The Edmund Fitzgerald: With the Gales of November Remembered

Forty two years ago yesterday, the Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior Wisconsin loaded with 26,116 long tons of iron ore – enough to build 75 thousand cars – on it’s way to Zug Island in Detroit. As infamously memorialized in song, it never arrived.

Sailing directly into one of the Great Lakes most ferocious storms, she was no match for the lake’s fury which created sustained winds of hurricane force and 25 foot waves with troughs twice that. A mere 15 miles away from safe harbor it split in two and went down with its entire 29 member crew. Such are the fates. Such are the gales of November. Such is the force of nature. Map of the fateful voyage

Until then the worst storm documented on the Great Lakes was a 3 day blow from November 7-10, 1913, over a hundred years ago now, that claimed 19 ships and took 250 lives. I rerun this story every year not because it is such a heart-stopping saga but because it is a reminder that in the scheme of things we are really quite powerless. Man did not create climate change; Somebody else did that for us.

So raise a glass to the memory of the good men who served on the Edmund Fitzgerald that fateful day; to the men who sail into the storm not knowing what their fate might be, knowing full well they may not reach safe harbor. 

A proper drink would be a Dark ‘n Stormy made with Gosling’s black rum and ginger beer although in the Great Lakes we use Vernors. But if, like our president you don’t imbibe, just enjoy a glass of Vernors - because “that’s what we drink around here.”

And what would a memorial to the Edmund Fitzgerald be without the sea chanty?

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Twits and Tweaks Trump Might Tweet

I know it’s FLOTUS Friday and we’ve been oohing and aahing over her wardrobe choices all week but Melania is currently winging her way home via Alaska:

To see the troops! Because it’s Veterans’ Day! (And it really is, I checked my calendar.)

So I think we should turn our focus to Vietnam where POTUS has landed to solve all the problems in the world including but not limited to the Russian collusion caper, all while continuing to live tweet.

So I thought it would be fun to play a new game, I call it WTTT - Would Trump Tweet That?  Here’s the first entry:

My guess: oh yes, Trump would so tweet that! The MSM will say that’s not normal; that it’s not normal for a POTUS to tweet at all, and it’s certainly not normal to tweak the Fake News twits in your tweet. But then, if he was normal nobody would pay attention, would they?

Here’s your Veterans Day Bonus round: Melania, in Red, White and Blue:

Be sure to post your own WTTT entry.

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I Love Being Hated

I haven’t been a Hannity watcher in years but I’ve checked in intermittently this week to see if there was any ‘tock’ to his ‘tick tock’ tweet. Unless I missed something it seems another case of  Sean’s breathless over-hyping. So yesterday while skipping through the DVR I caught one of Sean’s panels with Doug Schoen, Lanny Davis and Tezlyn Figaro (a Bernie Bro). I don’t know what they were discussing because the entire segment consisted of at least 2 and usually 3 people talking at once, as usual. What made this clip notable, via split screen technology, was that in addition to the normal cacophony of disembodied talking heads we were also provided a live feed from Beijing of some sort of Chinese acrobatic performance. Looks like they’re going for the Millennial demographic.

I also caught part of a segment with Steve Bannon. I don’t know what they were discussing either because I was overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia for the days of yore when Andrew Breitbart used to be a regular guest. I admire Bannon and while he seems to share all of Andrew’s passion he is lacking his bonhomie.

Always the Happy Warrior

Which got me wondering: what would Andrew make of the country in general and the Donald in particular if he were still alive? I think that the man who invented conservative citizen journalism and activism would have LOVED Trump. How could he not?  Trump is the archetype of Breitbart’s everyman: an ordinary, outside the Beltway citizen disenfranchised by both parties as well as the media. Trump is the everyman who found his voice – yugely - and in the process the voice of millions of other disenfranchised Americans – the deplorables.  He also discovered the power of one of Andrew’s favorite media work-arounds (hint, TWEET, TWEET!), for better or worse.

So how would the first man to call out MSM as fake news,

the man who pointed out that politics are downstream from culture, the first man who used Twitter as a weapon…

feel about President Trump?  Well, I think we all know.

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Because That’s How You Get More Trump

On this date in history:

1 Year Ago:

Donald Trump ‘unexpectedly’ beat Crooked Hillary in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Since then the Media/Entertainment/Russian cabal has done its best to keep hatred alive and divisive politics operative. And Deep State has done everything possible to thwart the implementation of the winner’s agenda. Because they all know what’s better for us than we do.

Part of it is that the election is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation into Russian interference and the open question of whether Donald Trump’s team colluded with foreign agents to kneecap Hillary Clinton and capture the White House. - LATimes

Well somebody kneecapped her…

100 Years Ago:

“The Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace overthrowing Kerensky’s provisional government (no, the Bolsheviks did not overthrow the Czar, that was Kerensky), bringing about the nascent Soviet Union that would be the lurking shadow on world politics for the next 74 years with influence still seen today.”

Another charismatic leader with amazing oratorical skills and a sharp crease in his pants

Specifically, the November 7th culmination of Russia’s ‘October Revolution’ ushered in the Soviet era of Lenin, Stalin, the Soviet invasion and subjugation of the Baltic States, subjugation and oppression of Eastern Europe under the Warsaw Pact, the communist revolution in China, the Communist revolutions in Cuba and Central America, the Communist revolutions in Southeast Asia, and the madmen of North Korea. Everywhere this malignancy spread it brought death, destruction and unimaginable oppression.

And so, after 8 years of Presidential charisma, amazing oratorical skills and a sharp creased pant leg, the thinking half of the American citizenry decided they were not interested in taking the next step towards America’s Bolshevik revolution. It was just that simple - no Russian collusion, no Russian meddling  – just Americans voting to Make America Great Again.

And that’s why we got Trump. Listen up Democrats: Do you want more Trump? Then keep it up.

Because trust me, this is how you get more Trump.

Yes, that’s the guy I voted for!

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Tuesday: A November Sort of Day

It’s a November sort of day…

A good day for raking leaves and making soup. The leaves are easy, but what kind of soup?

Beef barley?

Borscht?(the only way MOTUS will eat beets, as many of you know)

Split pea?

Carrot ginger?

Aren’t the colors and textures of fall awesome?  Today I’m just going to enjoy them, and when the early darkness creeps in I’ll dine on whatever soup emerges from my simmering pot before curling up to re-read Anne of Green Gables.

“We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.”

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Deal With It

What are we to do when madness overtakes the country?

First, it must be named.

‘insanity’ might do

President Donald Trump says the mass shooting at a Texas church is the result of a "mental health problem at the highest level."

Unless we’re just talking about pure evil, because it could be that too.

Either way, It just doesn’t help to call it something that it is not.

And try to fix something that isn’t the problem.

Dems renew calls for gun control in wake of Texas church shooting

So let’s stop winking at it,

calling it something other than what it is

and deal with it once and for all.

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Taxing Daylight: The Government Gives and the Government Takes Away

I resent the fact that legislative bureaucrats at some point in the distant past determined that we need more daylight in the evening hours - during the time of year that days are already naturally longer. What about those of us who love moonlight? Every year we are deprived of extra time to enjoy it. And for what? It’s been alleged that nobody has ever been able to articulate precisely and convincingly why we adopted daylight saving time in the first place. I think it was a conspiracy to put drive-in theatres out of business.

This observation by an anonymous American – generally attributed to a wise old Indian Native American in these PC times -  is the only intelligent comment on DST I’ve ever heard: 

“Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”

The concept reminds me of the Republicans’ proposed tax reforms: we’ll cut your rates here, take away your deductions there, pretty soon we’re back to where we started.

No matter how you cut it, we always end up a day late and a dollar short.

So get up, have some coffee, quit ‘yer bitching and enjoy the daylight while you can. Just like death and taxes it’s all you can count on.

Sunrise or sunset? You never know for sure, just enjoy it.

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