Month: July 2024

The House on the Hill

I want to go three ways with this blog. On third being observational politics, one third the motering life and one third education. I have neglected education, so I will do a few stories. I find this interesting as I was never formally trained as an educator. However, I have trained many people and attended five colleges. I will admit that I did not do well in school, and part of that was my own fault.

For example there was a course that was about building housing developments. I think it was some sort of civil engineering course, but I am not really sure. The premise was to find a nice field near a town, build a road that would maximize half acre house lots, then build a series of identical houses. This process would be the most efficient and effective way to provide homes for people to buy.

At a previous college I attended a course about building housing. That course was titled “The Handbuilt Homes of Woodstock NY”. Every week in that course we would visit a different house In Woodstock NY. The homes were all different. They varied from a geodesic dome made of old LP records to a massive three story home that resembled an art gallery. No homes were remotely similar, however they all had character.

I understood the logic each course presented. I will call neither right or wrong, however I would do something that would get me into trouble. In the housing development course I suggested that the housing should be built in the hills. My reasoning was our ancestors worked to clear the fields and we should use the fields for agriculture, not housing. Now this violated the premise of the efficient building of homes for people. For I had suggested that we add complexity. For whatever reason I held firm in my view.

I was sincere in my view, many civilizations build nice communities on hillside. There are pretty hillside places in Santorini, Nepal, Peru, and even San Francisco. I understood the logic of a development, however life should be aspirational. We should be able to look out the window and see the world. We should utilize what we have to benefit society. For me it was personal.

To my surprise my belief precipitated a field trip. Unlike my previous homebuilding class, this class just stayed in the classroom where we drew pictures of housing developments. One day the instructor announced he had signed out a van and he was going to drive the class to a housing development. To my surprise the development was on a bit of a hillside. The instructor then pulled into the driveway of a newly completed house and instructed us to get out of the van and go behind the house. He then pointed to a big one inch crack in the foundation and said “This is why you don’t build houses in the hills”. I mumbled something about we should learn how to build better foundations. The instructor had won, I then kept my mouth shut and said no more.

The Chart

Wow, some might think our government missed. Trump is supposed to be dead. The shooter, most likely brainwashed by some unknown entity was taken out. A single second after completing his task. It would be hard to believe this wasn’t orchestrated. Dead children tell no tales.

I can only imagine, Thomas Crooks believed he had the power. Like in the movies, fear no men with guns, for you are the almighty. In way he was right, cause the men with guns let him go, till he completed his task. His undeveloped brain did not realize that he would become expendable one he completed his task.

Poor kid, no different than a Palestinian child suicide bomber. He most likely was just trying to please someone whom he respected.

What impressed me the most is the photograph of the bullet whizzing past Trumps head. How did they do that? It was supposed to be Trump’s brain exploding. A gift, like Putin’s Chef’s head on a plate to be served for all, just in time for dinner.

Even Trump said he was supposed to be dead. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to know that your country tried to kill you. Yet it happens. People, fall in line, or else. Examples are needed every once and a while.

What hurt me the most was the outrage by the people that teach our children that Crooks had failed in his mission. Yes the deep state is real.

So what saved Trump? Many people will say God saved Trump. God has a mission for Trump to complete while here on earth. I am somewhat more analytical. Trump did something unexpected. He looked at a chart. People that know him say that is something unusual for him to do. He typically talks straight to the crowd.

Me being me, I had to wonder what was this chart that saved Trump’s life? I had to look it up. It was a chart about illegal immigrants. Really? It has been decades since I have trusted domestic media. Our media is so inbred that it is completely dysfunctional. When it comes to domestic issues I much prefer the foreign press.

10 years ago Aljazeera claimed our biggest issue was illegal immigrants dying in the desert. I think I wrote about this before. There was a problem. Trump said that we should have a wall, with a big beautiful gate. “Trump Gate” he called it. He wanted every qualified immigrant to be legal. I don’t remember anyone asking what the qualifications would be.

So here we are 10 years later, and we have made no measurable improvement. According to Trump’s chart illegal immigration is up. In the world news, we have wars to distract us instead of immigration.

I love scientific analysis. A chart is a visual representation of analysis. A picture is worth a thousand words. Yet words are powerful too, to communicate with words is art. That is why I write.

Party Roots

Political parties, like nations, are born evolve and dissappear. Our two major political parties did not exist when this country was founded. The Jefferson Republican Party was created to oppose the original Federalist Party in the early 1790’s. The Jefferson Republican’s considered the Federalist’s to be the aristocracy and wanted individual freedoms.

After the collapse of the Federalist Party in the 1820’s the Republican Party split into two groups. The Democratic Republicans and the National Republicans. President John Quincy Adam’s, son of President John Adam’s became the leader of the National Republicans. The National Republican Party did not fare so well. The National Republican Party pretty much ended in the 1830’s.

The Democratic Republican Party soonbecame successful under the leadership of General Andrew Jackson. Soon the party became known just as the Jackson Democrat party. Today the party is simply known as the Democrat Party. I understand that it is the world’s oldest party.

The modern Republican Party was started in the 1850’s to combat the expansion of slavery. President Lincoln was the first Republican president. Geographically South was Democrat and the North was Republican. War between the parties erupted.

Historically I associate General Jackson with the Trail of Tears. Jackson also owned hundreds of slaves. Jackson was a racist and a bigot. He also founded the modern Democrat Party. The party has evolved to be the most powerful party in the world. It is a party dependent on control, and will stop at nothing to maintain that control.

The Republican Party was formally based on the equality of all people’s. That is something I agree with.

Carpets & Concrete

Why is it that Democrats walk on carpet and Republicans walk on concrete? My first thought is of a engineer who insisted on having crepe sole shoes, as his brain was delicate and should not be jostled. Carpet is easier to walk upon, so it should not jostle the brain as much as concrete. This being the case, Democrats should be smarter than Republicans.

These are just my observations. I found no studies proving my observations. I have noticed truck drivers are Trumpers, college professors are Team Biden. The guys in the boiler room, Trumpers. The guys in the law office Team Biden again. So where do they stand, Trumpers are on concrete, Team Biden is on carpet. Am I wrong? My evidence is anecdotal. I would welcome your personal observations. I realize there are most likely exceptions, but me thinks the odds are good I may be right.

For example Elon Musk started out as a carpet nerd. Then he decided to build factories with concrete floors. Then he started spending lots of time on his concrete floors, and look what happened!

Of course there is a danger of spending to much time on the carpet. Take Joe Biden, he rarely steps on concrete. His poor brain was never jostled, and it has turned to mush.

Seriously, I started this out with Carpets & Concrete not Carpets vs Concrete. Both sides need each other. The is no reason to hate. I am tired of the hate. I am sorry to say hate is a large part of both sides. The nice politicians, there are hard to find.

I kept this story short, hope you don’t mind. Simply trying to avoid a kerfuffle.

Tomie’s Plane

My life is a series of failures. This is a story of just one of those failures. Tomie dePaola was a teacher at New England College. He taught design. I took a number of his courses. Tomie was passionate about design. I identified with that passion. Tomie taught me about the power of color, and the curve. Also, he was a story teller. As a story teller he taught the importance of progression. I found Tomie to be inspirational

The students claimed Tomie was queer, or gay. Tomie was identified as one of two gay professors. The other taught cinematography. Tomie never spoke of his orientation. The othe professor, it was all he would talk about. This was back in the 70’s, I had just turned 20. I was extremely naive, and truly did not understand what they were talking about. I just knew it was some sort of thing.

The cinematography professor called himself “Dark Star” and made movies about his life with method called Cinema Verite. I watched a few in his classes and thought they were very strange. Yet his classes were packed, he was treated like a rock star. 20 years or so later I saw him on PBS, filming himself dying of aids. As far as I could tell his story was a grim grayscale montage of bleakness.

Tomie on the other hand did not draw crowds. He was happy with his small classes. His stories were about color and light. In real life he was a struggling children’s book author and illustrator that was just coming into success. His story Strega Nona was recently published and that was beginning to bring him fame. Tomie invited his students into his home where he showed how there could be happiness in a simple life. His house, where he lived with his friend was a simple, neatly maintained, old New England cape style house. The walls were all white with colorful decorations. The wide pine floors were finished in natural color. The home was a model of simple utilitarianism.

More than any other teacher, I wished that Tomie was a member of my family. I wished that he was an aunt or uncle, grandparent or cousin. There was a happiness in his soul that was infectious. I just wanted to sit around the table with family and enjoy a big bowl of magic pasta.

My own family situation was not so good. Different members of my family were in constant war with each other. Members would blame each other for their own actions. No wonder I just wanted a bowl of magic pasta. Somehow to appease the infighting, my family placed me in an asylum. I was quite surprised by this turn of events as I had never done anything to hurt anyone, or anything.

Eventually insurance monies run out and I was released from full time confinement. Bewildered by life I was seeking answers. Tomie had said that his door would always be open to his students if we wanted help in the future. I figured out where Tomie’s new home was and arrived unannounced one day.

I was not forthcoming about what had happened to me, and Tomie did not ask. He did welcome me into his new home, and made me a cup of coffee. I let him know had never drank a cup of coffee before. I asked for lots of cream and sugar. I was not going to turn down a cup of coffee from Tomie. The conversation turned to Tomie’s work, and his marvelous new studio. He was like a child in dreamland. There was a beautiful place for all his treasured objects. Every brush had a home, separated by type and style. I was amazed by all the different papers. Each type of paper had its own drawer. Then as the papers became stories, each story had its own drawer. It was the quintessential place for everything, and everything in it’s place. It was a bit of heaven on earth. Truly aspirational.

The takeaways were Love What You Do, and you don’t get anywhere without work. So I would take any job, and work like my life depended on it. Because in a way it did, the asylum would have me back. I had seen how the inside of such places work. It is hard to get out. Eventually I became successful. I had money for the extras in life. I decided that I wanted to build a plane. I had always dreamed of flying.

The plane I wanted to build was a RV-9A. It is offered as a kit from Van’s Aircraft. Vans Aircraft is a leading manufacturer of kit aircraft. The RV-9A is a two seat aluminum aircraft powered by a Lycoming engine. The kit provided all of the materials used to assemble the airframe, and used something like 10,000 rivets to hold it together. Even the assembly manual was inspiring. There was a certain Zen like quality to making an airplane. I chronicled much of the process on a website AHYUP.COM a now defunct site that can only be visited by using the Wayback Machine or other web archive. The process was very educational, to my amazement parts fit. I learned how things fit together precisely. I was so happy to have my own aircraft factory. I have not worked on anything better in my life. I had reached Nervana.

Back in the 1975 BMW commissioned it’s first art car. The Alexander Calder BMW 3.0 CSL. It was stunning. By far the most famous car paint job of the era. At least it was in my world. I was a big fan of Alexander Calder’s kinetic sculptures. Talk about kinetic art. AlsoI had a friend that had CSL BMW. It was an amazing car to drive all by itself. Famous car, famous artist. What could be better. Every year or so BMW would commission another art car. Today there are 20 BMW art cars.

Can you can see where I am going with this? When I was ready to paint my plane I wanted Tomie to design the paint job. There are wonderfully painted aircraft, however they are mostly an expression of the owners emotions. Think of motorcycle gas tanks, or maybe lowriders. Most race cars are an expression of the sponsor. Then there are the generic stripes that are an expression of flight through the air.

When my plane was ready for paint, I was going to ask Tomie dePaola to design me a paint job. Tomie had a recognizable style because of his fame. His work had a childish whimsy to it. I wanted that experience expressed on my aircraft. I think he would have enjoyed such a thing. However it never happened. I do stupid things like buying high and selling low. I sold the plane long before it was ready for paint. Tomie is gone now, I will never have the chance to ask. Another missed opportunity.

Just call me Captain Failure. There are good things in my failure though. Nobody was hurt, and other people made money from my mistakes. I am here to make other people look good. There just could have been more happiness in life had I succeeded.

The other day I thought, why not ask AI to make me a Tomie Plane? Well, I found out that is going to be really hard to do. I came nowhere close to getting a result. I would have got a better result making a CAD model and painting it myself. So what did I end up with? Another feather of failure to stick in my cap. I have quite the headdress.