house and proceeded to tear things up in general. At first she thought the men were joking but in this she was mistaken. Her pleading with them to go away went unheeded and it was not until her 17 year old son succeeded in getting the Winchester rifle and threatening to shoot if they did not leave the house that they left. After going some distance from the house they all stopped and one of the party returned, this time unmasked, and again insisted upon going into the house. Again efforts were made to keep him out and not until the boy had struck him over the head with the gun did he give way. The doors were then locked and the telephone put to good use. By the time assistance arrived the men got away. Two of the men were recognized. Mrs. Hawk and the children were frightened nearly to death and the affair will not be forgotten soon. The next time anything like this happens, Mrs. Hawk will be prepared to give the masked men a “warm” reception.
I learn other things, too. Our household has decided to donate to the survivors of the earthquake tragedy in Haiti and have been looking around for a trustworthy organization to handle it. We settled on a local organization called “God’s Child.” Their main interest has been Guatemela but have shifted their priority for this event. Anyway, we went into their office yesterday and was met by a nice young gentleman who gladly accepted our check. We visited a bit about different South American countries, and I commented he looked like he probably came from somewhere down there. No, he said his father came from India. Opening my mouth wide and shoving a foot in it I replied I could see he wasn’t a Norwegian. “Oh, but I am. I’m half Norwegian. Mother came from Minnesota.”
***
A few more news items from one hundred years ago:
Now that flying is practical and the North Pole has been discovered, the only thing left for next year appears to be perpetual motion. --- Professor William Klimmick, the Fargo piano tuner, was here last week. This is nothing unusual as Mr. Klimmick has been in Sheldon a dozen different times during the past summer, but this time he had a photograph which he was showing that he prized very highly! It was of the design for the silver service of the Battleship North Dakota. His son Hans is the designer. --- Mrs. Henry Hawk, living on the old Colton farm some 5 or 6 miles southeast of Lisbon was given a severe scare on last Sunday evening. About nine o’clock five masked men entered her house and proceeded to tear things up in general. At first she thought the men were joking but in this she was mistaken. Her pleading with them to go away went unheeded and it was not until her 17 year old son succeeded in getting the Winchester rifle and threatening to shoot if they did not leave the house that they left. After going some distance from the house they all stopped and one of the party returned, this time unmasked, and again insisted upon going into the house. Again efforts were made to keep him out and not until the boy had struck him over the head with the gun did he give way. The doors were then locked and the telephone put to good use. By the time assistance arrived the men got away. Two of the men were recognized. Mrs. Hawk and the children were frightened nearly to death and the affair will not be forgotten soon. The next time anything like this happens, Mrs. Hawk will be prepared to give the masked men a “warm” reception.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
January, 1910
I wanted to see how things were going back in the old hometown a century ago and went digging in the microfiles at the Heritage Center a couple of days ago. Here are a few of the interesting news items:
How many patrons of the rural routes leading out of Sheldon stop to think of the inconvenience occasioned to the carriers who are obliged to pick pennies from the mail boxes on a cold winter day? It is the most annoying duty which falls to the lot of “the boys,” so the carriers from the Sheldon office are agreed. To jerk off your mittens, dive into a snow laden mail box for a penny or two, and then perhaps drop the coppers in the snow and have to make up to Uncle Sam from your own private fortune is anything but conducive to good humor. --- Another date has been set for the world’s end. But these dates are generally postponed on account of the weather. So ordinary business plans can be continued. --- Dogden - The man found in a hay stack by a Russian settler badly frozen recently died at the hospital in Bismarck. --- Chickens have been disappearing in an unaccountable manner from the coops of their owners in Sheldon and vicinity during the past few weeks. A month ago, J. W. Doty, who is quite a chicken fancier, had 125 of the feathered beauties. A few days ago he noticed that his flock seemed somewhat reduced in numbers, and after rounding them up, he found that there were only 67 left. Mr. Doty has purchased a new lock for his chicken coop and oiled up his old shotgun, and woe betide any marauder who attempts to disturb the slumbers of his prized pullets. --- Gus Kratt has purchased a brand new 40 horsepower Overland automobile to be delivered in April and will be able to bowl along our good roads next summer with the best of them. --- George Patterson, whose corn won first honors at the National Corn Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska a few weeks ago, has received his prize in the shape of eighty rods of wire fencing. --- (Terrorists then, too!) Members of the U. S. Senate showed more than ordinary interest in the report that a letter was received from a man declaring he intends to blow up the upper branch of Congress with nitroglycerin. --- While hunting Saturday Charles Banks lost one of his ferrets. It had gone into a hole in search of a rabbit, and upon emerging therefrom, one of the dogs thinking it was the rabbit, seized it on the part of the anatomy that lies just behind the ears, and shook it so violently that it soon expired. --- About a week ago while Andrew Arntson was eating a hearty supper and thinking about what he was going to do to the other fellow at the gymnasium later on, someone with malice aforethought sneaked into his backyard and appropriated several articles of clothing that were hanging on the line. Andrew, not knowing the offender, took his revenge on “the other fellow” at the gym. --- Robert McRitchie, one of the big and good natured farmers down in Owego country, was a caller at the Progress office last press day and left a couple simoleons to be deposited in our strong box. Mr. McRitchie located there eleven years ago and since then has made many improvements about his farm. He now has a good set of buildings on the banks of the Sheyenne River and is well content to make that his home for many years to come. He is also a firm believer in diversified farming and pays a good deal of attention to stock raising.
How many patrons of the rural routes leading out of Sheldon stop to think of the inconvenience occasioned to the carriers who are obliged to pick pennies from the mail boxes on a cold winter day? It is the most annoying duty which falls to the lot of “the boys,” so the carriers from the Sheldon office are agreed. To jerk off your mittens, dive into a snow laden mail box for a penny or two, and then perhaps drop the coppers in the snow and have to make up to Uncle Sam from your own private fortune is anything but conducive to good humor. --- Another date has been set for the world’s end. But these dates are generally postponed on account of the weather. So ordinary business plans can be continued. --- Dogden - The man found in a hay stack by a Russian settler badly frozen recently died at the hospital in Bismarck. --- Chickens have been disappearing in an unaccountable manner from the coops of their owners in Sheldon and vicinity during the past few weeks. A month ago, J. W. Doty, who is quite a chicken fancier, had 125 of the feathered beauties. A few days ago he noticed that his flock seemed somewhat reduced in numbers, and after rounding them up, he found that there were only 67 left. Mr. Doty has purchased a new lock for his chicken coop and oiled up his old shotgun, and woe betide any marauder who attempts to disturb the slumbers of his prized pullets. --- Gus Kratt has purchased a brand new 40 horsepower Overland automobile to be delivered in April and will be able to bowl along our good roads next summer with the best of them. --- George Patterson, whose corn won first honors at the National Corn Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska a few weeks ago, has received his prize in the shape of eighty rods of wire fencing. --- (Terrorists then, too!) Members of the U. S. Senate showed more than ordinary interest in the report that a letter was received from a man declaring he intends to blow up the upper branch of Congress with nitroglycerin. --- While hunting Saturday Charles Banks lost one of his ferrets. It had gone into a hole in search of a rabbit, and upon emerging therefrom, one of the dogs thinking it was the rabbit, seized it on the part of the anatomy that lies just behind the ears, and shook it so violently that it soon expired. --- About a week ago while Andrew Arntson was eating a hearty supper and thinking about what he was going to do to the other fellow at the gymnasium later on, someone with malice aforethought sneaked into his backyard and appropriated several articles of clothing that were hanging on the line. Andrew, not knowing the offender, took his revenge on “the other fellow” at the gym. --- Robert McRitchie, one of the big and good natured farmers down in Owego country, was a caller at the Progress office last press day and left a couple simoleons to be deposited in our strong box. Mr. McRitchie located there eleven years ago and since then has made many improvements about his farm. He now has a good set of buildings on the banks of the Sheyenne River and is well content to make that his home for many years to come. He is also a firm believer in diversified farming and pays a good deal of attention to stock raising.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Horse Soldiers
When the Publishers Weekly says it’s the best book of 2009 and the New York Times says it’s a notable book of 2009, I get very tempted to find a copy to read. So it was with Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton. As one might guess from the title that the story relates to a scenario taking place about a century and a half ago where the cavalry mounted a charge against Indians, but no, it features a small band of special forces who entered Afghanistan shortly after 9-11-2000. This country’s leadership, Rumsfeld in this case, demanded an immediate response to the attack and murder of U. S. citizens, and small groups of special forces were picked to secretly enter the hotbed of Taliban radicalism and engage the enemy.
Given such short notice the men picked to go resorted to scrounging around for equipment themselves to properly outfit them for this duty. They bought clothing and equipment from places like Wal-Mart, REI, LL Bean, etc. Military uniforms were not going to be worn. The book relates a hairy helicopter ride for several hours into the mouth of the action, and when they arrived and met the general in charge of the Northern Alliance army they received quite the surprise. He took them on a day long trip to his headquarters - on horseback. Of the half dozen Special Forces members who rode in the saddle only one of them had riding experience. One of them related as to how he bled in the saddle from saddle sores being rubbed raw.
There is a cavalry charge in the story. I wonder how long it will take Hollywood to make the movie? Apparently one is in the works.
I remember reading several years ago the novel Caravans by James Michener, a story centered in Afghanistan. One point that author made has stayed with me all these years. He said in all of world history no foreign conqueror has ever succeeded in subduing that country. They are unbeatable. I hope the U. S. has no long range plans in there. If Michener is right, our values can never be imposed on them.
Given such short notice the men picked to go resorted to scrounging around for equipment themselves to properly outfit them for this duty. They bought clothing and equipment from places like Wal-Mart, REI, LL Bean, etc. Military uniforms were not going to be worn. The book relates a hairy helicopter ride for several hours into the mouth of the action, and when they arrived and met the general in charge of the Northern Alliance army they received quite the surprise. He took them on a day long trip to his headquarters - on horseback. Of the half dozen Special Forces members who rode in the saddle only one of them had riding experience. One of them related as to how he bled in the saddle from saddle sores being rubbed raw.
There is a cavalry charge in the story. I wonder how long it will take Hollywood to make the movie? Apparently one is in the works.
I remember reading several years ago the novel Caravans by James Michener, a story centered in Afghanistan. One point that author made has stayed with me all these years. He said in all of world history no foreign conqueror has ever succeeded in subduing that country. They are unbeatable. I hope the U. S. has no long range plans in there. If Michener is right, our values can never be imposed on them.
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