Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

Category: General Updates

Commentary on people, places, things, the news, current events, etc.

  • lying

    We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.

    Source unknown, but attributed to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    Wherever this quote originated, it’s definitely relevant to the United States today. They lie. We see the lies. They know we see them lying. They keep moving on as if the lie is reality and they haven’t been caught. Why? Because there’s nothing we can do.

    We can’t even be sure the elections are fair anymore. Diane Feinstein was in office until she died, but she’ll probably get reelected anyway.

    It’s incredibly discouraging to have no faith in one’s own government and realize that the founding ideals of your country have been completely shattered by the institutions designed to protect them. We’re going somewhere other than intended now, and it’s not going to be pretty.

  • Well staged photo of Putin and Kim Jong Un

    A headline from 13 September 2023.

    I just really appreciate the work that went into this photo. It looks almost like something that should be on a museum wall. It’s a little odd, though, how each of the three main subjects seems to be looking in different directions. I wonder what was going on around them.

  • Superman Meshi: a superhero cooking manga

    A cooking manga with Superman. There really is a manga about everything.

    I spotted this on the shelf at Kinokuniya in Edgewater, NJ yesterday.

  • Kadie the Cow

    Kadie the Cow is now on Bay Avenue in Woodruff Riverfront Park in Downtown Columbus, Georgia, but she used to “live” on Manchester Expressway in front of the old Kinnett Dairy. Along with her calf, BeBe, she was the company’s mascot, and they both stayed on in the same location even after Kinnett shut down and was replaced by a Best Buy, which in turn has also shut down.

    Over the years, Kadie has been defaced with obscene graffiti and BeBe was kidnapped and spent some time in Butler, Georgia, before being recovered. It’s weird the kinds of things people get attached to, but with so much change happening in Columbus and Kadie standing witness to it all, she gained significance to the community and achieved landmark status.

    It’s nice to see her down at the new river walk with a fresh coat of paint. It feels like a monument to my childhood and a simpler, friendlier, perhaps rose colored past. When I was a kid, my Nana kept a box of Kinnett ice cream sandwiches in the freezer in the Florida Room of her house because she knew that me and her other grandkids loved them. We’d walk through the den, open the sliding glass door and step into that hot room that smelled like chlorine and hot plastic, and open up the freezer to grab dessert, or a snack when we got older.

    I’ve spent most of my life living outside of Columbus, because of military service and work, and when we talked on the phone Nana would always ask me when I was “coming in”. What an interesting way of looking at the world. Beyond the borders of Columbus was outside, and coming home was coming in to where family waited for you. Coming in meant Kinnett ice cream sandwiches and visiting with loved ones. My entire childhood is tied up with memories of Kadie and Kinnett products. I was really disappointed when the company went under, but at least Kadie is still around to remind me of the past.

  • Ukraine support begs have jumped the shark

    A World of Warcraft virtual pet offer to “support Ukraine”

    This is getting ridiculous. Can we find a cause to virtue signal about that benefits the United States and its citizens in a more direct way? Can we let Europe take care of Europe for a while and instead take care of the United States before our country falls apart we need Europeans to buy virtual pets in online games to help support us?

  • Appalachian Mountains

    Video recommendation!

    This is a really interesting video about one of the poorest parts of the United States. It’s well done and the people are portrayed as people, rather than as stereotypes.

    I was most interested by the connection that these people have to each other, to the area, and to their histories. Growing up in a military family and later being in the military, I moved around a lot and never got too attached to any one place. In retrospect, I wonder how many people that I met while in the military came from places like this, and I wonder what kind of impact that has on identity and outlook.

  • This image somehow makes me nostalgic…

    …but also a little concerned. Though I’ve never had much trouble adapting to survive, the idea of surviving instead of living is pretty dark, but I guess it’s accurate given what I’ve lived through.

    From the Cold War to Columbine to Y2K to 9/11 to a Great Depression to a 20 year war (that I took part in) to a global pandemic to an illegal migration crisis, it’s been one thing after another. It’d be great to have a decade of peace and prosperity where American money is reinvested into the United States itself.

    There has to be an element of rose tinted glasses here, but things seemed simpler when I was a kid and a teenager. More disconnected, but more hopeful.

  • The Good Life – a poem

    “The Good Life”, by Tracy K. Smith

    My wife saw this poem posted on a subway train in New York City a few years ago. It resonated with both of us because we could relate. There was a time when we didn’t have much and when payday hit, we went out and enjoyed ourselves. Then, we followed a strict budget for the rest of the month.

    Thinking about those times makes me feel more grateful for the things and experiences that we’ve accumulated over the years, and that we eat well every day.

  • Hazy Fifth of July

    This was the 5th of July at about 5:15 AM. The Verrazano Bridge is partially obscured by a haze of smoke that I thought was from Canada, but turned out to be from fireworks. It was kind of a Bronx firecrackers or gunshots moment.

    The humidity and low wind took the AQI up to about 300 that night, but thankfully it cleared up by the end of the day. I want some normalcy. Except for traffic. It’d be great if that’d stay low like it has been all week.

  • Goodbye, Twitter

    I went ahead and deleted my Twitter account tonight. I haven’t been using it much at all for the last few months, and even before Elon took over the platform, I realized that it wasn’t adding any positive value to my life anymore. Every time I opened it, I became enraged within minutes. The platform is designed to illicit an emotional response to keep you clicking and keep you engaged, but it went wrong somewhere and started feeding into the most negative things possible.

    I’ve known for years that I wanted to be done with Twitter. I started deleting posts older than a certain number of months, because the platform was regularly weaponized against people when social mores changed. Then, in March of 2021 I created a Mastodon account to start weaning myself off the outrage algorithm, and this weekend I realized that I just didn’t feel like opening the app or website anymore, so it was time for it to go.

    It’s weird. I opened that account in 2009, when I was living in Singapore, and it’s been with me ever since. Now, like MySpace and Friendster, I’m letting it fall by the wayside. Thanks for the fun, but I’m done.