While this rock formation doesn’t necessarily look all that special, it’s what is hidden on and around it that caught my eye: carvings going back to 1903, and a seventy year old geodetic marker! More on that another time.
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Quality time
Photography can teach a lot of skills and other lessons, so I plan to encourage them to keep up with it as long as they find it appealing. Besides, it’s a great opportunity to spend time together. As PJ told me on this trip, “hiking is all about taking pictures and being with Daddy.” I couldn’t agree more.
If this is your clinic, the folks at Rockefeller Center may want a word with you
I have a slight fascination with logos and typography…enough so that this blog has a Logos, Signs, Typos category. It’s no surprise that, having worked for a network of NBC affiliates for nearly a decade and a half, I have been experiencing a sort of deja vu whenever I encounter one of these clinic advertisements around town. Something about it just repeatedly caught my eye. I pondered it briefly the other day, and realized why. I delved back into my toolkit of assorted NBC logos and made a little overlay…
Coincidence? Probably. Sinister conspiracy? Doubtful. I just find it interesting how simple shapes and typography can give us such strong, persistent visual cues. Besides, at least it’s not another doggone leaf.
BOMBSHELL: NCAA refuses to lift ban on UND unless North Dakota changes its state name
“The term ‘Dakota’ is simply another word for ‘Sioux’,” said NCAA executive vice president Bernard Franklin. “We at the NCAA find this state name ”hostile and abusive” and have a strict policy against states which use Native American names. We cannot change that policy. Now that the legislature has seen the light and capitulated in our campaign against the nickname, it’s time to pursue this issue to its logical fruition.”
Worries that visiting sports teams entering the state of North Dakota may be offended when confronted with road signs, license plates, and certain provocative signage bearing the name “North Dakota” at the entry to the University of North Dakota’s campus, representatives of the Big Sky Conference are balking at the idea of allowing UND membership to their organization as well.
“What happens if a team comes to North Dakota and is blindsided by views of Highway Patrol cars, state highway signs, and other ”hostile and abusive” use of native American imagery, only to realize that the very name of the state they’ve entered is based on the use of another word for “Sioux?” lamented Big Sky Commissioner Doug Fullerton. “The state itself is named after the same bigoted terminology which ignited this issue due to its divisive nature. We simply must reconsider their membership.”
North Dakota’s State Board of Higher Education and its president Grant Shaft emphatically support the proposal. “Our tenured academics have been behind this Politically Correct crusade from Day One,” he explains. “Besides, it helps draw people’s attention away from our institutions getting caught inflating enrollment numbers, presidents of numerous state institutions being forced to resign, NDSU’s secret ownership of a private aircraft used in our lobbying efforts, and our demands for more funding and tuition increases even as our appropriations continue to skyrocket. This is good for the state’s higher education cartel on so many levels.”
While efforts to support the name “North Dakota” have stalled on the politically turbulent Standing Rock Reservation, more than two thirds of Spirit Lake tribe’s membership have come out and voted in favor of keeping the state name. A lawsuit to save the name “North Dakota” and prevent millions of globes and maps from becoming obsolete, while standing up for native pride, is in the works. Oddly, open records requests by the tribes have been largely ignored or stalled until it’s too late to draft testimony to the upcoming legislative special session. Frank Black Cloud is not surprised. “ They are simply repeating the same pattern of ignoring us when it comes to our name and likeness; a pattern which has been evident throughout the entire issue,” he said in a public meeting.
While states with enough money to push back are being largely ignored, as they were in the Fighting Sioux Logo instance, smaller states with names such as South Dakota are watching with keen interest. Even though the vast majority of North Dakotans take great pride in the name of their state, the legislature is already working to repeal legislation declaring the state’s name as “North Dakota.” Democrat David O’Connel lamented, “We gave it our best to stand up to and overcome the intimidation and abuse of power of the NCAA. But it is now time to repeal the law. It is no longer about preserving heritage, or defending ND culture. It is about safeguarding a strong future for our state along with its students and athletics.”
(While obviously a parody, it makes one wonder…how far will this crusade against North Dakota go? Some of the quotes in this article are REAL – can you discern them from the parodies?
Cellphone photo stream part 5
Sometimes even I don’t have a camera handy, and all I can do is make a quick grab with my cell phone. I don’t have an iPhone (yet) so the quality isn’t what I’m used to, but sometimes simply getting the shot at all is the best you can hope for. Here are some tidbits from a while back:
Yeah…about that “ninety-nine percent” thing
This afternoon on my way home from work I spotted three hapless kids holding anti-capitalist signs at the top of 7th Street. While the urge might be to try to hurl some common sense their way while waiting for the red light to change, these useful idiots are not worth the time or effort. They’re there because it fills an emotional need, not because the content of those signs bears any resemblance to reality.
I had a fun idea: make a parody of the handwritten sign meme recently made popular by the “Occupy” protests (the term “occupy” itself is funny, because it’s another retread term from the failed “revolutions” of the 1960’s).
I looked at the notes posted in photos by many of these protestors: many hiding their faces, most scrawling notes about tens of thousands of college loan debt for meaningless majors and worthless liberal arts degrees, all wanting someone ELSE to do something about it. That is so contrary to how North Dakotans tend to view themselves and the standard to which we hold ourselves that I felt moved to make a little note of my own.
Here’s a larger version if the one above is hard to read on your screen. I simply wanted to highlight that I believe the exact opposite of what those greedy protesters are all “occupying” for. I call them greedy because in my mind what they’re doing, demanding that someone else give them their property, is far more greedy than some rich guy wanting to keep what he’s earned.
A friend of mine walked around one of the Occupy Bismarck protests and asked people about their signs and what they meant. Most couldn’t answer the questions, and used “I didn’t make this sign” as an excuse. That makes perfect sense, even if the leftist cliches on their signs do not. Clearly these people aren’t the real 99% of anything except maybe the Democrat Party.
It could be a while before your next Fort Lincoln Trolley ride
I don’t know what it’ll take to get these tracks back to operational status; it looks like a trellis system might be required, because I don’t think it’s feasible to try to rebuild and reinforce this section of the hill. Hopefully something can be done for next season, because this trolley ride is one of the more fun ways to spend a summer afternoon! I shot some video of my last ride…I’ll have to put a little something together and post it here.
I’m sure glad the rumormongers didn’t get a hold of this
Remember, this was about a month after environmental activist Bernard Shanks published a guest commentary on the St. Louis Today website outlining his fear of a “domino effect” on the Missouri River System. His nightmare scenario began with the failure of the Fort Peck Dam. While his article was very timely, it also coincided with one other important event: his publishing a book on the theory. I doubt that was a coincidence, but the whole thing gained a lot of traction in the Dakotas as we were already learning not to trust the Corps. Mr. Shanks appeared on local radio and links to his article were flying around Facebook rather furiously.
Naturally the last thing I wanted to do was contribute to any hype, so I just sat on my little discovery. I don’t deal in sensationalism and reliable information was already hard to come by in weary communities already made nervous by the fluidity of facts. Therefore I resolved to wait until the flood waters had receded and the threat of Mr. Shanks’ domino effect abated with them. I’ve watched as the river levels have fallen past the 9.79 feet of January 1st, 2011 and settled in the six-and-a-half foot range. While I think the event is certainly noteworthy, I certainly don’t think it was worth hysteria.
Here are a couple of links to the event for the curious. Its ID is event 11948206 for those of you who want to dart straight to Google for your own research.
USGS Earthquake event website entry
USGS Shakemap web page for #11948206
Now let’s hope that the management of the Missour River System doesn’t put us in the same precarious position next year. In the unfortunate event that we find ourselves in a flood fight again, I hope the Corps will be more forthcoming and that people will resist the urge to play loose & fast with information. Events like this are far harder to endure when sensationalism runs amok as well.
Hiking at “oh dark hundred” pays off
After grabbing shots from several different angles, I decided to do an abbreviated time lapse. Since I had other things going on, I was not prepared to get the entire sunrise, but I could see that the sun was going to emerge through another slender gap in the clouds. I hastily set up for it and, although it’s short, I thought it looked pretty decent when looped a couple of times:
Well, I never noticed that before
