When That Man Is Dead and Gone

Irving Berlin wrote this song of hope about the celebration to come when a world-wrecking racist and fascist died.

The version, below, is the Glenn Miller Orchestra with Tex Benake and the Modernaires on vocals.

Not a Factory-Made Product

Humans are an artisanal product. Imperfections are signs that this is handmade item crafted by people with real jobs, competing interests, and limited time. It is natural for variations and imperfections to occur, and these should be considered part of the essential character of the individual.

This Land Is Your Land

Woody Guthrie wrote the lyrics to 'This Land Is Your Land' on this day in 1940, in his room at the Hanover House Hotel in New York City.  The melody is based on a Carter Family tune called "When the World's on Fire".

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York island,

From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters; This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway 

I saw above me that endless skyway; 

I saw below me that golden valley; 

This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps 

To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts; 

And all around me a voice was sounding;

This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling, And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting: This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there,

And on the sign it said "No Trespassing." 

But on the other side it didn't say nothing.

That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people, 

By the relief office I seen my people; 

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking 

Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me, 

As I go walking that freedom highway; 

Nobody living can ever make me turn back

This land was made for you and me.

Pictures From My Wee Woods

Seth Staton Watkins :: If the People Unite

Happy Birthday John Steinbeck

“There was a feller that knew us Oakies, and he knew what it was like in Oklahoma, and he knew about the dust and the debts that covered us up, and he knew why we blowed out to California, because early in the deal, he throwed a pack on his back and traipsed around amongst us, and lived with us, and talked to us, and et with us, and slept with us, and he felt in his heart and knew in his head that us Oakies was a lookin' for ‘A Living WITH Labor’ —that man was John Steinbeck.” – Woody Guthrie

A Promising Future

I picked up a December 1928 copy of Popular Mechanics the other day.  This publication came out one year before the Great Depression, when electricity, cars, and airplanes were new.  The magazine has an *astounding* number of ads for get-rick-quick correspondence schools, and a pretty big article, with illustrations, of the Great Things to Come from the Graf Zeppelin, which would be flying between Friedrichshafen, Germany and Lakehurst, New Jersey. 

I wonder how that worked out?

Of particular interest is the last picture which shows the first radio transmission of a picture — a Zeppelin on its maiden test inflation.  I think this was, essentially, the first fax.

Willie Nelson :: Always on My Mind

Ed Sheeran :: Layla

Chainsaw Work

I started reducing a big tree that pulled out and over a few weeks ago.

No, the dogs are not with me when I fire up the chainsaw. Chainsaws are dangerous enough without having to cloud your focus thinking about where the dogs are. 

In the fourth picture, the bright orange chainsaw is on the very end of the main trunk. It’s a pretty big tree. 80 feet, I think.

I use a magnetic measuring bar to quickly score logs every 18” (in this case) for firewood.  The magnet is strong, and afixes to the bar, with the chainsaw blade spinning around it.  You start the  chainsaw first, then carefully place the magnet on the bar, 2/3 of the way back, and you use the front half of the bar to score the logs.  The big disk on the rod can slide, so it will measure 14” for a wood stove as well. The big disk is placed within an inch or so of the last cut, and then the saw cuts the next score, and you move down the log.  

I score first, as it’s fast and easy. Then, with the magnetic stick off the saw, it’s quick work to section a tree and stack well-measured rounds to dry. 

This tree is pine and green, so it needs a year or two to dry, and even then it’s not great fire wood compared go the oak we have in abundance.

An unexpected happiness; the stump was not rolling over back into the hole, and though it slightly shifted under my weight and muscle, it did not go over. I packed up for the day, had lunch, and when I came back down the hill, it had flipped back into the hole. I assume a little melting of the frozen ground was a factor. I will cut the stump lower when I section the tree.

E.B. White’s Writing Place

E.B. White's writing shack, at his home in Maine.

The Grandkids

More Snow on the Knoll

Winter Kayaks on the Shenendoah

Forty million people on the East Coast are bracing for a blizzard, but kayakers were out on the Shenandoah River just above Harpers Ferry on the West Virginia-Maryland border.

Brandi Carlile :: Keep Your Heart Young

The Insane World of Mercola

If you write about healthcare, human or canine, you will eventually stumble into Mercola, and its creator and financier, Joe Mercola.

What you need to know is that the man is insane, and the entire site a dangerous scam and a grift intent on selling unproven dietary supplements and medical devices.  

Mercola and colleagues push bunk and woo, including homeopathy, and they oppose vaccination.

It’s not ALL bullshit. There’s enough boring, proven, and common sense stuff tossed in there to get you wondering, and it’s all nicely mixed in with a combination of fear-mongering, double-speak, and slick promotional packaging to make you think *maybe* the source and web site is legitimate.  

But it’s not.

Here’s a question for you:  If I gave you a bowl of icecream with just one teaspoon or dog shit mixed in, would you eat it? How about if it was in a *really* pretty bowl?  What if I told you the server had a degree from the Culinary Institute of America?  What if I told you it was Medical-Grade Dog Shit ™?

No?

How about if I told you the dog shit and icecream server had made over $300 million selling dog shit and icecream?

You’re *thinking* about it now, aren’t you?  I mean… how bad could this dog shit and icecream be if it sold that much? 🤔

Plus, it’s Medical-Grade Dog Shit ™ so maybe that’s OK? 🤷‍♂️  I mean, if it’s a scam, surely the FDA or someone would have shut it down, right? 🤔

Right.  What’s next?  You’re going to tell me Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, trickle-down economics works, and the key to financial succes is day-trading and Crypto, aren’t you?

Look, see for yourself. This rather long, but disturbing video was produced by Jonathan Jarry at the McGill University Office for Science and Society.  

If, after watching this, you still think Mercola’s supplements and vaccine advice makes sense, go right ahead. Darwin laces up his boots every morning, and I’ve never been one to try to catch the jumpers.

Why We All Hate the Police

Pedophilia, rape, blackmail, murder by secret police, mass murder by denial of aid, mass murder by denial of health care, money laundering, and poisoning for profit all get the BIG WINK from law enforcement.  The wealthy and the corporate get widespread redactions of records, and little or no publicity for the crime or the criminal.

But a young lady, with a hard life and some struggles, who is simply feeding another living thing?  CRIME!  Call the police.  Put her picture and name in the paper.

Another Five Inches?

Weather forecasters around here are correct no better than once every three times, so it's best to treat their predictions as suggestive rather than predictive. That said they say we are due for 5" of snow between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, which puts a kibosh on my plans to section up one or two large downed trees.

As always, humans plan and God laughs.

Poor, Tough, and Smart

My father grew up the son of the town drunk in the poorest town in Eastern Kentucky, which is to say the poorest town in the USA.  

He never graduated from high school after successfully running away from an unhappy home at age 14.  This newspaper clip was from an unsuccessful attempt to run away  at age 13. 

My father got his GED in the Air Force, graduated from Princeton, attended graduate school, joined the US Foreign Service, taught himself French, Arabic, the piano, bass, and trombone, and was variously stationed in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Mali, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria.  

He traveled everywhere, owned a 1937 Bentley, lived to play jazz, married once for life, and ran the climate program for the American Association for  the Advancement of Science back when absolutely no one was talking about global warming.  

My father was smart, tough, romantic, and an insatiable consumer of information.  He would tell you the best thing he ever did was marry my mom. He was not wrong!

Winwood & Clapton :: Can’t Find My Way Home

Great Danes Are Not Danish (or Ancient)

Boar-hunting dogs are an ancient utilitarian type, and go back to mastiff-like molossers and running dogs that pre-date the Roman empire.

Because their boar dogs were so often crosses of English Mastiffs and Scottish or Irish running dogs, the Germans called the type the “Englische Dogge".

What did these dogs look like?  Well, they were variable, as you might expect, but none looked too much like the modern Great Dane.

The dog, below, was painted by Thomas Stringer (1722-1790), and is said to be “A Harlequin Great Dane Called 'Turpin,'” but in fact the description was added well over a hundred years later, a fact we know because the term “Great Dane” was not yet in use.

Another problem:  Stringer was a small-town British painter, living in Knutsford. How was he painting a German boar-hunting dog?  Answer: he wasn’t.

A third problem:  there were no wild boar in the UK. The last wild boar in the UK was hunted to extinction in the 1200s, and wild boar did not turn up again until the late 1980s or early 1990s, when a few escaped from a game farm and began to breed in the wild.

So what is this dog?  Simple: a cross between a running dog and a mastiff.  It is a broad type, and not a breed, and in this case we know for certain it was not a boar dog.

What about the dog pictured below?  

This painting is by Theodor Goetz and was painted in 1853. A German painting, this dog might have bern an actual boar hound.  But would anyone call it a Great Dane?  I think not.

What about the dog pictured below?  This painting is by William Barraud, another British painter, and in no way does it look like a Great Dane, though that is how it has been labeled.  In fact it looks more like a poorly bred Foxhound mix.  What we know for certain is that it was no boar dog as — again — there had been no wild boar in the UK for 600 years.

Finally, we have a photo (below), from the 1880s or 90s, taken in Paris, France. Here we finally see dogs that can be called “Great Danes.” One of these dogs appears to be wearing a cut collar used in boar hunting, and these dogs are notably lighter than the hulking pet behemoths we see today, which is another clue that these dogs are likely true boar dogs.

So now we come to the true history of  the Great Dane, which is neither an ancient breed, nor Danish. 

The Great Dane, as a breed, was created in the mid-1800s out of the “Englische Dogge" stock in Germany at the time (see second paragraph of this post). 

The Great Dane was declared the national breed of Germany in 1876 (three years after the UK Kennel Club was created, and in direct response to it), and the Germans now said it was to be called the “Deutsche Dogge” rather than the “Englische Dogge".

A breed club in Germany was created and a standard developed by 1882.  

The breed was admitted to the Royal Kennel Club in 1883, where it was officially called a “Great Dane” in 1894 (over German objections and despite no connection to Denmark).

Today’s Great Dane has not fared well in the Kennel Club, and most are dead at a remarkably young age.

None of this is deeply hidden, and if one person wants to point to a pie-bald dog on an Egyptian tomb and proclaim it a “Dalmatian,” and another wants to point to the same picture and proclaim it a “Great Dane,” there is no use in arguing, as it changes nothing.  Some people, I am told, still believe in trickle-down economics!

Thoughts and Prayers

Heinz be with you, Donald Epstein, at this tragic moment in your presidency. In Crypto scam we prey.

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN!

Daddy, What’s Pinball?

The Trains Are Always Coming and Going

The funeral train leaves, and a new train arrives, packed with fresh and optimistic arrivals, each with a shiny new suitcase.

They are always leaving… and always arriving. 

I’m reminded of when I got in a deep funk in the late 1970s when so many great musicians died and it seemed only punk and thrash metal was on the airwaves… 

Then Bruce Springsteen showed up. 

Tony Rice died, and Johnny Cash, and Waylon and Kris…. and then Billy Strings showed up.  

We lost John Prine, but gained Jesse Welles.  

Nothing was replaced. In music, at least, we still have Woodie Guthrie and Pete Singer and Janis Joplin.  

But in politics? 

We lose and I feel like we only lose. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are weak wood, and can bear no weight.  

And yet…. 

And yet we have AOC and Jasmine Crocket, Pete Buttigieg and Berne Sanders, Zohran Mamdani and Elizabeth Warren.

Still, I am uneasy. Even the tragic past feels comforting compared to the looming future. 

Perhaps, that is how it has always been.

As T.S. Elliot said, “In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo"

Red-shoulder Waiting for Warmth

Willie Nelson :: Grave Digger

The Dog That Wore the Hope Diamond

Edward Beale Mclean and his wife, Evalyn Walsh McLean and her poodle in 1912.  The poodle would wear the Hope Diamond on her collar at dinner parties.  The terrier (far left) was not amused.

Edward bankrupted The Washington Post and ended up in an insane asylum. At one point Evalyn had to park the Hope Diamond in a pawn shop to raise cash and avoid eviction.

How to Turn Any Dog Into a Jack Russell

The Kennel Club’s Designer Dogs

People are funny in that so many simply do not observe, and when they see at all, they do not ask or understand.

Take dogs.  People will repeat that old chestnut that  “form follows function,” but in fact form doesn’t follow function — not even in that sentence.  

A dachshund and a terrier do the same work and are morphologically different. Setters and pointers do the same work and are quite distinct.  And what is the function of the Boston Terrier, Coton, Maltese, English Bulldog, or Scotty?  None!

A Patterdale Terrier does not look too much like a Jack Russell, which does not look too much like a Border Terrier. Smooth coats and rough do equally well in the field, as do coats of black or white, red or brown, or any combination in between. A folded ear is the same as a prick ear, a black nose the same as a liver-colored nose. Every working earthdog breed has a different head shape, and many have different tails as well. A perfect scissors bite is not necessary for work.

Form is form, and function is function, and the relationship is more often tenuous than observed.

And then there are the nodding know-nothings who decry every doodle, puggle, or chiweenie as a “designer dog,” seemingly unaware that their English Setter, Standard Poodle, or Boxer is the REAL designer dog, whose “standard” comes complete with a list of scantlings and architectural-quality elevation drawings.

These Kennel Club designer dogs are, for the most part, not ancient breeds. The supposedly "ancient" Ibizan Hound and Pharaoh hound, for example, turn out to have been made up within the last 140 years or so -- no doubt bred to look like the drawings and sculptures of sleek, slender-necked canines with pointy ears and long snouts seen on the tombs at the time of Carter. As for the Norwegian Elkhound, which supposedly dates back to Viking dogs, it turns out to have originated no farther back than the past few hundred years. 

Using 96 distinct patterns in genes — called "microsatellites” — researchers compared dogs within breeds, and breeds with one another. In the May 21, 2004 issue of the journal Science, the team concluded that almost every breed was surprisingly distinct genetically, and only a few were very old.

A few surprising gleanings:

▪️Ancient dogs included a very motley assortment of dogs found all over the world: the Alaskan Malamute, the Siberian Husky, the Samoyed, Basenji, Saluki, Afghan, Lhasa Apso, Pekingese, Shar-Pei, Shih Tzu and Akita.  German shepherds, which might have been expected to be in the either the ancient group (due to their resemblance to wolves) or the herding group, were found to actually be more closely related to to mastiff-type dogs, such as the bull mastiff, the bulldog, and the Rottweiler.

▪️Herding dogs, included such obvious members as the collie and the sheepdog, but also the Greyhound.

▪️Terriers and scent-tracking hounds, such as spaniels and setters, were deemed to be of relatively recent European origin. This should hardly surprise anyone -- almost all of the terrier "breeds" were created after 1800 and most after 1860 and the beginnings of the Kennel Club and livestock shows.

Bottom line:  most breeds are not very old, all were created by mixing and then inbreeding, none were created in the Kennel Club, and all are very much “designer dogs’ complete with brochures and books explaining how the ephemeral minutiae of one breed differentiates it from others within a more robust type.  Designer dogs?  Absolutely!

Another Tree Falls in the Forest

I see Jesse Jackson has died at age 84.  He had a long career in civil rights, and was a fiery defender of justice, though towards the end his speaking style seemed almost a parody of what, 20 years earlier, had seemed new and fresh.

I ran a few events in which Jesse Jackson spoke, but only one of which is memorable.  That one was a 10,000-person rally in City Hall Park in New York City.  I was on stage, fiddling with a prop I had brought from Washington, when some fool pushed over its top, which came down on my finger, all but severing it.  Blood was everywhere, and the finger was quite smashed. Before I could figure out what to do, an ambulance rolled up, and a fellow so short he could stand up in the vehicle got out. He was lightly bearded, very serious, and wearing a yarmulke. 

“What happened,” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “The mohel said this is how you do it, but it seems off.”  

Oh, he LOVED that answer!  

As we pulled up at Bellvue, a few blocks away, he looked at me sternly and said in a commanding tone. “Don’t say nothing.  Imma get you in.”  

I nodded, and it was really quite miraculous — I breezed past everyone, and was put in a bay next to a construction worker with a piece of rebar stuck through his side. I did not think we needed equal attention, but I was also not in charge.

My finger was x-rayed, and I was told the bone was smashed, but would heal. The wound was sutured, and a tall, quite beautiful Jamaican nurse hung an IV bag loaded with antibiotics. 

When she came back to unplug me and let me get back to the rally, she asked me how long I’d worked for Mayor Giuliani. 

There was a two click pause while I figured out how my Jewish friend had gotten me seen so fast.  “A while,” I said. “But hey, if you’d like to meet Jesse Jackson, he’s just a few blocks away, and I can guarantee you get a picture.”  

Sadly, I never saw her again.

Not really a Jesse Jackson story — more a joke about mohels, but it’s what I thought of this morning, and trust me when I say Jesse Jackson would have *loved* that story.

Another tree falls in the forest. It was an old tree, and probably its time.  But like Noah I wonder if we have enough big wood to build the next boat we will need to survive the next flood. Where are our civil rights leaders? Who speaks for those whose lives are just a few paychecks away from eviction? Where are our leaders of any kind?  Chuck Schumer? Hakeem Jeffries?  Give me a break. The American opposition to fascism is rudderless.

And yet…..

And yet, there is Minnesota.  The fierce light of Minnesota is catching fire in San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia.

Perhaps America will lead itself out of the darkness, holding each other’s hands, neighbor to neighbor, one at a time.

Jesse would have liked that.

Hawks on Liberty Road

Hawks on the way back from the grocery store last night.

Over One Million Dead Americans

TRUE STORY

My floor guy, who I really like, 

told me that he met his wife

in 7th grade at the County Fair, 

and they were married 40 years 

before she died of Covid at age 57.  

He’s still not vaccinated, he offered, 

and has caught Covid twice.

He told this to me 

while smoking Marlboros, 

and I was leaning on a pitchfork 

wearing a “Let’s Go Darwin” T-Shirt.

I do not jump to conclusions,

but I also do not always ask.

There’s a reasonably good chance

his wife caught Covid before 

there was a vaccine.

And after two episodes, 

his natural immunity is as strong 

as my vaccine-acquired immunity.

But my wife is alive, and I can still taste

scrambled eggs and good coffee

and he has lost both, so I do not ask.

I like my floor guy.

I do not stir a pot

from which I do not want to drink.

A Scattered Deer Herd

There were 23 deer in these fields this evening — spread out, and far away, so impossible to get in one shot, but there are 15 in the first shot, including 6 or 7 in the far distance.

Great Falls on the Potomac

Great Falls is just above Washington, D.C., on the border of Virginia and Maryland. The river here cascades over a series of falls, dropping 76 feet in less than 1 mile as the river narrows and runs through the hard rock of Mather Gorge.  

Great Falls is, I believe, the only Class VI whitewater rapids in the world located next to a major city.

I took this picture at some distance and then — on a lark — ran it through a paint program that made it took like an old magazine illustration.

A Crick By Any Other Name

There are about 180,000 named stream-like bodies of water in the U.S.  

Across most of the country, the default term is “creek,” (pronounced “crick” over most of the South and Appalachia)   but there are regionalisms which reflect different bands of immigrant settlement and linguistic isolation.

In New England, for example, the preferred term is “brook,” while in Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia, we generally talk of a “run,” while in parts of Kentucky it might be called a “lick”.

In the South and much of the Midwest, the preferred term is “branch,” but in the desert Southwest, the larger waters may be called “rios,” while the dry beds of very seasonal streams are often called “arroyos” or “washes.” 

In parts of New York a mapped stream may be called a “kill” — an archaic Dutch term.

Oddly, while much of the eastern U.S. was initially settled by immigrants from England and Scotland, you rarely hear the term “burn” — a Scottish and northern English term for a small river, brook, or large stream.