I get my kicks above the waistline.
If it ever comes to pass that male nipples and female nipples are treated equal by the law, I wonder if it won't be the case that in some contexts (e.g. swimming) toplessness will be O.K. but in other contexts (e.g. nearly everything else) men will have to wear a shirt. Or pasties.
Related: "After Another Incredible Summer, It's Time To Put My Shirt Back On"
4: I am having precisely that moment with shoes. I manage to avoid wearing non-sandals to work from May through the end of September, but I'm giving it up now for the winter.
...and men really don't have breasts.
Well, I won't if I stick to my diet.
I am totally fine with women going topless in public and moving towards a society where that is no big deal.
. . . and one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free to raise their arms and shout "Hooray!"
I don't follow the argument in the post -- that is, men's and women's genitals are treated equally by the law: it's offensive to show someone your genitals unless they've expressed some interest in seeing them (see, e.g.) Men's and women's torsos aren't treated equivalently, and it's because men's reaction to the sight of women's breasts is treated as an important consideration, and there's no parallel consideration of women's reaction to anything.
You can argue that the lack of parallelism is justified, by arguing that the way men react to topless women is importantly different from the way women react to topless men (apologies for all the heteronormativity here, but the non-parallel legal structure is heteronormative itself), but the basic lack of parallelism, and the fact that it's related to special consideration for men's states of mind, is pretty clear.
Men? Worst gender, or worst gender ever?
That makes sense - you're separating out genitals from secondary sex characteristics. "It's reasonable to protect everyone from seeing people's genitals but nothing else." I was thinking that any body part was interchangeable, for the sake of other people's sensibilities.
Also this post was deliberately LB-bait, so I'm smirking a bit. I mean, I genuinely didn't follow the argument and figured I was missing something, but I had a sidebet that you'd be the first to undertake explaining it to me, instead of chuckling about nipples.
So maybe it should be more about going potty* than having sex. We don't like to see your potty-parts.
* now I'm baiting Smearcase obv.
IIRC, Ohio law follows LB's logic being topless was legal for all.
Is that the origin of why sex is considered dirty? Because it's the same parts or in close proximity to the pottiparts?
11: You don't have to recall, you can click the link!
12: You could ask birds, since they only have the one part for all.
This is all complicated by the comfort aspect of bras, of course. Even in hot weather and ignoring all the nudity taboo aspects, I'd probably very rarely go topless, because I'm habituated to having my breasts securely held in place rather than bouncing around. At which point (assuming I'm typical) you'd end up with a social norm of non-toplessness for women regardless, and toplessness would be noticeable even without special consideration of how men felt about it.
11: I think NY as well? Not sure? So long as you aren't doing anything lewd with your exposed bits?
Have I mentioned how much I'm looking forward to exercising bra-less post-mastectomy?
They could use the kind of bra where the nipples aren't covered.
7: replace your term "genitals"* with "erogenous zones", and your argument goes away. The law, in its infinite majesty, demands that erogenous zones of all adults be covered up. It just so happens that women have an extra one (or two).
I suppose I'm opening a can of worms, and that people will deny that women's breasts are erogenous, or will insist that men's are equally so, or bring up belly buttons or earlobes or the nape of the neck. I don't especially care about covering breasts, but I think I agree with H-G that the male gaze isn't the key factor here. I mean, are we just all going to agree that, from here on out, breasts are no more erogenous than knees?
*and since one's ass must generally be covered**, "genitals" is wrong as a matter of practice
**I actually have no idea what the law says about asses. G-strings obviously only cover one's ass in the most notional way, yet I think that wearing e.g. a front-only breechcloth would be considered obscene (or law-flouting) by more or less everyone. I don't really know the caselaw surrounding assless chaps.
A front only breechcloth would sort of fail to cover your genitals unless you stood really still and straight.
assless chaps
Every time I hear this term, I want to interrupt and say, "But all chaps are assless—that's what makes them chaps! If they weren't assless, they'd be pants!"
And then I tell my inner pedant to shut the hell up.
G-strings obviously only cover one's ass in the most notional way, yet I think that wearing e.g. a front-only breechcloth would be considered obscene (or law-flouting) by more or less everyone.
And just try wearing a G-string backwards.
replace your term "genitals"* with "erogenous zones", and your argument goes away.
It only works if your true concern is covering the pee and poop holes.
24 is only true if you've castrated all the men.
Unless there's some crucial distinction between gonads and genitals.
22: it's a legal doublet, like "cease and desist" or "aid and abet".
(An illegal doublet would be one that fails to cover the nipples.)
I suppose I'm opening a can of worms, and that people will deny that women's breasts are erogenous, or will insist that men's are equally so, or bring up belly buttons or earlobes or the nape of the neck.
Kind of, yeah. I mean, you'd have to poll, but as a woman who has a pair of breasts, and with a certain amount of experience with men, I'd say that while YMMV, there's a much bigger difference between men's and women's breasts/nipples in terms of how other people feel about them then in terms of the sensations directly attributable to them.
28: We make men cover their butts, which are about as erogenous as breasts.
That's just because men don't wipe very well.
To anecdotally contradict 28, my current (female) partner comes from very hard nipple squeezing and only from that.
How hard does she have to squeeze your nipples?
I always assumed that the covering-the-genitals bit had less to do with the fact that they're inherently gross than to do with the fact that it makes it significantly more difficult to maintain a general 'what is this 'sexual arousal'* I've never heard of such a thing' pretense in a wide variety of social contexts (e.g., in most workplaces or on the bus). So it functions in a similar way to doors on toilet stalls - I mean, it's not a mystery why you went in there, but we all kind of act like somehow it is.
Most erogenous zones don't actually involve this kind of signal, or when they do it's idiosyncratic enough, or subtle enough, or the sort of reaction that could be to any number of other things that it's not necessarily obvious what's happening.
*(Or, from what I can remember of being a teenager, ANY FUCKING THING IN THE WORLD. God I hated that.)
28: We make men cover their butts, which are about as erogenous as breasts.
Do we, though? I mean, I honestly don't know. Outside of deliberately targeted loose trouser laws, is mooning actually indecent exposure?
I think indecent exposure laws are really variable in detail from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so there may not be a general answer to that.
I don't really know the caselaw surrounding assless chaps.
I'll report back after Sunday.
But all chaps are assless--that's what makes them chaps!
Something something squats something something
When I mandate that all men wear speedos, I would be happy to add in a clause about everyone also required to be topless, except comfort really can be a reason to wear a bra (though, given the amount of support a string bikini offers, I guess I'm ok saying women have to be topless if they're not wearing a thick-strapped underwire.) Or instead of speedos, G-strings for everyone.
their butts, which are about as erogenous as breasts
I remember being surprised to discover this as a young man. I probably hadn't given the question of what might be erogenous on men much thought. Certainly whenever I've been catcalled by women—most recently early this year when I was on my bike—that's what it's been about.
@40: must be that idp is not "an assless chap".
I probably hadn't given the question of what might be erogenous on men much thought.
"Erogenous" means that it feels exciting to have it touched, not that it looks hot to others, so I bet you did give that question some thought before.
I know that, but thought I would carry forward Heebie's meaning, which seemed to me to be about "what looks hot to others" without quibbling.
I believe you were misreading heebie -- her comment makes sense using the actual meaning of erogenous.
As Miley Cyrus has pointed again many times (most famously while wearing tiny stars covering her nipples but otherwise bare chested on the tonight show (or some similar show)), we don't actually prohibit women from exposing their breasts--you can see all the breast tissue you'd like to see on any beach in the summer. What we prohibit women from exposing are their nipples. And nipples are not sex organs! their function is to feed babies. We like to touch them during sex, but we like to touch lots of things during sex. And men have them too. (Mens' nipples are arguably more purely sex organs than women's nipples--men's nipples have no other function.) Etc.
(And of course, while breasts are generally sexually dimorphous, they are also not really sex organs and additionally there are plenty small breasted women and large breasted men.)
Maybe so. I did assume that we were still talking about the visual impact, and wasn't thinking at all about touching. That's how I read your antecedent comment as well.
You were wrong about that one too, then. "The sensations directly attributable to them"? How could you read that as not about touching?
Also, re "the way men react to topless women is importantly different from the way women react to topless me", I personally have known women who have at times become sexually aroused at the sight of the bare chest of an attractive man. It might even happen more often if men's bare chests weren't commonly publicly displayed.
I think "sensations directly attributable to them" is not the right way to look at things. The sensation almost entirely depends on the context and a large part of the context is the visual impact of looking at who is doing the touching.
49 should say "topless men", not "topless me". Sorry, quote got cut.
By focusing on "how other people feel about them," I guess.
You're right that I seem to have missed the point, and am not sure I entirely get it now.
49: Well, yeah. The 'importantly' there can go back to the original post -- it's important enough to for the law to take notice of if a man's aroused when he doesn't want to be. If a woman is? Not important.
Does that mean I shouldn't bother lifting?
53: My claim in 28 is that any difference in how erogenous men's and women's breasts are ("the sensations directly attributable to them") is (IME, which certainly isn't universal) not nearly as great as the difference in how other people people react to looking at men's versus women's breasts. Clearer?
55: I think lots of pushups tends to produce better proportionality.
Is that like symmetry? I heard symmetry is supposed to be attractive.
If a woman is? Not important.
It might be, if women applied more sexualized violence toward men.
You could pursue asymmetry and see? Do a lot of lifting, but only on one side?
53:
That's clear. I had thought there was a comparison being made between the presumed impact of men looking at women's breasts and women's looking at other secondary characteristics, which there doesn't appear to have been.
59: Look, I've been meaning to get to it, but I've been busy.
We've been having our usual summer in 2-3 day doses lately, interspersed with 3-5 day intervals of fog, howling winds and 20 degree drops in temperature. Last Sunday was amazingly HOT out at Ocean Beach. There were a couple of 20s-ish Polish guys in Speedos taking pictures of each other and I thought "You are condemning every dude from Lodz who ventures here after you to freezing his nuts off."
They looked good in their vestigial suits tho!
They might be okay with it. I have fond memories of a trip to Ireland when I was a teenager; my family was all bundled up in sweaters and hats on the beach in a mist/light rain, drinking hot tea out of a thermos, when a busful of Germans in bathing suits drove up and jumped into the North Atlantic.
Not all Polish men have to copy either other.
64: my family holidays as a kid involved filling both roles in this sentence consecutively. I was about 17 when I first realised you could swim in the sea in relative comfort in some parts of the world.
We've had family from the north of England scoff at us for suggesting layers might be a good idea for the picnic at Point Reyes. And we've learned they'll be quietly grateful for all the extra clothes and blankets we hauled for them after they all recreat from their charge into the Pacific.
interspersed with 3-5 day intervals of fog, howling winds and 20 degree drops in temperature.
More of these, please.
I tried swimming at Tahoe last weekend and the water was warm in the shallows -- the shallows went pretty far out -- then icy about a foot below the surface. I was so confused. Finally I screwed up the courage to submerge myself, came up, tried a front crawl, and felt more like I was drowning than ever before in my life. I didn't seem to float at all. I can still feel those eddies of warmth and frigidity when I think about it, and how unnerving it was to be flailing like that so close to shore.
"Swimming is fucking hard," said my sister-in-law's husband when I slogged back into the bathwater zone, "especially at 7000 feet." Is it really? I do this sort of thing very rarely, but I was shocked.
I'm with 68 too.
68: I love that in a thread about nipples what you want is enjoyable weather.
70: That's a misunderstanding -- he's hoping for more erect nipples.
64
That actually takes training from a young age. I don't know about Germans specifically,* but as a kid, for my dad any air temperature above 60 and any water that wasn't actively frozen was fair game for mandatory swim time. We used to go to this resort in the mountains with a large sauna with a glacial runoff pool next to it, and during the day that was the kids' swimming pool. Also, the Northern Oregon coast has about 1 day a year the temperature is over 70 degrees. Like ajay, I was also in my late teens when I realized that natural bodies of water came in temperatures that ranged above "barely tolerable if you move constantly." Similarly, I was an adult before I realized making your kids swim in freezing water wasn't a universal thing.
*Well, outside of certain 18th century Prussian childcare manuals.
Sorry, claiming the awfulness that is 70. I never remember that my phone doesn't remember me.
I mean, I could say stuff about nipples too.
72: My dad grew up in Chicago, swimming in Lake Michigan. I grew up in Miami, swimming in a warm ocean and warmer swimming pools. I still struggle in water much below 75°.
74
IME, Lake Michigan has two seasons: fucking cold, and e.coli bloom.
Apparently, I can only do 16 push-ups in a row (if I'm doing them slowly). I better get at it before German beach weather comes this November.
I mean, I could say stuff about nipples too.
This seems like the ideal time and place to do so . . .
Seconding urple.
It's telling somehow that unattractive female breasts are still illegal to show - no withered grannies enjoying the benefit in the sunshine - and probably even more socially unacceptable, viz. what gets yelled at fat women exercising. We have a scheme to maximize titillation, not minimize arousal.
I've found Lake Michigan tolerably warm after June 1st, although it tends to get warmer through the summer.
As a kid in Ottawa I swam from 2 beaches on the Rideau Canal, hardly ever in pools. Before emigrating I'd hardly ever been in a pool, but in Ohio hardly ever swam anywhere else.
But the shock of the Atlantic Ocean, the Northumberland Strait to be exact, was extreme to my 7yr-old self. No cold since has ever compared with it. Lake Michigan is warm by comparison.
AIPMHB, the only time I swam in Lake Michigan, we found a considerable amount of money floating around. I assume somebody dumped a body without checking the guy for cash.
I swam in Lake Michigan for the first time this summer, putting aside once or twice right off of Chicago. That place is America's greatest secret unrecognized gift, except I guess for people already in the area. All the pleasures of a sandy beach, plus, not too hot, plus, when you're swimming, you're swimming in a lake and not an ocean so it's incredibly pleasant, plus you can boat around in it like it's the ocean. So so great, so much better than an ocean beach vacation. Only thing you can't do is surf but otherwise it turns out that unbeknownst to me the Great Lakes in summer are the tits when it comes to beach vacations.
I lobbied so hard for a resort on Lake Michigan for our family reunion. But whatever, Orlando in July has its appeal.
It does not, except for mouse fetishists.
If you want a really nice lake, don't forget that Lake Superior is far deeper than Lake Michigan. You float better with more water underneath you.
I suppose outside of Chicago the e.coli is not as bad during the summer. It's still ok in Chicago if you don't mind a few skin rashes here and there.
America's greatest secret
Your not-so-subtle attempt to undermine the Great Lakes Compact is noted.
Outside of Chicago it's too dark to read.
88: Inside of Chicago the wind keeps blowing the pages.
My guess is that the cover your genitals thing is a result of the rise of patriarchy with creation of agricultural societies. lots of hunter gatherers societies don't cover the genitals.
The bible explains that every body needs to cover their genitals on like page 6 then tells women "your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." Everybody knows getting women to cover themselves is part of patriarchy, but getting men to cover themselves is also a way of restricting female choice.
Gorillas have like 2 inch penises and there must have been a lot of sexual selection in the veldt until pants put a stop to things.
Actually, you can surf Lake Michigan.
90. 1: Among the exceptions - the Inuit.
I doubt there are many hunter-gatherer societies, or any other societies, that don't cover the genitals. There are (or at least were) quite a few that don't cover much else. Overall, though, I think clothing tends to correlate more with climate than subsistence practices.
There's been a lot of actual anthropological research on this, of course. I'm just not very familiar with it.
My grandfather said that in high plains Colombia in the 1930s there were two legal systems; the basically European one for men who wore pants, and the indigenous rule remained for those who didn't, even to death: if one in pants offended the locals by their laws, they could kill him. I'm getting the details wrong, and his narratives owed more to Kipling than Rawls, but he remembered it as meaning to allow really different cultures to coexist.
People are being crazy here - oceans are vastly better than lakes. With a lake you get a bunch of unpleasant disadvantages: the mucky bottoms; the odd plant growth; the sneaking suspicion that there's a sewage outflow nearby and nowhere for anything to escape to (or motive power to get it there); etc. A lake is basically just a pool that someone let sit way, waaaay too long without cleaning or sanitizing, next to some kind of unmaintained (usually) garden pretending to be a beach.
Some of those disadvantages are kind of there at the ocean, but to a much smaller degree at best, and generally not - and you get the most important bit which is that oceans are viscerally huge and powerful. You can't see the other side of Lake Michigan when you're sitting next to it, sure, but it's still a relatively calm bit of water that's clearly not going anywhere or particularly dangerous except for possibly drowning if you fall asleep in it from boredom. The Atlantic ocean, though, is massive and huge and powerful. It's like the difference between a sort of a moderate gloomy rain, just enough to make you uncomfortably wet, and a serious, powerful thunderstorm, which will get you just as soaked and uncomfortable when you get in but which is wildly exhilarating and fun to be out in.
Having recently seen Niagara Falls, I'd like to dispute the "No going anywhere." The crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald might have something to say about the danger of the Great Lakes.
97 And there's so much salt in the Gulf that you just pleasantly float.
Lake Superior definitely gives you the sense that it would kill you just for fun. If that's what you want from your bodies of water.
Most lakes don't have salt. Verdict: inferior.
The lake at my field site had salt, but on average no water. More inferior yet.
97. Lakes have no sharks: better. QED.
On one family vacation we stopped at Indiana Dunes (south end of Lake Michigan) for a day when the there happened to be a steady north wind, and it was quite ocean-like. But mostly rather small waves at various other locations on Michigan throughout the years. Saw Superior go from calm to Fitzgeraldesque in a day. (The museum at Whitefish bay is out of the way, but a nice little pace.)
Lakes have no sharks: better worse. QED.
but it's still a relatively calm bit of water that's clearly not going anywhere
There's a nice bit in The Persian Boy (the second book in Mary Renault's trilogy about Alexander the Great) when Alexander's armies finally make it to the ocean. They witness tides, and are all WHOA WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WHOAAAAAA. The locals explain: it always does that. The Macedonians/Persians/etc: huh. well, DAMN, YO, that's some crazy shit.
The crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald might have something to say about the danger of the Great Lakes.
The song makes it sound like the most languorous wreck in the history of boating, though.
I live near Lake Michigan now. Walking on the pier at the dilapidated harbor/waterfront at my town, I was surprised at how much it reminded me of the Atlantic beaches. Just the wind, and the smell of... mud and mollusks I guess. No need for salt, or tides.
As a kid in Ottawa I swam from 2 beaches on the Rideau Canal
I don't know that I ever swam from a beach on the Canal, but I certainly swam from some beaches on the Ottawa River. One of them was way up the Pontiac, near Sheenboro.
Asking someone to choose between an ocean or a lake is like asking someone to choose between the sublime or the beautiful.
I never heard that song.
Here, spend the next forty-eight years of your life listening to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vST6hVRj2A
It really is kind of mind boggling that this thing was not only recorded but a substantial radio hit! How the shit does that happen.
It's like the Lord Jim of pop songs.
Some of us really like Lord Jim.
I prefer the Gordon Lightfoot songs where he threatens the guy who's sleeping with his woman, like "Sundown".
"Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin." Quality lyricing there, Gordon.
Hey, I like the Edmund Fitzgerald song. And, to be honest, I've never read Lord Jim. Everything I know about it comes from Moby's comments here.
Marlowe figures out what happened with Terry Lennox.
Didn't work. I don't even understand that.
Now I'm listening to a Dandy Warhols cover. It's pretty awesome.
111: I could probably recite the lyrics to that (lengthy, and somewhat tedious) song with maybe only one or two minor errors. Growing up, Gordon ("One Chord Gord") Lightfoot was a national icon for us. I blame the CBC.
Also: one of my cousins once sat beside Gordy on a flight to Toronto. Apparently he was a good conversationalist, with a bit of an alcohol problem.
120: If you understood it, you'd know it's not a spoiler.
Speaking of alcohol problems, I just bought a pitcher of beer for a passing acquaintance who then said she was pregnant. Probably not my best act of charity. It was what she asked for.
121: They shave 1:40 off it, anyway. I kept waiting for it to go somewhere else.
I have been on Lake Superior (on the Isle Royale ferry) in a very nasty storm and it was no fun at all. I assume there wasn't actual danger, but the boat was regularly dropping several feet at a go. And everyone was vomiting, copiously, everywhere.
I like Gordon Lightfoot and, speaking of shipwrecks, one of my favorite songs of his is "Marie Christine" http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hSv4m--i8v8
I appreciate how odd it is. The song starts with a boat in danger or running against the rocks. But, by the end of the song you haven't learned whether or not they survive, you're starting to wonder if the song is really about a woman. And if it is the line, "of all the men who sailed on her, in truth I sailed her best" seems pretty risque.
It hadn't really sunk in how bizarrely, intensely boring that song is until I clicked on rfts's link just now. "Concluding some terms/with a couple of steel firms/when they left fully loaded for Cleveland" and "As big freighters go, she was bigger than most." Canada, WHAT IS YOUR DEAL???
It's like just when you think it can't get more bizarrely, intensely boring Canada has some new boring trick up its sleeve. Would you like to talk about Provincial Fisheries ministries? What up son, we're just getting started.
It is a quite remarkably prosaic lyric. I think on the strength of that I prefer Gordon Lightfoot when he's eating his tea, or washing his car, or doing anything that doesn't involve singing.
The locals explain: it always does that. The Macedonians/Persians/etc: huh. well, DAMN, YO, that's some crazy shit.
I'm confused. Why would Persians be flummoxed by tides?
Regrets, I've had a few.
But then again too few to mention
I did what the accountant said
and saw we got a tax exemption.
There's way too much nostalgia wrapped up in the Lightfoot song for me to pass judgment on it, but what's hilarious is that I subconsciously group Lightfoot with another monotone Canadian folkie, James Keelaghan, who has his own interminable shipwreck song.
My mother was secretary to the Federal Minister of Fisheries in Ottawa.
The beaches were Mooney's, at Walkley Rd., and Brighton, near Billing's Bridge.
My wife had Gord's earlier folk albums. I always thought of TEF's lyrics as faux naive, Crabbe for the seventies.
,
My mother was secretary to the Federal Minister of Fisheries in Ottawa.
As a lyric, that's an improvement over "I was a lineman for the county."
Back in HS some friends and I did a cover of the Lightfoot song with lyrics adapted to tell the sad sorry tale of how one of us wrecked his Datsun B210 when out drinking one night and hit a huge pothole. Complete with an old ship's bell one of us had.
Sing it again and put it on YouTube.
"Wreck" is sui generis and sort of beyond the sphere of judgement. It is also the best answer to the question, "What is the worst song to strip to."
As I believe I've posted here before, one of the docents I spoke with at the Whitefish Bay museum was an officer (bu not captain, maybe radioman) on the boat following the EF. He was crustily impatient with stupid tourists like us, but I gleaned that he clearly harbored a grudge against the Coast Guard--I think due to their not appreciating the intensity of the storm, and also not at first believing that a ship had gone under.
As I also believe I have mentioned one of my uncles moved in his later years to Grand Marais, a remote town that has the first "harbor" west of where the EF sank. At some point he was the "harbormaster" which he said mostly meant painting picnic tables, and collecting a few bucks from recreational boaters who docked there overnight; but after the EF the harbor had been dredged and designated as a refuge in case of a similar situation, so he had set of procedures about what to do if on the worst weather night ever, a huge fucking ore boat showed up in his relatively small cove. (His procedure was to hope it never happened, which it did not, and I think when I was up their last the harbor had become too shallow.)
The worst song to strip to is probably "Thank Heaven for Little Girls."
And speaking of the lakes, for small craft Erie is actually the most dangerous as its shallowness leads to it become quite choppy quite quickly in squalls and summer thunderstorms.
I am a lineman...
Interesting to see Glen Campbell show up in the film about Hava Nagilla—he used to perform it. Must have been filmed a few years ago, as he had Alzheimer's recently.
I read an interesting article at The American Conservative a few years ago about Galveston's status as an anti-war, or at least weary-of-the-war song for a demographic slow to turn against it.
142.1: No, the original is correct. Unfogged house style is to demonstrate despair at the passage of time by quoting all song lyrics in the past tense. Hence the James Brown hit is "I Felt Good" rather than "I Feel Good". "Maybe You Should Have Called Me" rather than "Call Me Maybe". And so on.
Percy Sledge, "When A Man Used To Love A Woman".
These days, linemen work for electrical districts or power companies.
Wichita Lineman reminds me of coming across a reference to Jim Webb in this Miles Davis blind listening thing:
http://www.forghieri.net/jazz/blind/Davis_4.html
There's several of those that Davis did over the years, and he's pretty harsh on almost everybody, but he likes Webb.
Difficult-to-Strip-to Hits, Vol. 1
as he had Alzheimer's recently.
He got better?
See, I don't know if he's still alive...
As I believe I've posted here before, one of the docents I spoke with at the Whitefish Bay museum was an officer (bu not captain, maybe radioman) on the boat following the EF. He was crustily impatient with stupid tourists like us,
That's what you want in a docent at a museum - hatred of tourists.
As far as Canadian folk songs about shipwrecks that seem inordinately concerned with the minutaie of the modern maritime business go Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a distant second to the reigning champion.
My wife was at a conference in San Jose a couple of years ago and decided to take in the Japanese-American museum. The docent asked her point blank: "Why are you here?"
I pissed off the tour guides at Meadowcroft by asking where they displayed the Schlitz cans from the most recent layer of the excavation.
Holy shit. John Boehner just resigned.
Is that actually a big deal in itself or just the logical next step down?
Whoa!
In favor of whom?
Did he specify or recommend a replacement? Or is this mostly just a 'fuck this and fuck you all' resignation?
Yes. They said the Meadowcroft site was still used for camping until recently. Based on when they started the excavation, I used logic to deduce Schlitz.
154, 156: It all just got too sad for him. He was going to drown in his tears.
156: According to The Atlantic, it means no government shutdown and funding for Planned Parenthood.
My guess? He's stepping down to spend more time with his liquor.
Well ok no, I think it's probably that he took one look at his faction in Congress and went "oh this is going to be awful fuck all this" and decided to just pass a sane budget without any wild gestures and then get the hell out before anyone can do anything about it.
The voting for a new Speaker is going to be a hilarious mess, though. I wonder if the Democrats are sneaking over and suggesting to the few sane Republicans there that they can choose between whatever nutcase the rest of the caucus is going to vote for or just vote for Pelosi and at least they'll be less humiliated that way.
Maybe they'll all feel sorry for how mean they were and vote in Eric Cantor.
Now that he's been speaker for a few years, it must be difficult to keep up the slog year after year knowing how much money and comfort are there for the taking in lobbying/consulting.
Wichita Lineman
I love Glen Campbell's 2004 performance on Jools Holland. It isn't flashy (though I really like his guitar solo), but very present. Considering that he must have sung that song hundreds of times he seems to genuinely enjoy performing it in that context.
As far as Canadian folk songs about shipwrecks that seem inordinately concerned with the minutaie of the modern maritime business go Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a distant second to the reigning champion.
I disagree that "Mary Ellen Carter" seems overly concerned with minutia -- the story is told economically, it's just the story isn't about the shipwreck, it's about the small group of crew members trying to recover the boat. Besides, how many songs have saved somebody's life (probably a good number, but it's still a good story).
Speaking of songs, "concerned with the minutaie of the modern maritime business" I'd mention the song fishing disputes between the Newfies and Spanish, "Seven Spanish Trawlers"*. Sample lyric, "Then Ol' Brian sent a letter off, / To Frazier in Ottawa: / You fellows better do something, / When they're breaking our fishing law."
* To the tune of, "Seven Spanish Angels" it's close to being a filk-song.
I'm confused. Why would Persians be flummoxed by tides?
I have no idea -- maybe the coasts of the Caspian Sea and gulfs of etc. are less tideful than the Indian Ocean, or maybe they were sheltered inland Persians.
As I just mistakenly posted in the other thread: it turns out the specific surprising, confusing thing was the tidal bore you get at the mouth of the Indus, which does sound super freaky and alarming. They thought it was a one-off terrible event.
I am annoyed that the internet does not appear to contain Don Freed's song about "the single most famous event" in Canadian History.
re: 165.1
Yeah, people forget these days, as he became so famous as a singer, that he was a top-notch first-call session guitarist, and one of the Wrecking Crew, and played on records by ... everybody.
166, 167: Mediterranean tides are certainly pretty puny. The tidal bore episode goes back to the ancient sources, Arrian I think. Bunch of Alexander's ships suddenly and unexpectedly beached at the Indus delta when the tide rushes out, and then smashed into one another when it comes rushing in again.
Tidal bore? More like TIDAL THRILL RIDE!
Speaking of which "super tides" this autumn!
Very large spring tides occur when these astronomical factors coincide. Approximately every 4.5 years the moon is closest to the Earth, and is also overhead at the equator, at either the March or September equinox. Astronomical tide levels through 2014 and 2015 are at their largest in an 18.6 year cycle when the earth, moon and sun align such that they combine to create a greater than normal force over the oceans.Run!!!
In some places, these extreme tidal conditions can cause water levels to be 0.5m higher than a normal spring tide......or not.
If that's a vertical half meter, that's huge, no?
I guess I don't know how quickly beaches slope.
Rise over run?
The Maritime History Museum in Victoria BC is delightful because the informative plaques have a lot of information, sometimes extending to a second smaller - font plaque or second chunk of lagan demonstrating what the problem was. I found the professional interpretive signs at the big provincial museums much less satisfactory.
Also the Maritime gift shop has a used book section from and for its enthusiasts, which is like the History Channel ( WWII and disasters!) except intellectually respectable.
Oh yeah, it can certainly be a thing. Especially if it is enhanced by weather; Sandy, for instance, hit last year at a relatively high spring tide which enhanced its impact. And in general, when combined with ongoing climate-related sea level rise, it is when you get the "hmm, the water never used to get to here" moments, so probably wrong of me to sport.
Rise over run?
The Maritime History Museum in Victoria BC is delightful because the informative plaques have a lot of information, sometimes extending to a second smaller - font plaque or second chunk of lagan demonstrating what the problem was. I found the professional interpretive signs at the big provincial museums much less satisfactory.
Also the Maritime gift shop has a used book section from and for its enthusiasts, which is like the History Channel ( WWII and disasters!) except intellectually respectable.
That actually made me check since I am sailing this weekend. There is a slightly bigger tidal range in spring tides at the moment than usual. The high tides are not really much higher but the low tides are 0.6 - 0.7 metres lower than they were in June.
Sorry, I mean that's true for where I am.
176: Sandy when it hit in 2012, I mean...recalled it was right before a big election, forget it was the presidential one.
oudie, potchkeh--ahh, tidal bore, now that makes sense!
The beaches were Mooney's, at Walkley Rd., and Brighton, near Billing's Bridge.
Mooney's Bay! Yes, I used to swim there (hadn't thought of it as part of the Rideau Canal, but the Rideau River, so: sure).
It's like just when you think it can't get more bizarrely, intensely boring Canada has some new boring trick up its sleeve. Would you like to talk about Provincial Fisheries ministries?
In my grade 5 social studies class, we studied the main forms and methods of natural resource extraction for every Canadian province, as well as for the two territories (N.B.: There are now three territories). "The cod fisheries of Newfoundland produce a bountiful ocean harvest." "Saskatchewan is sometimes called 'Canada's Breadbasket' because it produces more than half of Canada's wheat." Our textbook had pictures of fishing nets and grain silos and nickel mine elevators, and all of those photos were already depressingly dated, and only in black and white.
Our essential boringness is not accidental, but deliberate and strategic.
Or maybe it's what successful liberal policies actually look like when abstracted from the burdens of culture and history?
I dunno. It goes beyond explanation or comprehension. You could mandate axe-fights to the death in fur bikinis, but somehow if they took place in Sarnia, Ontario they would still be boring.
You could mandate axe-fights to the death in fur bikinis
But this would be in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Tsk, tsk, and here comes the Charter challenge...
See what I mean? Liberalism, unmoored and set free (no history, no culture) from the demands of "all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations," is really kind of incomprehensibly boring. There is a vacuum there; and it is bland and anodyne and stultifying.
Mooney's Bay, yes, and it was the river. The canal went right by our church in the Glebe; the fairgrounds and Landsdowne Park were just over the bridge. Did you skate on it?
185: Did I skate on the Canal?! Is the Pope Catholic? And was not I born and bred in Ottawa? Seriously, I used to love skating the Canal; the ice so fresh and clean, and after that long stretch, the promise of hot chocolate.
The Glebe was considered way classy where I grew up (which was not, ahem, The Glebe: not even close).
138: one of my uncles moved in his later years to Grand Marais, a remote town
Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Grand Marais? Remote? We're not talking about Crookston or something. Grand Marais is a pretty easy drive up from the Cities -- stop at Tobey's for cinnamon rolls, maybe check out the head shop in Duluth. Grand Marais is not the kind of town where the only excitement for the local sports is to gather outside the barbershop on Saturday nights, and sniff the customers as they come out.
There are two Grand Marais z.
is the Pope Catholic
Communist, actually.
Well, that's a horse of a different color.
Speaking of Grand Marais, MI this was probably my favorite long-form journalism piece, admittedly not saying much, this year. The UP is, apparently, the bar capital of the USA. So close to boredom nation, so far from God.
That's a good piece. We make an annual trip to visit friends in a tiny town on the Superior coast of Wisconsin (near the Apostle Islands; worth a visit) and it has a gas station, no grocery, two bars.
IDP and Jane, So/uthmin/ster? I'm spending a lot of time here these days, and I can see the Glebe from the balcony.
The Apostle Islands are not on the way to anywhere.