Kenosha Cadillac
A Kenosha Cadillac is what we around here used to call a Rambler. I had seriously considered this as a name for this blog (strangely, blog is not yet an official Word). After all, it’s a lot like “the wandering”. It comes to mind today because I think I’ll just ramble a bit.I did a lot more research on the Pope, and as to anyone who might achieve some lofty status there are, of course, positives and negatives. John Paul II was highly critical of the concept that the free market can successfully arbitrage all social contracts. From Ecclesia in America:
More and more, in many countries of America, a system known as "neo-liberalism" prevails; based on a purely economic conception of the human person, this system considers profit and the law of the market as its only parameters, to the detriment of the dignity of and the respect due to individuals and peoples. At times this system has become the ideological justification for certain attitudes and behavior in the social and political spheres leading to the neglect of the weaker members of society. Indeed, the poor are becoming ever more numerous, victims of specific policies and structures which are often unjust.
In America neo-liberalism (Clinton) and neo-conservatism (Bush) amount to the same thing, currently the middle of the water slide. Fox didn’t mention this aspect of the Pope’s teachings. Neither in any meaningful way did CBS, NBC or any of the other members of the vast “left wing conspiracy” of mass advertising shucksters. On and on they went with the heroism of the Pope in helping to dismantle collectivism in Russia—not a word about his desire to see capitalism infused with a healthy dose of social consciousness.
page 2 (sorry, Paul Harvey)
After twenty years or so of faithful service, I had to retire my Trac II shaver. Apparently Gillette has taken the plunge and stopped production of blades for this stalwart, as I can no longer find them at the Incredibly Cornucopious Super Wal Mart Center, and Amazon says “nope” too. Where else does one turn? Someone is on to this and has distributed a generic blade, apparently manufactured from the hundreds of miles of rusting scrap metal the Chinese pile alongside of and allow to steadily leech into their rivers. Not good, and so I entered the 21st Century in a big way as my petite roux cheri brought home the very spiffy Gillette Mach 3 supershaver.
Apparently* think tanking at Gillette in the search of the latest breakthrough in scraping a blade across one’s face, a job that must be one of the toughest in the world, nevertheless attracts a pretty good bunch. The flow-through head is so easy to clean and it pivots too! This may sound to you youngins like an old Appalachian man discovering indoor plumbing for the first time and that would be nearing the point. All these improvements did little to assuage my grousing little mind in that 5 refills for this little baby cost twice as much as 10 for the Trac II that was perfectly good for all those years and….
God Dammit, why can’t they leave things well enough alone?
There are other signs of impending Ed Mertzness. The other day—and apparently someone decided long ago there would only be one other day—I was heating some soup. Somehow I just left the soup on and got engrossed in changing all the clocks, and then watching the ending of An Affair to Remember for the thousandth time. Before I could again come to the semi-annual conclusion that no combination of buttons on the wave radio remote was going to adjust the time, from the kitchen I heard the mom-in-law chirp, “Soup’s done.”
“I would think so, after a half hour,” I muttered to myself as I dreaded discovering just how thoroughly I had bonded Progresso minestrone soup into the stove top. With the clock thingy and all I was thinking that all I needed was another chore on this busy Sunday afternoon. Perplexingly, the soup was perfect and hadn’t boiled over, burned or even scummed itself and I went off to enjoy it. About an hour later I was returning the dish to the sink and saw to my horror that the burner was still flaming away on medium high and…..
God Dammit, they can send a man to the moon, why can’t they do something about this?
Well, now that I have that off my Sansabelted chest it’s time for:
Apparently* think tanking at Gillette in the search of the latest breakthrough in scraping a blade across one’s face, a job that must be one of the toughest in the world, nevertheless attracts a pretty good bunch. The flow-through head is so easy to clean and it pivots too! This may sound to you youngins like an old Appalachian man discovering indoor plumbing for the first time and that would be nearing the point. All these improvements did little to assuage my grousing little mind in that 5 refills for this little baby cost twice as much as 10 for the Trac II that was perfectly good for all those years and….
God Dammit, why can’t they leave things well enough alone?
There are other signs of impending Ed Mertzness. The other day—and apparently someone decided long ago there would only be one other day—I was heating some soup. Somehow I just left the soup on and got engrossed in changing all the clocks, and then watching the ending of An Affair to Remember for the thousandth time. Before I could again come to the semi-annual conclusion that no combination of buttons on the wave radio remote was going to adjust the time, from the kitchen I heard the mom-in-law chirp, “Soup’s done.”
“I would think so, after a half hour,” I muttered to myself as I dreaded discovering just how thoroughly I had bonded Progresso minestrone soup into the stove top. With the clock thingy and all I was thinking that all I needed was another chore on this busy Sunday afternoon. Perplexingly, the soup was perfect and hadn’t boiled over, burned or even scummed itself and I went off to enjoy it. About an hour later I was returning the dish to the sink and saw to my horror that the burner was still flaming away on medium high and…..
God Dammit, they can send a man to the moon, why can’t they do something about this?
Well, now that I have that off my Sansabelted chest it’s time for:
Page 3
The Guinness Book of World Records states that The Guinness Book of World Records is the most stolen book from public libraries. I wondered if there might be some self-service leaking out of that claim, so I’ve looked a little deeper. It seems the type of literature most stolen from libraries is about the occult. It’s suspected that this is a type of vigilante censorship by the righteous. However, it turns out that the single book most stolen is likely the Bible, it would follow from the previous theory by atheists.
And now you know…………………..the wrest of the Story.
And now you know…………………..the wrest of the Story.
* "Apparently" the author left the room sometime before the needle got stuck on this word!
posted by sequoit @ 8:06 PM
1 Comments:
What with all these miraculous pivots we have in our wrists, etc. turns out that a fixed blade is actually more effective. I find the pivot too sloppy to apply pressure to a specific angle of attack.
Lost interest? I have to work this around those 50 or so appointments a week I run in the spring.
What's an Angela can't? Is that the oppisite of The Engine Who Could?
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