Yep, the red needle is south of the zero this morning, registering 10 below.
Believe it or not it could be worse.
We're nestled by that great big thermal insulator known as Lake Michigan...
...which definitely helps moderate things.
Twenty five miles east of here they're more like 20 below with wind chills even lower.
That's starting to get dangerous.
In those temps without proper clothing, hypothermia can happen within 10 to 15 minutes, and death follows in a couple of hours.
And in the "Can You Say Ironic?" department, there's this bit of news:
The Grand Rapids World Of Winter festival has been canceled due to, well, winter:
Can't make this stuff up.
Now if you live in Maine like I used to, or here in Michigan but in the Upper Peninsula...well, this may not be shirt sleeve weather, but it's just another day in the salt mines.
10 below zero is nothing unusual; you expect it, dress accordingly and go about your business.
But down here?
All area schools are shuttered and we're busy burning the furniture to keep warm.
Really shouldn't have to say this, but...
Kids! Do NOT try this at home!
If we ask politely, can it please be <spring now>?
When I was a kid in the 60's, a constant in both print...
...and on TV was cigarette commercials.
Naturally, all of them made smoking look fun, sexy and cool.
The slight drawback that cigarettes are highly addictive and will eventually kill you was, of course, never mentioned.
By the early 70's and continuing into the late 90's a series of laws were passed that effectively banned all cigarette adverting across all media in public spaces.
The result over time has been to greatly reduce the percentage of people who regularly smoke cigarettes...
In the early 50's almost half the population smoked; now we're down to 11%.
As a general rule I'm not in favor of government sticking their nose in the people's business; smaller government is always a good thing.
However, you can't argue with these results, even though people will always find new and exciting ways to ruin their lives via addictions:
But if we are going to restrict advertising for harmful and addictive activities, can we please give the gambling industry the cigarette treatment?
I am sick to death of the constant, never ending onslaught of gambling ads any time I turn on the TV.
Celebrities and washed up pro athletes are used as shills for these slick and blatantly dishonest ads.
One particularly annoying but ominously accurate one involves a bunch of mindless idiots on a massive tandem bicycle riding headlong into a burning vortex:
The cult like soundtrack in the background endlessly repeats "calling all thrillionaires..." as the zombies disappear into oblivion.
Lessee...thrillionaire rhymes with...oh yeah, that thing you're NEVER going to be by pissing away your money in a casino.
These are not just sheep; they're sheep actually lining up to pay for being sheared.
So, government overreach aficionados:
I may not agree in principle with your motivation...
Climb onto your high horse and BAN GAMBLING ADS.
Mentioned recently that I re-read Jerry Kramer's "Instant Replay", the hugely successful diary he kept during the 1967 championship season of the Green Bay Packers.
He ended up playing one more year in the NFL, then retired.
Shortly thereafter he published his second book...
...Farewell To Football.
Not finished yet; it's slow going for me, but not because it's a bad or uninteresting book.
Quite the opposite, actually.
Kramer is an insightful writer (with Dick Schaap's help, of course) and he led a fascinating if difficult life up to that point.
It's just melancholy.
After overcoming great medical trauma and reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he and his teammates suffered a precipitous fall and reversal of football fortunes which color the narrative.
So I'm biting it off in small chunks, a few pages at a time here and there, but I will finish it.
And then I will definitely read his final book in the trilogy...
...Distant Replay, published in 1985.
This is a reunion of sorts where he catches up with his old teammates, sharing the victories and losses of life since "the glory days".
More to come.
In deference to Ol' Man Winter who's currently imposing his iron will on us, his unwilling subjects, today's 23 Skidoo will contain only winter scenes:
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| our telescoping flag pole has been lowered due to recurring high winds |
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| this morning around 9 am |
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| a painting in a local dr's office...I like the farmhouse; the barn, not so much |
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| note the lonely leaf...his many fellows are still buried beneath the snow that began falling before we finished raking leaves in November |
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| oops...how did this get here? |
At the risk of being redundant, I'm looking forward to when this is our current reality:
11 For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come...
- Song of Solomon 2:11,12
later, mcm fans...
