We're talking the movie, not the Frank Sinatra song. Bryan Cranston played LBJ in the movie, All the Way, and he did one hell of a job. Nailed it!
"All the Way With LBJ" was the slogan when Lyndon B Johnson ran for president in 1964. He was already president, not elected but elevated to the number one slot when JFK was assassinated in November, 1963. LBJ won the '64 election, then orchestrated the passing of the Civil Rights Act and the Voters' Rights Act that gave black folks the vote - 100+ years after they were 'emancipated.'
LBJ was one rude, crude dude but a consummate politician. He was instrumental in passing several other pieces of legislation, medicare among them. He was a hard guy to work for and a hard guy to live with but that shrewd, good 'ol Texas boy knew how to get stuff done.
If you're 65 or older, this flick will bring back vivid memories of those turbulent times. It especially did for me - on several levels. The day JFK was shot. The 3 student civil rights workers who were murdered in Mississippi in June of '64. The attempted murder of 3 of my friends and me in Arkansas in early 1966. My military service as an infantry officer and combat advisor in Vietnam in 68-69.
It's an awesome flick.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Cozy
Cozy mysteries, also referred to simply as "cozies", are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community. Wikipedia.
Who knew? Not me - until a few days ago when the Trish dropped the term on me. Turns out (chagrin) I'm currently reading one. Even worse, I have to confess I've read several! Do real men read cozies? Damn straight! They eat quiche, too, contrary to Steve Martin's pronouncement. Go suck an egg, Steve. Anyway, there you have it: I'm out of the cozy closet.
Cozy examples you may have heard of include the Murder She Wrote series and Miss Marple mysteries. To my knowledge, the only cozies in my checkered past are the M C Beaton series, main character Hamish Macbeth, set in Scotland. Beaton's stories are an exception to the genre in that Macbeth is a policeman of the male persuasion. The main characters in virtually all other cozies are females with regular jobs who do their sleuthing on the side.
My current read was recommended by a college friend who was raised in a small Minnesota town near my own small MN town because the stories are based in yet another small MN town. Battle Lake is the scene of the crimes. It's about 15 miles southeast of Perham, my home town. The author is a woman (as are most coziests), Jess Lourey, full time teacher, part time author.
Not to worry: my future reads will remain the edgier, beefier fare I've always enjoyed. I've not really gone over to the dark side, don't have a full-on case of cozy-itis.
Who knew? Not me - until a few days ago when the Trish dropped the term on me. Turns out (chagrin) I'm currently reading one. Even worse, I have to confess I've read several! Do real men read cozies? Damn straight! They eat quiche, too, contrary to Steve Martin's pronouncement. Go suck an egg, Steve. Anyway, there you have it: I'm out of the cozy closet.
Cozy examples you may have heard of include the Murder She Wrote series and Miss Marple mysteries. To my knowledge, the only cozies in my checkered past are the M C Beaton series, main character Hamish Macbeth, set in Scotland. Beaton's stories are an exception to the genre in that Macbeth is a policeman of the male persuasion. The main characters in virtually all other cozies are females with regular jobs who do their sleuthing on the side.
My current read was recommended by a college friend who was raised in a small Minnesota town near my own small MN town because the stories are based in yet another small MN town. Battle Lake is the scene of the crimes. It's about 15 miles southeast of Perham, my home town. The author is a woman (as are most coziests), Jess Lourey, full time teacher, part time author.
Not to worry: my future reads will remain the edgier, beefier fare I've always enjoyed. I've not really gone over to the dark side, don't have a full-on case of cozy-itis.
Friday, December 30, 2016
Growing Fish
This cylinder contains 4000 rainbow trout eggs approaching hatch time.
Having done a quick walk through of several fish hatcheries over the years, I wasn't overly excited about visiting another one. But, it was nearby, we were (mildly) curious, didn't have anything more exciting to do, so off we went. And we were delighted we did.
Recently hatched rainbow trout.
The Willow Beach National Fish Hatchery is huge, quite sophisticated, appears to be well managed, and has a knowledgeable staff who did a fine job of explaining the operation.
This is the inside part of the operation, where eggs are hatched. The newly-hatched minnows pictured above are fed every 30 minutes.
The outdoor facility has dozens of tanks, aka raceways, that contain rainbow trout in various sizes. The whole area is covered with chicken wire to keep hungry birds at bay. A huge volume of river water is constantly circulating through the tanks.
Link to more info and pix: https://www.fws.gov/southwest/fisheries/willow_beach/
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Christmas Camping
We're here with another LHC couple, David and Elaine, who join us for short RV forays from time to time.
There's a large marina with dozens of rental boats and kayaks, plus several converted military inflatables used for sightseeing tours. Large striped bass have been caught in this stretch ofwater, including the Nevada state record holder at 62 pounds.
Willow Beach is a misnomer. There's no beach worthy of the name, nor did I see any willows.
Interesting rock formations uphill from our campground.
The steps lead up to tent campsites.
We visited a large fish hatchery near the marina, details in next post.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Celtic Christmas
Last night during dinner we listened to Celtic Christmas, one of our Pandora stations. What Child is This? was one of the tunes. It's also known as Greensleeves, same tune, different words. I commented, "I've always loved that song. I wonder who composed it?"
Off went Trish to get her cell phone. She googled it. We were both amazed when we discovered who allegedly wrote the tune: King Henry VIII (for the Roman numeral challenged, VIII = 8). I couldn't believe it. That randy, ruthless, and thoroughly despicable despot sat his fat ass down and composed beautiful music?* Nah. No way!
Turns out I was right. It's just a myth and now it's busted. It was actually composed several years after the King went to hell, mourned by few, if any. Four composers attempted to take credit for the composition in 1580, the most persistent of which was Richard Jones. I'm gonna go with Mr Jones. It's logical, given the family name; Richard Jones was surely an ancestor of It's Not Unusual Jones,
Some of the songs played on Celtic Christmas were in Gaelic. Gaelic is pleasing to the ear but written Gaelic has an uncanny similarity to alphabet soup. Take a spoonful of soup, jot down the letters in that spoonful in any order you please. Now select a word at random, one that has no connection whatsoever with how those letters are pronounced in any known language. Take more spoonfuls, write a complete sentence. What the hell, go to Costco, buy a pallet of the stuff, write an entire dictionary!
Try this Gaelic sentence on for size: Saolaítear na daoine uile saor agus comhionann ina ndínit agus ina gcearta. Got it figured out? Need a little more time, say a decade or two? Give it up, not gonna happen. Here's the translation: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
Spoken French is also melodic and pleasing, but has weird pronunciation. Try to pronounce the words on a French restaurant menu and you'll wish you'd stayed home and opened a can of beans. Still, you can guess the meaning of many French words because they're similar to English words. Not so with Gaelic. Pass the soup.
*Actually, Horny Hank was said to be an accomplished musician, played the lute and organ, maybe wrote a few tunes as well.
Off went Trish to get her cell phone. She googled it. We were both amazed when we discovered who allegedly wrote the tune: King Henry VIII (for the Roman numeral challenged, VIII = 8). I couldn't believe it. That randy, ruthless, and thoroughly despicable despot sat his fat ass down and composed beautiful music?* Nah. No way!
Turns out I was right. It's just a myth and now it's busted. It was actually composed several years after the King went to hell, mourned by few, if any. Four composers attempted to take credit for the composition in 1580, the most persistent of which was Richard Jones. I'm gonna go with Mr Jones. It's logical, given the family name; Richard Jones was surely an ancestor of It's Not Unusual Jones,
Some of the songs played on Celtic Christmas were in Gaelic. Gaelic is pleasing to the ear but written Gaelic has an uncanny similarity to alphabet soup. Take a spoonful of soup, jot down the letters in that spoonful in any order you please. Now select a word at random, one that has no connection whatsoever with how those letters are pronounced in any known language. Take more spoonfuls, write a complete sentence. What the hell, go to Costco, buy a pallet of the stuff, write an entire dictionary!
Try this Gaelic sentence on for size: Saolaítear na daoine uile saor agus comhionann ina ndínit agus ina gcearta. Got it figured out? Need a little more time, say a decade or two? Give it up, not gonna happen. Here's the translation: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
Spoken French is also melodic and pleasing, but has weird pronunciation. Try to pronounce the words on a French restaurant menu and you'll wish you'd stayed home and opened a can of beans. Still, you can guess the meaning of many French words because they're similar to English words. Not so with Gaelic. Pass the soup.
*Actually, Horny Hank was said to be an accomplished musician, played the lute and organ, maybe wrote a few tunes as well.
Friday, December 2, 2016
Some Settling May Occur
'Some settling may occur.' We've all seen this statement on boxes of cereal, bags of potato chips and several other products. We've all opened those boxes and bags and discovered that - by golly, they were right - some settling did in fact occur. We've all looked askance into those newly-opened containers, the contents thereof fully settled and blissfully calm, and thought settling, my ass!
Bet you don't know what it's called, though. Here it is. You heard it here first: The Museli Effect! No bull. That's the official name of the sneaky, stealthy and downright despicable act of settling.
Some things that are subject to The Museli Effect don't come with a 'may occur' notice. Human beings for instance. No, humans have to work it out for themselves. And when they do, it's quite a shock. We settle 1/4" to 1/2" every decade after age 40. By age 70, women have Museli-ed about 2", men about 1.5."
If it's any consolation - and it's damned little, if you ask me - the Museli-ed portion of your body isn't actually gone. No, not all. It just migrated down to your feet. It's pretty much a 1:1 ratio. Again, starting at age 40, some people's feet increase half a shoe size every decade. Okay, there is a little consolation: the bigger the base, the more stable the structure, so when your feet finally fulfill their growth potential, you probably won't tip over as frequently as you used to. Granted, one's tipability quotient is impacted by other factors that are difficult to quantify. Alcohol comes to mind.
What got me started on this settling thing is: Trish and I measured our heights recently. I'm not going to divulge the results but I'll tell you this much: we done been Muesli-ed!
Bet you don't know what it's called, though. Here it is. You heard it here first: The Museli Effect! No bull. That's the official name of the sneaky, stealthy and downright despicable act of settling.
Some things that are subject to The Museli Effect don't come with a 'may occur' notice. Human beings for instance. No, humans have to work it out for themselves. And when they do, it's quite a shock. We settle 1/4" to 1/2" every decade after age 40. By age 70, women have Museli-ed about 2", men about 1.5."
If it's any consolation - and it's damned little, if you ask me - the Museli-ed portion of your body isn't actually gone. No, not all. It just migrated down to your feet. It's pretty much a 1:1 ratio. Again, starting at age 40, some people's feet increase half a shoe size every decade. Okay, there is a little consolation: the bigger the base, the more stable the structure, so when your feet finally fulfill their growth potential, you probably won't tip over as frequently as you used to. Granted, one's tipability quotient is impacted by other factors that are difficult to quantify. Alcohol comes to mind.
What got me started on this settling thing is: Trish and I measured our heights recently. I'm not going to divulge the results but I'll tell you this much: we done been Muesli-ed!
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Lizards, Reptiles and Amphibians
We watched a Geico commercial awhile back, a guy in a laboratory being consumed by a green glob of gunk. Stupid, blah, yuk! "I liked the lizard better." said I. "Geckos aren't lizards," Trish responded. Googled it: yup, they're lizards alright. That got me wondering about the lizard family: who's included, who isn't, are the marine iguanas I saw in the Galapagos Islands lizards or amphibians? Here's the skinny, lizard lovers, amazing facts and statistics you always wanted to know but never realized until just now.
Geckos are the smallest of the lizards, which are a subset of the reptile family. The largest lizard is the Komodo dragon which can weigh up to 300 pounds and reach 10' in length. They're carnivores, are very quick and they do consume the occasional human, bones and all. Grabbing one by the tail isn't really a good idea.
This might surprise you: modern scientists include birds in the reptile family. When we visited Dinosaur National Monument last year, one of the rangers said, "Birds are dinosaurs." Golly gee, Mister Science!
If you're cold-blooded, have overlapping scales and are not a snake, you're a lizard. If you're a cold-blooded vertebrate with dry, scaly skin and lay soft shelled eggs on land you're a reptile. If you have both lungs and gills - like frogs, newts, turtles and salamanders - you're an amphibian.
Marine iguanas aren't amphibians but can stay underwater for up to 45 minutes, chowing down on algae, their favorite food. Although not very photogenic, they love to pose for pictures, big grins on their faces.
Geckos are the smallest of the lizards, which are a subset of the reptile family. The largest lizard is the Komodo dragon which can weigh up to 300 pounds and reach 10' in length. They're carnivores, are very quick and they do consume the occasional human, bones and all. Grabbing one by the tail isn't really a good idea.
This might surprise you: modern scientists include birds in the reptile family. When we visited Dinosaur National Monument last year, one of the rangers said, "Birds are dinosaurs." Golly gee, Mister Science!
If you're cold-blooded, have overlapping scales and are not a snake, you're a lizard. If you're a cold-blooded vertebrate with dry, scaly skin and lay soft shelled eggs on land you're a reptile. If you have both lungs and gills - like frogs, newts, turtles and salamanders - you're an amphibian.
Marine iguanas aren't amphibians but can stay underwater for up to 45 minutes, chowing down on algae, their favorite food. Although not very photogenic, they love to pose for pictures, big grins on their faces.
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