Category Archives: Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving, Richard — and everyone

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Once upon a time there was a thing called newspapers, and Richard Crowson is my oldest newspaper friend. One of his first published editorial cartoons illustrated a column I wrote for the editorial page of the journalism department lab paper at Memphis State University in 1975. I already knew Richard from working with him at the MSU library.

A couple of years later, Richard joined me at The Jackson Sun, where we worked together for close to a decade, Richard as the editorial cartoonist.

Then, in 1985, I persuaded him to come out to Kansas, where he eventually became editorial cartoonist of The Wichita Eagle. A couple of years after that, I left to come here. Richard stayed.

Richard, being a talented editorial cartoonist, was laid off from his job about six months before Robert Ariail and I were.

Anyway, I only possess a copy of one of his cartoons, the one above from 1982. It’s my favorite. Sorry that the perspective is a bit askew. It’s too big for my scanner, and I had to shoot it with my camera at an angle to get the reflection off the glass of the frame.

Enjoy.

Oh, another thing about Richard. He’s not only a great cartoonist; he’s probably the most talented picker I know — of any stringed instrument you care to name, as long as it’s used in the production of Bluegrass. The first thing Richard did when he arrived in Wichita was go out and buy several second-hand kitchen chairs for his apartment, for his fellow pickers to sit on once he found some. Which he promptly did.

Below, you see him at left with the rest of The Home Rangers, “Kansas’ Premier Cowboy Band.”

Keep your cornucopias, I’ll take a full beer fridge

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The turkey is roasting, filling the house with its smells, and I’m taking deep, traditional satisfaction from the fact that my hard work throughout the grown season has led to a full beer fridge.

I read up on the proper beers to drink with turkey — it was in The Wall Street Journal Saturday — and learned that Yuengling lager and Harpoon Winter Warmer are regarded as among the best by the experts.

So after Boyd and I got done ringing the bell, I stepped into Greene’s and stocked up on both, adding them to the Buds I already had (and, at the back, hidden where no one else is likely to run across it, one Fuller’s ESB).

As you know, man gave up being a hunter-gatherer and turned to agriculture in order that he might be able to brew beer. Woman may have done it for bread, but I know guys, and it’s hard to argue with 5,000-year-old beer recipes on clay tablets. It’s the, ahem, oldest recipe of any kind in the world. Or so say credible authorities.

So what could better express harvest plenty?

We RAKED in the moolah for Salvation Army

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Here, Boyd is giving me his, "You're the Salvation Army guy and you're here to pick up the bucket? Yeah, right!" look.

Boyd Summers and I had a good midday shift today ringing the bell for Salvation Army, representing the Columbia Rotary Club.

I can’t say I like the new kettles. They’re plastic, and no bigger than a bucket, and people have a terrible time jamming their money into the ill-designed slot. The old ones worked much better — the money practically fell in on its own.

Adding to the problem was that the money, from early in our shift, was all the way to the top (it was mostly there when we started). Fortunately, a guy from Salvation Army came and took the full one — which was heavier than you would expect — and left us an empty one.

I mean, we think he was a Salvation Army guy. He had an ID tag. After he left, I observed to Boyd that that would be a pretty good racket if he hadn’t been. Yep, said Boyd, and we kept on ringing the bell.

We had a high old time talking politics, reaching back to the first time I met Boyd, when he ran unsuccessfully against Jim Harrison.

We saw a lot of folks we knew, such as … wait second: Is being a bell-ringer like being a doctor or lawyer, with confidentiality privileges? Maybe so. And maybe certain people will give a little MORE next time I’m out there, so as to remain anonymous. Man, were those people hauling out the booze by the handtruck-load!

Of course, when our shift was over, Boyd and I both did a little shopping (I bought beer and wine; he went to the hard-stuff side). After you watch people come in and out for two hours (and we’re going, oh, yeah, that’s some good stuff — you ever try…?), you just have to get some for yourself.

This is me trying to look convincing as I say "Merry Christmas!" when it's above 70 degrees. I wouldn't give this guy money, but plenty of people did.

Ring the Salvation Army bell…

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I just figured out why I’ve had one line from an old Simon and Garfunkel song running through my head all day:

Hear the Sal-va-tion Ar-my band…

It’s because, in a few minutes, I have to go

Ring the Sal-va-tion Ar-my bell…

This is a major service project of the Columbia Rotary Club. Fellow Rotarian Boyd Summers and I have signed up for the noon-2 p.m. slot today in front of Green’s liquor store over on Assembly. Come on by and see us on your way in to obtain your favorite adult beverages. Or on the way out. Either way, leave money in the bucket.

And while you think about whether you want to do that, listen to The Bangles’ relatively decent cover of the song in question, so that you can have the frightening experience of having your mind on the same wavelength as mine. Or listen to the original. I actually prefer the original, but since it’s a video, I figured The Bangles were easier to look at.

Ironic lyrics to hear on a day like today. But you can pretend there’s a hazy shade of winter out there, to get yourself in the mood for the holidays. Yeah, I know it’s not easy when you’re sweating…

‘War in the name of democracy,’ 1775-style

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On this Veteran’s Day (I prefer “Armistice Day,” but whatever), the WSJ had an op-ed piece headlined, “America’s Distinctive Way of War,” by Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University. The headline doesn’t quite give away the topic. The thesis is that much about U.S. military doctrine evolved from our encounters with an enemy that to modern minds may seem unlikely: Canada. While much of it is largely forgotten now, over a 200-year period there was a lot of nasty business along “what Indians called ‘the Great Warpath,’ the 200-mile route of water and woodland paths that connected Albany and Montreal…”

There was a lot in the piece that was interesting, whether you fully accept the Canadian premise or not. Such as this:

War in the name of democracy? In 1775, the rebelling colonies—not even yet the United States — launched an invasion of Canada. The Continental Congress ordered the covert distribution of propaganda pamphlets in what is now Quebec province. The opening line: “You have been conquered into liberty.” Congress subsequently sent Benjamin Franklin north with a few companions to consolidate the conquest of Montreal, spread parliamentary government, and familiarize the baffled habitants of Canada — ruled for over a decade with mild firmness by a British governor—with the doctrines of habeas corpus and a free press.

The American way of war is distinctive. If the armed services have an unofficial motto, it is “Whatever it takes”—a mild phrase with ferocious implications. All that those words imply, including a disregard for military tradition and punctilio, the objective of dismantling an enemy and not merely defeating him, and downright ruthlessness, can be found in the battles of the Great Warpath.

It is often a paradoxical way of war. “Conquering into liberty” sounds absurd or hypocritical. In the case of Canada, it failed (though of course Canada took its own path to free government). In the cases of Germany, Italy and Japan after World War II, it succeeded. In the case of Iraq, who knows? In all of these episodes American motives were deeply mixed — realpolitik and idealism intertwining with one another in ways that even the strategists conceiving these campaigns did not fully grasp. What matters is that the notion of conquering into liberty is rooted deep in the American past, and in the ideas and circumstances that gave this country birth…

There is nothing new, apparently, under the sun.

A little music for this very moment

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Something about this moment, as I write this — the still-hot coffee I’m drinking, the slight remaining chill from the night in my office, contrasting with the crisp mid-morning light coming in the window — brought this song to mind.

So I thought I’d share it, a few minutes before the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month in the 11th year.

A luminous slice of peace on this Armistice Day.

A little something to creep you out thoroughly on Hallowe’en: “Take this lollipop”

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Look who's looking YOU up...

This is a bit of a dare, and you MAY regret it, but if you really want to get into the spirit of horror on this All Hallow’s Eve, check this out.

Click on Take this Lollipop, and then allow it access to your public information on Facebook.

And then sit back and watch.

Then I’d like to hear your thoughts — about privacy in the social media age, and about… well, whatever interests you.

But this is the first interactive, personalized (very short) horror film I’ve ever seen. And it’s scarier that 100 haunted houses.

Here’s part of what CNN had to say about it:

(CNN) — A sweaty, wild-eyed man in a stained undershirt hunches over his computer in a shadowy basement. He’s broken into your Facebook account and is reading your posts as his dirty, cracked fingernails paw at the keyboard.

Rage (jealousy? hate?) builds as he flips through your photos and scrolls through your list of friends. He rocks back and forth, growing more agitated as the pages flash past. Then he consults a map of your city and heads to his car …

So why … oh, why … did you include so much personal information — and your address — in your profile?

If that all sounds like the stuff of a digital-era horror movie, you’re not far off.

“Take This Lollipop” is an interactive short video that’s been making its way around the Web as Halloween approaches. Visitors to the site are first presented with an image of a lollipop with a razor blade in it — don’t take candy from strangers, kids — and asked to grant access to their Facebook account.

Don’t worry: The application claims it uses your data only once, then deletes it. But the creepy results just might make you think twice about who else gets access to your online information.

The video uses the developer tool Facebook Connect and features actor Bill Oberst Jr. (whose credits range from “The Secret Life of Bees” to the inexplicably Oscarless “Nude Nuns With Big Guns”) as the aforementioned grungy nutjob…