Race Jumping/Steeplechasing: a rose by any other name

So, I came across a bit of incredibly self-serving, biased fluff in defense of steeplechases yesterday.  In case you're not familiar with the sport of steeplechasing, let me post this for you:



The argument that it's "tradition" is specious.  Slavery, child marriage, and genital mutilation of children are all "traditions," too, but that doesn't make them good or right.  Barbarism is barbarism, regardless of cultural swing.

The most common "defense" I've seen of steeplechasing/race jumping?

"The horses love it, too--they must, ever try to make a horse do something he doesn't want to?"

Oh, stop.  Hush.  Do you REALLY believe that's meaningful?  Horses are animals, and animals can be (and often are) trained to do dangerous things ALL the time.  Through the basics of conditioning, not only can they be trained to do dangerous things, they can be trained to WANT to do them.  They don't perceive the danger the way we do, they don't understand the risks.  They don't GET that they're being abused and endangered.  Hell, you can train a dolphin to be happy about carrying a BOMB on its back.  Doesn't make it a good thing.

I'm no PETA member.  I occasionally eat meat.  I occasionally wear leather (from non-endangered creatures).  I see the difference between chicken sandwiches and cock fighting.  One is food, and the other is the willful torture of animals for the sole purpose of entertainment.  I put jump racing in the same category as pit bull fighting.  Arguing that you "love them" rings disingenuous when you're putting them in danger every time they're on the track.  Serious, immediate, potentially life-ending danger.  Love?

I don't think so.  I think you're having fun, the casualties be damned.

And yes, I feel the same way about horse racing in general.  This is like that, plus awful.

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Hoping to hit a new cemetery or two this weekend while the boy is playing paintball.  We got him a marker and barrel for his birthday, but he's been sick for a couple of weeks now, hasn't had a chance to play.  We didn't get him anything fancy (we can't afford that), but he says these products are good and will do the job.  I hope so.  

Here they are, in case you're curious:

  

That's a link to Amazon, where we bought it.

Another link, also to Amazon, where we purchased.

I'm hoping this turns out okay.  There is, of course, the fear that it's crap, that it won't work, that it'll break, etc.  I sometimes fantasize about what it would be like to just not worry about that stuff because you have the cash to replace things that break.

I don't fantasize for long because I've never been there.  I don't have a frame of reference.

Anyway, one of the cemeteries is an old pre-Civil War to 1900 jobber.  Used to be a church cemetery until the church blew away to Oz.  Looks like it might be tick-heavy and poison ivied, but it's only 40% photographed, and I'd like to make a difference.

Hopefully my back and knees will be kind.  Hopefully there won't be any bear traps.  

Or banjo players.

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:

An update here:  the landlord is booting us, has given us 60 days notice to vacate.  This isn't an eviction--he says we're the best tenants he's ever had, has offered a glowing reference.  But he's selling, and he needs us out so he can do that.  Which leaves us utterly screwed and possibly facing homelessness.  Truly.  So please.

Doahn Beh Stooopid

This absolute nut-fuggery came across my Facebook feed today, and I felt compelled:

DIVORCE AGREEMENT--
WRITTEN BY YOUNG COLLEGE STUDENT
The person who wrote this is a college (law) student. Perhaps there is hope for us after all.


DIVORCE AGREEMENT


THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT'S BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!! WHATEVER HE RUNS FOR, I'LL VOTE FOR HIM.

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al: We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a our separation agreement:


--Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

--We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.


--You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.
--Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.

--We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and the coal mines, and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel.


--You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.

--We'll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.


--You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless, homeboys, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens.

--We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks.


--We'll keep Bill O'Reilly, and Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood . 

--You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.


--You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

--We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.


--You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

--We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Volt and Lea f you can find.


--You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.


--We'll keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The National Anthem."

--I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute "Imagine", "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", "Kum Ba Ya" or "We Are the World".


--We'll practice trickle-down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.

--Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.


Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you might think about which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,


John J. Wall


Law Student and an American


P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin & Charlie Sheen, Barbara Streisand, ( Hanoi ) Jane Fonda with you.


P.S.S. And you won't have to press 1 for English when you call our country.

I'm sharing this because it's probably the stupidest thing I've seen slide across my feed in a long, long time.  It's so stupid, in fact, that my first thought was "this must be a joke, it's satire, because no one is actually . . . well, that stupid."  A "law student" wrote this?   I'm trying to imagine a situation where that might be true.  I suppose, perhaps, a very rich, not particularly bright, breathtakingly entitled and sickeningly racist law student whose rich daddy and rich mommy have paid his way may have written it.  Or maybe a painfully hypocritical, student-aid using, scholarship-sucking, public education-enjoying law student.  But not a real person.  No.  No, this reads like every bad stereotype, and it is horrifying that anyone could possibly take this garbage seriously.

The person who chucked this my way said it gave her "Hope for us after all."

"Hope for us after all?"  No, after reading this (and realizing that we've churned out dullwits who would lend it an ounce of credence), I am feeling a lot less hopeful.

All that said, let's talk about it.  Let's talk about the fact that the states who vote the reddest are almost always the states that eat up the most in federal aid.  The states that whine the loudest about federal regulation are the ones whose citizens are most often facing threats to water and air safety because they keep voting for people who don't give two spits about them.  Let's talk about people whose medical bills have landed them living in their car, and yet they decry the "marxists."  You have been so hoodwinked.  You have been convinced that voting against your own best interests is somehow in your best interest.  The whole idea of "you can keep redistributive taxes, we don't like 'em" is a JOKE--you don't like them until some big coal company dumps a few tons of toxic waste in your water or a hurricane hits.  And then you like 'em just fine.

What this boils down to, at its most basic, is this: convincing stupid people to blame those even less fortunate than themselves for the state of things is the best way to create a mindless, cohesive voting block. All you have to do is get them to hate immigrants/gays/the poor/the sick, and voila! They're like a ballistic voting machine, just point 'em in the right direction and push the button! And it's human nature.  It is, it is human nature to blame the weak, to scapegoat, to otherwise point a finger at those who are in dire straights, because if you can BLAME them, you can feel like that'll never happen to YOU.

The vilifying of "intellectuals" has certainly helped this along.

I would actually love to see this traitorous and ridiculous new "America" come into being, because the floundering and failure would be a joy to see.  No military (no, you don't get to have them because our "redistributive taxes" pay for them, for their equipment, and for their training and upkeep.  Make your own military--you can probably conscript folks who've fallen on hard times, financially.  Perhaps restore slavery), no colleges (except the stray religious institution, which is hardly higher education and could only be afforded by the rich), and no hospitals.  Not with health care being a "luxury."  Stunted industry, zero ability to cope with natural disasters, and an infrastructure that, without those fancy taxes, crumbles to nothing in short order.  The very idea is so astoundingly immature that, again, I find myself wondering if it's not really satire.

And finally?  The utterly disingenuous and purely incorrect claim that the left is the realm of welfare and slobs and junkies, when study after study shows that the red states are, more often, the desperate resource suckers.  You want the highest level of federal "welfare" spending?  Again, of the top twenty federal dollar-sucking states, sixteen vote red.

That anyone would be so shortsighted as to say something like "You keep your solar, wind and bio, we'll keep the coal and oil" speaks volumes.  This is what happens when an education system fails and a political structure falls into the hands of a corporate power grid that benefits from ill-educated people who don't have any sort of realistic grasp of this nation (or this world, for that matter).   People who are proud of polluting, who wear their irresponsibility and lack of foresight as a badge of honor.  I saw a gigantic black pick-up truck the other day, jacked up halfway to Mars and covered with crappy Teabagger stickers, including one that read "Prius Killer."  Slack-jawed doesn't begin to cover it.

Can we keep Ted Turner, a multi-millionaire?  Can we keep folks who've spoken up against perceived injustice?  Like Americans are supposed to?  Whether they were right or wrong, they spoke up, and they did so using the big words and doing their best to understand the issues.  I'd take them over your George Zimmermans and Ted "Poopy-Pants Draft-dodger" Nugent any day.

Did I use the word "stupid" an awful lot here? Yes, I did, because when this sort of racist, mindless, thoughtless, careless, mouthing puppetry comes across my feed, it's the only word I can come up with that isn't truly, deeply offensive.  When I see someone argue that Americans should be controlled by corporate interests, should support corporate welfare, should support a system that allows business to control politics, I get mad.  When I see someone jab at the poor, ridicule Americans who take their love of country so seriously they DO something rather than pass around some dull-witted, ill-conceived, mean-spirited spray of vomit on Facebook or wave a flag while wearing a hat dangling tea bags, I get even madder.  And when I come across someone so utterly foolish that they actually believe that "pressing one for English" somehow DAMAGES them (what, is your finger broken?  You only have a finite number of button presses in you and you're almost out?), I want to scream.

And finally, spectacularly, amazingly?  The bag-o-hair dimwit who splattered this crap across my wall?  Is HISPANIC.

HISPANIC!  And not just ANY Hispanic, but Hispanic and spent time LIVING IN HER CAR BECAUSE THE MEDICAL BILLS FROM HER HUSBAND'S CANCER SURGERY WIPED HER OUT!  She says living in her car is so much more "convenient" because it allows her to travel where she needs to be for him without worrying about . . . blah, blah, blah.

I know.  The mind positively BOGGLES, GOGGLES, and WOBBLES at the self-deception there.

And for the record?  My Grandpa was an immigrant, and if dimbubbles like this had had their way, he'd never have gotten off that boat.

That's my rant.  These folks said it better OVER HERE and HERE.

What a Spectacular Day!

So, we drove into DC-ish yesterday (now day before yesterday--took me two days to type this!).  First near, then into town proper.  See, when we went to Mount Vernon earlier this month, I spotted an amazing, almost medieval-looking fortress across the Potomac as we drove up the George Washington Parkway (known by locals as "the GW").  It captured my imagination, and I've been wanting to check it out ever since.

Fort Washington from the GW Parkway

This behemoth, it turns out, is Fort Washington. Completed in 1809, it was scuttled five years later by its own garrison to prevent the invading British, who were approaching both overland and by way of the Potomac, from benefiting from its strategic location.

We weren't really expecting to even get out of the car.  This was my hunting trip, hubby wasn't too enthused, and my back and heel/plantar fasciitis have been giving me grief.  I figured it was going to be a drive-by sort of visit, something to use up the time between then and dark, when we were going to go into town and see the monuments all aglow.

Arriving, we were immediately faced with this--and I was already in love.  I figured the fort itself would be off-limits, but look at this!

And this!

As we continued driving, it appeared that it was just a loop through park-like grounds.  Disappointing, but still, a pretty diversion.  But then we saw a sign for a side-lane promising a lighthouse and river walk!  Still didn't feel like I wanted to do much walking, but it might make for some nice pictures, right?

The place was nearly deserted for a Sunday, and parking was a breeze.  We parked next to the (clean, open!) bathrooms and decided to walk in.  Just a little walk. 

Just a few hundred feet in, we were greeted by this:

And then this guy:

Before really attending to the gigantic fortress on the hill, we strolled down to the small, still-operational lighthouse on the shore below:

Lighthouse overlooking the Potomac

  After that?  I climbed a very steep hill to reach the water battery, which is where the cannons protecting the water way were placed:

Water Battery

    Advancing on the fortress proper, we stumbled upon . . . BAG END!

Bag End (post Sharkey, I'm thinking)

     And the SHIRE!

The Shire, again, after Sarumon's scouring

    Checking out the gate (the stairway is closed at the top), I managed to capture a REAL LIVE GHOST ORB!. 

Ghost orb near left-top of inner arch.  No, I don't believe in ghost orbs.

   

After checking out the gate, we walked around to the main entrance, where the drawbridge once lived:

Drawbridge

Drawbridge



Gosh yes.

The drawbridge stretch is now, of course, a permanent strutcture.  Made of plywood, which left me a little iffy, but I was game.  I was hanging back a bit, with hubby and son a ways ahead.  I like to take a lot of pictures (you can probably tell, huh?).  When I got into the guard's rooms, hubby came RUNNING back, and he was talking a mile a minute, pointing things out, incredibly excited.  I can't even tell you how happy that makes me--his imagination was absolutely ablaze. 



Guard Quarters

Yes, those are cannon balls!

Once inside, it became clear just how huge this place really is. The scale sort of escapes you when you're on the outside looking UP. Sure, it's big, but big enough for two mansion-sized barracks, cannon batteries, out-buildings, and parade grounds? Why yes--yes it is!

Hubby and son ran all over the place--down the steep stairs to check out the gun ports while I wandered about the upper battery.  I chatted with a few folks--there weren't many there, but those present were quite friendly.  It was a gorgeous day, maybe 55 degrees, with enough of a wind that you wanted to keep moving.  One gentleman told me he'd seen the fireworks from the fort, but that they weren't all that impressive because they were so far away.  One lovely woman who was caring for an elderly gentleman told me to be sure and come back in the spring when the trees have fully leafed.  And the young Ranger, who was very friendly and kind, talked about both his love of the job and the plans for the fort in the future.  He said that they're working on fire suppression systems for the two barracks so they can open them up to the public with period artifacts. 

Officer's Barracks

Enlisted Men's Barracks (with our Ranger)

While the two barracks look the same, there is a major difference--the inside of the Officer's Barracks are sectioned into private quarters, whereas the Enlisted Men's Barracks are split into four equal rooms (two per floor), where bunks are arranged.  No privacy for the enlisted men.

Sadly, the place closes at 4 pm during winter hours, so we were soon on our way out, though we're planning on returning later this week. That will give us the chance to more fully explore the backside of the battlements and the Commandant's Quarters, which we only saw from a distance this time around.

Commandant's Quarters.  Had to work really hard to get it tilted like that.

It wasn't until after we got home that we discovered hubby had brought home a hitchhiker.  A bloodsucking, scuzzbucket hitchhiker from hell.  Oh, I hate ticks!  Including the tick, though, the cost for a day at Fort Washington?  Five bucks, and the parking is free.  Bring along a picnic lunch and there you go--a beautiful, affordable day.

Hubby's tick--should have taken the pic while it was still embedded in his shoulder, huh?

After we left the glorious Fort Washington, we headed into DC proper to visit the FDR Memorial.  We've been before.  Repeatedly, in fact.  It's a favorite.  But I'd never seen it at night, and hubby strongly recommended it.  Boy, was he right!  I'm not going to post about that now, though.  This is a big, long blog entry and if you've made it this far, I owe you a break.  And a Twinkie, huh?  And maybe I won't even have to pay 200 bucks for a box!

Hope you enjoyed!  I strongly recommend you visit Fort Washington, especially if you or your kids have a love for castles, fortresses, war history, or just really big, cool places.  The feel is European, and if you've ever read or watched Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's series, you'll feel like you're in the middle of it.  Go (and bring the DEET and Permethrin)--you won't be sorry you did.

Oh, and please forgive the Tolkien references.  You gotta admit, though, right?