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LAST NIGHT, WITH THE TRAIN DELAYED BY OVER AN HOUR OR SO because of connexions in Chicago from a New York train being delayed by same hitting a pedestrian somewhere in Indiana, Your Correspondent returned from his annual trip to the Waterpark Capital of the World.
This, I will admit, is perhaps my way of marking my return to the world of blogging, which will have to be in somewhat tenuous steps for the time being; it may be a little while more before I return to full-on daily blogging schedules. So bear with me.
In any event, there can be no mistaking the fact that the Dells can only get to be rather interesting, even if Lake Delton suddenly drained dry in a flood's opening a new spillway on 9 June ... followed exactly one month to the day later (Ripley, take note) by a mysterious fire in the summer-worker housing @ the Tommy Bartlett complex, whose flagship show has been modified to reflect the fact of Lake Delton's now having no water for the time being. (Fortunately, though, Your Correspondent was able to see the modified edition, and was not disappointed with the end result. Even if one of the chestnuts called in to compensate for the loss of the waterski portion, Dieter "You like it, I'll do it again!" Tasso, acknowledged where his age was making his act a little more difficult to pull off.
(Especially that of balancing several cups and saucers, and a teapot as the crown, on his head.)
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AS IT TURNED OUT, THE EVENING I ATTENDED THIS MODIFIED PERFORMANCE OF "THE SHOW" saw a rather potent thunderstorm pass through, with attendant loss of electric power while @ the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory as forced standby lighting to be resorted to during the outage. (The 4:30 performance had to be cancelled in consequence of the said storm, only the tenth time since covered grandstands went up in 1966 that a performance had to be cancelled.)
And while on the storm front, Friday morning saw a rather potent one kick up as I started walking down to Noah's Ark during a lull in a thunderstorm as prevailed much of that morning; luckily, though, I found shelter in a convenience store @ the Lower Dells junction just as the skies grew all the darker. And it took around an hour or so to wait before getting a taxicab to go to Mr. Pancake, where I usually have brekkie before going to Noah's. Luckily, though, the storm broke and my day @ Noah's went off without a hitch.
(But could you call the smaller-than-average crowds as made waits for the likes of Black Anaconda, Kowabunga or StingRay shorter than average a serious hitch, let alone the Big Kahuna wavepool being a little easier to navigate?)
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STILL, THOUGH, HIGH-SPF SUNBLOCK MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE in a place like Wisconsin Dells, even considering where summers there can get to be hot and muggy; in my own case, I prefer the likes of Hawaiian Tropic O-Zone Sport (SPF 60+) on the body, while the face got Banana Boat Faces, Etc. (SPF 40)--this particular fondness for high-SPF sunblock on my part being explained by past episodes on my part of really awful sunburns as led to peeling of the skin, particularly on the back.
The which surfah types like referring to as "delamination."
Not to mention a super-absorbent towel of the kind you can find @ outdoor supply shops instead of the so-last-Wednesday traditional beach towel as can get smelly and difficult to handle after awhile.
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RECOMMENDATIONS MATTER, AND THEN SOME, DEPARTMENT, SHOOBIE-TRAP DIVISION:Riverview Park and Waterworld broke in a new mascot character this season, going by the name of Duncan Dragon--blue throughout, can't quite swim but enjoys a nice splasharound every now and then.
Had a chance to meet up with him during his walkabout on Monday, when I called there. And after calling it a day, Duncan, through his handler, suggested Famous Dave's for dinner. And what a dinner it was: A Two-Meat Combi (I chose beef brisket and rib tips, not to mention sides of baked beans and wedge fries), corn on the cob, a corn muffin, what seems like gallons of sweet tea--and, for dessert, a hot fudge Kahlua brownie.
Sat next to a couple who managed to drive all the way from Winnipeg, Manitoba (CDN) to vacation in the Waterpark Capital--come to think of it, found plenty of shoobies from Friendly Manitoba there, as well as from the likes of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Florida, Colorado and even Washington state. And plenty of summer workers from Eastern Europe, Bulgaria being especially well represented; Pakistan and Turkey saw their share as well.
I even ran into a visitor from South Africa.
No wonder the Dells are getting quite the global reputation ... and come to think of it, could you just imagine a Wisconsin Dells T-shirt appearing on that (in)famous Brussels statue of the Peeing Boy?
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ANYWAY, AS I SAID @ THE BEGINNING, MY RETURN TO BLOGGING WILL LIKELY BE TENATIVE AND SPORADIC FOR THE TIME BEING; I just need the time to readjust before going back to daily form.
Go shopping @ Exaggermall!--online shop of this blog!
FOR THE SAKE OF MAKING THE ONLINE SHOPPING COMPONENT A LITTLE EASIER TO MANAGE AMONG YOU VISITORS, Your Correspondent has decided to do a little tweaking around of the online-shopping component; the better to emphasise only such as have attracted the most in clickouts.
As well as Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk (now including a "top five" selection and search capabilities to help in your buying therefrom).
I trust such will be found welcome among you who want to get online shopping done.
We now return you to your previous blog hiatus....
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WELL, PROBABLY SOONER THAN THAT, COME TO THINK OF IT: Your Correspondent, with this posting, is now on his traditional summer hiatus from blogging, the better to allow him to prepare for his annual visit to Wisconsin Dells as allows him to recharge his creative batteries, so to speak.
Even bloggers need a break now and then to maintain optimum mental performance and creativity, and Your Correspondent is no exception.
In any case, I hope you can all continue to keep The Exaggerator a regular habit, even if my absence from the Greater Blogosphere is for about a month or so.
Keep sharing the posts from the past.
Keep recommending this site to your friends.
And keep shopping online--hopefully, with a few serious purchases ensuing for once; I could use the income in form of sales commissions on your purchases.
Until my return, as they'd say in Bloemfontein, "Dankie vir jou ondersteun."
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Since when did "racial identity" become one with "national identity"?
PERHAPS THE LOWEST OF IDEAS TO COME DOWN THE PIKE AS AN "ELECTION ISSUE" IN INDECISION 2008 is that which certain weird and unwholesome types are pushing about "racial identity" being in the same league as "national identity."
Which, it just so happens, is the pet argument of racists and white supremacists Who Should Know Better, and who better to advance such illogic than Ku Kluxer apologist David Duke, who has been quoted in the Southern Poverty Law Centre's Hatewatch blog as suggesting that
[Barack] Obama will be a signal, a clear signal for millions of our people ... Obama is like that new big dark spot on your arm that finally sends you to the doctor for some real medicine. Obama is the pain that let's [sic] your body know that something is dreadfully wrong. Obama will let the American people know that there is a real cancer eating away at the heart of our country and Republican aspirin will not only not cure it, but only masks the pain and makes you think you don't need radical surgery. My bet is that whether Obama wins or loses in November, millions of European Americans will inevitably react with new awareness of their heritage and the need for them to defend and advance it.
Such a notion of "racial identity=national identity" as is encapsulated in the racist acronym ORION (as in "Our Race Is Our Nation"), which could easily be right out of apartheid South Africa, come to think of it.
But when you get right down to it, perhaps we should do well to recall the warning from history known as the German-American Bund, which the Nazi regime back in Germany supported with significant financial and moral backing by hoping to establish Nazi beachheads among German expatriate communities across the United States and in cities with substantial German-American populations like New York, Chicago and Milwaukee.
In any case, the Steuben League, which was traditionally the most conservative of German-American societies, expressed serious reservations about the Bund and its use by the Nazis for peddling influence and support for their cause.
But in the end, it was the Bund's president, Fritz Julius Kuhn (himself an American citizen of German descent), as would be the Bund's downfall: Rumours of Herr Kuhn diverting Bund funds to personal use (and Kuhn's defence that, by virtue of his absolute leadership, he was above reproach, legal and otherwise) would be enough to bring them down towards the end of 1939 ... but not before a rather notorious rally @ Madison Square Garden in New York as was replete with anti-Semitic comments which would degenerate into fisticuffs and violence. And soon after Pearl Harbour sent America into World War II, Bund members would be interned for "aiding the enemy," among them Herr Kuhn, who would subsequently be deported to Germany.
Remember, boys and girls: We ignore history @ our own peril. Even if there are arguments about equating "racial identity" with "national identity."
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TALK ABOUT YOUR POST HOC, ERGO PROPTER HOC IN ACTION, AND THEN SOME: ConWebBlog has this following exugenesis of a favourite specimen of conservative illogic in the face of common sense itself in the wake of misplaced policies of His Fraudulency's Great Within:
Terry Jeffrey really, really hates public transportation.
in his June 12 column, the CNSNews.com editor claims that "Recent evidence that automobile use is declining in America and that some Americans are making significant--and in some cases not readily reversible--changes in their lives because of escalating gas prices should be worrisome signs for those who love liberty." One of those changes is a move to "socialized transportation"--better known to the rest of us as public transportation.
Jeffrey does grudgingly admit that "roads generally are constructed by government, albeit with funds extracted from the earnings and gasoline purchases of drivers"--though he doesn't admit that such a scheme is arguably socialist too--then goes on to complain that "In a socialist transportation system, the government takes the taxpayers' money and purchases vehicles--often buses or trains--for itself or a government-funded agency. Where and when these vehicles go is determined by the government."
Jeffrey went on to express shock that one change people have made in reaction to record-high gas prices is that "8 percent have taken public transportation"; he responds that "Hopefully, the 8 percent who have taken to socialized transportation represents a trend that can be reversed."
The hilarious thing about Jeffrey's column is that his place of employement, aka the Media Research Center headquarters, is located within walking distance of a stop on one of the better public transportation systems in the world (the Washington Metro), as well as a stop for Amtrak and a regional passenger railroad. Further, several bus lines run within a few blocks of MRC HQ.
Somehow, we suspect that Jeffrey doesn't take the Metro to work (and we're almost certain he doesn't take the bus). But we also suspect that a number of MRC employees do. Does the MRC provide free parking? And are there enough parking spaces at MRC world headquarters for all of them?
Seems like Jeffrey and the MRC should be putting their money where his mouth is.
Which is enough to ask just how much of the Greater Conservative Agenda is rooted in, or otherwise replete with, euphemisms as ought more correctly be considered dysphemisms and code words concealing true intent--which, in the aforementioned example, would be "wise use."
Not to mention showing a reckless and utter disregard for the likely consequences of "wise use" policies which, in Reality, encourage waste and inefficency--in the aforementioned instance, the consequences of increased and increasing motor traffic translating into longer traffic tailbacks, longer commute times and, in the end, general deferred maintenance.
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IT WAS ABOUT TIME THAT MNDOT "FLIPPED THE BIRD" @ GOVERNOR PAWENTY AND HIS DROOGS WITH THE CLUB FOR GROWTH AND LIKE-MINDED SPECIMENS OF FALSE OR FLAWED SOCIOECONOMIC POLICY: MnDOT (as in the Minnesota Department of Transportation) has announced that it will "fast-track" no less than 11 bridge construction projects over the next 10 years in the wake of an ongoing scandal over flawed structural integrity aggravated by years of deferred maintenance in the (presumed) name of "protecting the good taxpayers" and "keeping taxes down" just to create jobs--supposedly unskilled, labour-intensive, low-paying such in the Luddite vein, the theory being one of reducing unemployment to a theoretical nil rate within free-market capitalist models and paradigms.
Said "middle-finger salute," so to speak, being made possible by the Legislative veto override of gas tax increases to finance the whole effort back in the spring--a necessary evil which the Club For Growth's best droog among the 50 state governors fails to recognise as such, let alone offer viable alternatives as avoid recourse to taxes (as if suggesting that the Lower Classes should just needlessly waste their new-found wealth from tax cuts on shopping expeditions @ Wally World bordering on the wasteful and frivolous, and with reckless disregard for utility and practicality combined with value for money).
Anyway, back to the topic @ hand:
Of the 11 bridges due for accelerated replacement thusly, six alone span the Mississippi River (notably such in St. Cloud, St. Paul, Hastings, Red Wing, Winona and Dresbach); two span the Red River of the North; and one is the International Bridge connecting Baudette with Rainy River, Ontario (CDN).
(Interesting historical sidelight: The Hastings bridge to be thus replaced, vintage 1951, was constructed to replace the legendary Spiral Bridge, vintage 1894, to wit:
(As for the "why and wherefore" of the spiral ramp design, Hastings civic leaders wanted to keep the country trade in Beautiful Downtown Hastings, but @ the same time didn't want to see a major stampede caused by runaway horses arriving on a more conventional ramp.
(Its own fate was sealed after World War II, following a reduction in the weight limit to five tons which led to a rather notorious incident as had a school bus, passengers and all, ticketed for being overweight ... to be followed for a time by students having to leave the bus before it crossed the span, and walk across same, reboarding @ the opposite end.)
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AS IRAQ DETERIORATES ALL THE FURTHER INTO CHAOS AND DISORDER AGGRAVATED BY THE AMERICAN COLONIAL PRESENCE THEREIN, Iraq's President will be flying over to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester for a medical checkup.
No wonder The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang is still as hard-wired as he is about maintaining an American Colonial Presence in Iraq for @ least 100 years (cf. the 48 years' American colonial presence in the Philippines until their being granted independence in 1946 ... let alone Hitler's Grand Delusion of a Thousand-Year Reich for Nazi Germany as fell 988 years short).
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A NEW PILL FOR THE HOMOPHOBIC COMMUNITY, ESPECIALLY SO THAT INVOKING HIS NAME: Swedish researchers have come out with a new study which found, based on brain scans, that the brains of gay men and straight women were, all things considered, practically identical in terms of general dimensions.
In contrast, the brains of straight men and lesbians had a larger right pole.
You can read the details in the current number of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences--until the "family values" crowd manages to censor the article by claiming "pseudoscience" or some such patsy as makes no logical sense in the face of facts.
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FURTHER COMMITTED TO THE SERVICE OF THE PUBLIC, ESPECIALLY SO HEADING INTO SUMMER HIATUS, Your Correspondent calls your attention to a new and informative widget on the side of the page as should be of benefit heading into Indecision 2008.
PolitiFact.com, a service of the St. Petersburg Times and CQ Politics, has introduced what may be the most effective way to gauge the veracity or insincerity of various claims made throughout the campaign: None other than The Truth-O-Meter, which analyses claims made by the candidates themselves ... the political parties ... outside political movements and campaigns ... even bloggers and chain e-mails, and renders a verdict based on careful and impartial research in one of six categories: True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True, False and (for the most incredibly bizarre specimens) Pants On Fire.
Which you'll no doubt want to consult from time to time, especially when you come across some class of scuttlebutt online and you need to judge its authenticity and credibility.
And in case any of you bloggers out there are wondering if you can add this widget to your own weblog, just click here and follow the simple directions. It automatically updates as new claims are analysed and published.
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AND BEFORE I FORGET, THE WEATHER DETAILS AS I WRITE: Rather pleasant and sunny, come to think of it, here in the Minnwissippi region with a touch of cooling breeze.
TT4N....
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SOME OF YOU REGULAR READERS MAY RECALL MY PREVIOUS ITEM DISCUSSING A RUNNING GAG OF STAN FREBERG'S on his 1957 summer-replacement series over CBS Radio as referred to any and all foreigners as "Swiss" so as not to offend anybody, or so the thinking went--and imagining its possibilities as a way to deflate xenophobic egos here in a "morally superior" United States when it comes to immigration and racial issues.
(IMHO, perhaps the best examples of the gag were in episode 11, where, in the opening routine, Our Host referred to his having "Swiss flu" as explained his feeling a bit poorly ... and in a parody of the Western dramas then popular on TV entitled "Bang Gunleigh, U.S. Marshall Fields," where a Mexican-sounding character named Pedro, as "materialises at the end of every episode" without any running story line, explains where he's Swiss when asked if he's Mexican.)
In any case, Your Correspondent has to wonder if this makes such targets of the gag honorary residents of "the Fifth Switzerland," as the Swiss themselves are fond of referring to Swiss Abroad; i.e., the Swiss diaspora, as opposed to to the traditional geolinguistic divisions of Switzerland based on the four official languages thereof (French, German, Italian and Romanch).
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