Special Graphic Post:
Fireball Down
The Dark Wraith will have a Pulp Economics post up tomorrow afternoon.
Published 5/24/2006 11:50:00 PM
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Special Graphic Post:
The Dark Wraith will have a Pulp Economics post up tomorrow afternoon.
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re: Q o' D
loosiana boys are raised on politics
'dere in da city
an out in da sticks
what happened to the good ol' boys that understood the rules of "honest graft" like the longs, the daleys, or boss tweed?
Good afternoon, Stephen Benson.
It is indeed a sad time for me when I long for the days of effective graft that actually accomplished good in the wake of its bad.
Now we have all the money flow to the top of the food chain instead of the way it used to be when at least some of the work was done to get good union jobs, social welfare programs moving forward, and a little peace and quiet from the nay-sayers who knew enough to keep their pie holes shut.
God, what am I saying?
The Dark Wraith smacks his moral compass.
[Huh. No true North anymore, apparently. Darned this polarized wilderness!]
Is that a photo of the asteroid that's supposed to impact the Atlantic Ocean today creating a huge tsunami wiping out the Eastern seaboard that Flame821 was writing about on Monday over at Blondesense?
Oh, the humanity!
Like clockwork.
I knew, just as soon as I started building this graphic, that someone from BlondeSense would be over here to remind me that this is Doomsday with the meteor thing.
The Dark Wraith has his surf board at the ready.
"Huh. No true North anymore, apparently. Darned this polarized wilderness!" -- DW
Perhaps reading Pathway to the Light Pole Shift will bring you some small consolation.
God! but I love this place.
The links alone are worth the price of admission.
The Dark Wraith needs to go back and re-read that article to which Peter of Lone Tree just provided the link.
You know – I lived in Chicago for ten years and I gotta say – graft be damned – Daley ran one tight ship! The streets were plowed, potholes were fixed immediately, public buildings were clean and safe – I could go on ad infinitum. Both father and son were good administrators – but the son is absolutely the greatest! Who cares if he hires the same contractors every time? He promotes diversity and runs Chicago like a well-oiled watch. Within hours after Katrina that man had organized aid to head into Louisiana – gas, water, food, clothes – it was FEMA turned it all back. So bring on some of that ol’ time corruption. Hell – Tammany Hall ran things better than this lot we have now. But then – a rather large box of assorted rocks would do just as well.
And POLT – do you always have to talk about doomsday? It’s really depressing! Besides – I misplaced my tin foil hat.
Good evening, Fat Lady Sings.
As weird as things are these days, the reception is good enough that we don't need the tin foil to boost the signal.
The Dark Wraith adjusts the rabbit ears.
DArk Wraith is pining for the days of the new Deal's infancy and apex. Unfortunately we're on the far side of that and those in charge right now do their damndest to return us to the days when the Vanderbilt's had more money than Uncle Sam.
- oddjob
The Vanderbilts had more money than God, OddJob.
But even elitism has lost its shine. At least the Vanderbilts had more class than Bill Gates, they looked better than Exxon's Lee Raymond, they didn't pretend to care like Oprah Winfrey, and they didn't show up on TV pretending to be progressives like George Soros.
I suppose authenticity in the decadence of excess counts for something.
The Dark Wraith has a slight preference for that Gilded Age over our Turd-Coated Era.
(Slightly OT: In Newport, RI you can tour The Breakers, one of the Vanderbilts' summer mansions (& obscenely referred to as "a cottage"). I definitely recommend doing so if you get the chance. The price isn't especially high and seeing how they lived is a bit intimidating. One of my clearest recollections of all is the kitchen. I simply can't imagine how miserable it would have been to work there! It's huge, but worse than that, it's all plaster and tile, with a very high ceiling. I imagine the high ceiling helped keep the ovens' heat away from the staff, but the noise! All that tile and that big room with its high ceiling - the whole thing is one enormous live, harsh, .... !)
- oddjob
Good Morning, Dark Wraith,
I am reporting alive from the east coast. It's warm and sunny. So far so good. Our surf boards and boogie boards are at the ready. Maybe we'll see ya later.
:)
Good Morning, Oddjob,
We have wonderful tours of Vanderbilt's "cottage" here on lovely Lawn Guyland. Actually it's pretty fascinating.
http://www.vanderbiltmuseum.org
Good morning, OddJob.
I recall somewhere seeing or reading about that home, although I don't recall the kitchen being mentioned. I suppose the cavernous dimensions would be necessary given that the staff probably had occasion to prepare banquets for large numbers of guests. In that era, opulence was to the end of being put on display, at least for some of the decadently rich.
I'll tell you, though, that in my days as a business consultant, I saw more than my share of homes that were beyond anything I had imagined. These places were simply unbelievable to me.
At one residence, the floors were of an imported marble that was simply mesmerizing in its luster. One of the money oddities of the place was that, right there in this one "family room" sort of area was this absolutely gorgeous pool table. It was like none I'd ever seen before. Given, of course, that the tables I had seen were all in pool halls on the really wrong side of the tracks, I suppose that's not saying much, but this table was just overwhelming in its wood, its inlays, and its massiveness. Anyway, the young man whose father owned the residence commented that no one was allowed to play pool on the table lest one of the balls be shot off the table, land on that marble, and crack it.
I actually convinced him to shoot a game with me. Sure enough, I popped the cue ball right off that fool table (best cue stick I'd ever used, by the way), and that cue ball went straight for paydirt toward the middle of the room, right where a crack in that pristine white marble would be entirely and perfectly evident. The cue ball hit the floor once and bounced like some cream-colored superball. I went after that sucker like a hungry cat going for a bird taking flight.
I managed to go clear around the table and nearly get to the ball on its way back down for what would surely have been a cratering blow to that floor. Fortunately, the first hit had done no damage, given that the ball had a lot of horizontal momentum when it struck. The young fellow had actually made it to the soon-to-be wrecking ball and nailed it as it was on its way down. Thank goodness: that second hit would have been the end of me.
Well, not the end of me exactly, since I was just a guest. At least, that's what I figured at that moment.
It was only later that evening that my young host (who wanted to get into the world of consulting with me) showed me his father's weaponry collection.
So help me, God! that was no gun collection, OddJob. The closest I can come to describing it is to say that several nations I've visited don't have arsenals like that. There were weapons in that walk-in vault I didn't even recognize.
I remember the kid saying, "I'm not really into this, but my dad is."
I'm glad I caught that cue ball. I'm even more glad I don't do consulting anymore.
The pool halls are too fancy.
The Dark Wraith lives the simple life these days.
Good morning, Liz.
And here I forgot to get surfwear for this momentous day when the tsunami hits the fan.
I sold my ironing board several years ago, too, which means I'm going to have to improvise.
I'm envisioning a scene from Escape from LA, complete with surfer music and a post-apocalyptic urban setting.
Yeah, that'll work.
The Dark Wraith is ready to surf down the main boulevard.
The pool halls are too fancy.
The Dark Wraith lives the simple life these days.
LOL!
Definitely qualifies for the annals of, "Be careful what you wish for, as you may get it!"
As to the kitchen's size, absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the size was precisely for the banquets you envision. It's in a neighborhood (if one could call it that) of cliffside mansions (all called "cottages"), where the Gilded Age's well to do spent the hot parts of their summers. The ocean view from the second floor porch was spectacular (natch). There's a fair amount of what appears to be gold painting on various an sundry interiors (ballustrades and so on).
It's gold leaf.
- oddjob
I was born and raised in Chi-town and will vouch for everything Fat Lady Sings said. And when Harold Washington took office I had high hopes for him. Was a sad day when he keeled over way too soon. Always wondered if he would have had a good run, he certainly seemed to be a pretty decent sort of fellow.