The visit to Mecklenburg Stormwater was a success. The presenters had really good information and some new activities. I'm pretty sure the last time we were there was 3 years ago.
When I wore a young man's clothes (don't worry, I had his permission) I loved to canoe, mostly river canoeing. Our Boy Scout Troop was a canoeing troop. The scoutmaster had an old International Harvester (like an SUV), and the troop owned a dozen canoes, stored at his house, on a giant trailer rack. We tried to canoe 6 times a year.
We canoed most everything about Indiana, western Ohio, some Michigan. We wanted to canoe the Ohio river but were forbidden, too much commercial traffic.
I used to participate in canoe races with my brother when we were youngsters. We canoed ALL the time as kids and my dad even had a canoe rental business on the Upper Iowas river in NE Iowa. We stopped canoeing when we discovered kayaks.
Our troop goes canoeing only occasionally. They did a big summer trek last year, and they're talking about another one next year. For the one trip Teengirl went on - 2 years ago? - they rented the canoes from the local camp and pulled the trailer to the destination. For the longer trip, they used an outfitter.
BSA has some "High camp Adventures", and you often rent all equipment from them at the site. As a kid I canoed Boundary Waters in Northern Minnesota. I've canoed Quetico (just across the line, in Canada). There we even used sleeping bags provided by the outfitter, transferred all our stuff into their packs. It was great.
What I remember most was when we were on a lake, when a beaver went under our canoe and BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! and well, you get the idea. He swum by baring his teeth at us. C'mon, like we're the reason you cannot dam an entire lake? Ever since I've never thought of beavers as friendly critters, I don't care what Bucees says.
Ohhhh I can't wait to check this out more closely later. Got home last night at 1:30 AM (which would've been 2:30 AM two nights ago.) Great concert (Tame Impala.) I wasn't the only oldster there! The drive to the United Center was smooth sailing until we hit 290/294 and then BAM, snail's pace for miles. The last 11 miles took something like 45 min. Good thing we left early. Off to pickleball.
Thank you for a glimpse into your trip! The park looked wonderfully wild - I like that in parks. For instance I'm headed to Grand Canyon in a week or so but in a way I prefer Big Bend NP because it's wilder and more remote. When there are too many trinket shops and tourists in flip flops with Starbucks in their hands it usually means there is someplace else I'd rather be.
I volunteered the summer of '78 in Big Bend. For something called 'A Christian Ministry in the National Parks'. I have never seen such astonishing sunsets. One of my roommates was Mexican/American. We visited his mom who lived nearby. To this day I have never had such good Mexican food!
Also, I'm pretty sure some of the cooks at the restaurant were illegals, but they were a hoot. I speak fluent Spanish so I had a blast getting to know them.
Being young, fit and stupid, and from the East, I did some multi-day hikes through the desert, in the middle of summer, despite the rangers' strong urging not to do so. Let's just say I will never do that again. Big Bend is a unique experience. From what I can tell online, the facilities back then were downscale rustic compared to the luxurious offerings now as the park seems to have become wildly popular.
Cool adventure! The heat is no joke. Edward Abbey wrote about it in Desert Solitaire as a ranger, I think in Arch's NP, on any given day finding some overweight sunburned tourist who went out with an 8oz bottle of water for a "leisurely" hike - dead from heat exhaustion.
As you I'm sure know, there is still one border crossing - Boquillas - that allows you to visit Mexico. I've wanted to do that but haven't had the chance.
I hiked Death Valley once. It was early March, 1998. It was in bloom and "only" 80 degrees. Beautiful. The park ranger told me it was the first time it had bloomed in years. IDK if that is true or not, but it is what he said.
When I was there, in the middle of summer, you could walk across the Rio Grande in ankle deep water, at most. Not there was anything to see except more desert.
Maybe we should do a bike trip to Big Bend? It's the getting there part that has been a deterrent. I'll have to admit the closeness to the border and the wildness of it all has me a little creeped out. I am a danger ranger, after all.
That's a pretty good idea I hadn't thought of. On bikes one could see a lot more of the park than on foot. Water is an issue - you have to carry all you need for the day.
I also prefer the bigger, wide open parks in the west. And with Big Bend you get the added bonus of it being so isolated that crowds usually aren’t an issue. Enjoy Grand Canyon! I’ve only seen it from the North Rim so far.
Thank you. This is my 7th trip I think. I have friends that love and want to return every year so I go along for their camaraderie. I have a friend with a very difficult wife (health wise - but mostly in her head). He's been deprived of a lot so I wanted to take him for an adventure.
Reading this harkens me back to my youth, reading a book about Stephen Collins Foster (which would make an awesome child's name). He was working on "Old Folks at Home" (aka Suwannee River), but needed a name for the river in the song. The ones around him didn't fit. So he asked Mit (who handled his biography, so perhaps that is why in the story that is who he asked), for some suggestions.
"Yazoo"?
"Peedee"
So they opened a map and found a nice two syllable river the Suwannee river [YES IT HAS 3-4 SYLLABLES; DEAL WITH IT], which Stephen wrote as "Swanee riber".
The last few pages of the book are missing (my copy ended with his song "I dream of Jeannie with the long brown hair) so I never knew how [SPOILER ALERT: SOMEONE FROM THE 1800s died!] how he died. It wasn't until well into his adulthood I learned.
There is a cedar swamp near where I grew up in western Ohio, in which (years ago) was found the intact skeleton of a woolly mammoth. That skeleton now graces a local museum here in Columbus.
The wooly mammoths seem to have been awfully careless about where they went hiking. Here in upstate New York there are different boggy, swampy places where mammoth remains have been found.
The Great Black Swamp. It extended along the southern line of Lake Erie to the Northwest and into NE Indiana. All drained for farmland, which is why the farmland is so good.
Good morning. 39 degrees here when I walked to our neighborhood school and polling place, with a high in the upper 50s later. here’s only local issues and mostly uncontested local races were on the ballot.
The mothership is covering a more consequential election, the gubernatorial race in Virginia. That race pits two women, one an African-American ca, against each other. (The African American is the incumbent GOP Lieutenant Governor). There are also state elections in New Jersey, and a New York City mayor’s race you may have heard about.
Referring to that race, the FP is covering what it calls the “DSA takeover of the Democratic Party”. Just what we need a MAGA on the Left.
The big maple in my backyard is a brilliant red, something I can enjoy looking at as I rake the leaves on the ground under it this afternoon.
I have several maples in my yard, my neighbors yard, and in the woods behind the house. Yesterday the sun shone so brightly it really lit up the trees. I call it God displaying the awesome majesty of his creation power.
But I have to mulch weekly to keep them from getting too thick once they reach the ground.
Well that was quite a treat for this guy stuck at home recovering from (very successful it seems so far) lumbar surgery! Makes me really want to return to Congaree next year, this time sans hiking poles (though more cool than a cane) and portable stool. Thank you for posting this, Cynthia, and at just the right time!
We, w/ my kids when they were old enough, went canoeing in Big South Fork, TN, many, many times. Always 2 nights overnight, & w/ ex's office-mates (one of which is now his current unmarried housemate, imagine that), so there would be many canoes. We'd pack coolers, spot places off the side to stop for the night, leaving plenty of time for tent set-up, build a campfire, first night would be steaks on the grill, salad, whatever else we packed that would spoil if kept too long, 2nd night whatever else, & of course we always had wonderful breakfasts...
One time, same group, along w/ my older brother, went canoeing down Buffalo River in Ark. A rental company dropped us off, told us to watch for a spot to stop, otherwise we'd end up going down Devil's Drop. It was also an overnight. They told us they'd meet us as the other end at a certain time. We kept looking for that 'spot' - realized we missed it. We had 8 canoes. We portaged 1 in order to not to have to go over that Devil's Drop, 'cause our kids were youngish. It was up a steep climb, then down again. After that, one guy said he wasn't going to do that again, said let's get all the coolers, tents, etc, out of the rest of the canoes, & I'll go down Devil's Drop. There were 4 men in the group. ALL of them, including my brother (who said he'd rather die going over, than die of a heart attack portaging another canoe), who was the oldest, did the same, except - guess who - my husband at the time, my now ex. I don't remember what excuse he made. We were sooooo late arriving at the pick-up time, but the crew said they had just arrived 'cause when they saw all the uh, stuff, we had packed in those canoes they knew we'd never make it on time...
Synchronized fireflies --- once again, it took everything I could do, but I did it, talking my husband at the time (all the kids were gone by then) to go see the synchronized fireflies in the Smokies. At that time, they didn't have a lottery. We got a motel room outside of Pigeon Forge (Pigeon Forge however, even in those days, imo, awfully awfully crowded tourist trap) - then drove to parking area, walked as far in as we could, found a spot - and watched in AMAZEMENT!!!!! I was soooooooooooo glad to have seen that!!!
Our "grandkid" has a game tonight. She's a junior nursing student at Cumberland University and they've started 3-1. Hoping it's a reasonably successful season; last year was rough and she's due a winning run.
I was among those who never thought much about women's sports, but she kind of adopted us when she was a freshman in high school. I've seen nearly all her home games and some away games, if I could. She busts her rear -- on the court and in the classroom and is unfailingly gracious to everyone. Except maybe that girl who she's guarding.
I really like HS sports for that reason. I enjoy the camaraderie and sportsmanship.
My wife has grown to love soccer, so we go to the UD soccer games, men and women (separate sports, it is not co-ed), when it fits our schedule, 2-3 times a year. Baujan field is built into a hillside, which is a lovely setting for soccer.
Dick Cheney has died. This may be a minority view these days, but I think he was an excellent Vice President and a fun person. I sent him a card when Vlad the Son was born on his - Mr. Cheney's - birthday, and I got a nice note back.
Cheney was one of the rare ones in govt who didn’t seem to care what you thought of him while he was going about trying to do the right things. Of course you could argue about the rightness of those things, and many hold him responsible for the Iraq War. But he seemed to be a dedicated public servant to me.
I don't disagree, but he felt what was right for America in the same way that Zuckerberg thinks about FB being a positive force for the world. Iraq was very good to Halliburton.
It's interesting to me that Halliburton acquired Brown and Root in 1962, and that company was closely tied to its "symbiotic" relationship with LBJ. From Wikipedia:
Brown & Root was founded in Texas in 1919 by Herman Brown and Daniel Root, with money provided by Root (Brown's brother in law).[20] Root soon died and Herman Brown's younger brother, George R. Brown, joined the company in 1922 (according to Robert A. Caro's The Path to Power). The company began its operations by building roads in Texas.
One of its first large-scale projects, was building a dam on the Texas Colorado River near Austin during the Depression years. For assistance in federal payments, the company turned to the local Congressman, Lyndon Johnson. Brown & Root was the principal source of campaign funds after Johnson's initial run for Congress in 1937, in return for persuading the Bureau of Reclamation to change its rules against paying for a dam on land the federal government did not own, a decision that had to go all the way to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After other very profitable construction projects for the federal government, Brown & Root gave massive sums of cash for Johnson's first run for the U.S. Senate in 1941.
I didn't know any of that. I only know Brown & Root skimmed ridiculous overcharges. When investigations were started, they moved their HQ to Dubai, beyond the reach of investigation.
The thing is, anyone of consequence and accomplishment in a long career is going to make a lot of mistakes that are easy for armchair critics to tease out. I wouldn't argue against those that say the Iraq War was a mistake - but I also don't believe it's that simple because we can't know the counter-factual.
Dick Cheney was vilified by many, but I liked and admired him. Best remembered now as George W Bush’s Vice President (and supposed Svengali) who architected the response to 9/11 and the Iraq War, he was also the Secretary of Defense during the first Gulf War under the elder President Bush.
I find I’m reflexively hesitant to share my thoughts about Cheney, since I never thought of him in terms of the cartoon villain his ideological detractors made him into. But Cheney seemed to relish the constant streams of hate rather than being bothered.
The overreaction to Cheney, you could argue, presaged Trump and the in-your-face attitudes it displays.
What was heaped on Cheney doesn’t even rate as criticism. It was a mob inflamed with the passionate certainty that anyone who disagrees with the mob’s political preferences *must* be Evil, and everything afterwards was merely a perpetual hunt for even the slightest evidence to support the prejudgment.
The Trump/MAGA attitude is akin to Cheney’s. You know your most passionate detractors can never be persuaded, so just confront them with a smug smile and let that enrage them further. No matter what you do, it’s only going to make them madder anyway. So smile and let the storm blow itself into whatever direction its energies carry it.
Dick Cheney was hated both by the Left and the MAGA Right. His spirit lives on in his daughter Liz Cheney, who chose principle over power when virtually every other Republican chose power over principle.
I never was impressed by Lynne Cheney. I saw her as an opportunist who used her family name to get elected. I had the sense she thought leading the charge against Trump would bolster her career, but it backfired on her. She clearly did not know her state's voters.
I could be wrong about her, but that was my sense of her.
the worst part was seeing online a side by side picture of her and Miss Piggy, and now I can never unsee it, and think of the Muppets when I see her.
I got a very different picture of her motives from reading her book, and from watching the January 6 hearings, and from public appearances she made in the run-up to the 2024 election.
I have low opinions of both of them for lots of reasons, but Lynne stuck her neck out on the 1/6 situation. She told the truth. She knew her states voters and gambled that maybe they would have a shred of intelligence...which is always a bad political bet.
Yeah. What was that Adlai Stevenson quote...lemme look it up...
cut and paste...
The quote is.... Someone yelled out "Every thinking person in America will be voting for you!" "I'm afraid that won't do," Adlai Stevenson replied. "I need a majority."
I agree. I have further thoughts, but traffic is heavy going Uptown, so they will have to wait. I need to chivvy the Youth, who tend to react to, "We need to go!" by slowing down.
Teengirl has a few more lessons before the stable goes on winter break, and her teacher can verify her completion of the actual riding requirements. Then I can work on the book-work with her: all the stuff about feeding, injury prevention, fire safety, gear maintenance, etc.
Looks so serene. Beautiful!
It was very peaceful. Low effort, plenty of time to look up into the trees and think, "Golly, they're way up there!"
The visit to Mecklenburg Stormwater was a success. The presenters had really good information and some new activities. I'm pretty sure the last time we were there was 3 years ago.
When I wore a young man's clothes (don't worry, I had his permission) I loved to canoe, mostly river canoeing. Our Boy Scout Troop was a canoeing troop. The scoutmaster had an old International Harvester (like an SUV), and the troop owned a dozen canoes, stored at his house, on a giant trailer rack. We tried to canoe 6 times a year.
We canoed most everything about Indiana, western Ohio, some Michigan. We wanted to canoe the Ohio river but were forbidden, too much commercial traffic.
I used to participate in canoe races with my brother when we were youngsters. We canoed ALL the time as kids and my dad even had a canoe rental business on the Upper Iowas river in NE Iowa. We stopped canoeing when we discovered kayaks.
Our troop goes canoeing only occasionally. They did a big summer trek last year, and they're talking about another one next year. For the one trip Teengirl went on - 2 years ago? - they rented the canoes from the local camp and pulled the trailer to the destination. For the longer trip, they used an outfitter.
BSA has some "High camp Adventures", and you often rent all equipment from them at the site. As a kid I canoed Boundary Waters in Northern Minnesota. I've canoed Quetico (just across the line, in Canada). There we even used sleeping bags provided by the outfitter, transferred all our stuff into their packs. It was great.
What I remember most was when we were on a lake, when a beaver went under our canoe and BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! and well, you get the idea. He swum by baring his teeth at us. C'mon, like we're the reason you cannot dam an entire lake? Ever since I've never thought of beavers as friendly critters, I don't care what Bucees says.
Ohhhh I can't wait to check this out more closely later. Got home last night at 1:30 AM (which would've been 2:30 AM two nights ago.) Great concert (Tame Impala.) I wasn't the only oldster there! The drive to the United Center was smooth sailing until we hit 290/294 and then BAM, snail's pace for miles. The last 11 miles took something like 45 min. Good thing we left early. Off to pickleball.
Thank you for a glimpse into your trip! The park looked wonderfully wild - I like that in parks. For instance I'm headed to Grand Canyon in a week or so but in a way I prefer Big Bend NP because it's wilder and more remote. When there are too many trinket shops and tourists in flip flops with Starbucks in their hands it usually means there is someplace else I'd rather be.
I volunteered the summer of '78 in Big Bend. For something called 'A Christian Ministry in the National Parks'. I have never seen such astonishing sunsets. One of my roommates was Mexican/American. We visited his mom who lived nearby. To this day I have never had such good Mexican food!
Also, I'm pretty sure some of the cooks at the restaurant were illegals, but they were a hoot. I speak fluent Spanish so I had a blast getting to know them.
Being young, fit and stupid, and from the East, I did some multi-day hikes through the desert, in the middle of summer, despite the rangers' strong urging not to do so. Let's just say I will never do that again. Big Bend is a unique experience. From what I can tell online, the facilities back then were downscale rustic compared to the luxurious offerings now as the park seems to have become wildly popular.
I went there with my father in about 1988.
Cool adventure! The heat is no joke. Edward Abbey wrote about it in Desert Solitaire as a ranger, I think in Arch's NP, on any given day finding some overweight sunburned tourist who went out with an 8oz bottle of water for a "leisurely" hike - dead from heat exhaustion.
As you I'm sure know, there is still one border crossing - Boquillas - that allows you to visit Mexico. I've wanted to do that but haven't had the chance.
https://www.nps.gov/bibe/planyourvisit/border_travel.htm
I hiked Death Valley once. It was early March, 1998. It was in bloom and "only" 80 degrees. Beautiful. The park ranger told me it was the first time it had bloomed in years. IDK if that is true or not, but it is what he said.
When I was there, in the middle of summer, you could walk across the Rio Grande in ankle deep water, at most. Not there was anything to see except more desert.
Maybe we should do a bike trip to Big Bend? It's the getting there part that has been a deterrent. I'll have to admit the closeness to the border and the wildness of it all has me a little creeped out. I am a danger ranger, after all.
That's a pretty good idea I hadn't thought of. On bikes one could see a lot more of the park than on foot. Water is an issue - you have to carry all you need for the day.
I would definitely, I think, say Big Bend is safe.
I also prefer the bigger, wide open parks in the west. And with Big Bend you get the added bonus of it being so isolated that crowds usually aren’t an issue. Enjoy Grand Canyon! I’ve only seen it from the North Rim so far.
Thank you. This is my 7th trip I think. I have friends that love and want to return every year so I go along for their camaraderie. I have a friend with a very difficult wife (health wise - but mostly in her head). He's been deprived of a lot so I wanted to take him for an adventure.
Nice production on the video!
It was done by the guide.
Reading this harkens me back to my youth, reading a book about Stephen Collins Foster (which would make an awesome child's name). He was working on "Old Folks at Home" (aka Suwannee River), but needed a name for the river in the song. The ones around him didn't fit. So he asked Mit (who handled his biography, so perhaps that is why in the story that is who he asked), for some suggestions.
"Yazoo"?
"Peedee"
So they opened a map and found a nice two syllable river the Suwannee river [YES IT HAS 3-4 SYLLABLES; DEAL WITH IT], which Stephen wrote as "Swanee riber".
The last few pages of the book are missing (my copy ended with his song "I dream of Jeannie with the long brown hair) so I never knew how [SPOILER ALERT: SOMEONE FROM THE 1800s died!] how he died. It wasn't until well into his adulthood I learned.
But I hummed it while reading this.
That was a nice video. Thanks. Are those cypress trees growing in the slough?
Yes, bald cypress. Also black tupelo.
The videos of the Congaree look very much like swampland in Louisiana, complete with cypress trees.
Similar to southern Illinois too. There's a swamp park down there.
There used to be wetland that extended from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to the Ohio River.
There were lots more wetlands before the rivers were "controlled" by the Army Corps of Engineers.
There is a cedar swamp near where I grew up in western Ohio, in which (years ago) was found the intact skeleton of a woolly mammoth. That skeleton now graces a local museum here in Columbus.
The wooly mammoths seem to have been awfully careless about where they went hiking. Here in upstate New York there are different boggy, swampy places where mammoth remains have been found.
The Great Black Swamp. It extended along the southern line of Lake Erie to the Northwest and into NE Indiana. All drained for farmland, which is why the farmland is so good.
I forgot that - went day canoeing w/ son in Louisiana!
Good morning. 39 degrees here when I walked to our neighborhood school and polling place, with a high in the upper 50s later. here’s only local issues and mostly uncontested local races were on the ballot.
The mothership is covering a more consequential election, the gubernatorial race in Virginia. That race pits two women, one an African-American ca, against each other. (The African American is the incumbent GOP Lieutenant Governor). There are also state elections in New Jersey, and a New York City mayor’s race you may have heard about.
Referring to that race, the FP is covering what it calls the “DSA takeover of the Democratic Party”. Just what we need a MAGA on the Left.
The big maple in my backyard is a brilliant red, something I can enjoy looking at as I rake the leaves on the ground under it this afternoon.
We've got some maples going flame red here; it's turned into a decent color season.
I have several maples in my yard, my neighbors yard, and in the woods behind the house. Yesterday the sun shone so brightly it really lit up the trees. I call it God displaying the awesome majesty of his creation power.
But I have to mulch weekly to keep them from getting too thick once they reach the ground.
"New York City mayor’s race you may have heard about." --- haha & your addition of MAGA on the Left
Wonderful sight for you in your backyard!!! Nothing like that in my neck of the non-woods
Well that was quite a treat for this guy stuck at home recovering from (very successful it seems so far) lumbar surgery! Makes me really want to return to Congaree next year, this time sans hiking poles (though more cool than a cane) and portable stool. Thank you for posting this, Cynthia, and at just the right time!
Prayers that the recovery continue to go well!
Appreciate it, Jay!
Oh golly, miss molly! Many memories...
We, w/ my kids when they were old enough, went canoeing in Big South Fork, TN, many, many times. Always 2 nights overnight, & w/ ex's office-mates (one of which is now his current unmarried housemate, imagine that), so there would be many canoes. We'd pack coolers, spot places off the side to stop for the night, leaving plenty of time for tent set-up, build a campfire, first night would be steaks on the grill, salad, whatever else we packed that would spoil if kept too long, 2nd night whatever else, & of course we always had wonderful breakfasts...
One time, same group, along w/ my older brother, went canoeing down Buffalo River in Ark. A rental company dropped us off, told us to watch for a spot to stop, otherwise we'd end up going down Devil's Drop. It was also an overnight. They told us they'd meet us as the other end at a certain time. We kept looking for that 'spot' - realized we missed it. We had 8 canoes. We portaged 1 in order to not to have to go over that Devil's Drop, 'cause our kids were youngish. It was up a steep climb, then down again. After that, one guy said he wasn't going to do that again, said let's get all the coolers, tents, etc, out of the rest of the canoes, & I'll go down Devil's Drop. There were 4 men in the group. ALL of them, including my brother (who said he'd rather die going over, than die of a heart attack portaging another canoe), who was the oldest, did the same, except - guess who - my husband at the time, my now ex. I don't remember what excuse he made. We were sooooo late arriving at the pick-up time, but the crew said they had just arrived 'cause when they saw all the uh, stuff, we had packed in those canoes they knew we'd never make it on time...
Synchronized fireflies --- once again, it took everything I could do, but I did it, talking my husband at the time (all the kids were gone by then) to go see the synchronized fireflies in the Smokies. At that time, they didn't have a lottery. We got a motel room outside of Pigeon Forge (Pigeon Forge however, even in those days, imo, awfully awfully crowded tourist trap) - then drove to parking area, walked as far in as we could, found a spot - and watched in AMAZEMENT!!!!! I was soooooooooooo glad to have seen that!!!
Our "grandkid" has a game tonight. She's a junior nursing student at Cumberland University and they've started 3-1. Hoping it's a reasonably successful season; last year was rough and she's due a winning run.
I was among those who never thought much about women's sports, but she kind of adopted us when she was a freshman in high school. I've seen nearly all her home games and some away games, if I could. She busts her rear -- on the court and in the classroom and is unfailingly gracious to everyone. Except maybe that girl who she's guarding.
This bunch of girls is a blessing.
I really like HS sports for that reason. I enjoy the camaraderie and sportsmanship.
My wife has grown to love soccer, so we go to the UD soccer games, men and women (separate sports, it is not co-ed), when it fits our schedule, 2-3 times a year. Baujan field is built into a hillside, which is a lovely setting for soccer.
They have an excellent booster and fan.
Dick Cheney has died. This may be a minority view these days, but I think he was an excellent Vice President and a fun person. I sent him a card when Vlad the Son was born on his - Mr. Cheney's - birthday, and I got a nice note back.
Cheney was one of the rare ones in govt who didn’t seem to care what you thought of him while he was going about trying to do the right things. Of course you could argue about the rightness of those things, and many hold him responsible for the Iraq War. But he seemed to be a dedicated public servant to me.
I don't disagree, but he felt what was right for America in the same way that Zuckerberg thinks about FB being a positive force for the world. Iraq was very good to Halliburton.
It's interesting to me that Halliburton acquired Brown and Root in 1962, and that company was closely tied to its "symbiotic" relationship with LBJ. From Wikipedia:
Brown & Root was founded in Texas in 1919 by Herman Brown and Daniel Root, with money provided by Root (Brown's brother in law).[20] Root soon died and Herman Brown's younger brother, George R. Brown, joined the company in 1922 (according to Robert A. Caro's The Path to Power). The company began its operations by building roads in Texas.
One of its first large-scale projects, was building a dam on the Texas Colorado River near Austin during the Depression years. For assistance in federal payments, the company turned to the local Congressman, Lyndon Johnson. Brown & Root was the principal source of campaign funds after Johnson's initial run for Congress in 1937, in return for persuading the Bureau of Reclamation to change its rules against paying for a dam on land the federal government did not own, a decision that had to go all the way to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After other very profitable construction projects for the federal government, Brown & Root gave massive sums of cash for Johnson's first run for the U.S. Senate in 1941.
I didn't know any of that. I only know Brown & Root skimmed ridiculous overcharges. When investigations were started, they moved their HQ to Dubai, beyond the reach of investigation.
He made his mistakes, but he was a clear-sighted patriot and a genuinely good man. He also deserves credit for fathering a courageous daughter.
2 courageous daughters. Liz and the daughter who came out publicly as a lesbian
(Lynne)
The thing is, anyone of consequence and accomplishment in a long career is going to make a lot of mistakes that are easy for armchair critics to tease out. I wouldn't argue against those that say the Iraq War was a mistake - but I also don't believe it's that simple because we can't know the counter-factual.
Exactly.
Dick Cheney was vilified by many, but I liked and admired him. Best remembered now as George W Bush’s Vice President (and supposed Svengali) who architected the response to 9/11 and the Iraq War, he was also the Secretary of Defense during the first Gulf War under the elder President Bush.
Dick Cheney, RIP.
RIP.
That’s wonderful about the card and note.
I find I’m reflexively hesitant to share my thoughts about Cheney, since I never thought of him in terms of the cartoon villain his ideological detractors made him into. But Cheney seemed to relish the constant streams of hate rather than being bothered.
The overreaction to Cheney, you could argue, presaged Trump and the in-your-face attitudes it displays.
What was heaped on Cheney doesn’t even rate as criticism. It was a mob inflamed with the passionate certainty that anyone who disagrees with the mob’s political preferences *must* be Evil, and everything afterwards was merely a perpetual hunt for even the slightest evidence to support the prejudgment.
The Trump/MAGA attitude is akin to Cheney’s. You know your most passionate detractors can never be persuaded, so just confront them with a smug smile and let that enrage them further. No matter what you do, it’s only going to make them madder anyway. So smile and let the storm blow itself into whatever direction its energies carry it.
Dick Cheney was hated both by the Left and the MAGA Right. His spirit lives on in his daughter Liz Cheney, who chose principle over power when virtually every other Republican chose power over principle.
You guys are mixing up Lynne, Dick Cheney's wife, with Liz, his daughter who was in Congress.
I fixed it.
I never was impressed by Lynne Cheney. I saw her as an opportunist who used her family name to get elected. I had the sense she thought leading the charge against Trump would bolster her career, but it backfired on her. She clearly did not know her state's voters.
I could be wrong about her, but that was my sense of her.
the worst part was seeing online a side by side picture of her and Miss Piggy, and now I can never unsee it, and think of the Muppets when I see her.
I got a very different picture of her motives from reading her book, and from watching the January 6 hearings, and from public appearances she made in the run-up to the 2024 election.
Right. I have low opinions generally, but she stepped up on 1/6 when no one else would. I gotta hand that to her.
I have low opinions of both of them for lots of reasons, but Lynne stuck her neck out on the 1/6 situation. She told the truth. She knew her states voters and gambled that maybe they would have a shred of intelligence...which is always a bad political bet.
Betting on the intelligence of the voter seems to be a bad bet.
Yeah. What was that Adlai Stevenson quote...lemme look it up...
cut and paste...
The quote is.... Someone yelled out "Every thinking person in America will be voting for you!" "I'm afraid that won't do," Adlai Stevenson replied. "I need a majority."
I agree. I have further thoughts, but traffic is heavy going Uptown, so they will have to wait. I need to chivvy the Youth, who tend to react to, "We need to go!" by slowing down.
Gah!
I never thought of him as a "fun person" but I appreciated his sense of humor.
Smart man. Dedicated public servant. Some of us will miss him.
Wonderful! Never thought I’d be so charmed to learn of a bug-swampy national park with an annual celebration of flashers!
Nice work on the video editing.
What was the Mosquito Meter reading when you were there? Any explanation for why it’s not called “Skeeter Meter”?
Because of the shutdown, they probably didn't have the mosquito report up to date. We didn't go to the park headquarters, just the canoe/kayak access.
No mosquitos were observed during our excursion, but some might have emerged later in the day.
Nice song! I got the horsemanship merit badge about sixty years ago—it was my favorite one.
I practically memorized the Pony Club manual.
Teengirl has a few more lessons before the stable goes on winter break, and her teacher can verify her completion of the actual riding requirements. Then I can work on the book-work with her: all the stuff about feeding, injury prevention, fire safety, gear maintenance, etc.