Life: The Day After Black Friday, And Reliving the Grand Adventure

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.

–J.R.R. Tolkien

No, I’m not shopping, today.  Nor did I yesterday.   I did happen by one of the larger malls around here yesterday on my way elsewhere, and noted area of the parking lot filled with cars and humans… an area which normally is not occupied by any higher life form than geese and seagulls. Once again I’m forced to ask myself why humans subject themselves to such nonsense.

I live but a short distance from a mall of similar size to the one I saw yesterday.  This time of year, I go nowhere near that section of town.  There is something about Christmas shopping that creates a substandard driver.  I’ve never figured out what the connection is, but having learned that it exists is enough  to keep me running miles out of my way, to get around it, undamaged.

There are similar places in every city, I suppose.  In Buffalo, the big spot is the Galaria mall. In Syracuse,  it’s the Carousel mall.  in Cleveland it’s the Garfield mall.  Pittsburgh, it’s the Northway mall.  In Toronto, it’s Eaton Center, or a half dozen smaller malls around the GTA. I’ve been to them all.  Nice places.  I wouldn’t get caught dead near any one of them this time of year. I like people well enough, but sometimes removing yourself from them is needful. When they pack themselves into those mazes, I start looking for the exit.

I think, rather, I’m going to take the family on a little adventure out west on The Parkway and check out some of the freshly fallen snow. I’ve always had the impression that a trip out into the first snow of the year, was an exercise in cementing in one’s mind the winner has actually arrived.  This year, the trees in large number have yet to share their leaves.  It has been a weird fall season.  So it is that winter’s arrival needs a bit of additional mental reinforcement.

The parkway, of course, takes  us up to the edge of Lake Ontario.  The lake, this time of year, takes on a slightly different color. Increasingly white/gray. Less friendly.  I suppose that technically the reason is that this guy has also changed color, given the positioning of the sun, the increased clouds, the cold. Ice in the water, too, lends it’s drab colors.  I suppose you would have to be a native of the area to pick up on it.

This is the same road we travel on, when we take the camper to one of the local Parks… Hamlin, Lakeside, and so on, so the change is a stark one, season to season. What was once inviting and green, and blue is now white and grey, and…bleecchcchhh.

Some of my earliest car-riding memories are of traveling on this little stretch of road.  As a family we used to make trips to Alpena MI yearly to visit my father’s sister and her family. We’d leave Rochester early in the morning, (3 or 4am) go up the parkway to Hamlin… where it ended in those days… and out 18 to the Falls… Usually we’d not see any other cars until we got to the border some 65 miles away…. and then we’d go up up the QEW, Kings 2, Kings 53, Kings 81, and so on to Sarnia, and up into Michigan. We’d make it there just past dinner time, if the wind was right. Back in the day it was a fourteen hour drive. No 400’s in Ontario, it was all two lane. Mostly that way in Michigan, too.  Today you can make it in less than eight. A lot faster, these freeways, but they’re not the same trip, anymore. Not nearly as enjoyable.  Not nearly as adventurous.  

When Donna and I got married, (certainly, a grand adventure) … it was the route we chose to start our Honeymoon trip to Niagara Falls, and from there to NY18 and so on, to Toronto.  Sure… I-90 will get you there faster, and we could as easily drive NY104, which was the main drag from here to the Falls before the Thruway went in, in the middle 60’s… but none has the wildlife driven charm of the Parkway. Never know what you’ll see… Deer, Geese, Swans, Herons, Gulls, Turtles, Frogs, Pheasants, turkeys,  and more.

This time of year, of course, about the only thing you’re going to see is the deer… and the hunters.

In any event, I’m not worried about getting somewhere in a hurry, today. It’s the going, not the getting there.  And it’s not a major thing, but it’s useless to deny that  there’s something of a mystique about the road, to me.  A trip up that way, has always been a harbinger of some grand adventure, or other.

The boys have been bugging me to take them railfanning, and I suppose we might do some of that, (Railfanning shots in winter are fun to grab) though I wonder how they’ll fare in the cold. They’re not used to it being winter, yet, either.

Assuming we come home late enough, we might even see some Christmas lights, always a sure sign of winter.

Well, that’s the plan, anyway.   But as Bilbo said… You never know where you’re going to be swept off to, once you start adventuring.

I note this morning by way of Memeorandum, that Australia has condemned itself to a labor government.  I suspect that by the time they figure out how badly they succeeded and damaging themselves will be too late.  The Belmont Club gives us a rather ominous sign:

 The mood among the Labor supporters pretty much resembles that of Pelosi’s supporters after their Congressional win.

Given the rather remarkable failure of Mrs. Pelosi and company, that does not bode well for Australia, a point even Belmont Club mentions:

The chances are we’ll be looking at Kevin Rudd reprising Nancy Pelosi. The end of the Howard era may be a good thing in the end. Labor will ultimately provide the energy for its own downfall, as the Liberals (Howard’s party) did theirs.

It is not, however, something there that the leftist  numbskulls here in the states are going to be crowing about, as Liz Keenan, by way of Michelle Malkin, explains;

 The new P.M. is likely to go Howard’s way on foreign policy, too. What he described as “fundamental differences” with Howard — his vows to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and pull troops from Iraq — are largely symbolic. Though Australia is outside the Kyoto regime, the country has met its emissions targets. And on the question of a successor treaty to Kyoto, Rudd in mid-campaign abruptly took the Howard position: a Labor government would not ratify Kyoto II unless it required China and India to limit their emissions. On Iraq, Rudd has moderated Labor’s earlier “pull-out-now” policy. He says he will bring home the 1,400 Australian troops in Iraq and the Gulf gradually, in a “negotiated, staged withdrawal.” He is prepared to send more troops to Afghanistan.

The article from Keenan closes on an interesting comment:

As exultant Labor voters — “Eleven and a half years is just too long,” many said of Howard’s long run — cheered Rudd’s victory speech, some observers wondered whether he’ll maintain his Howard-like demeanor or whether, as left-wing commentator Robert Manne said during the campaign, “When he gets into government, then we’ll begin to see the differences again.” Australians who voted Labor only when Rudd moved toward the center may be hoping those differences are not too startling.

Put another way,  Rudd had to act like somebody he is not… a centerist… to get into office.

From Investors Business Daily:

Leaders: Time was, a French leader who dared to defy that nation’s all-powerful unions could end up without a political future. Well, Nicolas Sarkozy stared down the mighty transport workers — and the union blinked.

Brooks Boliek, Hollywood Reporter:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards all said Wednesday that they will refuse to cross a picket line to participate in the debate.

Don Suber on the difference: 

Sarkozy stands up to a union; Democrats won’t cross a picket line.

There are real leaders like Ronald Reagan, who stood up to PATCO, and their phony leaders like Mrs. Clinton who will not even stand-up to her husband.

Lead, follow or get out of the way.  It is time for Mrs. Clinton to get out of the way.

Scott Fybush is reporting the death of Hy Lit, one of the very first Rock and Roll DJ’s in the country.

Hy Lit died Saturday, almost two weeks after undergoing what was supposed to have been routine knee surgery for an injury he suffered when he fell Nov. 4, followed by what his son Sam tells the Philadelphia Inquirer was a series of “bizarre complications.”

Lit was one of Philadelphia’s first rock-and-roll DJs, starting his career at age 20 in 1955 at WHAT (1340), where he quickly made a name for himself before moving first to NBC-owned WRCV (1060) and then, by late 1957, to top-40 giant WIBG (990), where his achievements included introducing the city to the Rolling Stones and the Beatles – and an amazing 73 rating for his evening show, likely an all-time ratings record for any DJ. Lit quickly became a TV star as well, hosting a dance show on WKBS-TV (Channel 48) that was syndicated to other Kaiser TV stations around the country.

Frankly, “amazing ” is an understatement for those kind of numbers.  And the voice,. and the personality… and later on, the hot board hand, was why he was able to do as well as he did. WIBG used to come in up here at night, years ago, before WNYR (Now WLGZ) went to high power on 990. Never heard Lit live on air, but. I still have some tape around here somewhere. His style was actually one I studied when I was training for the job, years ago.

Feedback from an apparently young reader…

Why not link The DrudgeReport?

Tell you what… get him to link BitsBlog, and I’ll consider it. Let me know how you make out.

The Daily Mail:

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers – and a voice calling her Mummy.

But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.

Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.

Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible “mistake” of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time.

He refused, but Toni – who works for an environmental charity – “relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery.

Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way.

At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to “protect the planet”.

Without question in my mind this is a religious fervor that they view all this with.

Just about everybody else is all over this thing One question I’ve not seen them raise however is perhaps a little indelicate… which longtime readers will know poses no border to me… the question being:

If they’re THAT concerned about saving the planet, and are convinced that less humans on the planet would help to save it, then wouldn’t suicide be a more effective option?

Of course, that would have the added bonus of the rest of us us not having to put up with their nonsense until their tofu killed them off. Darwin in action.

The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Fellow Swamp Stomper Blue Crab Boulevard, Hot Air, Jules Crittenden, Don Surber, and The Jawa Report, as well as a pile more at Memeorandum are on this, as is Michelle Malkin

Addendum: (David L)

You just knew Mark Styen could not stay away from this story.  Allah Pundit Hot Air, has the video.

COALITION FORCES TARGET AL-QAEDA PROPAGANDA, FOREIGN TERRORIST NETWORKS; ONE KILLED, 10 DETAINED

Posted: 22 Nov 2007 12:00 PM CST

COALITION FORCES TARGET AL-QAEDA PROPAGANDA, FOREIGN TERRORIST NETWORKS; ONE KILLED, 10 DETAINED

MND-B DINING FACILITIES SET TO SERVE IT UP IN BAGHDAD

Posted: 22 Nov 2007 11:51 AM CST

MND-B DINING FACILITIES SET TO SERVE IT UP IN BAGHDAD

Little Green Footballs notes:

9/11 Troofers keep popping up at Daily Kos, despite the official Kos disapproval: Screw Loose Change: Daily Kos Allows Crackpot Diary.

The bottom line is, the regardless of the show the left makes of disapproving of such things, that kind of tinfoil had modeling is part and parcel of what the left has become these days.  They can no more separate themselves from such things, then you were I to cut off a hand or a foot; it’s part of them.  They simply can’t separate themselves from it.

And remember, dear readers, that this is the same group of people who finds Ron Paul so appealing.

Meanwhile, in another post, LGF passes along this tidbit:

 At least ten people dead in India after simultaneous explosions in several cities targeted courthouses.

How long, I wonder, will it be before we hear these same morons, claiming that these events in India are all an inside job, and that the Bush administration is somehow to blame for them.

I stated here several times over the years that the Democrat party has become the party of the rich.  So imagine the look on my face when Don Lambro, over The Washington Times this morning produces a study which says precisely that:

In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats.

He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats.
“If you take the wealthiest one-third of the 435 congressional districts, we found that the Democrats represent about 58 percent of those jurisdictions,” Mr. Franc said.

…

Mr. Franc’s study also showed that contrary to the Democrats’ tendency to define Republicans as the party of the rich, “the vast majority of unabashed conservative House members hail from profoundly middle-income districts.”

Just recently, I remarked that John Edwards would do significantly better among the poor, were he to have his nose surgically lowered.  It seems I underestimated the position of Mr. Edwards; he’s doing as well as he is, because with his snobbery he is playing to the new base of the Democrat party… the rich.
Personally, I’d give a bundle for information on how those upper income brackets that claim the Democrat party as their own break down, in terms of professions.  How many of them, I wonder, our government workers of some sort ; education, bureaucracy, and so on, or those whose degree of ‘rich’ depends utterly on the largess of government?  I’m willing to bet it’s a fairly high percentage.

But the crassness of the Democrats gets exposed, here. While they’ve been complaining about George W. Bush and his supposed ‘tax cuts for the wealthy….

….the strongest manifestation of the influence that the Democrats’ wealthiest constituencies are wielding over party policy came earlier this month as Democratic leaders were considering a proposal to offset revenue losses from AMT repeal by raising taxes on hedge-fund managers, many of whom are major contributors to the Democratic Party.

A “stopgap” bill authored by Mr. Rangel to tax hedge-fund compensation at 35 percent as regular income rather than the current 15 percent capital-gains rate, which passed the House Nov. 9, appears to be going nowhere with Senate Democrats.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has raised tens of millions of dollars from Wall Street financiers and hedge-fund managers, opposes Mr. Rangel’s plan. Earlier this month, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee, said the tax increase was a bad idea and could not pass the Senate.

…

Mr. Franc thinks this turnabout by Democrats, whose campaign mantra has long been to tax the rich more, is only the beginning.

“Increasingly, we will see Democrats responding to the economic demands of this particular upper-income constituency,” he said.

Gee. Democrats trying to have it both ways.  Who’d have thought it?

BBCT: Memeorandum, which has more discussion, including what has to be the line of the day from The Confederate Yankee….

It isn’t by any means bad or wrong that Democrats aspire to wealth and success, but is is a bit hypocritical for them to label themselves the party of the poor as they carefully sip overpriced bistro coffee to keep from spilling it on the leather interior of their late-model European sedans.

Ain’t it real….

Shocking news.  Socialist wife, Bernadette Chirac endorsed the socialist Mrs. William Clinton.   That is the wife of cheating, corrupt. lying French politician, Jacques Chirac,  esdorsed the wife of a  cheating, corrupt. lying US politician, B.J. Clinton.

PARIS (Reuters) – U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won surprise backing from the wife of former French President Jacques Chirac on Thursday, together with a pledge to join her on the campaign trail.

Hat Tips:  Astute Blogger; Hot Air.

Who decided that my six-year-old should dress like a Vegas showgirl? And one with an abundance of anger issues at that?

Celia Rivenbark, Sun(NY).

 Hat Tip:  Lucianne.

I always said it would happen. Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters:

As irrefutable evidence mounts that Nobel Laureate Al Gore’s climate alarmism is about nothing other than lining his supposedly green pockets with green currency, manmade global warming skeptics around the world wonder when the former vice president’s house of cards will collapse.

Without question, if Gore were to lose the support of almost universally adoring Hollywoodans, the scam would implode quicker than a Democrat demanding a recount after losing a close election.

As such, the following comments by actor and environmentalist Robert Redford, reported by the New Statesman last week, should bring hope to folks not buying the snake oil Gore is selling (emphasis added, h/t NB reader Lee):

Redford was an early convert to the environmental movement, and talks proudly of having campaigned on it since 1969. “It was not a happy easy time, because those were the days that the oil and gas companies pretty much controlled the show on propaganda. Anyone speaking about solar energy would be smashed down as being a radical, a tree-hugger and granola-cruncher or what have you.”

He is notably cynical, however, about Al Gore’s recent award of a Nobel Peace Prize. “He’s making a lot of money, he’s having a belle époque, a heroic moment,” he says. “It must have been really hard for Gore to suffer all that [losing the presidential election], so he found another thing to come back with: the environment.

Noel has more, of course. Go and RTWT.
And here I was ready to write off Redford as a total idiot for “Lions for Lambchops”.  Or perhaps the utter failure of that move was enough to wake him up a little, I don’t know. In any event the bloom is clearly off the rose as far as the global warming myth goes.

SIX KILLED, 10 DETAINED AS COALITION FORCES TARGET AL-QAEDA LEADERSHIP, FOREIGN TERRORIST FACILITATORS

Posted: 21 Nov 2007 07:09 AM CST

SIX KILLED, 10 DETAINED AS COALITION FORCES TARGET AL-QAEDA LEADERSHIP, FOREIGN TERRORIST FACILITATORS

‘AWAKENING’ IN IRAQ SIGNALS CITIZENS’ RISE AGAINST AL-QEADA

Posted: 21 Nov 2007 07:03 AM CST

‘AWAKENING’ IN IRAQ SIGNALS CITIZENS’ RISE AGAINST AL-QEADA

MND-B TROOPS CAPTURE EXPLOSIVELY FORMED PENETRATORS, ROCKET CACHE

Posted: 20 Nov 2007 03:15 PM CST

MND-B TROOPS CAPTURE EXPLOSIVELY FORMED PENETRATORS, ROCKET CACHE

IRAQI SECURITY FORCES DETAIN 81 SUSPECTED EXTREMISTS, CONFISCATE WEAPONS CACHES

Posted: 21 Nov 2007 10:52 AM CST

IRAQI SECURITY FORCES DETAIN 81 SUSPECTED EXTREMISTS, CONFISCATE WEAPONS CACHES

Just a concept I want to capture. Think of this what you will;

With all the progress that’s been happening in Iraq of late, the last refuge of the left is to complain that the Iraqi federal government there doesn’t have it’s act together.

While that’s true in large degree, it’s also beside the point.  Change… real change… particularly the positive kind… cannot be imposed from above, it has to come from the people themselves. That’s exactly what is happening currently in Iraq.

There’s an interesting parallel, here between the Left’s view of the relationship between the Iraqi federal and provincial governments, and their American equivalents.

When Katrina was an issue, the left complained the federal government didn’t respond as they would have liked, but made no mention as to the actions of the state and local governments. . Invariably, they pointed at Louisiana as their example. Yet, they ignored similarly hard hit Mississippi’s recovery, which was driven at the state level.

As with Katrina, the left under-estimates and underplays the role of the local governments… those levels of government not federal in nature. In both cases… Iraq and Mississippi, what needs to be done is largely being dealt with at the provincial/state level. The provincial governments are agreeing on what the federal government could not, and things are getting done. This is an outcome that the left didn’t have on it’s radar simply because it doesn’t match their worldview of a huge centralized, all powerful government.

There’s a lesson there.

A little old man shuffled slowly into an ice cream parlor and pulled himself slowly, painfully, up onto a stool.. After catching his breath, he ordered a banana split.

The waitress asked kindly, “Crushed nuts?”

“No,” he replied, “Arthritis.”