The Ferry Building on a warm beginning to the Fourth of July weekend. And the camera doesn’t lie (much)–the light really was that warm and beautiful. (Why the flag is flying at half-staff: in honor of two San Francisco firefighters who died in early June in a house fire.)
A Brief Tour of the Fireworks
In my other (paid, employed) life, I also sometimes blog. This morning, I was called upon to blog about which towns in the Bay Area are holding fireworks celebrations. I discovered that some other local media outlets had come up with good lists, so rather than invent the wheel with my limited time and resources, I simply linked to what had been done well elsewhere. Of course, that wasn’t enough for me, so I dressed up the post with a dash of Fourth of July fireworks history. Including part of this widely cited passage (note the mention of future celebrations) from a letter John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776:
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
A Brief Tour of the Fireworks
In my other (paid, employed) life, I also sometimes blog. This morning, I was called upon to blog about which towns in the Bay Area are holding fireworks celebrations. I discovered that some other local media outlets had come up with good lists, so rather than invent the wheel with my limited time and resources, I simply linked to what had been done well elsewhere. Of course, that wasn’t enough for me, so I dressed up the post with a dash of Fourth of July fireworks history. Including part of this widely cited passage (note the mention of future celebrations) from a letter John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776:
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
Journal of Rain-Driving Photography
A picture made during our storm a couple days ago.
Side conversation: Is this picture illegal? Or maybe just unwise? California has laws against using cellphones while driving (unless you have a hands-free setup) and texting while driving (I never believed that people tried to text and drive until I saw them in action on adjacent freeway lanes. Amazing). But a non-exhaustive search of the state vehicle code (there are only so many hours in the day) does not turn up an outright prohibition on drivers using cameras and taking pictures while driving (the Department of Motor Vehicles admonishes us to avoid distractions, such as eating, doing personal grooming, reading the newspaper, working on Rubik’s cubes, etc., while we’re behind the wheel).
Isotherm
The noon temperature in San Francisco is 59 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Weather Service. Where else is it 59 right about now? According to the NWS, Weather Underground, and Environment Canada:
Gasquet, California
Lakeview, Oregon
Friday Harbor, Washington
Race Rocks, British Columbia
Portage, Alaska
Mayo, Yukon
Norman Wells, Northwest Territories
Isachsen, Nunavut
Maniwaki, Quebec
Rocky Harbour, Newfoundland
Quqortoq, Greenland
Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland
Valentia Island, Ireland
Edinburgh, Scotland
Brest, France
Bronnoysund, Norway
Vaestmarkum, Sweden
St. Petersburg, Russia
Yakutsk, Russia
Adelaide, Australia
Vryheid, South Africa
Kermadec Island, New Zealand
La Serena, Chile
Ezeiza, Argentina
June Rain
Nothing remarkable here–if you live someplace where rain or some associated form of precipitation is assumed to be part of your life year-round.
Here, we live by the myth that the rain starts well into the fall and sheds its last drops by the end of April. Rain in the dry months is more common than we like to think. As Jan Null, a Bay Area weather guy who has pored over our precipitation climatology, said in an email yesterday, “It hasn’t rained during the last week of June in San Francisco since… insert drumroll,.. last year! On the June 24th and 25th, 2010 it rained 0.01 and 0.04″ respectively.”
One difference, though: Several places in the Bay Area–Oakland, Oakland Airport, and San Francisco Airport) have already broken their all-time June records for rain (on the strength of a storm that came through during the first week of the month). And several more are on the verge of doing so (Santa Rosa, Napa, Santa Cruz, and perhaps others).
Of course, we’re not talking about a deluge here. Santa Rosa’s record rainfall for the entire month of June is 2.43 inches. In San Francisco, it’s 2.57 inches. That’s a good summer afternoon’s rain in a lot of places east of the Missouri.
Your Illinois Governors: Felony Update (2011)
Update 12/7/2011: The judge has spoken: Blagojevich gets 14 years n prison.
With the news that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been convicted on 17 of 20 counts of corruption, it's time to freshen my list of recent Illinois governors whose legal trouble reached felony level. As I said back in 2003, when George Ryan, Blagojevich's predecessor, was indicted on federal corrupion charges, Prairie State governors have racked up quite a record over the past half-century:
William G. Stratton (in office 1953-61): Indicted (1964) for income-tax evasion (acquitted).
Otto Kerner (1961-68): Indicted (1971) and convicted (bribery and other charges).
Sam Shapiro (1968-69): Never charged with anything, but then he only had eight months in office.
Richard Ogilvie (1969-73): Clean, so far as we know. Probably why he only served one term.
Dan Walker (1973-77): Indicted (1987) in his post-politics career as an S&L thief. Pled guilty.
Jim Thompson (1977-91): His career was about indicting other people, for a change.
Jim Edgar (1991-99): No dirt so far.
George Ryan (1999-2003): Indicted (2003) and convicted on federal corruption charges.
Rod Blagojevich (2003-2009): Convicted for influence peddling, including an alleged conspiracy to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat. (For a glimpse at government at its very best, it's worth reading the press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. It's a 12-page PDF. Among the highlights: "In a conversation … on November 11, the charges state, Blagojevich said he knew that the President-elect wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but "they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them." The full 78-page complaint, in PDF form, is available here: United States of America v. Rod R. Blagojevich and John Harris.)
Score:
Nine governors. Five indicted. Four convicted. One acquitted.
Give Me That Old Time Vituperation
We often hear that we live in an era of remarkably blunt, if not downright ugly, political rhetoric. To me, the “rhetoric” seems to consists of patently loony claims–that the president was born in Mecca, brandishing an AK-47 among a family of bloodthirsty jihadis, for instance–that gain currency through relentless repetition.
Anyway, I happened across this the other night. It’s an account in the late Marc Reisner’s “Cadillac Desert” featuring Hiram Johnson, a Progressive Era politician who, among other things, championed the state’s now-jaded ballot initiative system. Here’s Johnson, talking about “General” Harrison Gray Otis, a figure he apparently did not think much of:
“Hiram Johnson was addressing a crowd in a Los Angeles auditorium when someone in the audience, who knew that Johnson’s talent for invective surpassed even the General’s, yelled out, ‘What about Otis?’ Johnson, all prognathous scowl and murderous intent, took two steps forward and began extemporaneously. ‘In the city of San Francisco we have drunk to the very dregs of infamy,’ he said in a low rumble. ‘We have had vile officials, we have had rotten newspapers. But we have had nothing so vile, nothing so low, nothing so debased, nothing so infamous in San Francisco as Harrison Gray Otis. He sits there in his senile dementia with gangrene heart and rotting brain, grimacing at every reform, chattering impotently at all the things that are decent, frothing, fuming, violently gibbering, going down to his grave in snarling infamy. This man Otis is the one blot on the banner of southern California; he is the bar sinister on your escutcheon. My friends, he is the one thing that all Californians look at when, in looking at southern California, they see anything that its disgraceful, depraved, corrupt, crooked, and putrescent–that,’ Johnson concluded in a majestic bawl, ‘that is Harrison Gray Otis!’ “
(As my friend Steve notes elsewhere: “Imagine anyone these days using a phrase like “he is the bar sinister on your escutcheon.” A way to call a person a bastard.” And indeed, I had meant to look that term up. Here’s what the OED has to say about it (under “bar”):
6. Heraldry. An honourable ordinary, formed (like the fess) by two parallel lines drawn horizontally across the shield, and including not more than its fifth part. bar sinister: in popular, but erroneous phrase, the heraldic sign of illegitimacy….
Give Me That Old Time Vituperation
We often hear that we live in an era of remarkably blunt, if not downright ugly, political rhetoric. To me, the “rhetoric” seems to consists of patently loony claims–that the president was born in Mecca, brandishing an AK-47 among a family of bloodthirsty jihadis, for instance–that gain currency through relentless repetition.
Anyway, I happened across this the other night. It’s an account in the late Marc Reisner’s “Cadillac Desert” featuring Hiram Johnson, a Progressive Era politician who, among other things, championed the state’s now-jaded ballot initiative system. Here’s Johnson, talking about “General” Harrison Gray Otis, a figure he apparently did not think much of:
“Hiram Johnson was addressing a crowd in a Los Angeles auditorium when someone in the audience, who knew that Johnson’s talent for invective surpassed even the General’s, yelled out, ‘What about Otis?’ Johnson, all prognathous scowl and murderous intent, took two steps forward and began extemporaneously. ‘In the city of San Francisco we have drunk to the very dregs of infamy,’ he said in a low rumble. ‘We have had vile officials, we have had rotten newspapers. But we have had nothing so vile, nothing so low, nothing so debased, nothing so infamous in San Francisco as Harrison Gray Otis. He sits there in his senile dementia with gangrene heart and rotting brain, grimacing at every reform, chattering impotently at all the things that are decent, frothing, fuming, violently gibbering, going down to his grave in snarling infamy. This man Otis is the one blot on the banner of southern California; he is the bar sinister on your escutcheon. My friends, he is the one thing that all Californians look at when, in looking at southern California, they see anything that its disgraceful, depraved, corrupt, crooked, and putrescent–that,’ Johnson concluded in a majestic bawl, ‘that is Harrison Gray Otis!’ “
(As my friend Steve notes elsewhere: “Imagine anyone these days using a phrase like “he is the bar sinister on your escutcheon.” A way to call a person a bastard.” And indeed, I had meant to look that term up. Here’s what the OED has to say about it (under “bar”):
6. Heraldry. An honourable ordinary, formed (like the fess) by two parallel lines drawn horizontally across the shield, and including not more than its fifth part. bar sinister: in popular, but erroneous phrase, the heraldic sign of illegitimacy….
Custer Day
“Last Stand Hill” at the Little Bighorn Battlefield, near Crow Agency, Montana. Today’s the 135th anniversary of the battle. The stones are said to mark the spots where individual U.S. soldiers were found after the battle; the locations were marked first with stakes as burial details hurriedly covered the bodies, then with more permanent wooden markers. Later, most of the remains were moved to a common grave marked by the monument beyond the fence in the left distance (the remains of most officers, including Custer, were transported back East for burial; Custer was interred at West Point). In 1890, 14 years after the battle, the temporary markers were replaced with the white marble stones seen here. The strongest impression I had of the site when I first visited in 1988 was the sparse scattering of white markers stretching across several miles of rolling terrain. You can easily imagine the story the stones tell: a rapidly moving, chaotic fight in which many soldiers fell alone, in pairs, in groups of three or four. This group, which included Custer and his brother, is by far the largest on the battlefield.