100,000 Children Left Behind in Chicago

This is a very political post, as it involves a politician. Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago. A few days ago he started that 25% of Chicago’s youth will never become anything, so why waste money on them.Chicago has 400,000  students enrolled  in its school system. One-quarter of these totals to 100,000. That's a lot of schoolkids to declare to be worthless.

In 2010, Rahm Emanuel, representing the White House, bashed the mentally disabled as "f***ing retards". His recent statement about Chicago school children fits in with the idea that Rahm considers himself better than the less intelligent, the poor, the homeless, the indigent, the socially difficult, the struggling, and they are to be insulted in the most hateful manner possible or just left behind... and that his leadership M.O. is to move those who are already ahead forward while forgetting the rest.

I am reminded and grateful for the efforts of those who, unlike Rahm Emanual, think ALL human beings have worth, whether or not they are mentally disabled or difficult school children who are from a demographic with a higher likelihood of crime.

• Habitat for Humanity. They don't agree with the idea that the homeless will never amount to much.
• Programs like this one in which prisoners care for horses. Prisoners will never amount to much, right? 
• The Representative Howard Wolpe, whose dedication to Africa, a continent some think will never amount to much, is remembered. And those politicians and leaders whom, unlike Rahm Emanual, have a sense of public service that goes beyond "I've got mine".
• Jane Addams Hull House, which for well over a century has been directly serving Rahm's targetted population in Chicago.
• Mayor Bing of Detroit, who is fighting hard to see that the city's budget crisis does not harm the educational needs of the children. He's not taking the easy way out.
• Representative Kweisi Mfume, whose background fits him firmly in that type of demographic Rahm has written off entirely. Yet, he did amount to something indeed, even if we accept Rahm Emanuel's morality. I could start a long list of people who come from inner-city and difficult backgrounds to become great leaders, inventors, etc, putting the lie to Rahm's callous dismissal.
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill's very successful and doesn't have to worry about much, does he? But this foundation shows he has not forgotten about people like Rahm's "worthless" 100,000: From their mission statement: "In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.".
• Camp Civitan. which serves Rahm's "f***ing retards".
• All those who have worked to help Haiti, including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Haiti a country that some think will never amount to much... After all, Haiti is very poor and difficult, like 1/4 of Chicago's school children. 

What other notable individuals and good works can my readers think of? 

Statuesday - Highway Workers Postcard, Clare, Michigan

The unique seven-statue Employee Memorial is a tribute to workers who lost their lives while working on the Michigan transportation system. Dedicated in 1994 at the Clare Welcome Center, the memorial was developed and paid for by M-DOT employees.

I've seen this and been to that rest stop many times.

Doodlebugs to the Big Eye (Postcard)

This postcard from 1916 is printed with the following very antiquated message on the front:  

Now that your folks have an Auto, 
We are all birds of a feather. 
So I think that our two families 
Auto Mobilize together"

Automobile poem postcard 1916

Not every family in 1916 had a car, so getting a car might be an occasion to celebrate back then. Sort of like writing a postcard in 1998 as more and more people got online. Or an email instead, with this poem:

"Now that your folks have AOL.
We are birds of a feather.
So I think that our two families.
Might as well log in together."

Written on the back in of this postcard pencil is the following message:

"Dear Friend, 
Rec'd Doodle Bugs O-K. Thanks awfully. Am keeping batch today so excuse writing too."
- The Big Eye c/o #1 Engine H.

Auto Comics postcard

It is postmarked Aug 1916 from Wooster, and sent to a Fred Witter in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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To the  right is another humorous automobile postcard, this from the "Auto Comics" series. There were many postcards like this with similar artwork from the mid 20th century. In this one, a poor fellow gets a rear-end greasing.

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Doodlebugs are also known as "ant lions". You can keep them as pets. A doodlebug is also a type of rail car. There were other doodlebug vehicles, but these did not appear until long after 1916. The wood louse is also known as a doodlebug, but I find it hard to imagine an era when people send each other lice and write postcards of thanks. Since the Big Eye might be on a train (#1 Engine H?), the rail car explanation might make sense. but sending a friend multiple rail cars seems hardly more likely than mailing them lice.

The Wogglebug

A doodlebug is not to be confused with a Wogglebug (see image above right, alongside Jack Pumpkinhead), a very well known character from the Land of Oz who had achieved great fame 10 years prior to this postcard being mailed. The Wogglebug deserves his own post sometime. Think Jeff Goldblum's "The Fly" circa 1904. Well, not quite as bad. But he was kind of obnoxious, and was a tiny insect transformed to human size by the technology of the era. But I digress...

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"The Big Eye? Me?"

Do you have a friend known as The Big Eye? If so, please send him or her their doodlebugs.

Thanks awfully for reading this post.

Sleestak Sunday with a Stack of Books

Today's Sleestak Sunday features a 'Stak and a stack of books.

Sleestak with stack of books

"It's a doggy-dog world out there"

• Lovecraft at Last by Willis Conover. Contains a letter-writing exchange between the horror great and a fan. Very interesting. Lovecraft wrote letters better than just about anything else he wrote, and better than just about anyone else.
• Atari Basic. Error code 1 means power not on.
• The Sioux by Guy E Gibbon. The Dakota and Lakota Nations. What about the Nakota? Yes, they really do exist.
• Keewaydinoquay. Stories from m Youth by Keewaydinoquay Peschel. I love that name. It means Woman of the Northwest Wind in the Odawa language (also Giiwedinokwe).
• The Old Gods by Patrick Logan. Interesting book about mythical creatures of northwestern Europe.
• Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly. Yes, a serious history book about pirates. Arrrr!
• So You Wanna Be a Pirate? Here's How by the creators of International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Again: Arrr!
• The Great Dirigibles: Their Triumphs and Disasters by John Toland. Everyone knows about the famous non-bloviating Zeppelin, the Hindenburg. And yes, zeppelin history is indeed that disastrous.
• The Devil's Horsemen by James Chambers. An excellent book on the Mongols and their influence on history. Yes, some of it is positive.
• Aaron's Crossing by Linda Alice Dewey. A ghost story. But I have not read it yet.
• The Pawnee Indians by George E. Hyde. Is this another pirate book? The Pawnee have been derided by some as the "Pirates of the Plains".
• Happy Days by Les Biederman. A life spent in radio and public service.
• Atlantis: The Autobiography of a Search by Robert Ferro and Michael Grumley. Soon enough. Google search will be powerful enough to find Atlantis, the Lost Ark, and my car keys. Until then, we have books like this.
• A Postcard Journey Along the Upper Mississippi by Robert Stumm. Many interesting views.
• The Land of the Crooked Tree by U. P..Hedrick Excellent book about life in the area of Emmet County, Michigan, in old days.
• Cursed by the Wind by J.L. Fredrick  An excellent novel of the Sea Wing disaster
• The Sea Wing Disaster by Frederick Johnson. A factual account of the Sea Wing disaster.in Lake Pepin.
• Dragons of Fantasy by Anne C. Petty. As opposed to, say, the Dragons of Reality. This book was written before the Harry Potter books and the "How to Train Your Dragon" movie, so I am sure there are many interesting dragon breeds that aren't in it. Nor is Pepie the Lake Pepin Monster, but.... some think that one is real.
• Trempealeau Mountain, a novel by George Henry Willlett. It is about this place.
• Historic Lifestyles in the Upper Mississippi Valley by John Wozniak A book of scholarly essays
• The Many Lives of the Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media by Roberta E. Pearson and William Uricchio. A book of very scholarly essays about the Caped Crusader.
• Words to the Wise by Michael Sheehan. Professor Sheehan is a superhero of the English language. He doesn't wear a cape, but he could probably tell you the origin of the word "cape".
• On the Lamb in a Doggy-Dog World also by Michael Sheehan. I am always reminded of the great line by Norm from Cheers, in which he said: "It's a dog eat dog world, Woody and I'm wearing Milk Bone underwear."
• On Writing Well by William Zinnser. Because we all need to be able to write as well as Professor Sheehan.

Well, that's one bookshelf. With a stak, er stack of books. Has anyone read any of these? Questions on any of them? What's on your shelf?

Penney's Gas in Winona, 1971

Check out the gas prices from this old photo from 1971 at a JC Penney service station in Winona, Minnesota, I bet none of you ever knew that Penney's sold gasoline.

JC Penney Gas Station, 1971, Winona, Minnesota

When "Grease" was the word in 1978

From June 30, 1978. Advertising "Grease" at the Plaza Cinema (now a Meijer parking lot). I remember going to see this when it first came out. Perhaps at this same theatre.

"Grease" movie newspaper ad, 1978

Whatever happened to "Sail"?

Below is an article from June 30, 1978 about the Detroit Christian rock band "Sail" appearing at the Damascus Road Coffee House in Traverse City, Michigan.Yes, it is another clipping I found.

"Sail": band at Damascus Road Coffee House

The coffee house, as the article says, was located two miles south of Cherryland Mall on Garfield Road. "Sail" played a repertoire ranging "from rock to folk, with emphasis on percussion". I remember hearing about this place on the radio, and they had a lot of bands there over the years. But I never made it there. The coffee house is long gone. As for "Sail", who knows? Their name makes them hard to Google. I wonder how long this band lasted, or if any of the musicians found fame in other bands,

Hiawatha in Petoskey

Here's the second day in a row of Hiawatha posts. I've taken the "Henry" post from earlier today and re-scheduled it, after I found this postcard in my collection:

1919 Hiawatha Indian Play Postcard, Petoskey,Michigan

The writer on the back said "We spent most of the Sunday at Aunt Anna's. Then we were on the dock and watched the steamers come and go. So Long . Mary Culp"

It was postmarked July 7, 1919, from Harbor Springs (not far from Petoskey) in Emmet County in northwestern Lower Michigan.

The postcard, which I have cropped to show the detail of the Indians, shows a spit of land with a canoe ashore, and a rock tower, and from 5 to 7 Native Americans (supposed Native Americans, anyway) each with a Plains-style headdress. I've never heard of this play, so it is probably long gone. I am guessing it was probably a re-enactment of part of the "Song of Hiawatha". The rock tower is surely artificial, as are probably the Indians, and the poem/play itself.

The card was mailed to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph A Culp of Elkhart, Indiana. Interestingly enough, I found a biography of this man when I did a Google search. The postcard writer/sender, Mary Culp, also has information available. She lived from 1899 to 1990.

Statuesday: Hiawatha

Today's "Stutuesday" features an old postcard of a statue of Hiawatha from the 1970s or 1960s. I featured this one a few years ago, actually, and have decided to bring this postcard back.

The back says "Sculptured by Anthony Zimmerhaki and his three sons here in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Made of steel and concrete it took three years to build and stands at the north end of Riverside Park. Where three rivers meet. The La Crosse, Black, and Mississippi Rivers"

It's 25 feet tall. Please see this page for some sculptural and other oddities in La Crosse, including the giant 6-pack that was featured in the Stephen King and Peter Straub novel Black House.

Hiawatha as we known him is a actually  mythical figure made up by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from sources that included an actual Iroqois historic figure, Ojibwe legends, and the finish epic song "The Kalevala", which was one of the inspirations for Tolkien in his "Lord of the Rings" and "Silmarillion".In other words, this statue has nothing to do with the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) Indians native to the area of La Crosse.

Another Magritte Monday with Isaac Asimov

Here's another Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine with a surreal cover similar to the art of Rene Magritte.. The artwork is entitled "Exposures" and is by Robert Crawford.

This issue, from Julu 6, 1981, contains an short story be Gregory Benford. The group of authors David Brin, Greg Bear, and Gregory Benford were known as the :"Killer B's". They were prolific, wrote many short stories for Asimov's magazine, wrote many novels, and won many awards.

Brin is one of my favorite science fiction authors. and Benford has written some interesting novels that have a strong influence from William Faulkner.

Asimov's is still published. I wonder though how literary magazines of short stories are surviving in the Internet age. Are there any of these that anyone is reading now? Science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, westerns, regional literature, or other subjects?

Captcha'ed by the Sleestak God on Sleestak Sunday

Will and Holly above the pit of the Sleestak God

One of the best episodes of the old "Land of the Lost" TV show had the children Will and Holly captured by the Sleestak in order to be sacrified and fed to a bellowing monster in a pit known as the Sleestak God. The monster bellowed constantly: imagine a Howard Dean campaign speech but played real slow. I guess it never occured to the Sleestak to nip over to Burger King and get a big sack of Whoppers to toss in the pit.

The picture to the right shows them hanging in a net about to be lowered into the pit. That's scary stuff for a Saturday Morning children's show. One reviewer described "Land of the Lost" as H.P. Lovecraft meets Sesame Street. Yes, scary science fiction concepts, along with puppetry.

Devil's Punch Bowl Postcard (Oregon Coast)

Is there a real world version of the pit of the Sleestak God? To the left is a modern-era postcard of the Devil's Soup Bowl. It is on the Oregon Coast, and is a huge pit in the shore click rocks. Not with a devil or a Sleestak god at the bottom, but the churning ocean instead. I looked down into this pit years ago

Perhaps Google itself, which runs Blogger/Blogspot, is like an unseen beast bellowing and threatening us.Despite their reputation (and they do have a lot of good products), they do have a lot of bad ideas and sometimes make things worse over time. Google insists on having Gmail scramble your email inbox so it is impossible to find stuff without searching (as opposed to Yahoo, which always puts things in date/tiem order). They have also added 'threading' to Blogger/Blogspot comments. I think threading makes Blogger/Blogspot difficult to use, but some like it. I just see it as another downgrade. They do this while the leave useful features broken, like the ability to post Blogger posts from mobile phones..

On top of the list new frustrations is the "captcha" system, in which you have to try to decypher hard-to-read words in order to comment on blog posts (for those who have such verification enabled). It used to be easier. Annoying, but easier. But now it is so hard that sometimes it can take 10 or 20 tries to get it right. See the actual example to the right. Is that whatched? whatcked? whatclred? You just can't really tell. There's no excuse for having these where you have to guess multiple times. Tim at Gothridge Manor has a post about this same subject. Click here to read it. Perhaps Google could replace this with dyphering handwriting on old postcards.

Captcha is not all bad. Once I had Enik show up as a captcha word.

Is anyone else having frustrations with this? And oh yes, you don't actually see a Sleestak in this particular  "Sleestak Sunday" post. The Sleestak God was never seen on the TV show either.

Say what? in Devils Lake, Wisconsin (Postcard)

Devils Lake Stone Face Postcard

The postcard to the right was postmarked 1939 at Baraboo, Wisconsin. Yes, there really is a place named Baraboo, just like there's a Kalamazoo. It was the original home of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. Baraboo is in Wisconsin's Driftless Area, along with Wisconsin Dells.

I also recall Baraboo from the science fiction stories by award-winning author Barry B. Longyear, which were printed in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.  He wrote the "Circus World" series of short stories about a space-traveling circus that had a spaceship called "The City of Baraboo".Yes, you've probably never heard of this. Longyear is best known for his award winning story "Enemy Mine", which was adapted into a good movie. The cover of one of Longyear's "Circus World' books appears to the upper left.

The postcard is of one of the many Stone Face views to be found on old postcards and photos.  The best web site of these is "The Great Stone Face at the Minnesota Museum of the Mississippi" Their front page happens to be another copy of this same Devils Lake postcard.

This particular stone face is like a Spartan or a Trojan. There are several stone faces in Wisconsin.

Below is the back of this postcard. People complain about how bad handwriting is today. But it was pretty bad way back then.  Perhaps we had a lot more doctors then? I've seen some atrocious handwriting on 100 year old postcards that made me wonder (for a split second) the preposterous idea that handwriting quality on postcards degrades over time.

Anyone have any idea what this says? "I can get as far as 'Dear Mother: Just finished looking this over and". Maybe it continues with "sure some swell place". Hardly anyone says "Swell" anymore. Later on there are words like "Waiting for" but I can't make out the rest. Does anyone want to look this over and give it a guess as to what was written?

1939 stone face postcard back

To Dallas in the Jet Age

This postcard was mailed in the 1950s and postmarked from Dallas Texas. It is of an American Airlines plane.

American Airlines postcard from the 1950s

The writing on the back says:

"We have made up 25 minutes and they assure me they'll get to Dallas in time to make the 901 flight that gets to L.A. at 9:10. If there's a seat in it for me, I'll be fine. It's nice flying weather. -Ira"

I think Ira wrote this one out on the plane and mailed it when he was in the Dallas airport waiting for the next flight.

The sky captain and pilots and stewardesses (yes, stewardess was the word back then) in the photo sure look happy. It's a staged photo, so they are all probably smiling models. But it might not be much different if it weren't. After all, it was the era before $50 luggage fees, removing your shoes, hours long security lines, and all those wonderful features of modern air travel.

And yes, men wore hats then, and probably all smoked like chimneys on the plane.

The photo itself was by Ivan Dmitri, an aviation artist and photographer whose career started with an etching commemorating the Lindbergh flight in 1927.

Logging on in Winona, Minnesota

This is a photo of a log raft passing through the turned swing bridge on the Missisippi River between Winona, Minnesota, and Bluff Siding, Wisconsin. It is from the Library of Congress, dated 1898. This was the height of the logging era in Minnesota.

Log Raft at Winona in 1898

From Minnesota Public Radio:

There are few places where you can walk the kind of forests that covered Northern Minnesota 150 years ago. Giant white pines rose to 200 feet. When Minnesota became a state, more than half its land was in deep shade.

Though vast, the great North Woods weren't limitless. By the turn of the century, Minnesota timber was being marketed from New York to Denver. The expanding frontier needed wood and 30,000 lumberjacks were doing their best to supply it. Timber was far and away the biggest industry in the state, and it changed the very landscape we live in.

The postcard from the 1910s to the right shows the fire monument at Hinckley, Minnesota. The devastation left behind by logging in the 1890s resulted in this fire which killed 413. It has an impact on the environmental movement:


The Hinckley fire ... was front-page [and] articles appeared with grim pencil drawings depicting oxidized bodies amid smoking ruins. It also helped arouse a national debate over how forests should be managed. Early conservationists, including Sierra Club founder John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, began to argue for federal regulation of timber.


I don't know enough about how tow barges work to say this with 100% certainty, but I believe the barge at the end of this raft is pushing this log raft. Which means that it is headed downstream. Perhaps on its way to Chicago. A remnant of a swing bridge in Winona survived into the modern era: click here to see a photo. You can also click here to see the bridge along with other bridges. Only one of these bridges survives as a complete span now. But this one was closed temporarily for repairs in the wake of the famous Minneapolis bridge collapse upriver.

That's how they logged on in 1898.

Sleestak Valentine Sunday

Valentines Day is two days from now. Why not get your sweety a box of Chocolate Sleestak? With nice shiny licorice eyes? Exclusively from Bracha-Chaka Candies.

Set of Chocolate Sleestak

Everyone loves to bite the ears off chocolate bunnies first. They think they taste better. With chocolate Sleestak, it must be the horn at the top that gets nipped off first.

As Valentines day approaches, what do you think the best love songs of all time are? Rather than make my own list, I found this list at AllTimeClassicSongs:.

1. Everything I Do (I Do For You) – Bryan Adams

2. Hard To Say I’m Sorry – Chicago

3. I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston

4. Unchained Melody – Righteous Brothers

5. Don’t Know Much – Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville

6. Endless Love – Diana Ross & Lionel Ritchie

7. Close To You – The Carpenters

8. It Must Have Been Love – Roxette

9. Waiting For A Girl Like You – Foreigner

10. Sara – Starship

Let me see. #10. I hate Starship. creators of one of the worst music videos of all time, "We Built This City" (also one of the worst songs of the 80s). And yes, I like Jefferson Airplane. But once the group traded in wings for warp nacelles, they lost me. #9 isn't bad, I grow to like "Foreigner" more and more over the years. I also wrote my own song similar to this one. #7 isn't bad either. #6 is one I find to be tedious and tuneless, not a favorite at all. #5 I admit I don't know. #4 is always a great one. #3... well it was in my head last night when I read about Whitney Houston's passing. #2 I can leave. While I love early Chicago with the horns and all, I am not fond of their later work. #1 isn't bad either, but I could probably think of better ones.

Does anyone have any other suggestions for great love songs?

Peter Hoekstra Superbowl Ad

There's been some controversy over Peter Hoekstra's Superbowl TV advertisement aired in Michigan in his campaign to unseat incumbent Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow:
I've talked to many Chinese people. Rarely do they ever talk like this in reality. Except in stereotypes. Coincidentally, I watched the movie "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" before I watched the Superbowl this past weekend.

Mickey Rooney

Contained in the movie are numerous references to the racism that Bruce Lee encountered, including Mickey Rooney's turn as a fake Japanese man in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's.  The woman in the Hoekstra ad has the same sort of stereotypical accent. Hoekstra can do better in other ways. The whole "Debbie Spenditnow" name befits someone making up playground insults, not a mature adult involved in the serious craft of governance and legislation. Sorry, Pete, this is amateurish and not ready for prime time. He could have made this ad a lot better by having the Chinese woman speak in proper English, as so many do. That would have zeroed out any possibility of anti-racist reaction to this ad. Which would have still left the problem of not having much of a message and being focused on a 3rd grade level recess insult.

Besides, Pete's main point is blunted when one realizes the fact that he voted for the $800 million dollar TARP handout to the big banks (something most Republicans opposed). I wonder if he can come up with a juvenile name for himself to denote his own massive record-level spending voting record?

Superbowl Sleestak Sunday

Today is Superbowl Sunday. Yes, I know that Sleestak are great at playing basketball, not football. But I was remembering memorable Superbowl ads.
One of them was for the movie "Land of the Lost". By the time of the Superbowl, I'd already known that this forthcoming movie, which I had been waiting 30 years for, was going to be pretty bad. It turned out even worse than the following Superbowl spot might lead you to believe. And yes, there are Sleestak in the commercial, for a split second toward the very end.



I also remember when an unknown non-politician named Rick Snyder went for broke and bought time to run his "One Tough Nerd" ad during the Superbowl. It worked: he was elected governor later that year
.

There is one commercial that shows the Sleestak in their hissing glory, and that one was one by Subway. But not during the Super Bowl:



Fed up with the Superbowl and commercials? Then go to Dog Ears Books in Northport for its "Escape from Football" tonight. Will they be serving a Tussssscan chicken melt submarine sandwich? I wonder if there are any great books on football. I know people who have read "North Dallas 40" and liked it, but the highlights they mentioned were scatalogical.
Critic George Plimpton had the "Small Ball Theory" of sports writing:

"This stated that there seems to be a correlation between the standard of writing about a particular sport and the ball it utilizes -- that the smaller the ball, the more formidable the literature. There are superb books about golf, very good books about baseball, not many good books about football or soccer, very few good books about basketball and no good books at all about beach balls. I capped off the Small Ball Theory by citing Mark Twain's "Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," perhaps the most universally known of sports stories, in which bird shot (very small balls indeed!) is an important element in the plot."

Click here to read more about it. After reading this, I guess I should end my quest to find great Earthball literature.

Welcome to Fountain City

This postcard is from 1904 to 1918. There's no writing or date on the back, but there is "AZO" in the stamp box, and a cryptic array of four triangles pointing up. Which, according to Playle, indicates 1904 to 1918.

Some of the photo might be cut off on your screen:

click on it to see the whole picture.

Fountain City, Wisconsin, 100 years ago (postcard)

Fountain City is in the west of Central Wisconsin, in the "Hiawatha Valley" on the Mississippi River across from Minnesota. It's also in the southern tip of Wisconsin's "Indian Head country". Stephen King's book Black House, which took place nearby, called the city just "Fountain".

I've featured Fountain City a few times before. Click here to see some other posts. This postcard is 100 years old, give or take a couple of years. Fountain City, the last time I was there. looked much the same now, but with many of the old wooden buildings gone.