Sixty two Monday, snow on Tuesday. As predicted. I will be damned if I shovel it; hardly anything. Almost shockingly cold, though.


Perhaps you saw pictures this week of a Willy Wonka-themed event that was distinctly underwhelming. Well, first of all, it wasn’t Wonka-branded. The event’s website CLEARLY STATES (in agate type at the bottom in the size usually reserved in old newspapers for stock-market reports) that “Any resemblance to any character, fictitious or living, is purely coincidental. This experience is in no way related to the Wonka franchise, which is owned by the Warner Bros. company.”

So it’s just Willy the magical candy man! No connection, got it.

The question is why anyone would reserve a ticket for an event whose website has no pictures, just obvious AI art. The final touch, the kiss de la chef, the jape juste, the ne ploo ultra of modern fakery and incompetence, is their failure to proofread AI generated copy.

Which is like 3D printing a parachute based on some instructions you got on 4chan and then jumping out of a plane.

IMAGNATION

The 'Twilight Tunnel:

It has pointless gradients slider:

Dippractions
Dodjection
Ungirevel

Ukxpected Twits

And, of course, entertainment that’s absolutely Encherining:

People were furious there was no catgacating at all.

Be grateful we're still at the point where the majority of people can recognize the errors. There's probably a form of semi-literacy that looks at those malformed words and shrugs and says "well, I get the general idea, and that's what counts."

But treats are not teats

Pasadise is not paradise

Tuns are not tunes

"You're being a snob now, isn't you?


 
   
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I signed up on Amazon to have some paper towels delivered on a regular basis, eliminating one of the reasons for the twice-a-month Target trip. Started clicking on this and that. You go from Zippos to Swiss Army knives to buckets of shelf-stable emergency rations without a thought, just drifting through the things. The Swiss Army knife page reminds you that you purchased this small tool on 2013; it does not know that it was confiscated by TSA in 2019. Perhaps we’d best get it again, then. I always carried a large Swiss Army knife in DC. I still have that one.

The Swiss Army knife has a link to a page for camping sporks. Don’t need those. But twice a year I get interested in emergency rations, and generators. The mindset seems to be: if everything goes down, I will have food and limited power for a month, and that ought to be enough.

Enough for what, and for whom? You think: if it comes to a place where I need this stuff, I’m just extenuating the inevitable end, right? Hey, hon, EMP, everything’s down, the flaming caul of chaos has descended, but we have stroganoff for a month, so chill. No - well, it’s a 30-day supply for one, so we have two weeks. After that? Well, I guess we take to the road and forage!

Then you think: stuff meets fan, I’m set for a while, but what about my neighbors? Am I going to be the guy who hangs back at the pool-our-canned-goods meeting in the Triangle because I planned ahead, and no one else did? Say, I don’t see you pitching in.

Well, you don’t see me taking out, either.

Do you want to be the guy who has the generator, and has some lights two weeks into the troubles?

But do you want to be the guy who has a chat with all the neighbors about emergency preparedness, and setting aside a few things? Because I don’t think many would take it to heart. Why should they? Yes yes we’re all concerned it’s a messy world but where do I even start?

If you have a list of good suggestions, with URLs, then you’re one of those guys. But I’m not! I’m just saying, here’s a month of food, here’s a generator. Duel fuel, keep some propane tanks around, you’re good, the kids are good.

But you know they probably won’t. We just don’t live that way.

So do we get some powdered eggs? Otherwise it’s oatmeal and more oatmeal and maybe some pancakes, there’s a picture on the tub. They have cans of freeze-dried meats and chicken. Great! But $50. Why not some canned stuff? Set that aside. Shorter shelf life, but not such an investment.

Sterno?

Wood?

Bullets?

Put the Zippo in the cart and check out. Set a mental note to buy a few cans of chicken next time I’m at the store. And maybe a few cans the time after that.

I haven't thought this way in a long time, and I've really no idea why I'm thinking it now. I honestly don't. Maybe I'm just thinking a step or two beyond the usual.

 

 

It’s 1917.

THE LABOR WORLD, for social justice. So that term’s been around a bit.

   
 

As you might expect, the focus of the newspaper is rather narrow.

   

I should note that he was chair of the Drainage Committee. Also, wife-wise:

Mary Peterson was one of the four district chairmen of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association and a frequent donor to the cause. She was one of the founding members of the Moorhead Woman’s Club in 1893.

They were also hot on Temperance. They lived here, where I assume they did not drink.

   
 

Victimized: I wonder when, how, and why that word got traction.

Things were looking up at the Schwarm & Jacobus floor, though.

Mixed bag for the Ink Workers.

   

   
 

Well, yes, you’d want that. Another reminder that the things they were asking for in those days were entirely reasonable.

   

I note this for one reason:

It’s not a misspelling. Every other use of the word in the paper spells it “indorse.”

   
  Those damned financial writers.
   

Let's have a gander at the writer. Ellis O. Jones was a radical writer, editor, and political activist. He was known for his anti-war stance in WW2, and according to this caption for a newspaper photo, he was arrested for sedition in 1942:

Two of the defendants in the Sedition Trial are pictured here: the white-haired gentleman behind bars is Ellis O. Jones, and on the right is Robert Noble. Both were members of the organization Friends of Progress, a group with fascist leanings whose members purported to be champions of "free speech" and "truth".

The other guy:

Robert Noble (b. 1897) was an American real estate salesman, radio commentator and the originator of the Ham and Eggs California Pension Plan. He founded the anti-war group The Friends of Progress and was later a defendant in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944.

The . . . the what now?

The Ham and Eggs movement was an old-age pension movement in California during the 1930s. It was founded by Robert Noble, a controversial radio personality, and Willis Allen. It grew out of a pension movement similar to the one advocated by Francis Townsend.

The Ham and Eggs lobby wanted a massive state pension apparatus and inundated the State Legislature with mail.

The State would give you money if you were over 50 and jobless, but you'd be taxed on it if you didn't spend it right away.

It was assumed that to avoid paying the weekly taxes on the money, the tender would be spent immediately, thus boosting the depressed economy. A cited example was the opportunity to trade up in foodstuffs from breakfast oatmeal to ham and eggs, hence the name 'Ham and Eggs Movement'.

Ah. But:

At one time, their movement had almost one million members. However, their movement was narrowly defeated in an initiative election in 1938.

 

The total classified section, right here:

Really, that was it. And it's not even a classified ad, as such. Odd: my union paper is full of classifieds, although to be fair it's mostly old farts selling lawnmowers or lake cabin equipment.

Finally, this is the Duluth paper, remember? Look at this ad . . .

 

. . . and tell me the one-word title of a famous book that became associated with middle-class philistinism.

That'll do! See you hither / yon. Cellophane ads await. So many cellophane ads

   
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