The city of New York photographed every building in the five boroughs for property tax assessment purposes. The city's photographers took more than 700,000 pics as a result.
Year: 2018
Post
Finally Entering the Public Domain
We're finally getting some « spectacular stuff » released into the public domain on New Year's Day (screw you Disney!).
Post
WWI Collides with D&D and Memes
It’s two years old, but I’m just seeing it for the first time. It’s « one of the best visual “explainers” » I’ve seen that describes the spark which ignited World War I. It tells the story of that horrible June day in 1914 via a series of memes and the lens of a Dungeons...
Post
A Handy Dandy Guide to the Known Universe
This interactive map of the universe is extremely helpful in understanding our (very, very small) position in space.
Post
Why Do All New Apartment Buildings Look the Same?
The « bland, boxy apartment boom is a design issue, and a housing policy problem. » | Curbed.
Post
End of Year Retrospectives: 75 Book Covers
"There are some gems among the 75 Best Book Covers of 2018."
Post
Deadly Chinese Fentanyl is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins
"Fentanyl's potency has « transformed the global trafficking — and policing — of narcotics."
Post
11:00 | 11-November-1918
100 years ago today, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the guns along the 440-mile line stretching from Switzerland to the North Sea fell silent. The war started 1 August 1914 just as German Chancellor Otto von Bismark once famously predicted around 1884, by "some damned fool thing in the Balkans;" in this case, the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, a city of agony in the 20th century). But on 11 November 1918, it was finally "all quiet on the Western Front."
Post
9 November: Schicksalstag
In the next few days, there will be much remembrance of the events of 100 years ago—the end of World War I. Not as much in the U.S., where World War I is like the Korean War, a largely forgotten conflict, even though 115,516 Americans died between 1917-1918, along with over 320,000 sickened, most in the influenza epidemic of 1918.
Post
Robicheaux by James Lee Burke
It's absorbing, it sometimes makes you flinch, and it's always about the bottom feeders and sharks of the dark underbelly of the American aquarium, and it always makes for fun reading.
Post
World War II After World War II
"There are obviously many websites on WWII weapons, and many on post-war weapons, but I have always been fascinated with WWII weapons being used after the war."
Post
Tragically Brilliant
Steve Bell’s ‘toons for The Guardian are always brilliant. But «in this one», he’s surpassed himself.
Post
Beery Originalist Quotables
Here are a few Original Originalist quotes worth Originally quoting, from a few of our first Original Founders:
Post
Every Building
"On this page you will find maps showing almost every building in the United States. Why did we make such a thing? We did it as an opportunity for you to connect with the country’s cities and explore them in detail."
Post
German Roofer Finds Message from Grandfather
A message in a bottle on the roof of a Goslar, Germany, cathedral was found by the grandson of the writer. An authentic lesson from history: “On March 26, 1930, four roofers in this small west German town inscribed a message to the future. “Difficult times of war lie behind us,” they wrote. After describing...
Post
Squeezed to Death
"On every airline flight, a crew member talks to passengers in the exit rows to see whether they can, as Federal Aviation Administration regulations specify, “pass expeditiously through the emergency exit” if needed. Given how passengers have grown in inverse proportion to the spaciousness of airliner seats, anything like “expeditious” evacuation of an entire airliner seems doubtful."
Post
Of Manifestoes and Buildings and Truman and Stuff
[Edited two days later to fix some typos and unclear, stream-of-consciousness-type unclear phrases.] During the recent effort to rename the Russell Senate Office Building, it would have been nice to remember that both Richard Russell, the building’s current namesake, and John McCain, the proposed replacement namesake, (while useful tools to poke the likes of President...
Post
Atomic Poetry
On 1-Jun-1945, six weeks after the death of Franklin Roosevelt, new U.S. President Harry Truman convened a meeting to update the status on and debate the use of the soon-to-be-born atomic bomb. But first, at the Pentagon, a group consisting of James Byrnes (soon to be Secretary of State), generals George C. Marshall and Leslie...
Post
The Conscience Stirs
I pretty much wish I had remained disconnected from FB while also being innovative enough to stay connected to the real people in my life without Facebook's corrupting middle man kleptocracy. I sense that there is another housecleaning coming; my involvement will need to be further curtailed. I'm thinking of what we can do next ... there are far better possibilities, surely, than this unholy mess of greed and venality.
Post
TCM Tonight: Summer Under the Stars – Joan Crawford
Of COURSE we had to watch some Joan tonight. Not taking time to behold the wonder that is our patron saint, Lucille LeSueur, would be anathema, blasphemy, time wasted! First up was 1952’s Sudden Fear — Joan with Jack Palance, Gloria Grahame, Bruce Bennett, Virginia Hudson and Mike “Touch” / “Mannix” Connors. David Miller directed. Playwright...
Post
‘Splaining Things to the Kids
A Democratic Socialist explains «what Democratic Socialism actually is»: Not just a return to the halcyon days of the New Deal. “I’m a staff writer at the socialist magazine Jacobin and a member of DSA, and here’s the truth: In the long run, democratic socialists want to end capitalism. And we want to do that...
Post
Remembering the Past
Remembering Bill Schock on his 100th birthday … and the 52nd anniversary of Braniff 250 in Falls City. Also … feeling old from … time flying and stuff. Since the AM2431 crash in Durango a few days ago appears to be from weather-related causes, never forgetting the lessons of BN250, as well as CO426, OZ809,...
Post
Those Who Forget the Past …
Looks like my second book (about microburst crashes) just gained a new chapter, «as described at AvHerald». Passenger-point-of-view videos are also posted; pretty amazing. (Don’t watch if you can’t deal with intemperate language spilling out of people who are slammed to the ground and cheating death.) And if you want to know what really happened...
Post
Treading a Careful Path in Post-Castro Cuba
"There is a discrete left-opportunist trend that seeks to throw all developments in Cuba post-1959 into the dustbin and forget about it. This does as little for us as the right-opportunist line; both fail to grasp the full reality of revisionist corrosion and capitalist restoration in Cuba, although one cloaks itself in stultified theory."
Post
Warm Summer Night
Is there anything better than a warm summer night playing in – er, rather sitting near the lawn sprinkler under a street light while watching the 21:00 evening arrivals at KBNA? Well, maybe if I was still 10 …
Post
For Bill
Back in 2014, I included a chapter in my book detailing Bill Schock's war experiences as they related to his reporting on the crash of Braniff International flight 250 in 1966.
Post
A Final “Hangin’ Out the Warsh”
«This is Bill’s final column» out of countless ones he wrote over 71 years for the Falls City Journal. With this column, he said farewell; the Journal has been sold and moved to a much smaller space in downtown Falls City which it had occupied until 1950. It’s all extremely symbolic of the state of...
Post
More Grief
This is kind of like how I feel about my (possibly four) upcoming surgeries: I don’t want to do this, but I have to, and I hate it. Received a kind e-mail yesterday telling me of the death of Bill Schock of Falls City, NE, on Thursday evening, six weeks short of his 100th birthday....
Post
History as Prophecy
I have been attempting to read «Michael Burleigh's The Third Reich: A New History» since it came out in 2000. Instead, I've read «William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich» twice. Nothing wrong with anything I've read of Burleigh's work; quite the contrary. In fact, it has to do with how big the book is; the first edition is 950-plus pages and weighs a ton and I've had hand/wrist problems since, well, 2000. And I have Rise and Fall on Kindle.
Post
Dean Allen, RIP (Jan. 2018)
Because so much has been messed up and unstuck during the first half of this god-awful year, I just discovered the other day that Dean Allen, the creator of Textpattern, which powers this site, and of TextDrive, which used to host this site until Joyent destroyed it, and of «Textism» and Textile and Cardigan Industries...
Post
Latest Bad News: Sascha
Did you ever have one of “those” years? For me, 1993 was my, as the Queen said, “annus horribilus.” But 2018 is… Posted by Steve Pollock on Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Post
We're Ready …
While waiting for “Sunset Boulevard” on Sunday at Opry Mills, Carol, Frank and I were … say it with me … “All right, Mr. DeMille, [we’re] ready for [our] close-up!” Posted by Steve Pollock on Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Post
Sunset Boulevard!
Seeing Sunset Boulevard on the big screen Sunday was pretty fabulous. Noticed many things you can’t see on the tee-wee…. Posted by Steve Pollock on Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Post
BA223 Arrives
Welcome to KBNA, 787-8 BA223, arriving on 20R after an 8 hour, 56 minute flight from LHR. British Airways began five-times-a-week, nonstop service between London Heathrow and Nashville International last week and I’ve been trying to get the beautiful Dreamliner on film all week and the stars aligned today. Not great lighting, but I got...
Post
That Curtain-y Feeling
That feeling you get when you hang your first curtains in the first house you ever owned? Priceless. Posted by Steve Pollock on Monday, April 30, 2018
Post
His Royal Snit Fit
Portrait: His Imperial Majesty The Roux throws the Royal Snit Fit, leading His Court in vocal protests against All This Infernal Packing. Again, sorry for poor video quality. You takes ‘em as you gets ‘em.) Posted by Steve Pollock on Thursday, April 26, 2018
Post
The Vet, Again.
Mr. Goose is on his way to a nail trim and latest shots. He’s always up for a ride. Meanwhile, hiding from the camera… Posted by Steve Pollock on Monday, April 23, 2018
Post
Welcome to the Neighborhood
The moment when you close on your house and your new neighbor welcomes you with a giant batch of chocolate chip… Posted by Steve Pollock on Monday, April 23, 2018
Post
Oh Frabjous Day!
It’s official!!! Frank opens the door for the first time on the first house he/we have ever owned! “Oh frabjous day!… Posted by Steve Pollock on Monday, April 23, 2018
Post
Shooting Up the Waffle House, Naked
In all this pouring (and pouring and pouring) rain, how difficult is it to find a naked man running around after he assaulted a Nashville Waffle House at 3 a.m. with an AR-15 and killed four people? And this after he was arrested last July by the Secret Service for being in a restricted area...
Post
Closing Tomorrow
Closing on the new house at 11 a.m. tomorrow! VERY happy. His Majesty is preparing final addresses for the Cats of Saddlebrooke/Hermitage, then he and the Royal Court will be off at the end of the week to invade and conquer the new land of Jonesboro/Nashville. Wish him luck; there is a very giant, very...
Post
Entitle This
Rep. Larson Slams GOP for Labeling Medicare and Social Security 'Entitlements' Congressman John Larson (D-Conn.) scolded Republicans in a fiery speech on Thursday, criticizing their use of the word "entitlements." "Newsflash! It's the insurance that the American people have paid for." Posted by IJR Blue on Friday, April 13, 2018
Post
Moving to Donelson
On the road again … Moving packing has begun! Heading back to Donelson (yay!) to a smaller house (yay!) with no… Posted by Steve Pollock on Thursday, April 12, 2018
Post
Deer Tracks
With the recent freeze/heat weather cycle, the Saddlebrooke Deer Herd are a little pressed for food, it appears. The… Posted by Steve Pollock on Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Post
Goose's Most Favoritist Thing in the World
Goose loves when the sun goes down, because it makes great reflections off the phone, which is his MOST. FAVORITIST. Thing. IN. THE. WORLD!!!!! to chase. Tails are for pikers. He gets very excited, which in turn Wholly Displeases His Imperial Majesty The Roux, who is then bothered and obliged to Issue Verbal Correction to...
Post
Bosco Comes Home
Bosco came home today. He now takes his place next to Bayley, Feargal and Fred. Thanks again to Lap of Love’s Dr. Regan… Posted by Steve Pollock on Wednesday, April 4, 2018