Dynamite: Vandy Wins!

I just read in the Nashville's City Paper that Vandy beat Ole Miss in Oxford, 28-14. Before they won today, the 'Dores had lost ten straight conference games. Man, we've got a real winning streak going now. Vandy has an open date next week and then faces UConn next week. We'll crush 'em. Here's "Dynamite," the Vandy fight song:



"Win or lose, the fates will choose." So that's it. It's not that Vandy's teams haven't been quite as good as those other brutes in the SEC, it's just that fate's been against us all these long years. I understand and accept that. I really do. I'm also a Cubs fan.

Nashville Lower Broad Tour, Part I

Sorry I haven't posted since Tuesday. It's been a busy week here in the Hollow.

On Monday, I rode with Joyce uptown to drop off her car at the Body shop to get it repaired. On Tuesday we made a short trip to Murfreesboro to pick up something Joyce's brother's wife had given her and we stopped off at Lower Broad on the way back for a quick tour. More on that below. Then on Wednesday I returned to the doctor for a checkup. He adjusted my coumadin level, said I was doing okay and sent me on my merry way. Afterward we ate at Ruby's Cafe in Hendersonville, our favorite Meat and Three.

Now, as to the whys and the wherefores of the body shop excursion... Back on Saturday Joyce was involved in a crash in the Publix grocery parking lot. She wasn't hurt, thank goodness, just shook up pretty bad, and still trembling like a leaf when she got home. She was driving straight down the lane toward the store when she was "T" boned by a guy cutting across the parking lot. The crash damaged the bottom of the driver door slightly, the back door, and the back fender panel. Thankfully, the other driver was gracious and admitted fault and his insurance is taking care of it. Three panels: $5500. Here's a pic of our car (note: you can click on any pic in this post to make it bigger):

I thought we might get a Yugo rental but instead we got a Chevy Impala. Not bad.

Like I said, on Tuesday after getting our rental we stopped off on Lower Broad in downtown Nashville and pretended to be tourists for about 45 minutes. It was fun and Joyce got some good shots even though the weather was overcast. I'll be showing some more of these photos over the next few days. I can do a pretty quick post that way when I making my morning blog rounds and then get to work on cleaning up the mystery novel, which I hope is going out next week sometime.

We dropped the car off, got the rental, and headed downtown. Here's a pic or two I took from the car. First, as we crossed the railroad bridge, we passed the old Union Station, built in 1900 as the city's main train depot. In recent years the depot was restored and turned into an upscale Wyndam Grand Hotel. But in 1956 at the age of 16, I caught L&N's  "Hummingbird" at Union Station and rode it to Cincinatti and then from there I went on another train to Detroit. It was my first "solo" like that and will be the subject of a post sometime in the future.

Here's another pic driving on Broadway headed downhill toward what people refer to as Lower Broad. In the 60's and 70's it was a mess, drunks on the street, porn theaters, etc., but the city cleaned it up and it's a big tourist attraction now. The tower you can barely see at the right of the pic is on top of the Bridgestone Arena. I'll show more of it in a later post. Right now, I'll just say the "Stone" is where the Predators play hockey.

After paying an exorbitant fee, we parked our car on 5th Avenue. Here's a closer view of the building you may have noticed in the previous photo. We locals call it "The Bat Building." I think you can see why.

We walked down 5th and took in the grandeur of the Mother Church of Country Music, the "world famous Ryman Auditorium," as the Opry announcers like to say. I'll stop today with this shot and continue the tour in a day or two. There'll be more shots of the Ryman, plus Tootsie's and other Lower Broad hot spots. Happy trails!

Shortnin' Bread

My banjo pickin' buddy Ed lives up on the Ridge and I hoped to find a little "Salty Dog" to start his day. But the pickin's on the Tube of You were slim. So how 'bout a little Shortnin' Bread instead. Made with Martha White, naturally.

Fotch dat dough fum the kitchin-shed
Rake de coals out hot an' red
Putt on de oven an' putt on de led,
Mammy's gwineter cook som short'nin' bread.
 

Set Me Free, Somewhere in the Middle of Montana

Last Fall, my buddy George decided to leave life in the big city and head for Montana. George came back and got Lady Sara this summer and they're both up there in Big Sky Country preparing for winter. Here's a pic George posted on his blog (and a link to same) recently.

For a retired academic, old George sure looks like he knows what he's doing with that Stihl. Happy trails George and Sara, and stack that firewood high. Here's a song that you've probably heard many times; the most appropriate line: "Turn me loose, set me free, somewhere in Montana."

Browning and Browning, Inc.

Browning and Browning. Now there's a company I would like to have worked for. It exists only in my imagination of course, but still having the two fellows I'm discussing today as my bosses would have been most interesting...

Over the 40 years I spent in academia, I developed a taste for some, not all, poetry. One of the poets I came to admire was Robert Browning (1812-1889) an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. He had a famous romatic relationship with a woman poet (Elizabeth Barrett) who later became his wife (not the second Browning in my title btw). There's a lot of info about him all over the Google, so I won't pick any specific article to link to.

In a dramatic monologue, which is like a long speech lifted from a play script, a single character speaks. Browning had skill as a writer and as a psychologist and so these monologues are like portraits that reveal a person's true character through his or her language whether they intend to or not. One of Browning's most famous dramatic monologues (and my favorite) is "My Last Duchess" in which an Italian Duke, who's speaking to an emissary of the family of a young girl he may marry, reveals himself to be a jealous monster who murdered his last wife. The wife in question, his last Duchess, was a quite young, innocent girl with a bright and cheerful disposition. Here's a quotation from that famous monologue.

She had
A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace--all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least....Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together.

Now I ask you, what kind of guy is jealous of the attention his wife pays to the sunset or a white mule? Let's hope the emissary from the family of the girl he's now considering marrying rushes back
and warns them that the Duke is a jealous monster who murdered his last wife.

The second Browning in the imaginary company in my title refers to John Moses Browning (1855-1926), said by the Wiki to be "the world's most prolific firearms inventor." Most of his designs were so successful that they've been "manufactured by other companies, Winchester, Colt, Remington, Fabrique Nationale de Herstal of Belgium, and Miroku."

Browning's most famous pistol design is arguably the M1911 (although I'm sure others might argue for the famous Browning Hi Power). Wiki says the M1911 "is a single-action, semi-automatic, magazine-fed, and recoil-operated handgun chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. It was designed by John M. Browning, and was the standard-issue side arm for the United States armed forces from 1911 to 1985, and is still carried by some U.S. forces. It was widely used in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Its formal designation as of 1940 was Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911 for the original Model of 1911 or Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911A1 for the M1911A1, adopted in 1924. The designation changed to Pistol, Caliber .45, Automatic, M1911A1 in the Vietnam era. In total, the United States procured around 2.7 million M1911 and M1911A1 pistols in military contracts during its service life."
 

The innocent young wife in "My Last Duchess" is a fictional character of course, and she lived before John Moses Browning's time, but had she packed a 1911 45 caliber, Robert Browning might have written a different poem, one entitled "My Last Duke."

Two Brownings. Browning and Browning, Inc. Like I said, it would have been an interesting company to work for. They could get after you with either poetic rhetoric or ammo.

Wanna Burn Something?

Ground Zero

On this the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, CNN, reports that 70% of all Americans oppose the mosque planned for Ground Zero. The breakdown of the percentage of those opposed to the structure includes 54% of Democrats, 82% of Republicans, and 70% of independents.

Victor Davis Hanson says Imam Rauf, the mosque project's sponsor,

claims he is for free expression, even when it so obviously offends tens of millions of Americans; but he has no problem criticizing the Danish cartoonists for their supposedly unnecessary and gratuitously offensive drawings. In a variety of ways, he has praised the Iranian Revolution, whose end result is horrific violence against women, homosexuals, democrats, and dissidents of any stripe, whether novelists abroad or reformers at home. Others have pointed out that there is no reason to believe the ecumenical Ground Zero Islamic complex will introduce gender or sexual parity into its protocols in the American tradition that Rauf keeps invoking.

The respected Thomas Sowell says

The proposed mosque near where the World Trade Center was attacked and destroyed, along with thousands of American lives, would be a 15-story middle finger to America....
Our betters are telling us that we need to be more "tolerant" and more "sensitive" to the feelings of Muslims. But if we are supposed to be sensitive to Muslims, why are Muslims not supposed to be sensitive to the feelings of millions of Americans, for whom 9/11 was the biggest national trauma since Pearl Harbor?...

There is no question that Muslims have a right to build a mosque where they chose to. The real question is why they chose that particular location, in a country that covers more than 3 million square miles.

If we all did everything that we have a legal right to do, we could not even survive as individuals, much less as a society. So the question is whether those who are planning a Ground Zero mosque want to be part of American society or just to see how much they can get away with in American society?

Can anyone in his right mind believe that this was intended to show solidarity with Americans, rather than solidarity with those who attacked America? Does anyone imagine that the Middle East nations, including Iran, from whom financial contributions will be solicited, want to promote reconciliation between Americans and Muslims?...
There are people for whom moral preening has become a way of life. They are out in force denouncing critics of the Ground Zero mosque....

They think the United States is somehow on trial, and needs to prove itself to others by bending over backwards. But bending over backwards does not win friends. It loses respect, including self-respect.

September 11, 2001

Living in Clot City

I've wrestled a bit with posting this, but finally decided to since I've always used writing as a way of dealing with and actually coming to understand what I believe or feel about whatever is weighing on my mind.

First the bad news: I had some pain in my leg, upper thigh, week before last and thought it was a muscle sprain or tear. Over that weekend it continued to hurt a bit (but nothing excessive). On Monday I felt a little less pain but still decided to see the doctor at the clinic near our house. He immediately sent me for an ultra sound. Turns out I had two clots. A superficial one about half way down the thigh and another, a deep vein one (DVT), in the groin area. The groin clot was the large one and the most dangerous even though the pain from it had barely registered on me. Guess I'll be living in Clot City for a while; that's the bad news.

The good news is that I apparently caught it in time before it broke loose and went to my lungs, heart, or brain. My regular doctor prescribed the blood thinner coumadin in pill form and a series of ten shots of Heparin that would take me to the point where there is enough coumadin in my system to do the job. In addition to reminding me of my evening coumadin pill, Joyce gave me 5 of the shots in my stomach over the next two days. I went back to the doctor last Thursday to check the coumadin level and it was already within the desired range, so we stopped the shots. That's another good thing!

Maintaining the desired coumadin level for the next 6 months to a year will prevent further clotting and allow the deep clot to begin to dissolve (actually only part of it dissolves, the rest, as I understand it, attaches to the vein wall and is covered over by a new layer of skin, or whatever they call the insides of your veins). During this time I'm supposed to keep my feet up when I sitting and never cross my legs (I'm finding this part pretty hard to do). I'll be visiting the doctor on a regular basis for a while to ensure that the coumadin level remains stable. And at some point a few months from now I'll probably have another ultra sound to determine if the clot has been taken care of by my body.

I know this isn't a trivial event and it did get me down when I got the news. But I'm feeling okay now, mentally and physically, taking it easy as per doctor's orders. No heavy lifting, elevating my legs when sitting, etc. I'm also getting up from the computer or tv frequently to make sure there's little chance any more clots will form. My neighbor Ronnie had a clot about three years ago and it did get to his lung. But he was lucky and they were able to treat it in a fashion similar to mine. He was hospitalized for a time however, since it got to his lungs. He's fine now and does more yard work in a day than I could ever do in a week.
 
BTW, some of the causes are sitting still too long in a car or on a plane or at a computer, standing too long, etc. Any kind of prolonged inactivity that doesn't allow the muscles in your legs to move the blood back to your heart is a risk. Hospital stays, surgeries, etc. can also lead to clots. Take my advice, stop the car, get out and walk around some as you travel. I suspect my two long recent car trips plus some other factors may have contributed to my problem. If you're traveling by air, get up and walk up the aisle and back from time to time. If you're not traveling, get your butt up from the computer or tv and move around frequently.

Obama's Stimulus: Graphic Visual Shows Epic Fail

I just got this interesting video from my friend Jeanne. Take a look at it. View it more than once. It's an amazing graphic display of the current administration's failure to deal with the economic crisis, specifically unemployment. Note that the real action doesn't begin until 2008.

The Last Straw

The Washington Times comments on the Obama Administration's report to the UN regarding human rights issues in the US.

Move over Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria. The State Department has made it official: The United States violates human rights. In an unprecedented move, the Obama administration submitted a report to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights detailing the progress and problems in dealing with human rights issues in this country. The document is a strange combination of left-wing history and White House talking points.

It describes how the United States discriminates against the disabled, homosexuals, women, Native Americans, blacks, Hispanics and those who don't speak English. There is the expected pandering to Muslims, noting that the government is committed to "challenge misperceptions and discriminatory stereotypes, to prevent acts of vandalism and to combat hate crimes," offenses that the American people evidently keep committing. And the current economic woes are blamed on the housing crisis, which itself was the result of "discriminatory lending practices." The implication is that if Americans had only been less racist, they would be enjoying prosperity today.

The report notes that until recently, the U.S. engaged in torture, unlawfully detained terrorist suspects and illegally spied on Americans communicating with terrorists - but the report assures readers that Mr. Obama has been putting a stop to all that.

Whisky and NASCAR: Unintended Consequences

Many conservatives have spoken before about a huge liberal blind spot. No, I'm not talking about their blind stumbling drunk binges. The whisky stuff comes later.You know the blind spot I'm talking about. Unintended consequences.

Libs are so so smart, they just know this or that program when instituted will look as good as George Clooney's hair, they know they've thought of everything--all the amazing benefits that the unwashed and not so smart masses will enjoy as a result of their benevolent genius.

But they always forget the law of unintended consequences: Whatever you do will always lead to results you can't possibly predict, and some of those results will invevitably be bad.

And since liberals are never wrong, when they get a negative result, they just double down and get more funding to do whatever they did in the first place again. Usually this leads to another huge bureauracy at the federal level. Or more lost jobs if the word "stimulus" is involved. Or perhaps Hollywood steps in and produces a movie starring George Clooney or Matt Damon that blames the failure of the whole heroic (read shitty) enterprise on the CIA or a sleazy Republican senator or a greedy corporation.

To better illustrate the point I'm making, and to get that whisky picture and the reference to NASCAR explained, George Will in "Another round of Prohibition, anyone?" in the Jewish World Review talks about the unintended consequences of the prohibition movement.

Women campaigning for sobriety did not intend to give rise to the income tax, plea bargaining, a nationwide crime syndicate, Las Vegas, NASCAR (country boys outrunning government agents), a redefined role for the federal government and a privacy right -- the "right to be let alone" -- that eventually was extended to abortion rights. But they did.