I was absolutely charmed by this animation. You may be surprised at the ending, as I was – but oh, so well done.
Author Archives: The Old Wolf
The Incredible Increasing Traffic Ticket
Found at Divine Caroline
That’s right, you’re not seeing things. A basic $200 fine for not having proof of insurance almost quadruples in Sacramento County, with much of California using the same tactics to fill empty coffers, and other states doing likewise. And you thought King Einon’s road tax was bad.
The Orange County Register explains in detail where the fees go, but that’s not likely to make you feel any better.
“Soaking traffic violators for the cost of state programs has a long history in California.
The first penalty assessment was set in 1953 at a rate of $1 for every $20 of base fine. In those days, for example, a $60 fine would be subject to a $3 penalty assessment, for a total due of $63. The extra $3 went to pay for drivers’ education programs in schools.
The legislature apparently found this funding source irresistible. Over the years, penalty assessments have grown to $26 for every $10 of base fine. Today, a $20 fine is increased by $52 in penalty assessments.
But wait – there’s more. After the penalty assessments are tacked on, there is a 20 percent surcharge, or another $4 on a $20 base fine. On top of that, there is a court security fee of $30, plus the conviction assessment of $35. And don’t forget the $1 night court fee, which you pay whether you go to night court or not.
All together, the penalty assessments, fees and surcharge jack up the cost of a $20 ticket to $142.”
So for the love of Mogg’s holy grandfather, be careful out there. The law of averages states that you’ll probably get pulled over by a revenue-hungry officer for something at some point, whether you did anything wrong or not, but be careful and don’t give them the excuse they’re looking for.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Toxic Hoses
I love to garden. And when you’re out working in the hot sun, there’s little that’s more refreshing than getting cancer a cold drink from the garden hose.
Wait, what?
Needed a new hose the other day, so I trotted down to the local hardware store to pick one up. Found a good-quality, non-kinking hose, and when I got home and started unpacking it, I saw something that disturbed me. A lot.
I hadn’t noticed this little “advertencia” on the front at all – notice how it’s not terribly accentuated. On the back was a new sticker added:
Lead? Harmful chemicals? In my hose? Even if I didn’t drink from it – which is beyond stupid – what makes these people think I’d want to spray that water on my veggies?
So I took the infernal thing back, and went looking for a drinking-water safe hose. Turns out the only thing I could find was a flimsy little marine/camper hose, and all the thing does is kink, kink, kink – but at least the water it dispenses is safe for human consumption. Nothing else was for sale… no other options.
I had been meaning to post about this for a while, when today I came across this article from Time magazine, and I saw that other people were thinking about it as well.
Thinking about the least common denominator in society, how likely is it that people are going to read these notices? I mean, I just barely happened to see them. I might have hucked the hose wrapping into the trash without a second thought, and I’ll bet most people do. And everybody drinks from a hose… I mean, sheesh – it’s what we do.
The irresponsibility of this is mind-boggling. I talked about it with my hardware store (they carry stuff from the DoIt suppliers, and that little font change is because otherwise it looks like “Dolt,” which based on the overall quality of that brand may actually be more appropriate) and they told me that’s all they can get. From where I sit, these products don’t belong on shelves anywhere. You can’t tell me that modern technology can’t manufacture a durable, kink-proof hose that’s not full of carcinogenic chemicals… it seems like sheer laziness and gross insouciance to me.
So if you weren’t aware of this, at least read the labels carefully the next time you bring home a garden hose, especially if you have little ones who will be playing in the garden. Do your research – there are choices out there. I sincerely doubt this is a matter of enough national importance to get our lawmakers to take time to look at, but that’s a shame – because they should – it’s a crime to market something so ubiquitously that you know is going to make people sick.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Niigata, Japan – 1956
I want lot’s of hits.
Their. That should dew it. Courtesy of the inimitable Shoebox Blog.
None of the above
This very unscientific measurement is intriguing in a way, because it reflects my own state of mind with regards to the upcoming election. I voted for our current president because the alternative had Palin in the mix, and the only Palin I have good feelings about is Michael, and you know, Obama rocketed to success on hope and change and wow a black American president, and now four years later his relative inexperience is translating into allowing a sharply divided congress to screw us all over on a daily basis which seems to be the only thing they are good at, and yes this is a run-on sentence and no I don’t care.
Then there’s the presumptive challenger. Unless the convention pulls a real surprise out of its hat, the GOP nominee will be Mr. Romney, and I thought he looked pretty solid and that his business savvy would be just what our nation needs to pull us all out of this horrible depression, and I use that word deliberately, but then he opens his mouth and all these terrifying things keep falling out of it, and I’m left wondering what’s wrong with our country that we can’t field two candidates with a sense of honesty and decency and fair play and who want to build a world that works for everyone and not just the people on their side of the aisle, and I realize that our political system is broken and I’d like to throw everyone out and start over and this is going on too long and I still don’t care.
I won’t give up. I won’t give in to despair, because my grandchildren deserve better, but I have to say that for this year, I’m not hopeful – and the Twitter index seems to state that most other folks aren’t either.
The Old Wolf has spoken and spoken and spoken.
You will breastfeed, and you will like it.
Once again, RoboCop Bloomberg is on the rampage. His NYC campaign “Latch On NYC” is designed to increase the incidence of breastfeeding in New York hospitals.
Pause for breath here.
Breastfeeding is good. In fact, it’s pretty certain that it has significant benefits over bottle feeding. La Leche League has been encouraging new moms for decades, the research is out there, and I don’t need to recap it for you here. But the plain truth is, there are some moms that just can’t, for any number of valid reasons – and it’s not the job of the government, at any level – federal, state, or municipal – to get their collective noses that far into people’s personal choices.
There’s no question that formula manufacturers love giving free samples in hospitals – it’s advertising, plain and simple, and a lot of doctors and nurses and healthcare professionals have a bone to pick with that. But it’s a separate issue: hospitals should not be legislated into locking their formula up just because Hizzoner has a bee in his bonnet. This is way the hqiz out of the purview of any governmental organization, just like some of his other initiatives; our country doesn’t need nanny-state laws.
So yeah, breast-feed your baby if you can; it’s good for the baby, and it’s good for you. But don’t let what Mayor Bloomberg thinks drive your choice – that one is up to you and your family alone.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Brains, 25¢
Even zombies could live more cheaply back in the 70’s.
Photo by Jack Klobnak. Found at BoingBoing.
Klobnak wrote: “”I took this pix in the 1970’s. It is on Choteau Ave. in St. Louis, which was famous in the early 20th Century for Brain Sandwiches (use a lot of mustard). It was not uncommon for dolts to be told to take a quarter down to Choteau to get some brains. Sadly, the building is no longer standing.” The location appears to have since been completely redeveloped as a hospital.”
Mary Eschner at Coney Island – 1951
A crowd gathers as Mary Eschner is revived after a near-drowning event at Coney Island.
Found at Google Images through mezzaluna.me – for Personal and Non-commercial Use only
Photographer: Margaret Bourke-White
Huîtres Variées
Earlier this month, I posted a brief reflection on John Howard Griffin. Often my mind floats back to his seminal book Black Like Me, nudged there by something I see, or hear, or smell – the language of the book is simple but evocative, and I have read it so often that many paragraphs are always close to the surface of my memory.
One such bit comes to mind when I think of New Orleans, which I have never visited but once, briefly, of an early morning while driving from Los Angeles to Key West in the summer of 1972. I stopped in at a little greasy spoon for breakfast, somewhere close to Interstate 10, possibly in the midst of the area destroyed by Katrina, but far from the French Quarter, which I know of only by hearsay and the Disney-esque reproductions that one sees from time to time.
Griffin wrote, “At Broussard’s, I had supper in a superb courtyard under the stars – huîtres variées, green salad, white wine and coffee; the same meal I had there in past years. I saw everything – the lanterns, the trees, the candlelit tables, the little fountain, as though I were looking through a fine camera lens. Surrounded by elegant waiters, elegant people and elegant food, I thought of other parts of town wher I would live in days to come. Was there a place in new Orleans where a Negro could buy huîtres variées?“1
While I speak fluent French, I have never encountered that phrase except in Griffin’s book. I began to wonder what huîtres variées were, because I love seafood (drooling now at the thought of oyster stew and steamed clams at Joseph’s Original Cap’n Cat Clam Bar in Franklinville, NJ, or a huge plate of mixed shellfish eaten at a lakeside restaurant in Torcy, France) and because I would love to try them in honor of Griffin’s life and work. Yet the only hits on the Internet lead back to the book itself or are oblique references; no restaurant seemed to offer the specific dish, except an old menu from Ben Gross restaurant in 1966, horribly misspelled as huîtres variées cheaudes et frôids, and the Grand Hôtel de Maubeuge, on the French border close to Belgium.
I had more luck when I looked up Broussard’s – they’re still there, and it does look like a lovely place to dine.
Copyright photo viewable here.
Broussard’s courtyard by day
The dinner menu at one point offered oysters as a specialty:
Definitely oysters, and prepared in various ways. So if I were a betting man, I’d say that Griffin had something like the Gulf Oyster 2-2-2, and simply chose to give it a French name, or else back in 1961 they had something similar on the menu. Sadly, the dinner menu has changed somewhat and these are no longer featured. Perhaps a seasonal change? I’ll have to keep my eyes open in the spring and summer.
Unless someone can dig up a menu from Broussard’s of that era, we may never know. What I do know is this: I gotta get me down to New Orleans.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
1Griffin, John Howard, Black Like Me, Signet Books, 1960, p. 11
Playing in the World Game 