Wait until next year

Putting off what could be done tomorrow, today

Tag: United States

Easier to clean up the mess

Suburban streets and a large cemetery, viewed from the air

“It has been established, for example, that suburban streets all over America ought to be as wide as two-lane county highways, regardless of whether this promotes driving at excessive speeds where children play, or destroys the spatial relationship between the houses on the street. Back in the 1950s, when these formulas were devised, the width of residential streets was tied closely to the idea of a probable nuclear war with the Russians. And in the aftermath of a war, it was believed, wide streets would make it easier to clean up the mess with heavy equipment.”

The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler

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Sunday Reading

Man holding up 'Surf Fever' bookThe return of a list of stuff I’ve enjoyed reading, and think you might enjoy too…

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“This just in. You are looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there”

George W Bush turns away from a television set on 9/11

9/11 was, among many other things, the ultimate television event. Never before had genuine, world-altering history unfolded on live television. Perhaps the closest forerunner was the Zapruder footage, yet that was not shown on network television until 1975. The shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald was shown on live television but, while shocking, was more a footnote to a historic event than the whole event itself. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday Reading

Never on Sunday poster

By no popular demand whatsoever, a return of one of those posts with links to things I’ve been reading, or planning to read, with little or no context whatsoever. Hopefully you’ll find something here worth reading. Read the rest of this entry »

The Emperor of California

Photograph of Norton I, Emperor of CaliforniaI remember one Christmas watching several episodes of Ken Burns’ documentary series, The West. I didn’t really know much about the subject matter, bar the usual stuff you pick up in movies and comic books. I didn’t know anything about Ken Burns. In fact, it was probably several years before I realised that Ken Burns was behind the programme. And that was after picking up the book of the series and everything. I’m not that observant, I guess. But one thing I did pick up on and did remember, was the story of Joshua Norton, the self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.
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