Memorials

 

Several churches are remembering the massacred children and teachers of Uvalde Texas. Pictured is part of the memorial to the missing, it is on the route of Bedford Ohio's Memorial parade, in front of Hope United Methodist. Yes, remember the sacrifice of our brave school children, and their devoted teachers.

Local teevee mentioned a coupe of local Methodist churches put out 21 chairs to remember the 21 school children and teachers sacrificed in Texas. A Lutheran church in Parma did the same. It is not easy to get all the chairs in the foto. Poor, unfortunate people, and their families.

The murderous evil took place in Uvalde Texas, not to long ago it came to El Paso, very recently it came to Buffalo New York. This weekend a celebration of that sort of evil came to Houston Texas, here is another memorial at the feet of the National Rifle Association's Convention.

2022 Miscellany #6, mostly hounds

In past years Nickel Plate RR Locomotive 765 visited the Cuyahoga Valley in September, this year—May. Depending where the train is, people are chased away from the tracks.

Toto on Wendy Way Bridge, Whiskey Island Cleveland

an art house on East 55th, Cleveland

2 irises

Cassius:  Dammit Jim, i'm a sprinter, not a marathoner. I'm going home. Scotty, beam me up

Houston, two more came through the portal.

Auburn Bridge over 490

On hot days Karma can fly. Cleveland Art Museum.

photographs of abandoned places #36

Cleveland Play House 1927-2010 Brooks Theatre

An actor's mask is a grotesque to begin with, several are on the colonnade.

Built in 1927, sold to Cleveland Clinic in 2009. The theater company began in 1915, and is still in existence. Cleveland Clinic will tear this complex, and the old Sears store next door, down in the near future. Some people are crying over this. Cleveland Clinic is the biggest employer in town, and it gets what it wants. The city always complies to capital, or perceived capital.

several years without maintenance

beautiful bricks

lobby between Brooks, Bolton, and Drury Theatres

view when entering from Euclid Avenue

3 of 6 columns at new (1983) entrance

________________________________ 

postscriptum 18 January 2023: Cleveland Clinic began demolition yesterday. The cleared area will be used as staging area, for another building.

all Republican speak is duplicity, mendacity, evil intent

legitimate political discourse 

Some of the most consistently lying, delusional, and ultimately evil things spill out of the mouth of the chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Reince Priebus was very aggressive, and quick to distort, and twist everything. When Trump chose to make Priebus his chief of staff, Trump chose Ronna Romney McDaniel to replace him on December 14, 2016. Shortly thereafter, he told her to stop using the Romney name. At the beginning of 2019 she attacked, demeaned, and insulted her uncle for criticising her master, Trump. “For an incoming Republican freshman senator to attack [trump] as their first act feeds into what the Democrats and media want and is disappointing and unproductive.” She is an enemy and traitor to country, and family.

As the world knows, Trump and his party of insurrectionists had a failed putsch in January 2021. That party [the Republicans] wants that to go down the memory hole, as they further connive, conspire, and cabal to be more successful in their next attempts. Early this year, the RNC had their winter meeting. They made and passed a resolution using ultra-Orwellian language, calling the putsch “legitimate political discourse.” [see: click]

settled law as binding precedent 

Bork repeatedly promised to respect “settled law”. He was lying, and every Republican nominated to be on the Supreme Court since has similarly lied. His legal opinions would have made him a Tory in the 1770s. He did not make the jump to the Supremes, and the Republicans want revenge for every loss. It was abortion that the questioners, and proponents were publicly interested in [there were many other issues that Bork, and his party were interested in]. 

In 2005 at Roberts' confirmation hearing his initial statement included, “...Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. ... that it's my job to call balls and strikes...”.

Well, Alito's draft opinion has been leaked, in it he and his cohorts overturn Roe v. Wade 1973.

In a footnote he wrote:

“whereas the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted has become virtually nonexistent.” 

This reminds me of what Jonathan Swift wrote in 1729 in “A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick”. It is a satire concerning the poverty of the Irish, and the wealth and disinterest of the English. Swift in cruel, straight faced, fancy but blunt language suggests Irish children to be sold as food to the rich English:

“A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout”.

Alito seriously, while Swift satirically, sees infants as items on the commodity market.

it's not brains or luck

In the 1991 movie, Thelma & Louise there is the following exchange near the end of the movie:

Stephen Tobolowsky as FBI Agent Max: You know, the one thing I can't figure out is whether these girls are real smart or just real, real lucky?

 Harvey Keitel as Arkansas State Police Detective Hal Slocumb: Don't matter. Brains'll only get you so far and luck always runs out.

Now, that remark sounded familiar to me, i am not sure if the writer came up with it, or repeated a folk saying. It is a true statement.

Now, Trump is a criminal, a psychopath, a man with very limited intellect and no morals(we could go on...every horrible thing that he has been accused of, he has probably done, and others that have not come to light), and yet — he escapes, skates away, pays no penalty, accepts no blame, is not forced to comply. Trump does not have the brains. The luck? He has bankrupted his casinos, and emerged time and again? Dostojevskij wrote a novelette, The Gambler. It is a study in psychology. He writes of strings of luck (or fate, i am not going to get the book out now). Roulette was the game, there are 18 red slots, 18 black slots, and 2 green slots. One can bet several times on red showing up consecutively, but it will eventually come up black or green.

Trump is both stupid, and evil. How come he can not lose? I believe he is under special protection by the Devil.

Nelsonville O.

Eric Wagner taught urban sociology at Ohio University in Athens. OU was chartered by the US government before Washington's presidency. The first settlements after Independence were in southeastern Ohio. If one were to divide the state into five regions, the least populated now is the southeast. We are in Appalachia. The least populated Ohio counties border, or are near Athens. The census, and all government purposes, uses five thousand as the threshold of being a town (city). Each Ohio county has a county seat, and courthouse; some are in villages. Athens County has Athens as the county seat. Athens has been a town since 1910. Professor Wagner pointed out Nelsonville teeters on being a town. It wants to be a town, for government funding purposes. Nelsonville was a town from 1900 to 1940, and then again in 2000 and 2010. But, in 2020 Trump's people sabotaged the Department of Commerce, which conducts the census. They listed 4,612; the census designated place had another count done, and it was 5,373.

So Athens County has two towns again. Athens exists as a governmental, educational, and cultural center. The Hocking River flows through the county to the Ohio River, and this was connected to the canal system. The water route was the way for commerce before the railroads, and the railroads were near the canal ways. This part of the state has coal and clay. Business connected the coal mines with the railroads. Nelsonville was a coal town. I can not find the citation, but i remember United Mine Workers Local #1 as being in Nelsonville. There were brick kilns in Nelsonville, and Logan in Hocking County made clay pipe, other places also made bricks, and ceramics.

Hocking Valley Railway was built after the War of the Southern Insurrection was ended. In addition to passenger service to Columbus, it hauled coal, and clay products north to Toledo. The C&O absorbed the line in 1930. At the end of 1949 passenger service stopped, and the coal runs became fewer, and fewer. The Hocking Valley Scenic Railway began in 1972, and continues for tour outings.

Betty's Cross (with man, and hound on the right side) since 1973

Before Route 33 was rerouted, everyone going through Nelsonville could see Betty's Cross. At night, lights would shine off the metal.  Route 33 went through Athens to South Bend; but Columbus, Lancaster, and Logan are more local.

Elizabeth Anita “Betty” Smith was born in Nelsonville, and left after high school. She married Walter L. “Bud” Schwartz.  She died in 1972, the next year he built the cross on the highest spot in Nelsonville. In 1981 a wind storm came, and a new cross was built in 1983. The first cross was was 73½', the second is 65'. It is the world's largest metal cross, and the world's largest dedicated to a woman.

The logo of Rocky Brands is painted on the old Brooks Shoe factory. Across from it is the company's headquarters, and a statue of a ram. For some time the shoe company, started in 1932, was the lading employer in town. The company has changed names, bought other companies, but the shoes and boots are made elsewhere.

Athens Ohio foto safari

Blue Eagle Music Company  

There is much to foto in Athens.

Court Street Athens Ohio bottoms out at the Armory. The Armory no longer has munitions (i guess),  but once the secessionists did make a couple of armed sojourns in southern Ohio. We did have insurrectionists attack the national capital last year.

Yesterday, somewhere south of Canton, the trees were leafing out. On a very cloudy, and somewhat rainy day in Ohio, the northern part was not green as the rest of the state. This is Jeff Hill, to the right is Jefferson Hall.

Peace mural, around Athens there is a lot of art on the outside of buildings.

Keith Wilde. Release. 2018. Stimson Avenue.

On Stimson Avenue beginning in 1890 and on to 1917, millions of paving bricks were made by the Athens Brick Company, across the street where post office 45701 is now. This is a 2019 mural by Keith Wilde.

Some of the bricks leading between Ellis Hall and Alden Library from University Terrace and Park Place.

Dogwoods have opened their white bracts. Biology tells us, those white or pink leaves are not flowers, the petals (specialised leaves) are at the intersection, and center of the bracts. White and green are the school colors. Between Ellis Hall, Cutler Hall, and Galbreath Chapel you can see the pink colored.

A lantern at the entrance of Scott Quad, facing the back of Gordy Hall. Rumour suggests Scott Quad may be soon gone.

Below Scott, and over Clippinger Lab, a woodchuck looks out.

Christ Enthroned. Kelly Latimore.

Church of the Good Shepherd Episcopal's main worship space is very low church, but elegant. Recently they have two icons by Latimore, who had lived in nearby religious community.

This Lady Justice has not always been gilded (perhaps 2004 or thereafter), and she is not blind, but she does have a lightning rod up her back. She has sat high on one side of Athens County Courthouse, since 1890.

Oscar recycles, who knew?

Great neon sign, really stinky beer. Have not had one since the January blizzard of 1978. For years, when someone opened one across the room, i could smell it unseen.

2022 Miscellany #5

asphalt shingles imitating tiles, Cleveland Heights

"Coming Soon..."
October 2021
Are you scared yet?
Haunted Horror House Tour
"ha ha ha"
ask Rodney

Hubbel Tower, West Side Market Cleveland

ghost sign Hough, Cleveland

They took the Indian away, and kept the land.

great horned owl

censored by nature

Spring ephemerals bloom in northern Ohio, trout lily and bluebells; when the trees leaf out, no more sun on the forest floor, right by Tinker's Creek.