Oh, come on, September. It’s one thing to assume ownership and it’s another to insist that everything has to be remodeled. Most of the day was overcast and cool, as if we had to be slapped back into shape after our interval of indolence. It got nice around dinnertime, as a reward. Didn’t endear the month to anyone.

Busy day, with a million minor things. Today’s new accomplishment: I decided to roast some Hatch peppers for burritos. The instructions were basic, but involved; after roasting, they had to sit in a bag and steam, and then the skins and to come off, and then the seeds had to be removed. At the end of it all I had far less pepper than I thought I would have, and the flavor it added was . . . nice, but underwhelming. Should have used twice as many peppers.

Well, live and learn. Fail and learn, too. I’ve been trying to get new skills, including the patching of a concrete wall in the tunnel. Learned a whole new set of things I should not do again, but the end result is nice. Finished the back-lit cupboards. Sandjacked the driveway. Tuck-pointed the brick. Brick-pointed the tucks. On a roll.

Did not, of course, do all those things.

Now I’m sitting outside in a sweatshirt, listening to two different speeds of crickets, which would probably mean two different types of insects. The air feels different. I’m sure it’s purely psychological, this sudden belief in fall, and has nothing to do with seeing the damned Halloween cards in the store. Oh stock up wouldn’t want to be caught short on those. It’s the curious warring season when Oreos are both black-and-orange AND maple flavor, as if offering a religious and a secular option. Four types of pumpkin-spice cereal on the Target end-cap.

If the Fair was still going on, we’d believe it was summer. That’s how it works around here. For all that’s happened that’s how it will work next year, too.

Speaking of which! More Fair videos from your host. Have a look; I could use the hits.

There was a proposal by a powerless advisory board to rename or rephrase / reset several monuments in DC, according to the city’s “values.” They have no power to do so, I assume.

Of course, Jefferson is high on the list. Oh and the Washington Monument. And Ben Franklin.

Ben? I don’t want to live in a country that is ashamed of that old rake. Growing up we were taught that a ll the American virtues were combined in Ben. Thrift, of course. Scientific inquiry. The important of learning. The ability to enjoy the pleasures of the French court without getting the drip. For as long as I can remember he has stared out from the $100 bill: you’re probably going to spend this poorly, he seems to say; he’s full of rueful knowledge of men, not surprised, but perhaps a bit surprised at himself that he was surprised at all.

They can’t move the Washington Monument, but they can put up signs about slavery, and that will change people’s minds. Hope they hate him now! Don’t look up at this abstraction and feel anything but shame and boiling bile, topped off with self-reverence for being better than him.

This is the point where people incapable of holding two ideas simultaneously say “oh you care more about a stone pole than lives,” or some such gotcha that’s supposed to reveal me as a Nazi. Nailed it, bro! Every single piece of mental and physical energy spent on keeping the Washington Monument from being rebranded or “explained” by the humorless, ahistorical wokeoisie keeps Justice from happening. These are the same people who probably nod approvingly when the modern-day Jacobins roll up their home-made guillotines, and believe that the French got it right, and we got it wrong. Sure, we were founded in ideals that contained the liberation of all, and indeed forced it, if one was honest, but did we rename any months or shutter churches? No.

It’s as if their knowledge of the French Revolution ends with the Bastille doors thrown open, and a stream of jubilant social warriors imprisoned by Melania Antoinette pour forth, rejoicing, followed by a haircut for the oppressors - well, the neck has hair - and that was it! Then Great Justice and egalitarianism for all.

Hell, it was right there in their motto, so it had to happen.

One more note: the monuments are not, as the document says, assets. That's a word you use for things you can spend. Or, as Ben would know, things you can squander.

It’s 1922.

SIXTY LANES IN FENCEPOST WAR

A distinctive front page, and I’m sure all the smart people rolled their eyes: words are too hard for the booboisie; they need pictures.

On the bottom left: hallway waifs.

You know, hallway waifs.

As for the Honeymood Castle’s owner:

Harold Fowler McCormick (May 2, 1872 – October 16, 1941) was an American businessman. He was chairman of the board of International Harvester Company and a member of the McCormick family.

Mathilde, his daughter, married a Swiss riding instructor. Smart move on Max’s part. He died in 1942.

Fun fact:

After his divorce from Edith, and before his second marriage, McCormick sought to fortify himself by undergoing an operation by Serge Voronoff, a surgeon who specialized in transplanting animal glands into aging men with impotency. In 1922, McCormick married Polish opera singer Ganna Walska.

Yeah, about that:

Ganna Walska (born Hanna Puacz on June 26, 1887 – March 2, 1984) was a Polish opera singer and garden enthusiast who created the Lotusland botanical gardens at her mansion in Montecito, California. She was married six times, four times to wealthy husbands. The lavish promotion of her lackluster opera career by her fourth husband, Harold Fowler McCormick, inspired aspects of the screenplay for Citizen Kane.

So now you know.

		There’s no follow-up. Both probably rode Sparky down.

		Okay, I guess. Fringes duly shook

		"Greatest economic revival in the nation’s history.” He wasn’t wrong.

The Daily News had this guy’s number from the get-go

Who?

John Haynes Holmes (November 29, 1879 – April 3, 1964) was a prominent Unitarian minister, pacifist, and co-founder of the NAACP and the ACLU. He is noted for his anti-war activism.

There was an outcry after a cartoon by Theodor Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) mocking Holmes was published in the New York newspaper PM on January 13, 1942. Geisel responded January 21, 1942 (ellipses in original):

In response to the letters defending John Haynes Holmes ... sure, I believe in love, brotherhood and a cooing white pigeon on every man's roof. I even think it's nice to have pacifists and strawberry festivals ... in between wars.

But right now, when the Japs are planting their hatchets in our skulls, it seem like a hell of a time for us to smile and warble: 'Brothers!' It is a rather flabby battlecry.

If we want to win, we've got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not. We can get palsy-walsy afterward with those that are left.

Not the Suess a lot of modern hagiographs would like. But he was in favor of trees! Yeah, but also this.

What an interesting concept!

Easy to draw, too. Darkness aside, let's just say the artist saw a few things: "Grant Powers New York Daily News Cartoonist / he served as a Combat Artist in WWI, WWII, Bikini Island Nuclear Testing and Operation Deepfreeze."

		That’s one way to review a show. The Palace still exists: The Palace Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1564 Broadway (at West 47th Street) in midtown Manhattan, New York City. From 1913 through about 1929, the Palace attained legendary status among vaudeville performers as the flagship of the Keith–Albee organization, and the most desired booking in the country. With 1,610 seats spread over three levels, it is one of the largest theaters on Broadway. Elsie Janis? We were just talking about her. Elsie Janis (born Elsie Bierbower, March 16, 1889 – February 26, 1956) was an American actress of stage and screen, singer, songwriter, screenwriter and radio announcer. Entertaining the troops during World War I immortalized her as "the sweetheart of the AEF" (American Expeditionary Force).

Movie reviews had a different tone, no?

This was a tabloid, remember. Pictures! Murder! Sex! Hot stuff. And by modern standards, it looks like a lot of fun.

That'll do - now readjust your temporal criteria, for we're off to teh 80s.