Tag Archives: signs

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 26, 2014

Posted under

Excursion 21 (11/3/2013)

Comments

1 Comment

Excursion 21, Part 2 (Frack Attack)

In which our intrepid hero hopes that oil’s well that ends well…

Fracking concerns me, I admit it.  I should hasten to point out that I do not, as many do, oppose fracking, no more than I oppose genetically modified crops.  But I believe both technologies should be treated prudently, with an eye towards identifying and preventing problems.  I am concerned about groundwater contamination, I am concerned about earthquakes.  I can only hope that Ohio is wise enough to create a good regulatory and oversight foundation and will be proactive enough to try to deal with potential problems before they become actual ones.

Beyond that, though, I am concerned about something that it may not be within the power of the state of Ohio to regulate, and that is that Ohioans themselves will not benefit enough from fracking.  One would think that it is a rare blessing that Ohio’s deposits are located in the economically blighted Ohio Appalachia; those areas certainly deserve a break, right?  Yet it is those same areas that have Ohio’s traditional oil deposits as well, as can be seen by the hundreds and hundreds of wells dotting the countryside.  And that traditional oil wealth seems not to have benefited eastern Ohioans much at all—so will fracking do so, or will the gains simply be siphoned out of the state, much like Ohio’s gambling money largely is?  I hope the people who need the money the most get some of it.

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 22, 2014

Posted under

Excursion 20 (10/13/2013)

Comments

2 Comments

Excursion 20, Part 2 (Everybody Hates Kevin)

In which our intrepid hero coasts along a coast…

Lakes, great or not so great, are hard to come by in West Texas, smack in the middle of the Chihuahua Desert.  The first lake I ever saw was Caballo Lake in New Mexico, about a two hour’s drive up the Rio Grande from El Paso.  Caballo is a reservoir lake, created during the Great Depression, and is the smaller cousin to Elephant Butte Reservoir.  The first time I saw the lake, I did not even know that I had seen the lake.  In the 70s, my dad was hunting buddies with a family who owned a convenience store/gas station near the reservoir (and also owned a valuable New Mexico liquor license!).  The first time my family went up there, I craned my neck as we got close, so that I could see the lake, but to my disgust the lake was totally blocked from view by a high light-blue wall that someone had put up.  It was a long time—an embarrassingly long time—before I realized that the “wall” was actually the lake itself.

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 5, 2014

Posted under

Excursion 19 (10/4/2013)

Comments

1 Comment

Excursion 19, Part 2 (The Edsel)

In which our intrepid hero misses an important clue…

When I was a kid, like a lot of kids who read a ton of books, I had a reading vocabulary that was much bigger than my speaking vocabulary.  One word that I knew the meaning of was French in origin:  hors d’oeuvres.  In my mind, I pronounced this word something like “whores davores.”   I knew the word meant something like appetizers.  There was another word that meant basically the same thing:  “orderves.”   I don’t even know how many years passed before I finally realized that “orderves” and “hors d’oeuvres” were actually not synonyms but the same damn word.

 

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 5, 2014

Posted under

Excursion 19 (10/4/2013)

Comments

2 Comments

Excursion 19, Part 1 (Definite Feeds for Definite Needs)

In which our intrepid hero encounters aged agrarian advertising…

I learned a new (to me) word the other day:  earworm.   You and I and everybody we know have experienced them; an earworm occurs when a piece of a song or melody gets stuck in your head and you can’t get it out.   It seems to me that there is a linguistic equivalent, of sorts, to an earworm, and that is when a particular phrase gets into your head.  It may not repeat itself but it is there and will come to mind, unbidden, with the right trigger.  Let’s call them eyeworms, just for the sake of convenience.  Earworms and eyeworms alike must be gold to advertisers.  Surely that is something they seek:  a commercial jingle or an advertising pitch line that lodge in people’s brains like G.I.s on Omaha Beach.  Think for a moment—do you remember any commercial jingles or advertising slogans from your childhood?  God knows I can.  “I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony, I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.”   “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”  “I can’t believe I ate that whole thing.”  “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

 

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

March 2, 2014

Posted under

Excursion 17 (9/5/20130

Comments

3 Comments

Excursion 17, Part 2 (Town & Country)

In which our intrepid hero ducks and cranes…

One of the things I like best about eastern Ohio is the surprises of slopes.  Western Ohio is flat, often flat-flat, and its vistas cannot surprise.  But eastern Ohio is full of hills, usually wooded, and sometimes quite large.  As a result, if you are driving through eastern Ohio you are sometimes gifted with the pleasure of arriving at the top of a hill or ridge to see a wonderful expanse of countryside stretching out before you.  All of a sudden, there it is.

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

December 29, 2013

Posted under

Excursion 13 (6/22/2013)

Comments

6 Comments

Excursion 13 (Checking Out Without Checking In)

In which our intrepid hero checks out a collection of old motor hotels…

In various previous excursions, I traveled along most of Ohio’s stretch of US-40, once one of America’s most important highways but now a forgotten backwater.  The most interesting thing about US-40 are its many old motor hotels or motels, constructed mostly from the 1930s through the 1950s before the Interstate Highway system doomed them to oblivion.  Now some have been razed, others are in ruins, still others have been repurposed to some other effect (typically as low income apartments), and a few manage somehow to hang on.

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

December 22, 2013

Posted under

Excursion 12 (6/15/2013)

Comments

8 Comments

Excursion 12, Part 4 (Relics of Yesteryear)

In which our intrepid hero finds himself transported to days long past…

I am always aware of my photographic limitations.  Not only does the methodology I employ (roadside photography) have many drawbacks that limit the number of good photographs I can take, but my own inherent limitations reduce that number still further.  As of this writing, I have been taking these sorts of photographs for only around eight months; these particular photographs were taken after only three months.  So much of my photography is either of the “even a broken clock is right twice a day” variety or of the “interesting subject, not so good photograph” variety.  I acknowledge that.  On the other hand…

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 20, 2013

Posted under

Excursion 11 (6-10-13)

Comments

Leave a comment

Excursion 11, Part 1 (Those Little Town Blues)

In which our intrepid hero rejects Cary Grant and goes south by southwest…

For the past 18 years I have had to travel quite a bit for work, typically training law enforcement officers, prosecutors or judges in some part of the country (or, rarely, abroad).  These travels have taken me to 46 of the 50 states and, were it not for incidents such as breaking an ankle, I would have visited 49 of the 50 states by now.  Because of those facts, many people think that I get to see far more than I get to see.  “Wow,” is a typical comment, “You’ve really seen every corner of the country.”  But this is work travel, not vacation travel.  It turns out that the Jackson, Mississippi, airport looks a lot like many other airports and the Hilton hotel conference center in Yellow Snow, North Dakota, is amazingly similar to the Marriott hotel conference center in Asscrack, Alabama.  I’ve been to Arizona many times, for example.  Have I ever seen the Grand Canyon?  Not on your life.  Moreover, when I travel for work I am not even of the mindset that wants to go do a touristy thing.  My overwhelming desire is to get in, do what I need to do, and get back home.

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

September 1, 2013

Posted under

Excursion 9 (6/1/2013)

Comments

4 Comments

Excursion 9, Part 3 (Shack Attack)

In which our intrepid hero experiences the concord of (New) Lexington…

In America, there is a great gulf between rich and poor.  Even greater than the gulf in income, I think, is the gulf in empathy and understanding.  Most middle class and an even greater number of wealthy people have no personal experience in what it is like to experience poverty—statistics clearly show that social mobility in the United States is not very high (in fact, among developed countries, the U.S. has one of the lowest rates of social mobility).  I myself am in a somewhat unusual position.  Twice in my life I have experienced extended periods of poverty, while currently I have a comfortable middle class income.  Moreover, because of the university I did my undergraduate work at and because of the job I currently hold, I have met or been friends with many people far wealthier than me, including a couple of billionaires.

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

September 1, 2013

Posted under

Excursion 9 (6/1/2013)

Comments

1 Comment

Excursion 9, Part 2 (Every Knee Shall Bow)

In which our intrepid hero encounters various signs of religious inclinations…

It goes without saying that religion is a touchy subject, as many deeply held beliefs can be.  My own perspective on religion is slightly unusual.  I was raised Catholic in a city with a significant Catholic population.  However, I still remember from my childhood being passed anti-Catholic comic books published by Jack Chick and being told by one Baptist that I was going to go to Hell for being a Catholic.  I became aware of religious prejudice at an early age.  However, religion did not “take” with me.  By the time I was an adult I had become an atheist.  Yet I always had a great many friends and relatives from a variety of religions whose opinions and perspectives I greatly respected.  Later, as I began professionally to get into the arena of studying (and combating) extremism, I became even more familiar both with religious prejudices as well as prejudices against people because of their religion.   And for more than a dozen years I have been working for a civil rights organization dedicated to fighting against such prejudices.

Continue reading →