Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

The new republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

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On The Road – frosty – Home Building Association, Louis Sullivan, Newark, OH

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frosty

As you can see from the first picture, this bank is undergoing restoration. It has been through several owners: the original bank, a trust company, a butcher shop, a jewelry store, and most recently an ice cream parlor. Each tenant modified the interior, usually badly. In 2013 the building was donated to the Licking County Foundation, which undertook several rounds of fundraising to restore the building. The basement and substructure was completed in 2016, the exterior facades in 2021, including removing a corner door and rebuilding the corner. The interior is being worked on now, expected to be complete in 2025.

This was Sullivan’s seventh and next-to-last bank commission. The exterior color scheme differs from his other banks, covered in gray-green terra cotta instead of red-brown brick. The ornamentation is similar however, and includes the same griffin from the Sidney Ohio bank.

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Newark, OHAugust 26, 2024

View of the bank with other buildings on the street

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Photo Walkabout August 2024 – 2

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It’s Albatrossity Monday!

Then we have the last of frosty’s banks, followed by 2 days of hiking with TKH!

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Albatrossity

I started out my second full day On The Road with a short sunrise swing through the Monte Vista National Wildlife refuge, then headed west to Cortez CO before finally bearing south to Gallup. It was a fine late summer morning in the San Luis Valley, cool and calm and pretty birdy

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Monte Vista NWR, ColoradoAugust 22, 2024

A nearly full moon setting and a flyby cadre of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis), which are found across the country all year long, no longer confined to Canada for the breeding season. Click here for larger image.

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On The Road – Captain C – Verzetsmuseum (Resistance Museum) — Amsterdam, October 2024. Part 1

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Captain C

It’s been a pretty crazy month, what with all the bad noise followed by what seems to be our side coming together with energy and optimism about our new Presidential candidate (about whom I am personally extremely excited).  During this time, one of the things I thought about was the visit I made to the Versetsmuseum, the Resistance Museum, in Amsterdam last fall; you may remember I posted a few pics from there in this On The Road set.  This week I put together a larger collection of photos from this museum, divided into three parts, perhaps as a reminder, ultimately, that despite all the bad noise, and understanding that people need as long as they need to process all that went down, this is what we’re fighting to prevent.  It’s a lot easier to stop the MAGA-types before they get into power than to root them out once they attain it.  I, for one, am optimistic that we can do it, and confident that we will.

On The Road - Captain C - Verzetsmuseum (Resistance Museum) -- Amsterdam, October 2024. Part 1 6
Verzetsmuseum (Resistance Museum), Amsterdam, NLOctober 13, 2023

We start with a propaganda poster of Anton Mussert, the founder of the Dutch Nazi Party in 1931.  With the invasion and occupation of May 1940, he became a notorious collaborator, given by Hitler the title of Leader of the Dutch People.  He was never given real power, though, that lay with Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and basically worked with the gestapo to suppress resistance.  At one point, he raised an SS division of Dutch volunteers which was later sent to the Eastern Front where they got mauled.  His last main achievement with what little power he had was not doing anything to stop the hunger winter, in which food was withheld from Dutch civilians by the Nazi occupiers and nearly 20,000 Dutch folks died of starvation.

After the war he was convicted of high treason and executed by firing squad.  No more or less than he deserved.

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On The Road – frosty – Peoples Federal Savings and Loan Association, Louis Sullivan, Sidney, OH. Interior

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frosty

The interior of this bank is not as elaborate as the one in Owatonna but it still includes the large expanse of stained glass for a well-lighted open space. Placing the vault at the forefront of the design was something that differentiated this bank from the others I saw on this trip.

On The Road - frosty - Peoples Federal Savings and Loan Association, Louis Sullivan, Sidney, OH. Interior 9
Sidney, OHAugust 26, 2024

Stained glass windows

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On The Road – frosty – Peoples Federal Savings and Loan Association, Louis Sullivan, Sidney, OH. Exterior

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frosty

This bank was our next stop, since we’re meandering through the Midwest. People’s was the seventh of the eight small-town banks that Sullivan designed, and it continues to operate as a bank. Like the Owattona bank, it has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

The following history is from Archipedia https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/OH-01-149-0063

“LaFayette M. Studevant, founder of the Peoples Federal Savings and Loan Association, was looking for an architect who could combine beauty, public convenience, and advanced technology in the design for a new building his bank planned to erect in a prominent location in Sidney, across from the historic Shelby County Courthouse on the south side of Public Square. After Studevant visited the Home Building Association Bank that Louis H. Sullivan designed for the town of Newark, 100 miles east, he knew he’d found the right architect for his building in Sidney.

As in much of his work, Sullivan turned to the natural world to find inspiration for the organic colors and patterns that define his rich ornamentation. Architectural decorator Louis J. Millet translated Sullivan’s forms into frescoes and mosaics and clay modeler Kristian Schneider translated them into molds for plaster, metal, and terra-cotta.”

On The Road - frosty - Peoples Federal Savings and Loan Association, Louis Sullivan, Sidney, OH. Exterior 8
Sidney, OHAugust 25, 2024

Courthouse square. Sullivan designed several of these small banks in a prominent location.

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On The Road – ema – Coney Island Mermaids

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ema

Before heading out to Coney Island to film my first Mermaid Parade* I formulated a cunning plan. 

Since it takes about one hour to reach Coney Island, I would take advantage of the trip, get there early and do some extra filming – a boardwalk stroll, the NY Aquarium fishy fishes, and then the parade. 

There was a heat advisory in effect for the day but I was dipped in sunscreen, other than my hands I had no exposed skin, and I was feeling pretty cocky that day. Let’s see how that turned out, shall we?

(* some clips might be NSFW)

On The Road - ema - Coney Island Mermaids 9

I started filming at the pier, then right on the Coney Island boardwalk, all to the way to the NY Aquarium, about a 20 minute walk.

All along the walk I noticed people (39s) sitting, with their backs to the beach and the ocean, under umbrellas, in the high heat and humidity, blasting music from huge speakers. I’m unclear why they weren’t either on the beach or at home, enjoying the AC.

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Photo Walkabout August 2024 – 1

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Albatrossity

My trip to SE Arizona in late August this year took a meandering path, aiming to see some biology, meteorology, geography, geology and history along the way. Totaling about 1400 miles, I spent three nights on the road before ending up in a B&B near Sierra Vista AZ for a while. Here’s a map of that route (I’ve always been fond of maps), and the next couple of Mondays will feature pictures from that westward leg.

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Quivira NWRAugust 20, 2024

I swung through Quivira National Wildlife Refuge on my first day, because a vagrant Roseate Spoonbill had been reported from there. It is still being reported sporadically at the time of this writing, but it was not seen by me on this trip. I did, however, find a very cooperative young Swainson’s Hawk (Buteo swainsonii) just west of the refuge, and it allowed me to take its portrait before flying off to join its parents, who had vamoosed as soon as I stopped the vehicle to take this picture. Click here for larger image.

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