Posts Tagged → rural
Carpe diem, carpe lifeum, carpe friendum
Carpe diem – Latin for seize the day – was popularized in America by now deceased actor Robin Williams in a wonderful (if moronically anti gun) movie called The Dead Poets Society.
In his characteristic full-throttle mode, hard to tell if he was acting or just being him-so-interesting-self, Robin Williams playing the school teacher, beautifully exhorted his high school students to carpe diem, seize the day, to gather ye rose buds which ye may, to live life fully moment by moment and day by day, to miss nothing, let no opportunity slip by, to live and be their best.
This is an ages-old challenge for all of us, especially Americans, whose lives today are filled with so much clutter and nonsense, especially online (except for this blog, of course), so much material chasing, and ego driving, and so little opportunity for reflective contemplation.
Well have I been reminded of carpe diem in just the past couple days. Another friend gone, before their time, before the years said they should be gone and leave us. A wonderful and interesting person, full of life and cantankerous fist-waving at President Trump and Republicans, who was a pretty conservative rural white Southerner, nonetheless, whose personal views on borders and illegal immigration and public welfare for new immigrants fell deeply into Republican policy territory. Whether this contrary policy place was cognitive dissonance or confusion or misplaced brand loyalty to a political party that had long ago left this person behind, I do not know, nor do I care.
I never cared. It just made them an interesting person, whose chemistry somehow strangely matched with my own.
This old friend was important to me, as are so many old friends from, let’s say, the past fifty years of my ever-shortening life. And yet, not important enough to see in person for many years, despite mutual declarations of intentions and desires to do so. So much to catch up on, the kids, the grandkids, career, friends, family.
Now, this person like a puff of smoke in a gentle breeze – poof – is gone from my life, and from the life of their own children and family, who loved them very much.
As I age, I am seeing more and more friends literally drop dead or get sick and die. People I care about very much, and maybe to whom I have not expressed my appreciation in a long time. Or my apologies for stupid behavior in our youth. Or to share some knee-slapping hilarity over ridiculous and probably dangerous adventures we did together, long ago, when rural American youth did such things with impunity, and without fear of being branded a terrorist.
Yes, I have regrets, now that my friend is dead, before I had a chance to sit down with them one more time. And in this moment of regret, or recurring moments as I move through my day from one errand and activity to another, I am reminded to carpe diem.
And… Carpe Lifeum, Carpe Friendum.
To miss no opportunity to breathe in the richest of life that I can muster, at every moment. Enjoy my friends, my life. Before I, too, suddenly and unexpectedly breathe my last breath on this earth.
Not to sound morbid, but my friend did just unexpectedly die, literally dropped dead, and so let us both turn this sad black rose into a red rose bud that we gather together, and treasure together, while we yet may.
Goodbye, old friend, and Hello, living friends. We need to have a coffee or a beer together, don’t we…
Best tattoo, ever
I am not a tattoo person. No one in my family had or has tattoos, including me, same for my wife. The rural people I grew up with occasionally had tattoos, all associated with their military service. When this current tattoo craze took off, what, fifteen years ago, I admit to being surprised. Some of the choices I have seen are… curious. When I ask the wearer why this particular tattoo, I usually get back an indifferent shrug and something like “I was feeling especially whimsical that moment.”
My various sports coaches all taught me one important lesson: Your body is your temple, and you must respect it. I am not judging anyone, but please think a little harder or look at some pictures of pretty flowers, before deciding to forever alter the body God gave you at birth with some of these tattoos. Yes, the Maori warriors have some gorgeous tattoos representative of their culture as head hunters and cannibals. But your culture is mid-America white girl and white boy, not savage warrior, nor tough about anything, really.
Because I work with a lot of rural loggers and machine operators, who are the epitome of tough as hell and who in my book earn the right to even culturally appropriative self expression, I do get a pretty dandy gander at tats running from hand to neck, and, I am told, in other more “remote” body locations. I admire the ones that had a lot of thought, deep symbolic meaning, planning, and careful execution put into them.
Starting decades ago in the military services, which until Marxist in Chief Obama and China’s Man in DC Joe Biden was largely populated by rural Americans, tattoos are no longer just a military or rural fad, as the entire country became enamored of the self expression and inevitable interesting interpretations of sagging aged flesh sure to come with time. Even demure, serious soccer moms have Playboy Bunny on their ankles. I have even seen effete feminine urbanite Marxist hipsters with their own tattoos (I wish I was rich enough to be a socialist like them), as well as the myriad blue and pink haired far left, Antifa, even conservative patriot bikers, too.
Well, today I got to see the best tattoo ever, in the history of tattoos. It wins all the awards for creativity, simplicity, symbolism, etc. The owner is covered feet to neck in tats, and when I asked her if she had any regretted old boyfriend names lurking anywhere among the visual mayhem, she said “just the initials of my ex husband, now artfully incorporated into and erased by a tattoo of the toxic waste symbol”. She then showed me. It is small, easily lost among the rest of the colorful inks, and not particularly artistic or flowing or eye catching, but I swear, it is the best tattoo ever.
Anatomy of a primary election
On May 20th, Pennsylvania held its primary election. Mostly local seats and judgeships were on the ballot, which are definitely important, but the real prizes were the PA Commonwealth Court and the PA Superior Court. As has come to be usual here and in many other states, the conservative/ independent-minded grass roots fielded their candidates and the state Republican Party fielded its candidates.
And as usual, the PA Republican Party was directly involved in the selection of the primary election candidates, their endorsements, their negative attacks, funding, etc. When a political party gets in between The People and their choice of candidate, the party always loses in the long run. When The People believe the party does not share their views or values, and is only pursuing the selection of certain candidates who will be malleable and loyal to the party, then The People lose faith in the party.
Here in PA there is real animosity between grass roots conservatives and the PA GOP establishment.
This election we had grass roots candidate Maria Battista vs. PAGOP candidate political establishment-endorsed Ann Marie Wheatcraft for Superior Court judge. Battista had run before as the GOP endorsed candidate, and had lost to the grass roots candidate. This time around, for whatever reason, she was on the outs with the PAGOP and on the in with the grass roots groups, like Lycoming Patriots. Wheatcraft had the PAGOP endorsement and money.
For the Commonwealth Court we had well known Second Amendment attorney Josh Prince vs. unknown state bureaucrat attorney Matt Wolford. Bureaucrat Wolford was mysteriously endorsed by the PAGOP, even though he has worked most of his career at the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, an agency that no matter which incarnation it embodies, and regardless of which political party is running it, nonetheless is associated with heavy-handed regulations and lawless bureaucrats who routinely beat up on private landowners and businesses. Not exactly a likely place to give birth to a solid Republican candidate for any office, much less a judgeship.
The long and short of these two races is that Battista the outsider defeated Wheatcraft the moneyed insider, and Wolford the party endorsed yet unknown bureaucrat and mystery “Republican” defeated grass roots favorite Prince. Moreover, Prince was endorsed by numerous organizations, like Gun Owners of America, Firearms Owners Against Crime, etc.
These are strange results.
Normally voters align with outsiders or insiders, but not with one candidate here and not that one over there. And yet that is what happened in this election. Normally, big endorsements gain big traction for candidates, but we saw no evidence of that in the Prince vs Wolford race. Despite his many big endorsements, Prince was utterly crushed even in very conservative rural counties, like Lycoming and Elk, where he was known, liked, and should have won handily. And yet, in these same counties, Battista blew off Wheatcraft’s doors.
Aside from a crooked vote tallying scheme, I have no explanation for this odd outcome that defies all odds and conventional thinking. Except for one possible variable that tends to get overlooked these days, and that is ballot position. That is, where does the candidate’s name fall on the ballot – top, middle, or last.
Studies have shown that ballot position does matter, or it can matter, but much less so when voters feel compelled to look up candidates on the internet. With its easy information access, the internet has been the great leveler of campaigns everywhere. Big campaign money cannot always defend a candidate’s bad record, which will be all over the internet, visible to the voters who but follow a few clicks on a search engine.
Battista had top and Prince had bottom on their respective ballots. Meaning that the 3/4-4/4 super voters who make up the primary election electorate, were unsure of who to vote for and simply and superficially chose the first name they saw for each position. That could explain the opposite results we got for both candidates, Battista and Prince.
As we see here, the voters have to want to know something about the people they are voting for in order to defeat the ballot position factor, as well as overcome often superficial campaign advertising. And so we learned a hard lesson here: The vaunted and lauded super voters did not necessarily do super research into the candidates. They apparently did not bother to look up the candidates before walking into the voting booth. They simply saw a name at the top and made their choice.
And that is the gory anatomy of Pennsylvania’s 2025 primary election, God help us all.
Does ballot position really determine who a lot of primary election super voters choose? From this election, it would seem so.
Elk County is a very conservative rural place where DEP bureaucrats are hated like poison ivy. The 2025 results there make no sense, unless ballot position is the primary factor.
Doesn’t it seem mean spirited to not even mention candidate Josh Prince? Doesn’t it further alienate his supporters? What is that all about?
I have never seen election results like this. If conservative rural Lycoming County super voters feel so strongly about conservative candidate Battista, they for sure would have felt just as strongly about conservative candidate Prince. And yet…the results seem to prove that ballot position is the most important determinant
Dauphin County
Dauphin County
racist white liberals railroad Black candidate
Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson is running for governor of North Carolina. That this high-energy, articulate, charismatic, passionate Black candidate scares the hell out of racist white liberal Democrats is evident. Mark Robinson is being Roy Moore’d.
Remember Judge Roy Moore? He was a judge in Alabama who ran for the US Senate a few years ago, and whose popularity attracted ridiculous lies from the Democrat Party mainstream media and its proxies. Ridiculous though the lies were, the good hearted and honest Republican and conservative Christian voters of Alabama gave just enough credence to them to undercut some of Judge Roy Moore’s support. Voters giving credence to ridiculous lies just barely cost him the election and saddled Alabama with a communist Democrat Party senator for several years.
Enough Republican and conservative Christian voters bought into the crazy lies about Judge Roy Moore that they had misgivings and did not vote for him. Thus did the leftist Democrat candidate, Doug Jones, barely eke out a win. In red blooded Alabama of all places.
It was shameful all the way around, because the crazy lies about Judge Roy Moore were so obviously crazy lies that anyone with half a brain should have said “Ah yes, the mainstream media, which is an arm of the Democrat Party, is attacking a Republican again” and then voted accordingly for Judge Roy Moore.
But conservatives are sometimes too open minded, too willing to be played by leftwing fake news, because they want to do what is right.
Doug Jones lasted just whatever was left of the uncompleted term he filled, like a year or two, and then Coach Tommy Tuberville whooped his anti-America butt and took that US Senate seat and gave it back to Americans. Alabamans had had enough Democrat Party communism in that short amount of time and sent Doug Jones packing. Although Judge Roy Moore went on to win his defamation lawsuit for the crazy lies he suffered, he was significantly damaged, and he unfortunately stepped out of politics.
So here North Carolina voters are now faced with an incompetent and arrogant governor, Roy Cooper, and Roy Cooper’s would-be replacement, Josh Stein, on the one hand, whose hands-off handling of the Hurricane Helene destruction has been an epic and highly documented failure, and on the other hand Lt. Gov Mark Robinson, whose energetic presence in American politics is a breath of fresh air and thus also a real threat to the Democrat Party stranglehold on American Blacks.
The Democrat Party and its propaganda ministry aka the Establishment Media like CNN, NPR, PBS, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, ABC et al, have thus gone after Lt Mark Robinson with the only criticism they can throw at him: Crazy lies.
Lying is the only way the Democrat Party can win in the North Carolina governor election, and of course the proven liars at CNN / CNNLOL are enabling the lying. And even if this fake “scandal” (a few non-PC posts on a website from 14 years ago) stupid attack on Lt. Gov Mark Robinson were true, it would be so stupid, so ridiculous, so meaningless that no one with half a brain should spend any time thinking about it.
Dear North Carolina voters, please do not fall for the crazy lies against Lt. Mark Robinson.
Do not allow the bad guys to pull a Judge Roy Moore against Lt Mark Robinson.
Do not allow the highly damaging Democrat Party to undeservedly hold onto power in North Carolina. As you can see with your own eyes, Governor Roy Cooper and NC AG Josh Stein have failed the victims of Hurricane Helene because they don’t give a damn about you in your hour of greatest need (in one video above you can listen to Roy Cooper lie while flanked by huge liar and failure DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on the left and huge failure crooked Joe “Bribem” Biden on the right).
Josh Stein is absolutely nowhere to be seen.
You North Carolinians can only do better than Roy Cooper and his cookie cutter substitute Josh Stein, you cannot possibly do worse than them. Roy Cooper and Josh Stein are such a disaster, such a failure, that people are asking if it is done on purpose because most of the victims are rural people who would not vote for leftist Josh Stein under any conditions, anyhow.
Stand up for truth, stand up against crazy lies, stand up for yourselves, vote for truth, vote for Lt. Mark Robinson to be North Carolina’s next governor.
Lt. Gov Mark Robinson, another victim of attempted White Liberal Democrat lynching
Hurricane Helene says No Such Thing as White Privilege
“White privilege” may be the most racist thing you will hear anyone say or allege in your lifetime, probably from the most racist people on Planet Earth, white liberal Democrats, but that has not stopped this fake social construction from being pronounced and bandied about like it is actually real.
Well, Mother Nature herself has recently descended from the heavens above to demonstrate that in reality and in the natural world too, there is no such thing as “White privilege.”
In the form of Hurricane Helene last week, Mother Nature inflicted huge devastation and destruction upon eastern Tennessee and northern North Carolina and the regional demographic there. It is a group of people I have had a lot of life experience with and who I maintain intense admiration for, white rural working people.
That there are a lot of white liberal Democrats in Asheville folded into the mix of Hurricane Helene victims does not mitigate or reduce my sympathy or hope for everyone’s full recovery there. Everyone is equal before the law, everyone is created in the image of God, and we are all Americans who should be caring for one another, regardless of our political opinions or religious views.
So Hurricane Helene destroyed billions of dollars in built infrastructure, including homes, towns, villages, farms, rural roads and interstates and bridges and schools and hospitals, stranding hundreds of thousands of largely white rural American citizens without power, water, or food.
And so just to demonstrate that white people can be victims and actually have no racial privilege whatsoever, the federal government response to Hurricane Helene has been… almost silent. Like cavalier and ignoring the huge mess of human misery. Like on purpose.
Recall that to our elites, Appalachian whites are the deplorable, disposable, ignored, maligned, forgotten Americans who nonetheless mine the coal that gives us most of our electricity, serve as the roughnecks on oil and gas drilling platforms that run our vehicles, fill up the special forces and combat infantry positions in our most highly motivated and patriotic high-risk fighting forces, who log the forests that provide us with high grade lumber for our fancy kitchens and furniture, who work for the railroads, and who drive trucks across the interstates that bring Amazon Prime to your home super pronto.
In every one of these professions, these (white, rural) people are taking big risks that almost always exceed their expected financial return. Why? Because they are proud to work hard, and they love America more than they love themselves. And they are devoted to America because there is no other nation anywhere that will give them the same freedom and opportunity.
White rural working people are the people who disproportionately make America work and run and give you, dear reader, the comfortable lifestyle to which you have become all too accustomed. And now that these people need a lot of help to get through this natural catastrophe, it sure appears that they are being abandoned by the same federal government that is simultaneously giving away unlimited taxpayer dollars right and left to border-jumping illegal migrants and to the porous demi-government in Ukraine.
I am hearing mostly consistent reports of aid efforts from acquaintences, friends, and family in Asheville and eastern Tennessee (some of their own photos are below; one of my family members from there is now in a hotel in South Carolina). Last week a friend of mine from Harrisburg loaded up his work van with bottled water and food and drove seven hours to the literal end of the paved road in eastern Tennessee, where he followed signs to a Baptist church. There in the church parking lot he was met with tears of fear and appreciation, and many needy hands as entire families sought shelter there with their sole remaining belongings: Their clothing on their bodies. (Some of his own photos of this are below).
Radio personality Glenn Beck reported his unbelievably negative experience with a sole FEMA crew instructive example of No White Privilege To Be Found Here.
Plenty of political fallout has resulted from apparent Biden-Harris government failure, or even willful blocking of aid efforts. While checking his email at a FEMA post, a partisan leftist Democrat in my family there said this is all politically generated misinformation, but I don’t know if I can accept that. The damning reports and real-time online videos are overwhelming and seem irrefutable, while politically partisan mainstream media outlets appear locked into a defend-Kamala Harris-at-all-costs posture, instead of having their crews on the ground recording what the citizens journalists are capturing.
Tons of on-the-ground reports are pouring out of the region, showing a complete lack of federal interest in helping, and a complicated mix of local territorialism, miscommunication, petty power flexing, and even theft of supplies. And even when the Biden-Harris Administration does speak publicly, they are actually saying sorry, we have no money for your disaster relief.
Because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ALREADY GAVE AWAY all the unsustainable taxpayer money to illegals and the endless war in Ukraine.
Folks, not only was there never any such thing as White privilege, but when there was an opportunity to demonstrate that American Whites get treated at least equally with everyone else, both American citizen of color and illegal border jumper alike, the point is made by our current federal government that American White people come last, if they get any help at all.
Commando summer vacations
Few things, few activities are as deeply satisfying to me as summer travels in America, especially across the northeast. Call these trips short vacations, commando vacations, traveling vacations, whatever, they are always fun and invigorating. I am always somewhat dispirited when these trips end.
The goals are to see new places, usually off the beaten path, meet new people, see old American architecture, and explore old towns, small towns, take in new sights. Small town America is quite fabulous, although they are all increasingly becoming “discovered” and populated by down-state summertime residents and tourists, and even the dreaded out-of-state tourists, like me. While there is less to “discover” in these “discovered” small old towns, one benefit of the summertime down-state residents is that they increasingly purchase and rehab the most beautiful Victorian and Federal homes that until recent years fell into increasingly sad disrepair. When these old hulking brick, stone, or beautifully complicated trim wooden buildings are fully returned to their original glory, they are really something to see, to behold, to bask in. Each is a work of art in its own right, and the investors deserve our applause and appreciation. I would like to have an ad hoc summertime picnic on all of their porches.
Although I do not always get the level of accommodation I would prefer on these trips, I can make up for poor overnight conditions by staying out late and getting out early, and bringing my own sheets and pillow cases, just in case. One lesson learned over the decades is Trust the Big Hotel Chains. If you can find them, not always possible in the more remote areas, they are universally clean, comfortable, hygienic, well kept, and generally safe. Whereas, bed-and-breakfast destinations are widely hit or miss, with the misses being gross and uncomfortable, and old family owned “spas” and grandiose Victorian or imitation French estates can be a little sticky and pretentious, or downright gross and pretentious with genuinely weird characters hanging about. Give me the universal American standard of three star or better hotel chain every night possible. Or a car-camping tent site at a state park with flush toilets and showers.
The term for exposing people to new ideas and objects, Education, emerged in 1918. It replaced the long term phrase popular instruction. As the keeper of this blog, I think about the differences between these two concepts, education versus instruction. One of the huge things missing in today’s “education” establishment (overrun with rote partisan indoctrination) is the act of instruction, the conveyance of new skills, new ideas, new ways of appreciating or thinking. And so I like to think that here the reader has an opportunity to encounter some instruction, something new. This sounds like a heavy burden, a heavy lift, until you consider what I am presenting as new here: An Upstate New York distillery, which makes various alcoholic spirits, which I had only read about in Mountain Home Magazine. On this most recent commando vacation, I was able to connect a variety of dots on a map in one afternoon, one of which being this distillery.
Situated above Seneca Lake, the Finger Lakes Distilling Company has a pretty nice pied-à-terre, from which we enjoyed our picnic lunch views over and across the lake. I had just enjoyed a very relaxed tasting inside, and being a lightweight with alcohol, I was in no condition to drive. However, I am no lightweight in terms of weight, and I am always ready to eat…so we sat, ate our food picnic style, and let the cool early summer breeze flow across us while the distillery operation ran all around us. Fascinating to me at least is that this distillery locally sources all of its own grains, flavors; everything they use in their many various products is grown right in the Finger Lakes region. And one of the great joys of connecting the various dots across the Finger Lakes region is driving through the great amount of scenic working farmland and beautifully kept farms that make up that special landscape.
Of the four bottles of rye whisky I sampled, and bought, only one really appeals to my taste; the other three are going to be gifts to friends. What can I say; I have friends with poor palates and poor choices in their friends; no fancy gifts from moi. What I greatly enjoyed is the McKenzie single barrel straight rye whiskey (80% rye and 20% malted barley) aged six years, and finished in a “Pommeau” cask. This is really an outstanding flavor, a world-class product. And at $42.50 a bottle, it is about eight to fifteen dollars less than one would expect to pay for a similar quality product in Scotland, Ireland, or in other parts of America. And though I am not a drinker, as I have become a serious lightweight with age, I do enjoy sampling on location the locally made, sometimes internationally famous, sometimes should-be-internationally-famous whiskeys made in Scotland, Ireland, and occasionally America.
One of my favorite related memories is watching small boats putting in at the Isle of Skye, where they would each buy a couple cases of delicious small batch single malt, and then move on up the coast to the next small distillery, unknown to the outside world, but coveted and seriously in demand among connoisseurs. I happened to be standing high up in the Black Hills of Knoydart with a historic double rifle over my shoulder, hunting red stag, at that moment, and so alcohol was that farthest thing from my mind. But the determined boats way down below, and their sophisticated whiskey buyers, will never leave my mind. What a life.
Anyhow, below are some photos from the Finger Lakes Distilling Company, which despite being a real ongoing concern for some time now, has (bizarrely) not trademarked their unique product or bottle labels. See? This is the real essence of small town, rural America: Family-owned-and-run high quality, with all of the refreshing, remote innocence one hardly ever sees any more. Except maybe in Papua New Guinea, where according to one guy the locals ate Joe Biden’s grandfather with a side of whiskey bottle.
The single malt lacks the peaty flavor of coveted single malts from Scotland. If Upstate New York has any peat for roasting the malted barley, McKenzie should get it and use it
Real strawberry milk by the half gallon at Buttermilk Falls… can a summer day be better spent?
I wouldn’t hire a Harvard grad to tie my shoes
Like a bazillion other Americans, I run a small business. Mine is in the land and natural resource management sector. Every week I interface with men and machines, dirt, danger, hard work, and serious situations. Little margin for error, feewings, or personal tantrums.
And when I watched the whole Harvard University debacle unfold over last week, culminating on Friday in students, administrators, and faculty alike all rallying around the racist failure university president, Claudine Gay, I realized something profound: I would rather hire a young, hard-working rural person born to a serious work ethic and with a willingness to take reasonable risks to achieve the work goal, who maybe got tenth grade under his belt before going to work for a living, than to try to train a Harvard University mis-educated fragile weenie with no work ethic, an unreasonable expectation of life, and an obsession with unrealistic nonsense.
Said another way: For many years my experience has been that the attorneys I have worked with, whose law degrees were from “East Succotash University,” as opposed to, say, Harvard Law School, were the very best lawyers I have worked with. To a man and a woman, these so-called “no-name” law school grads are gritty, tough, take no prisoners, hard working fighters who zealously represent the interests of their clients. They always get me results. On the other hand, if I had a dollar for every big name lawyer who only wrote letters to my defendants, and who was afraid to actually file a legal complaint and follow it up with court room litigation, I would be a wealthy man.
Perhaps this comes down to rural character versus urban, because graduates from the small schools, the community colleges, the trade schools, almost all come from rural working backgrounds. These are kids who don’t come from money, don’t really know what having money is like, but they do have a strong work ethic and pride in accomplishment. Because in the communities they grew up in, tangible results are the name of the game. Their families got by with a roof over their heads and food on the table because they daily delivered actual hands-on results that America is willing to pay for, and got paid, as opposed to the spoiled, whiny, entitled urban kids populating Harvard University and the other purportedly high quality Ivy League schools. These kids come from the world of manicured lawns, expensive clothes, and fancy cars from young ages whose parents engage in vague numbers work and white collar make-work paper-pushing administrative exercises whose value-added to America is, well….vague.
Forget the poor technical training, the mis-education and Stalinist/ Maoist/ fascist indoctrination that Harvard University inflicts on its students, just on family and cultural background alone, I would be very unlikely to hire a kid from Harvard University, in the off-chance that such an opportunity presented itself. Unless it’s in the hard/ physical sciences, computer science, or math, a person with a Harvard University degree today would not interest me either as a conversationalist, a lunch partner, a book club member, or an employee/ contractor.
I don’t think Harvard University produces high quality graduates any longer. Probably not for the past ten or fifteen years, and maybe even longer. I think the opposite is true, that this school produces societal and workplace misfits who can’t think their way out of a wet paper bag. They have had little to no critical thinking and analytical skills training. If you are foolish enough to hire a recent Harvard University graduate these days, you are going to learn quickly just how failed that school is and how useless these human beings are who are graduating from it.
Yes, all my life I have known Harvard grads, as well as other Ivy League grads, and today’s Ivy League grads are not that old caliber, not anywhere close. The old reputation has been lost because of people like Claudine Gay, who have traded it for short term power over foolish young people.
Most Harvard University graduates today are not fit to tie your shoe. Not for money or for free.
Why are museums closed on Mondays?
Can someone reasonably explain why museums are still closed on Mondays? It is a longstanding tradition that defies common sense. You won’t find many people advocating for tradition more than I, but what tradition I argue for makes sense. Museums closed on Monday makes no sense. It seems to be an outdated, strange sense of special privilege that almost all museums are closed on Monday.
In a nation full of highly mobile travelers and vacationers taking long weekends, and where so many small towns and rural counties have worked hard and significantly invested to attract tourists, we still come up against the strange tradition of museums being closed on Mondays. No one I have spoken to can give a good reason for this educational shut-down. They are even shut on Monday during the summer season, when tons of tourists are traveling through town.
Going to visit your old uncle via an oddly zig-zagging road trip you will never do again in your life? Don’t count on seeing the local museums or historical society that Monday; they will be inexplicably closed. “It’s Museum Monday, dontcha know…..”
Taking a long weekend summer vacation on a whim to some remote place you will never visit again? Don’t make Monday your local museum day, because regardless of where you are, the museums are likely to all be closed. “It’s Museum Monday, dontcha know…..”
Every other business sector works hard to meet its customers’ needs, except the museums, when they are closed on Monday. The list of Open On Monday Despite The Terrible Hardship businesses includes funeral homes, libraries, car mechanic shops, pet care shops, and ice cream stands. Among most other businesses.
Every other business sector has to survive, and can’t afford to artificially turn away customers, except for museums with their “poor me” donation boxes that are inexplicably closed on Monday.
Every other business sector rotates staff in order to give workers a day off, a weekend off, except most museums, apparently. Only museums have staff that must get Monday off. Only Monday. Not Sunday. Or Wednesday. But Monday….
Yes, I recognize that a hundred years ago when museums were becoming a thing, they developed a common culture of being available over weekends (except those museums that are closed on Sunday…and also Monday, of course), which necessitated having a day off for facility cleaning, repair, exhibit updates, and rest for the staff. I suppose. But now? Every other business is open on Monday, and yes, museums can do it, too! They should do it.
Find some new staff or volunteers for the Monday shifts. Pay the museum staff more on Monday. Whatever it takes to meet customer demand, museums should do; this ain’t rocket science. The Smithsonian is open seven days a week, and if that gigantic place can be open on Monday, then so can small museums in Podunk USA across the USA.
I would like to thank the Ward O’Hara agricultural museum in Auburn, New York, and the Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron, Nebraska, for being open on Mondays. We just happened to be passing through their respective rural necks of the woods on two given Mondays, a year apart, and lo! – a museum with an Open for Business sign! We happily paid their fees, left generous donations in the donation box, and had a really enjoyable time learning what they had to teach us. And no one involved turned into a pumpkin because it was Monday.
Dear museums, please join the 21st century, and make yourselves available for the highly mobile 21st century traveler. Arrange your open hours to meet the demand of your would-be customers; especially during the summer vacation season. And to those foundations who write big operating grants to museums, you should stipulate that the museums must be open when people are expecting to use it. That would definitely include all the week days, like every other business.