and it was a very interesting and odd trip. I didn’t take enough pictures to tell the story that is has turned into, and I am not sure what the point even is, but let’s just start by saying that the first words out of the fellow who owned the boat we had driven 6 hours to see were, “I’ve sold the boat.”
I think I will let the reader read whatever they want into this whole thing, and just recount it as it happened.
We [as in my hubby, but I am a team player] have been wondering about our own boat for quite some time, and as I am married to an engineer, it has to perform well. And he has wanted for some time to make a boat fly using foils and maybe kites so the world of catamarans and trimarans has been on our horizon. I am not so into speed, being generally a content lunatic wherever I currently am, so long as that place is firmly attached to the ground, and not moving. [Breathe deeply and repeat, “team player, team player …]
And if you are into trimarans, you end up wanting a Farrier designed boat. And one was for sale just past Rochester, a mere 12 hour return trip [if you want to take your hippie van and sleep in it, on this side of the border]. This boat was pretend affordable, and we arranged to meet and sail the boat on Sunday. This was finalized on Friday, when he told us there was another couple coming to look at it that same Sunday morning, and two more coming on Monday and Tuesday. So lots of buyers, probably not us, but hey maybe we will make an offer, and there will be time to think while he shows it to the next two people.
We camped at Charleston Lake Provincial Park on the way down, just this side of the border near Hill Island, a terrific little border crossing I might add. It was mostly dark while we were there, but in the morning on the way out we saw this happily-named little RV park:
And then we drove over a tall bridge:
And then we drove over a surprisingly much taller bridge [which makes my feet sweat, literally, to even write about]:
And then we entered the U.S.A.
Or at least thought we had, until we arrived in Mexico:
And here I will insert my one open editorial comment, and I am sorry to appear to criticize my southern neighbour but it is a genuine cri de coeur. I wish that it weren’t so ironic that we found ourselves in Mexico. The southern shore of Lake Ontario presented a face of grinding poverty. Towns were boarded up along main street, two out of three businesses closed, and most of those appeared to have been bars, and weeds everywhere. Malls empty, but a Target and an IHOP in the parking lot. Substitution economy running on fumes.
We did go to IHOP, but why?
Never again.
And then we arrived at the marina to meet our host who had sold the boat to the first people who showed up. He had fallen in the water at the marina when they had returned from the sail and sale minutes before, and was a little soggy. We agreed to go for a sail though despite the momentary awkwardness of our having had a colossal waste of time, albeit a pleasant one, and him being suitably embarrassed but so openly happy to have sold the boat for his price, that it was very nice. Here is a picture of the boat, that I didn’t take:
and here is one from Sunday that I did:
He turned out to be a State Trooper and member of the National Guard.
On the way back to the marina, Eagle Creek, in Kendall, N.Y., we encountered what can only be described as a huge floating island of human waste and sewage overflow. There were clumps of it and we had to gun the little outboard to make it through [sails being down coming in [almost, ed.!]], it was that thick and deep and it smelt awful. It was throughout the marina.
So that is the story of the State Trooper who sold his boat to the first people who arrived, a scenario we had not considered.
edit to add: we did not follow that blue line, we followed the water.
On the north shore of Lake Ontario lies some of the richest property in Ontario and Canada. A colder climate than the south shore, nonetheless apples and grapes just as there are on the south shore, where we saw an enormous Mott’s processing plant. But it is so very different. All I could feel was that the city of New York had starved the hinterland slave population to breaking point. It was truly distressed and distressing. I know one section of a country doesn’t represent the whole, but wow, to a foreigner’s eyes.
And the State Trooper/National Guardsman is retiring and taking his pension to spend in St Croix and points east. Not in New York.
what you saw Xty is not atypical at all across the entire USA. maybe i should go for a walk with my camera phone. Janesville WI is just as ugly.
just noticed the other day even the Burger King a few blocks away is boarded up. this is on the main route through town, US HWY 51. everywhere you look, for sale, for lease signs, around here we even have had partially built subdivisions torn down for scrap. cheap lots though, water and sewer already in, and you still feel like you are living out in the country (no neighbors). one can’t miss the big box stores and the shopping malls that are failing/have failed. the parking lots are going back to nature – first weeds, then small shrubs, and then trees. after a while the broken windows aren’t repaired, just covered with plywood. it looks like we had a war here some years ago. oh, we also have 250 acres of shuttered General Motors plant, and several hundred acres of shuttered satellite businesses and associated buildings. we are 42 miles from the state capital. might as well be in another state. no one cares. yup, green shoots. the future is
brightblight.i could go on but i don’t feel like ranting today. (the sun is out!) thanks Xty for posting your observations. you provide a most objective view.
It turns out a lot of poop flows into the Great Lakes, and poor old Lake Ontario is at the receiving end. And because of the geography, and the St Lawrence pouring out the north side of the east end, the lower east end is a bit of a catch-basin.
Reducing Combined Sewer
Overflows in the Great Lakes:
Why Investing in Infrastructure
is Critical to Improving Water Quality
I don’t understand their funding model, but they seem heartfelt and sound scientists working for the:
To cherry pick the worst:
have you heard of Zug Island Xty?
what about the Windsor hum?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/mysterious-windsor-hum-traced-to-zug-island-mich-1.2651783
It looks like Mordor! I do like my manufactured goods, to some extent, but that is the horror of the automobile industry and the end result of all this free money that poured into car loans.
From a 2013 Bloomberg article: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-27/subprime-loans-are-boosting-car-sales
And I did notice in New York that there were cars at some of the most falling down houses, and car sales lots everywhere. We had been commenting on how it was the only business that seemed to be flourishing, and then we drove by the taxidermist, who was also open. There was a sign hoping to keep a local prison open to keep local jobs, but it looked like the work of one angry man. But the number of new trucks and cars for sale simply didn’t jive with the surrounding area – but now I see they were probably victims of these high interest loans, and now drive to their miserable job to keep up those payments so they can drive to their miserable job.
I was furious when our government bought in to the GM rescue. What a horrible industry to save and at such a dreadful cost to the very people who were sold it as a kind and benevolent move by a sympathetic government. In our case the Conservatives and in your case the Democrats – i.e. the ones who were currently in power, ideology being a sop for the public. As Russ Roberts marvellously said his father used to say, “It is time to rise above principle!” But putatively right-wing and putatively left-wing, they both dove into the rhetoric of saving GM to save the economy. I happened to bump into our deputy minister of finance, shortly thereafter, Ottawa being a small town, and when I started to voice my complaint, i.e. that I would have bought GM stock if I thought it was a good idea, if I had any money lying around to invest in a dying company, it being a publicly traded company and all, and he started in with how I just didn’t understand. And he was right. His first name, and this is not his fault, is Tiffany, which he insisted used to be a boy’s name.
here is a good summary of the entire sordid affair. if i were writing on the subject, i’d talk about moral hazard, fascism as defined, and mention that no jobs were saved.
http://useconomy.about.com/od/criticalssues/a/auto_bailout.htm
Ah, moral hazard. In a nutshell.
What a tangled web of debt financing. And then this nice tidbit, which seems to imply that the fed will get back their money, while the unwashed other investors take a 75% loss:
So what they seem to do in this and other cases, is a big lender comes in to a fragile company, lends it money on the grounds that it will be the first creditor in a bankruptcy, takes the assets in the expected and encouraged bankruptcy and sells them to their pals. I noticed somewhere in here that both Goldman Sachs and Berkshire Hathaway had picked up some tasty scraps.
And now they are being pursued of course for robo signing, and parts of the hydra have moved to Toronto.
that was from Wikipedia
ain’t deregulated capitalism grand? first remove all the checks and balances, then shower the filthy rich elite with even more money when they blow up the economy. you see, their exemplary code of ethics makes any oversight and regulation overly burdensome.
did you hear about this amazing deal yet?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/did-sears-get-gouged-by-its-own-ceo-115719755.html
I wasn’t sure [and still amn’t] but it looked like an erstwhile Sears that was growing weeds in the mall with the Ihop and Target, which my future possibly son-in-law calls Targee (you have to imagine the accent on the last e, and say it as if it were a fancy French store). The big Sears in Ottawa’s main mall, which had been its anchor store back in the day, is gone. It is piracy. I wonder how much the CEO is paying to borrow to lend at 5%? Just milking it. And I am sure the CEO felt super clever when he and his hired vultures figured out this latest plan. Maybe they can buy the Christmas inventory, but then go bankrupt right before Christmas and layoff their remaining employees. But either a 10 million or 500 million dollar Christmas for the CEO, guaranteed.
la francisation of “Target” is common in the US also.
the Sears CEO knows what he is doing. he perfected this type of deal while playing both sides as Kmart nearly went extinct. it must have been profitable to let Kmart survive though, since there is at least one left that i know of. but it could just be that the one in Janesville couldn’t even be given away, just like General Motors’ plant, and 250 acres here.
and talk about moral hazard. if Sears survives, Lampert gains 10 million in interest on a short bet. if Sears defaults, he stands to gain 500 million. i say call that loan early Lampert and let those Sears pensioners eat cake.
ttyl. i have two dressers that i am stripping, and we have comfortable weather today. (i can work outside and use the nasty stuff)
“The promise of Janesville has been the promise of America” in a speech in which he promised fewer applause lines. Could one write better irony?
good catch Xty. hope and change huh? at the time i was just hoping for anything better than Bush, and thoroughly bought into the con-job. but the truth is that i don’t think presidents have any real power. they are chosen to run because they have the right traits, and can be groomed for the job by the real power.
check out this article. doesn’t this statement just sum things up perfectly?
“After the terrible assassination or “accident” all political parties, at home and abroad, said they owed it to the victims, their families and the public to clarify the circumstances of the crash and present evidence for what happened. None of this has yet been done.”
http://news.msn.com/world/mysterious-millionaire-will-pay-dollar30m-to-know-who-exactly-shot-down-mh17
and to anyone who does not believe in conspiracy…
how many thousands of people would you guess know the full truth about what happened to that jet?
how Orwellian is it that the public only gets spin, innuendo and rumor? talk about control of information!
i cynically believe that the end of Western civilization comes when trust in anything and everything has been destroyed.
OK, rant off. must have been the methylene chloride fumes.
omg, Santelli is yelling again on the teevee. Can pretty much count on that on a Fed day. Pretty much every other day as well. Pretty sure he is paid piecework, per rant, just like blog trolls.
In other news, I’m back to employed status for the next month. Crank out a few extended 1040’s, due Oct. 15. Might make enough to pay for my car, which I’m loving btw, and if it happens to be a good time to buy a used car, fine. I’m not going to sit around and feel guilty about it. Besides, as has been pointed out, Madison is an island unto itself. If a used car is available, it likely means someone traded up, not that someone was desperate for cash.
Now excuse me while I put my partisan hat back on and hope against hope that the Dems find some way to thread the needle and hold on to the Senate this fall. Is it wonderful? No. Is it a hell of a lot better than letting the Tea Party control both houses of congress? Hell fucking yes. It might even require the support of some wishy washy “independent” in Kansas to get the job done. So be it. Like they say in sports, a win is a win. This fall is likely to be the high water mark for the Tea Party, since the 2016 Senate schedule looks untenable for them, and all indications are Hillary will still roll against anybody they can put up.
Burke and Walker in Wisconsin still a toss up.
I know I’m not fitting in with the conversation here now, which is more of a “screw them both” attitude. NO! Some are definitely worse than others. Screw the worse ones. In my world the Republicans are evil incarnate. The Democrats are disappointing, spineless, and powerless. Their only claim to fame is what they are running against.
I hate Wisconsin Tea Party Nazis. Scott Walker, your 15 minutes is up. Senator Ron Johnson, you’re next in 2016.
Wisc. GOPer Drops Out Of Race Over ‘F*gs’ And ‘N*ggers’ Tweets
And since I’m clearly out of sync, and not likely to recover until after the electi0n,
Let’s just leave it here: Yes, the Dems blow. But it’s a moral imperative to defeat the Tea Party Nazis. If more people in Germany had felt that way, there would never have been a Hitler. No point in splintering off with pie-in-the-sky visions of what might be perfect. Fuck that.
I heard a guy on NPR that said you can say screw both parties, but not by starting a third party. Rather find an issue that will fracture one party, such as slavery did to the Whigs. The biggest piece of that fracture was joined by disillusioned Democrats and voila the Republican Party was born as the Whigs died. This is what he called a first party movement as opposed to a third party wannabe that just siphons off enough votes to make the worst outcome possible.
Anyway, I remembered that he wrote a book with “blue jean” in the title so here it is. It’s now on my wish list and I have plenty of points on my Amazon Visa, just waiting for winter to have the time.
http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Jeans-High-Places-Makeover-ebook/dp/B00MRH3K1A/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410990606&sr=1-5&keywords=blue+jean
p.s. this is the Kindle version but no thanks, I’ll have book in hand thank you very much.
p.p.s. Our town has big Cheese Days celebration this weekend, but we will be leaving town for a trip Up North. Accordingly, I visited my favorite bank manager today {she’s so cute!) and her bank is selling t-shirts commemorating the event. I puzzled briefly at this one- “#curdiness”. I wonder how many other hicks my age would get it.
Last one, I promise- I didn’t hear if he identified an issue that would fracture the Republican (hopefully) party.
In case you’re wondering or in a gifting mood, here is my wish list.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1TJVFHDOUBOTX/ref=cm_wl_huc_view
EO, take a look at the last one my wish list. You got Subaru, I got story and map.
Dude, I’m intrigued by “Cathy Jean, Little Sick Twist” but that’s just me.
And as we speak, metals are threatening to collapse to new lows. Am I feeling sorry for anyone, 2-3 years after the peak? No. Schadenfreude, to the max (screw the Latin). Wondering, is there a Latin term for “Screw the Latin”?
I’m just pissed because I have to go out and mow the lawn before dark.
I was going to say that you need a third way, not party. But the two party system has serious problems. We have three spineless parties basically, and it acts like a sea anchor on stupidity. But what I really think is crazy is one person meant to lead 300 million people. The expectations people put on the president are ludicrous, but he or she plays the game. It might ironically be racism that fractures the republicans, just as they were born from anti-slavery. Here is a good sum up of two repellant characters, one a Democrat and one both a Democrat and Republican, who used race baiting and in the first case, the KKK, to advance their political careers.
Strom Thurmond’s truly unpardonable sin
Maybe a Humanist Party could emerge of reasonable people who are actually tolerant of diversity. But
Yeah, Strom Thurmond- with an illegitimate black daughter.
Yes I will sell my stash as I encounter things that I need and are useful, and not just have it sitting in a hope chest.
My daughter has a 20o4 Escape and wants a better car. Hers has body damage (women drivers!) and would only fetch $500 from the dealer. She would be happy with $1000, but I am willing to cash in $1500 of the devil’s metal to have a bomber and keep wear and tear off my F150.
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/special-update-precious-metals-bear-market-back-65744#.VBoVARaa8iI
things will change. when change is resisted, or things seemingly go backwards for too long, you get periods like right now. we are going to revert to mean, or even overshoot, and it probably will happen pretty fast.
this country, really all of the “western” countries have gone way too far to the right. call it what you will. the trend started with Thatcher and Reagan. but i think the teabaggers are already doomed. i think the snap back has started. call me crazy but i also think Sanders and/or Warren have a chance in 2016.
Dude – i like this item on your list the best. make sure to buy two of them if you do order, and i will keep an eye on e-bay…
http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Big-Lebowski-Mens-Bowling-Costume-Dude-T-Shirt-MEDIUM-NEW-/171427144159?pt=US_Mens_Tshirts&hash=item27e9daa1df
Been enjoying the PBS show on the Roosevelts. In essence, this was the transition period that proved the two party system can change. Not without a lot of pain, but it can change, though slowly. Byrd goes back to the old Dems, which was basically the southern racist confederate party. From Teddy Roosevelt, through to Nixon, was the transition period. The Dems picked up the progressive stuff from Teddy, and were abandoned by the southern racists. It’s not quite as easy as an entire right-left switch, but nearly so. Reagan was left, went right. Byrd and Thurmond were right, AND I CAN’T EVEN EXPLAIN THIS FAST ENOUGH FOR THE EDIT! An analysis that includes who was the party of Wall Street muddies the waters and makes it a not so easy analogy. The Republicans stayed true to Wall Street, while the Dems, stayed more or less (maybe a lot less, lately) true to William Jennings Bryan.
It’s complicated.
Eugene V. Debs was my guy. 😎
Thurmond stayed right, by changing parties. Byrd moved left, by staying in the same party. Like I said, it’s complicated.
Joe Hill ain’t dead. I’m still playing his song, ain’t I? It’s on youtube and everything. Immortal.
Of course I remember Reagan was left before right. And then wrong.
In essence, the very concept of what was “right” and what was “left” was very much in a state of flux, from Teddy Roosevelt through to Reagan. Been pretty much stable since then.
The Republican Party now has a three legged stool, based on Wall Street money, racists, and bible thumpers. None of which I have any tolerance for.
The so-called “libertarians” are a mixed bag. Heavily in bed with the social conservatives and racists. How “libertarian” is it to go around dictating to people how they should behave sexually, or who they can marry? Or whether black men should simply be shot on sight? It ain’t. At all.
I think my sauna is hot. Goodnight everyone.
libertarian ideology resides predominantly on the right wing in the USA, but that is not the usual case across the planet at all.
yes, i do post this link quite often! so just go the the analysis section for a refresher.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/index
live it, learn it, know it.
I think the Deomocrats have been very much also the party of Wall Street. That is the common glue between the two. They have been hoodwinked (to use an Obama term) by captains of industry into thinking large must never fail, and yet the average company has 8 employees if I remember correctly.
The left here did the same by becoming the party of unions, and once you are supported by the UAW, you want the government to buy GM and keep Zug Island humming. And they are meant to be the strongest on the environment. Nasty bedfellows all around.
As soon as Obama kept Bernanke it was obviously just the same team at the helm. And all the Presidents fall for the trappings and forget they poop in the morning and put on their pants one leg at a time. They should have to have breakfast at a different Denny’s every week.
I really dislike political parties and the party system. It means you cannot vote for the local person without voting for their leader and it is repellant nonsense to force everyone into the same ideological box. We have a person here who gets assigned the job of Party Whip, who makes sure everybody votes the party line and not their conscience, or heaven forfend, the will of their constituents. On a money bill if you do not get your majority vote, it folds the government and we have to have an election, and that I kind of get, but things get attached to money bills therefore. But on non-money bills people should get to vote however they want. But you can’t get on the ballot meaningfully without joining a party, and that usually means you started out young and were a team player without conscience, blindly waving whichever party flag got you when you were looking for group acceptance.
But given that it is complicated, EO, as you state, hating all republicans seems a bit harsh, and that is how you come off. And many on the republican side have the same feeling you do that they are voting to stop something terrible, not to effect positive change. Neither position strikes me as reasonable, and obviously neither a republican nor a democrat in the Whitehouse makes that much difference, when the treasury and the military run the same despite the noisemakers. Is Obama any less committed to the War on Drugs? Is the middle east suddenly peaceful? You may have no alternatives but that is a huge problem for the rest of us. I wish you could vote for meaningful local candidates and strip your president of many powers. And he should live in a smaller house for heaven’s sake.