Notice the cars trying to squeeze through a red light…
Pretty much the same view as of 2011, courtesy Google Maps.
If you ask me, the view was a lot more interesting back then. Today’s situation seems sterile and boring by comparison.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Found this video the other day, and it made me smile.
Back in the day, the stores only had VHS tapes (and a precious few, like Video Vern’s in West Valley, had a Betamax section),
Devices like this were common:
It’s a tape rewinder – ours looks like a car, and the headlights come on while it’s rewinding. That way you could watch another movie while you were rewinding the first one.
Fortunately, with DVD and Blu-Ray formats, such things are no longer essential – but you can still buy one.
Things are so much easier now…
Then again, before the days of home video, going to the movies was a different experience.
When I was a kid, in NYC, you’d pay 50¢ for a matinee ticket. You’d go in and sit down in this massive theatre with one screen, and a big red velvet curtain hanging in front of the stage.
That’s the Byrd Theatre in Richmond, VA – lovingly restored, but that’s what a lot of them looked like.
An usher with a flashlight would help you find a seat if you needed help. The lights would go down, the curtain would go up, and the show would begin.
First, a newsreel. Then, usually, a cartoon. Then another short subject. Maybe some previews. And finally the main attraction, often with an intermission. And when it was all over, you could sit there and do it all again. And again. And again, if you wanted. If you came in late, you could just wait until the beginning came around again. Nobody chased you out. And all for four bits… a great way to escape the summer heat.
Now that’s how to watch a movie.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Robert Kennedy stops for lunch while on the campaign trail for his brother, John F. Kennedy. Bluefield, West Virginia, 1960. A different world, different times.
Caption from Shorpy: “Spring 1960. “Efforts of John F. Kennedy’s campaign team, including members of his family, in West Virginia during Kennedy’s quest for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. Includes brother Bob at a drive-in in Bluefield.” From photos by Bob Lerner for the Look magazine article “The Kennedys: A Family Political Machine.” 35mm negative.”
The Old Wolf has spoken.
I have always loved Robert Ripley. As time has gone on, the stories he has reported have been expanded upon and documented; some have proven to be misunderstandings, but very rarely if ever was anything shown to be an outright fraud. The case of Phineas Gage is well-documented; here a comparison of what Ripley reported and information available on the Internet today.
From Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Two Volumes in One, Simon and Schuster, 1934
The American Crow-Bar Case
Phineas P. Gage, aged twenty-five, a foreman on the Rutland and Burlington Railroad, was employed September 13, 1847, in charging a hole with powder preparatory to blasting. A premature explosion drove a tamping-iron, three feet seven inches long, 1 1/4 inches in diameter, weighing 13 1/4 pounds, completely through the man’s head.
Despite this terrible injury young Gage did not even lose consciousness. he made a complete recovery and lived many years afterward.
The crow-bar entered the left side of the face, immediately anterior to the inferior maxillary and passed under the zygomatic arch, fracturing portions of the sphenoid bone and the floor of the left orbit. It then passed through the the left anterior lobe of the cerebrum, and in the median line, made its exit at the junction of the coronal and saggital structures, lacerating the longitudinal sinus, fracturing the parietal and frontal bones and breaking up considerable of the brain. The patient was thrown backward and gave a few convulsive movements of the extremities. He was taken to a hotel almost a mile distant. During the transportation he seemed slightly dazed, but not at all unconscious. Upon arriving at the hotel he dismounted from the conveyance, and without assistance walked up a long flight of stairs to the hall where his wound was to be dressed.
Dr. Harlow saw him at about six o’clock in the evening, and from his condition could hardly credit the story of his injury, although his person and his bed were drenched with blood. His scalp was shaved and coagula and debris removed. Among other portions of bone was a piece of the anterior superior angle of each parietal bone and a semicircular piece of the frontal bone, leaving an opening 3 1/2 inches in diameter. At 10 P.M. on the day of the injury Gage was perfectly rational and asked about his work and after his friends. His convalescence was rapid and uneventful.
Professor Bigelow examined the patient three years later, and made a most exceelent report of the case, which had attained world-wide notoriety. Bigelow found the patient quite recovered in his faculties of body and mind, except that he had lost the sight of the injured eye.
The original crow-bar, together with a cast of the patient’s head, was placed in the Museum of the Harvard Medical School, Brookline, Mass., where it is still on exhibition. Ref.:Boston Medical and Surgical Record (1848).
This particular entry fascinated me as a child. Now, of course, we know more: instead of making a complete recovery, Gage’s personality changed; he became “erratic, irritable, and profane,” his friends called him “no longer Gage,” and he died of seizures around 12 years after the accident. Two very interesting and in-depth accounts of Gage and his injury can be read at Slate.com and Interiorpassage.com, and the Wikipedia article is detailed and impartial. While some of the reported facts about Gage and his injury have been distorted over time, the fact remains that he survived an astonishingly devastating brain injury by 12 years and his accident provided medical science with an opportunity to study the relationship between brain trauma and personality change.
As related in the article at interiorpassage, there is a monument to Gage’s accident at Cavendish, Vermont – the following images (mercilessly ripped from the original article) are revelatory:
Here is an intriguing video about Gage’s experience:
Once again, the Internet provides more information than was available almost 100 years ago; the more time passes, the more accurate such historical accounts become. Ripley did his best, but was limited by what was available in his time. There are still some amazing wonders and curiosities to be found in his books and musea around the country.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
The Rev. David Buck sits next to the Jesus the Homeless statue that was installed in front of his church, St. Alban’s Episcopal, in Davidson, N.C.
This statue of a homeless Jesus disturbed many in Davidson, N.C. Read the whole story at NPR. My favorite quote:
“One woman from the neighborhood actually called police the first time she drove by,” says David Boraks, editor of DavidsonNews.net. “She thought it was an actual homeless person.”
That’s right. Somebody called the cops on Jesus.
But Jesus was homeless. “And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” (Matt. 8:20, KJV)
And many, many others – far too many in my own country – also have not where to lay their heads, and the problem continues to get worse, and it’s a difficult issue. A recent article by KSL, Utah’s dominant news source, investigated the seemingly ubiquitous panhandlers with cardboard signs. Their findings were unsettling: many supposed “homeless” were not.
For Utahns, this becomes an even thornier question when their own scriptures speak so powerfully about sharing what we have with the poor:
And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish. Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—
But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God. For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind? – Book of Mormon, Mosiah 4:16-19
I’ve been approached by many panhandlers. Sometimes I’ve given, and too generously for my own budget; other times, I have not – and have always felt badly that I couldn’t help. But I know that along the way, I’ve been stung by con-men and scammers, and they can be so very aggressive, and at the same time so very convincing. It’s very hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Unfortunately, unlike modern online games, people don’t have little bars floating over their heads to show how much health they have left. You have to trust, and that’s not always easy; Frank Crane has been attributed as saying, “You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough.”
For the day-to-day encounters, there’s no easy answer. For myself, I give when I can. When I can’t, I try to keep in mind that “I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.” But even that is cold comfort, because for so many, the need is real. Read up on 7 Myths About the Homeless that have been debunked. It’s not at all clear-cut.
As a society, we tend to filter out the homeless; the above video illustrates the problem in a very moving way.
For me, the issue strikes very close to home. One of my children has been living rough for almost half her life. I want nothing more for her than to have a stable, peaceful existence where she can provide for herself and have enough. I can’t just take her in – it’s not as simple as that. And I’m not in the financial position to be able to support her externally except on occasion. It is a serious dilemma.
There are valid ways of helping the homeless. Giving money directly is generally discouraged, simply because there is no guarantee that panhandlers will spend it in ways that increase the quality of their lives. But it’s important to remember that the availability of social services is not equal for all; single white females who are not drug addicts or otherwise handicapped find the social net is full of holes.
I’m not a sociologist, or a wealthy philanthropist (much to my chagrin.) I have no sweeping, long-term answers. But I see the problem and wish that I could do more. From where I sit, spending a hell of a lot less on fruitless and interminable military campaigns and instead redirecting those resources to raising the standard of living of our own people would be a good place to start.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
The scumbags are getting more inventive.
Thanks to Unicode, many characters will display on the Internet which won’t flag spam keyword detectors, allowing such rubbish to trickle through. Things like this:
——————
From: Ƕσᵯȅ₳ppliaŋce₡overage contact@techas.ws via amazonses.com
First Month₣RḖḖ on ComprehensiveǶσᵯȅWarrantyCoverage .
——-
From: __ɵṹṝ__ᵵᶖᵯe__dᶏᵵᶖng__ contact@cdblu-tk.ws via amazonses.com
Subject: __¶ŋȶeresȶed__¶ŋ__ȿiŋgles__ǿ˅erƼѻ?__
__¶ŋȶeresȶed__¶ŋ__ȿiŋgles__ǿ˅erƼѻ?
t.co/Ddphe5fBRI (This link redirects to an outfit called OurTime; Stay away from them.)
TryAmerica’s__1__site__for___ȿiŋgles__ǿ˅erƼѻ
Joinɵṹṝ__ᵵᶖᵯe.comAnd meetȿiŋgles ǿ˅erƼѻ
—————-
Unicode allows you to uʍop ǝpısdn ǝʇıɹʍ, among other things, or send people clever greetings:
♫♪♥♥[̲̅̅H̲̅][̲̅̅A̲̅][̲̅̅P̲̅][̲̅̅P̲̅][̲̅̅ Y̲̅][̲̅̅B̲̅][̲̅̅I̲̅][̲̅̅R̲̅][̲̅̅T̲̅][̲̅̅H̲̅][̲̅̅D̲̅][̲̅̅A̲̅][̲̅̅Y̲̅]♥♥♫♪ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ•*¨`*•♥ •*¨`*•
But unfortunately, evil people have a way of turning anything good to their twisted and nefarious purposes. These two things should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway:
Depending on what you read, spam can account for up to 90% of all email; at this point, 62% of all web traffic is generated by non-humans, although not all of this is malicious. As for me and my house, any company that spams me is guaranteed not to get my business, and bad reviews in public if they happen to be extra-obnoxious. Halting the flood is like spitting in the ocean, but the best I can do is raise awareness.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Photography by Andreas Feininger. Featured in Life magazine.
The same general neighborhood today.
You can go home again, even if only in pictures.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
From /r/historyporn:
“Children of Japan, Germany, and Italy meet in Tokyo to celebrate the signing of the Tripartite Alliance between the three nations, on December 17, 1940. Japanese education minister Kunihiko Hashida, center, holding crossed flags, and Mayor Tomejiro Okubo of Tokyo were among the sponsors.”
A relevant story from my own family history: My father was, in his day, a well-known character actor who began his career in radio. Italian was his first language, and his theatrical gift made him a superb dialectician. One day he was on a sound stage playing Mussolini in a radio play, when the actor playing Hitler became ill; Dad jumped in and assumed the rôle. By some odd quirk of fortune, the actor playing Hirohito also became unable to continue, and so my father ended up voicing all three parts. The director looked at him and exclaimed, “My God, you’re playing the whole Axis!”
The Old Wolf has spoken.
There’s something about old photography. It connects me with the past, makes it real, brings it to life. I love scrounging around places like Shorpy and /r/historyporn; I find the most fascinating things there.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
I had heard good things about this film from some people I trust, so today the Bean an Tí and I went to see it. Remember that Rotten Tomatoes accorded it only 33% fresh, which is a pretty abysmal rating.
You know what? To Pluto1 with the critics. To Pluto2 with anyone who was paying more attention to the fine details of cinematography. And to Pluto3 with anyone who thought this film stunk. It was wonderful.
I loved the cast; they were wonderful together. I loved the story; it was uplifting and inspiring despite the transitory sadness. And it reconfirmed in my mind that the incalculable evil and darkness that the National Socialists represented encompassed every aspect of their lives; to them, nothing human, nothing of beauty, nothing of decency had any value in their sick and twisted ideology – and they were most definitely worth sacrificing to defeat.
Was this film superb in every way? No, parts of it were pretty vanilla – but it worked well to get its message across, and I’m well-pleased that I saw it.
Rating: 
8 Stars out of 10.
1. Still a planet.
2. Always was, always will be.
3.
Playing in the World Game 