Robert Pence

Here I am this afternoon, fussing over what's left of my summer flowers. Like me, they're waning with the end of summer.

Hoosiers, especially the southern ones, tell Kentucky jokes.

Candidates who pander to an increasingly "simplified" electorate win elections. People whose expectations and cultural values are shaped by cheap, abundant mass-media entertainment and a self-indulgent culture demand simple answers and quick solutions to what actually are complex questions and problems. They especially relish answers and solutions that absolve them of any personal responsibility for the messes they find themselves in. Win-at-any-cost candidates promise to make their wishes come true, and then win reelection despite failure to deliver by blaming the opposition. Gullible voters, steadfastly believing in simple answers, eagerly embrace their excuses instead of making an effort to understand what really happened. Although I sometimes disagree with his positions, I think think Richard Lugar qualifies as an elder statesman. He is intelligent and articulate and works diligently to acquire an in-depth understanding of the issues in which he becomes involved. Not a crowd follower or party loyalist, he speaks out on important issues. His colleagues respect him for his informed, well-thought-out opinions and for his personal character and integrity.

Time to resurrect this: or maybe an earlier incarnation that surfaced while I was trying to chase the dust bunnies out of the archives, looking for something else this afternoon. I had completely forgotten about this late-seventies photo from Harrisburg, and hadn't paid any attention to the number at the time. The pair of GG-1 locomotives is heading up the New York section of the westbound Broadway Limited. Upon arrival at Harrisburg, the New York and Washington sections of the Broadway were joined and received diesel power for the remainder of the trip westward.

I don't think they get very big. There used to be a row of very old ones along the river in the park near my house, and I don't think any of them were more than 20 feet tall. They tended to spread outward rather than growing a tall central trunk. Eventually they all died; I don't know if it was old age, or if the increased frequency of long-lasting high water in the park did them in.

Quite a handsome old city! Something about some of those downtown views made me think of Lafayette, Indiana.

I was embarrassingly conservative into my thirties; it started out as teenage rebellion against the views of my Democrat parents and the entrenched Democrat dominance in my home community and got reinforced during a corporate management-oriented apprenticeship at GE and four years in the USAF during the Vietnam era. After military service, I worked in skilled-labor jobs in small towns where liberal views were so unknown that the term, "Liberal" was unheard. I voted for Barry Goldwater against Lyndon Johnson, and my vote helped put Richard Nixon into office. As much as anything, my coming to terms with my sexual orientation brought me into face-to-face confrontation with social justice issues that hadn't even been on my radar, and I started to pay attention to ideas and opinions that I had ignored or dismissed previously. The recovery has been slow and arduous, but I'm glad I chose it. I haven't been tempted to relapse in a long time, and I no longer even harbor a desire to associate with the old crowd. If a nasty right-winger like me could change, there's hope for other conservatives. I've contemplated starting a Conservatives Anonymous group in order to spread the benefit of my experience and help others seeking to break free. :-)

Have you thought of lobbying to keep the bars open until service resumes at 4 a.m.? :wink:

Excellent photos of places not usually seen in run-of-the-mill tourist pictures. The cloud forest photos are gorgeous!

It's been quite a while since I've been to Akron; back then, there was a serious dearth of good restaurants, and the place was pretty much dead. It looks like it's coming along nicely, now. I saw a film at the Civic. It was my first time in a theatre with an atmospheric ceiling. I can't even remember what film I saw, but I'll never forget looking up at the clouds and stars. It was the dead of winter, but I felt as if I were in an open courtyard on a summer night. There are few theatres with elegance to match the Civic.

From the Staten Island Ferry on a bitter-cold January day in 1986:

New Harmony comes to mind immediately; the former utopian community is managed by the DNR, with many restored historic buildings open to the public and hosted by interpreters. It's also part of a living, working community with beautifully restored historic private homes and an attractive downtown. Paoli is a charmer, near the French Lick resort hotel and West Baden Springs, both hangouts for the rich and famous in the years before international jet travel. The 1840s Orange County courthouse in the center of the town square looks like something right out of New England. Paoli was the northernmost point reached by Confederate raiders led by General John Morgan. Most of Indiana's best-preserved historic locations are in the southern part of the state, along with the best state parks. Vincennes and Corydon both played strong parts in the state's early years and feature memorials and historic sites. Vincennes' downtown seems in steep decline, but the cluster of early buildings located near Grouseland, the William Henry Harrison home, is pretty interesting, as are the George Rogers Clark memorial, the basilica and the park along the river. It's quite beautiful in fall. Brown County State Park is the crown jewel of the system; the adjacent village of Nashville, once quiet and quaint, has become sort of a tourist trap, but in a mostly-tasteful way. It has high-quality shops and galleries. Indiana University's campus at Bloomington is quite pleasant. There's been a lot of construction since I was a student there, but most of the old stuff is still intact, in use, and well taken care of. Lots of limestone buildings, some with tile roofs, and lots of big trees make it an enjoyable place to stroll. </babble>

The Gulf discovery doesn't refute peak oil at all. Drilling 20,000-foot wells beneath 7,000 feet of water is a pretty good example of going after oil that wouldn't have been considered economically recoverable twenty, or probably only ten years ago. Advances in exploration and drilling technology are less significant factors than escalating prices in making this sort of project attractive.

Yay! Excellent tour of the crown jewel of Indiana's preservation activists! They have a historic home & garden walk in spring that draws people from near and far. Edit to add the following info: Early last Friday morning an arson fire gutted the Elks Lodge and the roof fell in. The adjacent former city hall, now housing legal offices, also received heavy damage. Two other nearby buildings were badly damaged. The investigation continues. The Elks Lodge is on the left and the old city hall is on the right in your photo:

Great fun photos! Looks like you did OK with your $60 camera; good eye.

Oh, gee! Now we're going to have to scrap all the physics texts and forget all the science we ever knew! :roll: Where can I buy stock in this company? :weird:

Interesting thread, Jeff. I visited German Village for the first time at the forum meet in early summer, and your info adds to how I understand it.

Kummant's employment history sounds like that of an itinerant hatchet man with a targeted skill set, hired to accomplish a specific task. Those guys often come in like gangbusters, trying to appear dynamic by making massive changes without taking time to learn the business or gain any understanding of the rationale or history behind existing structures and policies. Heads roll left and right and the blood flies as they implement short-term solutions, and they're off to the next "hit" before the long-term consequences of their actions catch up to them. They leave a trail of devastation behind themselves and migrate from employer to employer, often harvesting big severance packages and increasing their compensation as they go. Once in a while they meet their match in a strong, focused union, but even then the setback usually is only temporary. Just an observation based on 40+ years working mostly for Fortune 500 companies :|

Tragic :-( Excellent photos, though.

The digging continues. I've been invited to take part in the art show/sale that's part of next weekend's West Central historic home tour, and I'm trying to come up with some stuff of local interest. For the next few days I have to stay focused (pun intended) on cranking out a bunch of prints and preparing a display, and after that I'll start putting up some oldies-but-goodies on my web site and posting them to the forums.

Digging through my archives, looking for something else, I got reminded of this: It happened about 6 a.m. on a July Friday morning in 1983, just across the street from my house. I was accustomed to hearing wrecks on the curve, usually the sound of brakes and skidding, followed by a loud "wham!" and sometimes screaming as someone hit a tree in the park or on the riverbank at high speed. Those usually happened around closing time on weekends. This time, it was just a strange thump-thump-thump followed by silence. By the time I got to the window, a couple of drivers had stopped, and the truck driver was reaching the top of the riverbank, looking like a drowned rat. I think he must have gone to sleep and driven straight off the curve and down the steep bank into the river, and the noise was the tractor mowing off trees on the way down. The truck was hauling some sort of caustic cleaning compound deemed hazardous, and it took a couple of days for the hazmat crew to remove the cargo and then fish the truck out of the river.

I attended this event a couple of years ago, and it broadened my horizons quite a bit. I was very impressed by the diversity among the spectators.

Neat stuff! That's a great event; it brings people together and showcases some remarkable talent.

A lot has been written about the alleged conspiracy by GM, Firestone, Standard Oil and others to replace urban rail transit with buses as a first step toward moving people away from mass transit and towards autmobiles. A number of corporate executives were convicted in an investigation and trial in the 1950's, but no one got more than a slap on the wrist. I've seen a couple of articles written by people who worked for city transit systems during that era, attempting to refute the allegations of conspiracy, too. To find more info about it, google National City Lines. That was the midwestern bus company bankrolled by GM to buy out and convert streetcar systems. Jonathan Kwitney wrote a story for Harper's, probably something more than twenty years ago, titled The Great Transportation Conspiracy. It's the most detailed account I've read.

Windows XP Pro, on Athlon 64 3400+. I tried Windows XP 64 and it ran all my existing software just fine, but there are no 64-bit drivers available for my scanners so I had to drop back to the 32-bit version. XP64 is still installed; I set up dual boot so I'll still have it available when the scanner drivers come out.