I've written before about Deon Joseph, a longtime LAPD officer who has spent most or all of his long career on Skid Row, trying to keep homeless drug addicts from dying. He just posted a one-paragraph story about debilitationist policy, and click on the link to see the accompanying photo:
"I once again want to show you all what is stopping me from keeping folks from dying from fentanyl. I literal pulled up on this block and ran off a known fentanyl dealer and potential buyers. As soon as they were gone, a golf cart distributing meth pipes used for ingesting something that can kill people pulled up and gave a someone’s mom, sister, daughter a pipe. If I hadn’t scared the dealers away, this woman would have bought from them and likely died. What difference does it make if the pipe is clean and they put poison in it. Who the F are you actually helping??"
The golf cart distributing clean crack pipes was from the county government.
There is little one can do amidst willful blindness. I'm sure the crack pipe taxi driver felt good about his/her effort--that or, possibly more likely--there is an underlying disdain for the people they serve like those bastards throwing food in a dumpster.
Feeling superior to others is enticing, especially for those who have never accomplished or created anything from scratch.
So you're saying that you want people to smoke their perfectly clean crack out of dirty crack pipes? You are a monster Chris. Crack addicts can't afford clean pipes on the measly pittance the local pawn shops give them for the stuff they had to steal because of all the racism and the patriarchy.
We should be handing out clean drug paraphernalia to drug addicts but why stop there? I say the government needs to step in and provide free latex condoms and animal cruelty free rope to rapists. Is it too much to ask that we figure out some cleaner burning accelerants to hand out to arsonists? I can't imagine how horrible it is for BLM and Antifa members to live in the knowledge that all those fires at all those businesses they had to burn down for social justice had to be started with materials that are harmful to mother earth.
I don't even want to think about wether or not the culturally diverse man who stabbed those people and a baby in Sydney had a knife with ethically sourced steel blade and wooden handle. He could have used a knife made out of recycled denim and organic resin if only the Australian government would have stepped up and done their job to keep people from dying from global warming. At least they are holding of on releasing his identity to minimize the backlash against Muslims.
Being in Sydney, I was alert for the identity of the murderer being quietly avoided. It wasn't, his name was released within a few hours. He wasn't Muslim (AFAIK) and was not of middle eastern ethnicity. He was psychotic (obvious from the cctv), probably drug using and was "known to police" - i.e. he'd had run-ins with police, probably due to public disturbance. He was reportedly living in his car and a storage unit. It looks like a failure of the community care model of mental health treatment rather than lone wolf terrorism or racially motivated violence against the Jewish community in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.
I love driving; I love changing gear; I used to love crawling under my cars to fix them (in the days when that was still feasible). I love road maps and knowing about where I'm going. The fact that our 21st c. Utopia understands NOTHING of these joys is a good illustration of just how barren it is. Robert M Persig springs to mind here.
Thanks for that. I'm a Brit and most of my collection is of vintage British Ordnance Survey maps. With it being a small dense country they are incredibly detailed.....and works of art really. There's a huge trade of all kinds of maps on eBay by the way .
When the balloon goes up and the internet goes down, I’ll know who to hit up for a map…😄. Of course, there won’t be gasoline, so horseback will remove the need to stay on roads. (I know, a real positive outlook. This is Biden’s worst sin – increasing our adversaries’ certainty that our deterrence strategy is limited to repeating the word “Don’t.”)
I watch a couple of YT channels on cars. One (I Do Cars) is about tearing down wrecked engines. Typically, 25% of the tear down is removing an absolute forest of tubes and wires from the outside of the engine just to get to the metal.
The absolute worst was the Mercedes-AMG 4 liter Bi-Turbo (503 hp).
Another channel (Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History) focuses on 50s–mid-70s cars. Recently they looked at a mid-50s car and it’s engine (can’t remember which), and it was shocking (in a positive way) how the only wires were for the spark plugs & alternator.
When I look at my kids, ages 26 and 31, I realize they were at the cusp of a generational shift. The shift of a generation that never had and never will unfold a well-worn map across the dashboard, seeking a route that may be new and maybe not even the most efficient way to get from point A to point B.
And that is the point--the journey of decisions and experiences is supplanted by the most efficient way to shorten the journey and get to point B as soon as possible.
It is broadly applicable to many people today, where the drive--or the walk--or the research--or the learning of an instrument, or the {pick your own}--the act of being present in the doing/learning/experiencing of something....has become the thing to minimize.
That generation says skip all that. Get to point B.
But what then?
Wonderful thing for conversations this weekend, Chris. Thanks.
Here in California we used to have these map books called Thomas Guides where you would look up the address in the index and it would give you the page and plot points of the address and you had to figure out how to get there.
Enter Mapquest, and now Apple Maps.
Even though the Apple Maps tells me how to get somewhere, my brain is still trained to look it up ahead of time on a map and see the nearby freeways and major streets so I have an idea what to look for when I’m driving.
I try to teach my kids this, look for landmarks when you’re driving, look at street signs when you turn corners, learn to get places without Apple Maps.
I loved getting a new Thomas Brothers Guide from Costco back in the day. I’d map out a route and then write a note in large print to keep next to me with off-ramps, distances, etc. It really helped me learn my way around San Diego. My two sons (22, 25) are hopeless. All they know is what their phones tell them, they barely remember street names or freeway numbers. Sad. I recently was going through my grandfather’s belongings (he passed in 1976) and found a 1955 Thomas Guide of San Diego. It has maybe 40 pages and a leather cover. Never getting rid of it, especially because I can look up all the neighborhoods that *weren’t* there back then. He also saved his AAA maps from when he and my grandma drove cross-country, journey marked in felt pen. 🥰❤️
I have five children, 41, 33, 30, 25 and 23. I can definitely see a generational shift among that group. The hardest hit has been our 23 year old daughter (the other four are boys). Sadly I hold social medial and the "smart" phone responsible for most of what is negatively affecting her.
95% of my driving is for errands, and I’m most interested to getting from Points A to B to C as efficiently as possible. Of course, I’m of German descent, so efficiency is ingrained in my DNA. We do occasionally say “I wonder where this goes?” and take a flyer. Then of course we have the occasional “unscheduled, self-guided tours” previously called “getting lost.”😂
Of course there's a German term Fahrt ins Blaue (literally, trip into the blue) for a trip with no predefined destination. Germans plan to be spontaneous.
I've been re-reading some of Blue Highways this week. It has flaws, but you appreciate Least Heat-Moon's willingness to throw himself into risky situations and have direct relationships with strangers. He had a minimal safety net for spending several months driving all across the country.
I’ve noticed when I drive around that the “inefficient roads” are often completely empty. Fun for me. But eerie. Like I alone know the secret of just driving around.
Last week while running through our town's beautiful grade 2 listed public gardens I saw a young man walking his dog, in a black cloth mask. Sigh. They are a very rare sight in the UK, which was why I did a double take. In September 2020 I had to change my 18 yr old car and bought the last petrol model built by Toyota. The dealership keeps messaging and ringing me to trade it in for a hybrid or full electric.....erm...no? Why would I want to drive something that sounds like a mobility scooter? For the first time in the UK sales of electric cars have fallen and its posing a quandary for the government as petrol and diesel cars will allegedly not be sold from 2035.....folk don't want electric. Our mate has a Tesla through his employer, he has to return it after 3 years as the battery only lasts that long, like wtf???? Thank goodness I do karate, it's a constant learning process, keeping your brain sharp creating new neurological pathways, fighting the slide into zombiehood. 😂
The falling sales of EVs will turn into a desert once the stories start avalanching in the press of owners confronted with battery replacement bills of 50+% of the car’s original purchase price, and WITHOUT financing available. All for a vehicle that years old at that point.
Indeed......at most I think the Toyota ones last 8 years, they were pretty much the EV pioneers. But yeah, 50 grand for a Tesla and in 3 years its worth 15 cos the battery no longer holds it's charge.....I'll take 2...not 🤣😂
Brilliant. I've had a few thoughts about the 'Dystopian non-sound of Battery Cars'. It isn't that I actually hear them in the parking lots as much as a feel them. There is a disturbance in the force. I'm often shocked, like I am wading in the Puget Sound and see a shark 20 feet away.
I was getting gas at Costco yesterday and next to me someone was filling a Dodge Charger. I smiled--Thank God someone still loves muscle cars. I want to hear the engine.
That said, I did have a contradictory experience running two weeks ago. I live .75 miles from a beautiful park that is about 5 miles in perimeter and infinite trails/paths on which to run. This park and our local YMCA are why we bought a home here, all I really need. So I run to and through the park almost daily with my dog.
The other day it was raining so I ran without my dog. Didn't want to spend all the time drying him off so he doesn't stink up the house--so I ran a route through my suburban streets.
I live about 10 minutes from the freeway, but I did notice how LOUD it was to run along the street in morning traffic. The wet roads amplified the noise, but it felt like an absolute cacophony compared to my normal quiet, reflective, life-renewing run through the park.
It was one of the first times I have thought about 'noise pollution' in a very long time--but I still prefer that to the disturbing soundlessnesss of elective cars.
It's that irritating whine they have .....or some of them. I'd rather hear a noisy engine, you know something is headed your way.....we gave our Tesla driving friend a lift home the other night (his reason for not driving is a story for a whole other post) and when he got out of the car he asked hubs if he'd forgotten to put the handbrake on. He thought the car was still moving - you don't experience the sensation of moving in an electric car apparently 😳
have you or anyone here noticed how much louder cars have become? it's as if midas won't service any model made after 2020. even the little bottom-of-the-line beaters
working hypothesis: they're trying to make it hard to hide that you're driving a gas or diesel vehicle
I dkat, my car does get serviced, but as a "sports" model, its supposed to be loud and that's one of the things I love about it the most 🤣😂😂 If I had serious money to burn, well.....I quite like Maserati. Closet petrolhead
There’s a difference between “throaty” and loud, e.g., an Asian car with a Borla exhaust is loud & utterly obnoxious. A exhaust crackle of a Shelby GT500 is the sound of power.
To get even more out of the controlled world....ride a horse.
Seriously...it has everything that driving a car has plus a brain to contend with that is not yours. Not only do you have to think and plan constantly, but you have to react to something else thinking and planning about the SAME activity and not always sharing your goals(that's a UNDERstatement).
When I ride my horses, I am free....no matter where I am.
A bad on a horse is a good day by any measure and a good day is pure heaven. The harmony between nature and yourself. The closeness to another living being. People miss this in their lives now.
Even when dismounted, horses are good for people. Churchill said it best “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.” We have 3 + 2 miniature donkeys. They are all delights.
I feel similarly when I run with my dog(s). Saturdays a group of my retired military buddies meet for a long slow run then breakfast/coffee. Three or four of us usually bring our dogs. It feels so right--500,000 evolutionary years right. This is how we made it.
We are blessed to live just outside of a large military installation and we run through these training areas most of the time. The combination of running in the woods with friends and dogs is the best medicine available to me.
Yes, dogs are great! Having a German Shepherd reminds me this giant beast could tear me to pieces, but chooses not to. What she really wants is to go for walks, use her nose, and chase things. I’m happy to oblige.
My running buddy is 92% German Shepherd and 8% Saint Bernard. He's a tall drink of water. Golden from head to to. Beautiful dog. He's got the most gentle disposition--and you're right, he could take me down in a second.
The joy in his face when he races back to me during our run...well, there are few things in life that bring me that much joy/contentment.
I had a crush on a girl in the 3rd grade. Brooke. Still remember her name. I was talking about my dogs, and she said, "I don't like dogs. They are messy. All the hair..." ...or something to that effect.
Crush was instantly vaporized. "You're a monster!" was my thought.
At almost 70, I’m very partial to my chainsaw & log splitter. I recently cut up & split 5 hardwoods taken down by our power company in moving a power line. If I’d tried that with an axe, I’d have croaked somewhere near the beginning, an outcome my wife would not have found altogether unpleasant. 🤣
Wisdom. I revise my comment. There are a ton of gas operated tools I crave: a backhoe, big chainsaw and smaller chainsaw, a John Deer standing mower.... So, yes.
The point is: you know how to use an axe if you had to. You know how to do things or you wouldn't own a 'saw.
Hydraulics are my friend. I used my subcompact tractor to lift dozens of loads of rounds up to the splitter. If I’d tried that manually, I’d be in traction. 😂
Sledgehammer and splitting wedges are your friends there. If the log is thigh-thick, I split it length-wise into four pieces, before cutting them into lengths I can hoist onto the shoulder.
I'm partial to a good axe myself. The oldest ones are about a century or so. The metal quality of the heads are better than anything you can buy from China. Real swedish steel in one of them (a carpenter's axe, looks like a dinky toy) and good solid iron in the other, real easy to sharpen - at worst a piece of stone will do the trick.
"Debilitationalists believe that systems and institutions take care of people, and so people are obligated to primarily protect institutions and systems. Setting aside the meaning of human agency and individual rights, they focus on the science and the authorities and the experts, categories that blur. They are externally directed, gratefully."
That is a very interesting formulation, very insightful. As an evolved response by the institutions trying to persist through time, that is a highly adoptable strategy that would, eventually grow to ideology... damn that's an important framing.
Thanks, Chris, that is something to noodle on more seriously.
Interesting, but the God of the Bible, the only One Who is, doesn't speak much about the strong. He does talk a great deal about the weak, however, and you cannot read the Bible, whether you believe it or not, without recognizing that it teaches that one of the foremost markers of a decadent society is a trampling of the weak.
It has been my observation, especially in my wandering agnostic days, that those with faith in the God of the Bible were, in fact, stronger and harder to kill. As I'm barely literate in the Christian faith, it would be absurd for me to editorialize about other religions--however, it does strike me that Judaism and Christianity may be the only religions to protect the weak.
OT forbids picking all the harvest, deliberately leaving the scraps for 'orphans & widows'. Jesus' primary audiences were the broken, weak, forgotten -- certainly not the elites.
I think that’s my biggest gripe against post-1932 government – it dares to interfere with Christ’s mandate for PERSONAL charity by obviating the responsibility, thus facilitating the hard-hearted saying “Someone else will help the weak.”
Christ was no softie...big up your cross and follow me is not for the weak, the selfish, the irresponsible.
So much of the current narrative is in reaction to and perpetuating the lie that we are weak and helpless. Nothing could be more evil to tell young people.
The Columbine tragedy made 'bullies' the target instead of making people strong. Bullies exist in every corner of our lives, if we don't learn to stand up to them, we become their victims.
Today the biggest bullies are our government agencies who say they want to help.
Boomers’ children became an “appliance.” No more attention was paid to them than to, say, dishwasher maintenance. Then it transmuted into helicoptering or bulldozing, all 3 of which denied children their parents’ wisdom in dealing with obstacles (i.e., “no”) as well as when and how to stand up for yourself.
If your cat(s?) are anything like ours, they’re not interested in the book, but rather your attention. They’re like politicians – they’ll do ANYTHING to distract you from what you want so you can pay attention to them.
Our dogs. They figured out the best way together our attention is knock their bowls around the house in unison, and if that doesn’t work, scratch at the door.
Chris, I learn so much from your writings. For instance, I always thought that "gender confirmation" happened at birth but am now informed it can occur at anytime during life.
Also, slipping in a picture of Peter Hotez without a proper warning label is very unfair!
wow--that's it. "I want to do it myself!" vs "Mommy, tie my shoes!"
I'd rather do it wrong on my own instead of "right" by following instructions like a robot. (I know, how weird!) When I lived in LA, I commuted from Westwood to Irvine for a couple of years, (Oh BoyYay!) and sometimes, just for variety or to avoid traffic, I'd Take A Different Route Home. Always informative and entertaining. ("Wow! Compton really is a sh*thole, but I can see where at one point it was a nice suburb...") I actually enjoyed the different "neighborhoods" of traffic -- the way in Inglewood big old American cars would come screaming onto the freeway at 90 mph and cross ALL THE LANES into the BUS LANE without looking! Wow! Then there were always a lot of carefully driven minivans of the Toyota Previa and Honda Odyssey variety clogging up the roads around Hawthorne and Gardenia as the laboriously forced there way into (and out of) the car pool lane on the far left -- almost every traffic slow down was related to these car pool lanes. And once you got to Westminster, be on the lookout for boy racers.....
Ah, I miss all that, sitting here in Vermont where the government recently passed a law to ban all gasoline cars by 2030. (That's fine, when it's 15 below zero for three weeks, like it was in 2015, we can pile up all the dead Teslas and make a bonfire....) I have to move away now, and I'm yearning for a state with room to drive and people who want to LIVE, not wait to die.....Texas probably.
"I commuted from Westwood to Irvine for a couple of years."
How remarkably unpleasant! But I'm glad you found the way to enjoy it. Los Angeles is the one place in the world that destroys the pleasure of driving for me.
If you get out early enough, the freeways are empty and it’s the way L.A. was meant to be. Drive up PCH at 6 am on a Sunday with the windows rolled down...
Did the parasites in Montpelier actually ban all ICE cars in Vermont or ban the sale of them within the state? I'm not sure. I wouldn't put it past them, though.
When a few Vermonters freeze to death on some deserted part of Interstate 91 one winter when it's well below zero, I hope we will rise up and bounce those idiots out of office. (Yes, to those who are wondering, in Vermont it's possible to drive long stretches on the interstates without seeing another car. Especially at night. Even moreso in winter.) The lowest temperature we've ever seen here on the farm in southern Vermont was -30º in February 2016, although we've gotten close a few times since then. I'm thinking there's pretty much no chance an EV would start under those conditions.
Good news, you will still be able to buy a gas car in another state and register it in Vermont. Since this is a huge, huge loophole, the whole law sounds to me like massive, expensive virtue signaling.
It’s funny how the people who wrote that FORECAST definition probably wouldn’t stand for the “transformational” science if Boeing simply ran a few models and said “all those issues recently are minor and everything is safe”. They would probably ask for verification and detailed testing.
Not that Boeing’s models would actually be very well restrained and in fact may even be emulations based of years of observations with good signal to noise. No, those FORECAST lot would probably say “you can’t take risks with peoples’ lives just with models”
Yea, reading Brave New World, 1984, and That Hideous Strength back to back over a week makes for an interesting picture. Possibly a depressing one, but all three authors were definitely seeing the same sort of phenomena, just from somewhat different perspectives.
I wonder how much Lewis was looking at the USSR vs Britain. I don't really know the history outside of it being a writing project with Tolkien who never finished his part. Did Lewis ever give an interview or write an essay about his thought processes that you know of? That'd be interesting to hear.
They understood those lessons, which is why the Left is fighting SO hard against teaching accurate history. Instead of “Forewarned is forearmed,” their motto is “Ignorant is vulnerable.”
Oh yes, some remember quite well and took notes as you say. It just seems like the other 95% of humanity rather forgot. Maybe 80%. I remember reading Fahrenheit 451 in college, and there were some 30 students in the class. While admittedly probably only 10 did the reading, I am pretty confident that of those 7 would not remember hearing an argument against book burning and censorship. I can think of one woman in particular, the TA, that was definitely thinking "One day..." though.
I've written before about Deon Joseph, a longtime LAPD officer who has spent most or all of his long career on Skid Row, trying to keep homeless drug addicts from dying. He just posted a one-paragraph story about debilitationist policy, and click on the link to see the accompanying photo:
https://twitter.com/ofcrdeonjoseph/status/1778538395087904991
"I once again want to show you all what is stopping me from keeping folks from dying from fentanyl. I literal pulled up on this block and ran off a known fentanyl dealer and potential buyers. As soon as they were gone, a golf cart distributing meth pipes used for ingesting something that can kill people pulled up and gave a someone’s mom, sister, daughter a pipe. If I hadn’t scared the dealers away, this woman would have bought from them and likely died. What difference does it make if the pipe is clean and they put poison in it. Who the F are you actually helping??"
The golf cart distributing clean crack pipes was from the county government.
There is little one can do amidst willful blindness. I'm sure the crack pipe taxi driver felt good about his/her effort--that or, possibly more likely--there is an underlying disdain for the people they serve like those bastards throwing food in a dumpster.
Feeling superior to others is enticing, especially for those who have never accomplished or created anything from scratch.
bsn
So you're saying that you want people to smoke their perfectly clean crack out of dirty crack pipes? You are a monster Chris. Crack addicts can't afford clean pipes on the measly pittance the local pawn shops give them for the stuff they had to steal because of all the racism and the patriarchy.
We should be handing out clean drug paraphernalia to drug addicts but why stop there? I say the government needs to step in and provide free latex condoms and animal cruelty free rope to rapists. Is it too much to ask that we figure out some cleaner burning accelerants to hand out to arsonists? I can't imagine how horrible it is for BLM and Antifa members to live in the knowledge that all those fires at all those businesses they had to burn down for social justice had to be started with materials that are harmful to mother earth.
I don't even want to think about wether or not the culturally diverse man who stabbed those people and a baby in Sydney had a knife with ethically sourced steel blade and wooden handle. He could have used a knife made out of recycled denim and organic resin if only the Australian government would have stepped up and done their job to keep people from dying from global warming. At least they are holding of on releasing his identity to minimize the backlash against Muslims.
Being in Sydney, I was alert for the identity of the murderer being quietly avoided. It wasn't, his name was released within a few hours. He wasn't Muslim (AFAIK) and was not of middle eastern ethnicity. He was psychotic (obvious from the cctv), probably drug using and was "known to police" - i.e. he'd had run-ins with police, probably due to public disturbance. He was reportedly living in his car and a storage unit. It looks like a failure of the community care model of mental health treatment rather than lone wolf terrorism or racially motivated violence against the Jewish community in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.
I love driving; I love changing gear; I used to love crawling under my cars to fix them (in the days when that was still feasible). I love road maps and knowing about where I'm going. The fact that our 21st c. Utopia understands NOTHING of these joys is a good illustration of just how barren it is. Robert M Persig springs to mind here.
I miss paper maps. Planning the route as half the fun.
Yes....paper maps is what I meant. And I actually collect them....how nerdy is that.
Not at all.
Reddit’s r/mapporn has all kinds of interesting maps (not directional ones but still). Things like “where every test nuke was dropped”.
Thanks for that. I'm a Brit and most of my collection is of vintage British Ordnance Survey maps. With it being a small dense country they are incredibly detailed.....and works of art really. There's a huge trade of all kinds of maps on eBay by the way .
When the balloon goes up and the internet goes down, I’ll know who to hit up for a map…😄. Of course, there won’t be gasoline, so horseback will remove the need to stay on roads. (I know, a real positive outlook. This is Biden’s worst sin – increasing our adversaries’ certainty that our deterrence strategy is limited to repeating the word “Don’t.”)
I watch a couple of YT channels on cars. One (I Do Cars) is about tearing down wrecked engines. Typically, 25% of the tear down is removing an absolute forest of tubes and wires from the outside of the engine just to get to the metal.
The absolute worst was the Mercedes-AMG 4 liter Bi-Turbo (503 hp).
Another channel (Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History) focuses on 50s–mid-70s cars. Recently they looked at a mid-50s car and it’s engine (can’t remember which), and it was shocking (in a positive way) how the only wires were for the spark plugs & alternator.
"Shop Class as Soulcraft", Matthew Crawford's 2009 book, is widely viewed as the successor to Pirsig's Zen.
Yes, but have you seen the ROI on "existence as a service (TM)?"
Perfect Friday read and well done.
When I look at my kids, ages 26 and 31, I realize they were at the cusp of a generational shift. The shift of a generation that never had and never will unfold a well-worn map across the dashboard, seeking a route that may be new and maybe not even the most efficient way to get from point A to point B.
And that is the point--the journey of decisions and experiences is supplanted by the most efficient way to shorten the journey and get to point B as soon as possible.
It is broadly applicable to many people today, where the drive--or the walk--or the research--or the learning of an instrument, or the {pick your own}--the act of being present in the doing/learning/experiencing of something....has become the thing to minimize.
That generation says skip all that. Get to point B.
But what then?
Wonderful thing for conversations this weekend, Chris. Thanks.
Here in California we used to have these map books called Thomas Guides where you would look up the address in the index and it would give you the page and plot points of the address and you had to figure out how to get there.
Enter Mapquest, and now Apple Maps.
Even though the Apple Maps tells me how to get somewhere, my brain is still trained to look it up ahead of time on a map and see the nearby freeways and major streets so I have an idea what to look for when I’m driving.
I try to teach my kids this, look for landmarks when you’re driving, look at street signs when you turn corners, learn to get places without Apple Maps.
In other words, use your brains!
I remember Thomas Guides! You would have a half dozen or more of them, tossed in the passenger seat or in the back seat.
And I also look up directions in advance on maps apps!
Nooooooo! You need to follow the path your little screen tells you to even if it tells you to take a sharp right turn of a steep embankment.
In Houston, those were published by a company called Key Maps. Business ads would list their Key Map page number.
Somehow, I feel like we’re in the early 20th century, lamenting the demise of the buggy whip…
I loved getting a new Thomas Brothers Guide from Costco back in the day. I’d map out a route and then write a note in large print to keep next to me with off-ramps, distances, etc. It really helped me learn my way around San Diego. My two sons (22, 25) are hopeless. All they know is what their phones tell them, they barely remember street names or freeway numbers. Sad. I recently was going through my grandfather’s belongings (he passed in 1976) and found a 1955 Thomas Guide of San Diego. It has maybe 40 pages and a leather cover. Never getting rid of it, especially because I can look up all the neighborhoods that *weren’t* there back then. He also saved his AAA maps from when he and my grandma drove cross-country, journey marked in felt pen. 🥰❤️
I have five children, 41, 33, 30, 25 and 23. I can definitely see a generational shift among that group. The hardest hit has been our 23 year old daughter (the other four are boys). Sadly I hold social medial and the "smart" phone responsible for most of what is negatively affecting her.
95% of my driving is for errands, and I’m most interested to getting from Points A to B to C as efficiently as possible. Of course, I’m of German descent, so efficiency is ingrained in my DNA. We do occasionally say “I wonder where this goes?” and take a flyer. Then of course we have the occasional “unscheduled, self-guided tours” previously called “getting lost.”😂
Jeez, I never knew that was in my genetics. I just thought i enjoyed finding different ways of getting places. Who knew! `\_(•_•)_/`
Of course there's a German term Fahrt ins Blaue (literally, trip into the blue) for a trip with no predefined destination. Germans plan to be spontaneous.
"Germans plan to be spontaneous."
You say that like it's a fault... 😂
I've been re-reading some of Blue Highways this week. It has flaws, but you appreciate Least Heat-Moon's willingness to throw himself into risky situations and have direct relationships with strangers. He had a minimal safety net for spending several months driving all across the country.
I’ve noticed when I drive around that the “inefficient roads” are often completely empty. Fun for me. But eerie. Like I alone know the secret of just driving around.
Last week while running through our town's beautiful grade 2 listed public gardens I saw a young man walking his dog, in a black cloth mask. Sigh. They are a very rare sight in the UK, which was why I did a double take. In September 2020 I had to change my 18 yr old car and bought the last petrol model built by Toyota. The dealership keeps messaging and ringing me to trade it in for a hybrid or full electric.....erm...no? Why would I want to drive something that sounds like a mobility scooter? For the first time in the UK sales of electric cars have fallen and its posing a quandary for the government as petrol and diesel cars will allegedly not be sold from 2035.....folk don't want electric. Our mate has a Tesla through his employer, he has to return it after 3 years as the battery only lasts that long, like wtf???? Thank goodness I do karate, it's a constant learning process, keeping your brain sharp creating new neurological pathways, fighting the slide into zombiehood. 😂
The falling sales of EVs will turn into a desert once the stories start avalanching in the press of owners confronted with battery replacement bills of 50+% of the car’s original purchase price, and WITHOUT financing available. All for a vehicle that years old at that point.
Indeed......at most I think the Toyota ones last 8 years, they were pretty much the EV pioneers. But yeah, 50 grand for a Tesla and in 3 years its worth 15 cos the battery no longer holds it's charge.....I'll take 2...not 🤣😂
Toffee,
"...sounds like a mobility scooter?"
Brilliant. I've had a few thoughts about the 'Dystopian non-sound of Battery Cars'. It isn't that I actually hear them in the parking lots as much as a feel them. There is a disturbance in the force. I'm often shocked, like I am wading in the Puget Sound and see a shark 20 feet away.
I was getting gas at Costco yesterday and next to me someone was filling a Dodge Charger. I smiled--Thank God someone still loves muscle cars. I want to hear the engine.
That said, I did have a contradictory experience running two weeks ago. I live .75 miles from a beautiful park that is about 5 miles in perimeter and infinite trails/paths on which to run. This park and our local YMCA are why we bought a home here, all I really need. So I run to and through the park almost daily with my dog.
The other day it was raining so I ran without my dog. Didn't want to spend all the time drying him off so he doesn't stink up the house--so I ran a route through my suburban streets.
I live about 10 minutes from the freeway, but I did notice how LOUD it was to run along the street in morning traffic. The wet roads amplified the noise, but it felt like an absolute cacophony compared to my normal quiet, reflective, life-renewing run through the park.
It was one of the first times I have thought about 'noise pollution' in a very long time--but I still prefer that to the disturbing soundlessnesss of elective cars.
bsn
It's that irritating whine they have .....or some of them. I'd rather hear a noisy engine, you know something is headed your way.....we gave our Tesla driving friend a lift home the other night (his reason for not driving is a story for a whole other post) and when he got out of the car he asked hubs if he'd forgotten to put the handbrake on. He thought the car was still moving - you don't experience the sensation of moving in an electric car apparently 😳
have you or anyone here noticed how much louder cars have become? it's as if midas won't service any model made after 2020. even the little bottom-of-the-line beaters
working hypothesis: they're trying to make it hard to hide that you're driving a gas or diesel vehicle
I dkat, my car does get serviced, but as a "sports" model, its supposed to be loud and that's one of the things I love about it the most 🤣😂😂 If I had serious money to burn, well.....I quite like Maserati. Closet petrolhead
There’s a difference between “throaty” and loud, e.g., an Asian car with a Borla exhaust is loud & utterly obnoxious. A exhaust crackle of a Shelby GT500 is the sound of power.
Beautiful.
To get even more out of the controlled world....ride a horse.
Seriously...it has everything that driving a car has plus a brain to contend with that is not yours. Not only do you have to think and plan constantly, but you have to react to something else thinking and planning about the SAME activity and not always sharing your goals(that's a UNDERstatement).
When I ride my horses, I am free....no matter where I am.
A bad on a horse is a good day by any measure and a good day is pure heaven. The harmony between nature and yourself. The closeness to another living being. People miss this in their lives now.
The DAMN phones are killing everyone.
RIDE A HORSE!!!
Or....OK, drive, that's almost as good.
Even when dismounted, horses are good for people. Churchill said it best “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.” We have 3 + 2 miniature donkeys. They are all delights.
Lois,
I feel similarly when I run with my dog(s). Saturdays a group of my retired military buddies meet for a long slow run then breakfast/coffee. Three or four of us usually bring our dogs. It feels so right--500,000 evolutionary years right. This is how we made it.
We are blessed to live just outside of a large military installation and we run through these training areas most of the time. The combination of running in the woods with friends and dogs is the best medicine available to me.
bsn
Yes, dogs are great! Having a German Shepherd reminds me this giant beast could tear me to pieces, but chooses not to. What she really wants is to go for walks, use her nose, and chase things. I’m happy to oblige.
My running buddy is 92% German Shepherd and 8% Saint Bernard. He's a tall drink of water. Golden from head to to. Beautiful dog. He's got the most gentle disposition--and you're right, he could take me down in a second.
The joy in his face when he races back to me during our run...well, there are few things in life that bring me that much joy/contentment.
I don't trust people who don't love dogs.
bsn
“I don't trust people who don't love dogs.”
There is no better insight into another person’s soul.
I had a crush on a girl in the 3rd grade. Brooke. Still remember her name. I was talking about my dogs, and she said, "I don't like dogs. They are messy. All the hair..." ...or something to that effect.
Crush was instantly vaporized. "You're a monster!" was my thought.
bsn
You continue to reshape my image of senior Army infantry officers. 🤣
Technology that humans can use equals good; technology which uses humans equals bad.
My axe is about as technically advanced as I need to get, for the most part.
At almost 70, I’m very partial to my chainsaw & log splitter. I recently cut up & split 5 hardwoods taken down by our power company in moving a power line. If I’d tried that with an axe, I’d have croaked somewhere near the beginning, an outcome my wife would not have found altogether unpleasant. 🤣
Wisdom. I revise my comment. There are a ton of gas operated tools I crave: a backhoe, big chainsaw and smaller chainsaw, a John Deer standing mower.... So, yes.
The point is: you know how to use an axe if you had to. You know how to do things or you wouldn't own a 'saw.
Hydraulics are my friend. I used my subcompact tractor to lift dozens of loads of rounds up to the splitter. If I’d tried that manually, I’d be in traction. 😂
Sledgehammer and splitting wedges are your friends there. If the log is thigh-thick, I split it length-wise into four pieces, before cutting them into lengths I can hoist onto the shoulder.
Makes it easier to saw through them too.
But sharpening the chains! I'd rather pull teeth!
May I ask your age?
Let's just say I'm younger than you, but well north of 50.
Mentally speaking, more like 1 000, it feels like some days.
"Swords are weapons; axes are tools
One is for building; one is for fools"
I'm partial to a good axe myself. The oldest ones are about a century or so. The metal quality of the heads are better than anything you can buy from China. Real swedish steel in one of them (a carpenter's axe, looks like a dinky toy) and good solid iron in the other, real easy to sharpen - at worst a piece of stone will do the trick.
"Debilitationalists believe that systems and institutions take care of people, and so people are obligated to primarily protect institutions and systems. Setting aside the meaning of human agency and individual rights, they focus on the science and the authorities and the experts, categories that blur. They are externally directed, gratefully."
That is a very interesting formulation, very insightful. As an evolved response by the institutions trying to persist through time, that is a highly adoptable strategy that would, eventually grow to ideology... damn that's an important framing.
Thanks, Chris, that is something to noodle on more seriously.
.
Medicine Is Not A Science.
It’s A Business.
Your Only Job
Is To Make It Too Costly
For Them. To Kill You.
Either Get That.
Or They Get You.
.
"Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general."
Mark Rippetoe, author of Starting Strength.
I've seen this quote painted inside numerous CrossFit boxes. Can't argue with it.
bsn
Interesting, but the God of the Bible, the only One Who is, doesn't speak much about the strong. He does talk a great deal about the weak, however, and you cannot read the Bible, whether you believe it or not, without recognizing that it teaches that one of the foremost markers of a decadent society is a trampling of the weak.
Great point Bobby.
It has been my observation, especially in my wandering agnostic days, that those with faith in the God of the Bible were, in fact, stronger and harder to kill. As I'm barely literate in the Christian faith, it would be absurd for me to editorialize about other religions--however, it does strike me that Judaism and Christianity may be the only religions to protect the weak.
OT forbids picking all the harvest, deliberately leaving the scraps for 'orphans & widows'. Jesus' primary audiences were the broken, weak, forgotten -- certainly not the elites.
bsn
I think that’s my biggest gripe against post-1932 government – it dares to interfere with Christ’s mandate for PERSONAL charity by obviating the responsibility, thus facilitating the hard-hearted saying “Someone else will help the weak.”
Christ was no softie...big up your cross and follow me is not for the weak, the selfish, the irresponsible.
So much of the current narrative is in reaction to and perpetuating the lie that we are weak and helpless. Nothing could be more evil to tell young people.
The Columbine tragedy made 'bullies' the target instead of making people strong. Bullies exist in every corner of our lives, if we don't learn to stand up to them, we become their victims.
Today the biggest bullies are our government agencies who say they want to help.
bsn
Boomers’ children became an “appliance.” No more attention was paid to them than to, say, dishwasher maintenance. Then it transmuted into helicoptering or bulldozing, all 3 of which denied children their parents’ wisdom in dealing with obstacles (i.e., “no”) as well as when and how to stand up for yourself.
“Sorry, wrestling over a book.”
Cute.
If your cat(s?) are anything like ours, they’re not interested in the book, but rather your attention. They’re like politicians – they’ll do ANYTHING to distract you from what you want so you can pay attention to them.
Our dogs. They figured out the best way together our attention is knock their bowls around the house in unison, and if that doesn’t work, scratch at the door.
If we tossed a postage stamp on the floor all the cats would eventually sit on it.
Very, very unfair to cats JG. Insinuating they bear some similarity to politicians I mean!
To be fair, they're both very self-interested.
True, but cats are very clean, and cuddly.
Politicians, on the other hand, are slimy, and smell bad.
I can't disagree, mostly because my cat would hurt me if I did 😼
You’re so right. Our 5 went on strike the moment I posted that. I sense a struggle session in my future and a large donation to their treat fund…
Chris, I learn so much from your writings. For instance, I always thought that "gender confirmation" happened at birth but am now informed it can occur at anytime during life.
Also, slipping in a picture of Peter Hotez without a proper warning label is very unfair!
“Sex is ‘assigned’ at birth.” Here and I thought that happened at conception…
Well I'm not a biologist so would have to defer on that one.
Yes, I almost spilled my coffee when I saw Hotez. Jarring.
He reminds me of one of the characters in Lord of the Flies……
couldn't help but notice that emerging research institutions = ERIs
eris is the greek goddess of discord
at this point they're just trolling us
Good catch!
Notice how we went from gender *affirmation* to gender *confirmation*?
wow--that's it. "I want to do it myself!" vs "Mommy, tie my shoes!"
I'd rather do it wrong on my own instead of "right" by following instructions like a robot. (I know, how weird!) When I lived in LA, I commuted from Westwood to Irvine for a couple of years, (Oh BoyYay!) and sometimes, just for variety or to avoid traffic, I'd Take A Different Route Home. Always informative and entertaining. ("Wow! Compton really is a sh*thole, but I can see where at one point it was a nice suburb...") I actually enjoyed the different "neighborhoods" of traffic -- the way in Inglewood big old American cars would come screaming onto the freeway at 90 mph and cross ALL THE LANES into the BUS LANE without looking! Wow! Then there were always a lot of carefully driven minivans of the Toyota Previa and Honda Odyssey variety clogging up the roads around Hawthorne and Gardenia as the laboriously forced there way into (and out of) the car pool lane on the far left -- almost every traffic slow down was related to these car pool lanes. And once you got to Westminster, be on the lookout for boy racers.....
Ah, I miss all that, sitting here in Vermont where the government recently passed a law to ban all gasoline cars by 2030. (That's fine, when it's 15 below zero for three weeks, like it was in 2015, we can pile up all the dead Teslas and make a bonfire....) I have to move away now, and I'm yearning for a state with room to drive and people who want to LIVE, not wait to die.....Texas probably.
"I commuted from Westwood to Irvine for a couple of years."
How remarkably unpleasant! But I'm glad you found the way to enjoy it. Los Angeles is the one place in the world that destroys the pleasure of driving for me.
My wonderful fast German car made it a treat actually. But I’m sure the other drivers were not pleased. Lol
If you get out early enough, the freeways are empty and it’s the way L.A. was meant to be. Drive up PCH at 6 am on a Sunday with the windows rolled down...
Did the parasites in Montpelier actually ban all ICE cars in Vermont or ban the sale of them within the state? I'm not sure. I wouldn't put it past them, though.
When a few Vermonters freeze to death on some deserted part of Interstate 91 one winter when it's well below zero, I hope we will rise up and bounce those idiots out of office. (Yes, to those who are wondering, in Vermont it's possible to drive long stretches on the interstates without seeing another car. Especially at night. Even moreso in winter.) The lowest temperature we've ever seen here on the farm in southern Vermont was -30º in February 2016, although we've gotten close a few times since then. I'm thinking there's pretty much no chance an EV would start under those conditions.
Good news, you will still be able to buy a gas car in another state and register it in Vermont. Since this is a huge, huge loophole, the whole law sounds to me like massive, expensive virtue signaling.
https://vermontdailychronicle.com/want-a-gas-powered-car-when-banned-in-vermont-go-to-nh/
I hope Vermont doesn’t ban gas stations next!
Shhh. Don't give them any ideas.
Or Tennessee. Lived here 8 yrs since retirement from Houston. Loving it.
What is the part of my brain that used to store phone numbers doing now? I think that’s a point to which most actual adults my age can relate.
It’s funny how the people who wrote that FORECAST definition probably wouldn’t stand for the “transformational” science if Boeing simply ran a few models and said “all those issues recently are minor and everything is safe”. They would probably ask for verification and detailed testing.
Not that Boeing’s models would actually be very well restrained and in fact may even be emulations based of years of observations with good signal to noise. No, those FORECAST lot would probably say “you can’t take risks with peoples’ lives just with models”
Funny that.
Is “debilitationalism” your coinage, Chris, or is it from Crawford’s book, or maybe from elsewhere?
Mine, triggered by reading Crawford.
I tend to think of it as "Somaism." Huxley is turning out to be the better prophet.
I don't know, Orwell's "Slavery is Freedom", and the justification for the claim, is starting to sound very true as well.
Someone should merge the two and see what it looks like. Elements of both are certainly among us.
Yea, reading Brave New World, 1984, and That Hideous Strength back to back over a week makes for an interesting picture. Possibly a depressing one, but all three authors were definitely seeing the same sort of phenomena, just from somewhat different perspectives.
It’s amazing to me that 3 authors can look at Stalin’s USSR and see its evil so clearly, and so many others see an ideal government to replicate.
I guess that’s what happens when you value control more than the principles of freedom.
I wonder how much Lewis was looking at the USSR vs Britain. I don't really know the history outside of it being a writing project with Tolkien who never finished his part. Did Lewis ever give an interview or write an essay about his thought processes that you know of? That'd be interesting to hear.
Ray Bradbury isn't far off, either. All the dystopias, all at once.
It is kind of funny how everyone sort of forgot those early 20th century lessons, isn't it? Now we are doomed to repeat the whole thing.
On the plus side, we have pretty good books to lift ideas out of when we write our own memoirs.
They understood those lessons, which is why the Left is fighting SO hard against teaching accurate history. Instead of “Forewarned is forearmed,” their motto is “Ignorant is vulnerable.”
Oh, they remember those lessons. They're just determined to use them as instruction manuals.
Oh yes, some remember quite well and took notes as you say. It just seems like the other 95% of humanity rather forgot. Maybe 80%. I remember reading Fahrenheit 451 in college, and there were some 30 students in the class. While admittedly probably only 10 did the reading, I am pretty confident that of those 7 would not remember hearing an argument against book burning and censorship. I can think of one woman in particular, the TA, that was definitely thinking "One day..." though.