48 thoughts on “February 22, 2021: Out With The Newer Old Thing”

1. R. I. P. Stan Williams, part of the Twins 1970 division winner, at age 84.

2. I'm getting tired of the hangers-on at Twins Daily of Astudillo -- he's been figured out, and much as I like him, he's not adding anything other than a sub-par body in several positions on the field (and at bat).

   1. I like A-Stud the way I liked Samuel Deduno--he's a fun guy to root for, but not someone who's going to play a significant role on a good team. Depending on how big the rosters are, he's someone who could be useful as a third catcher who can also play other positions if necessary. But that's about all he is.

      1. I wonder if he knows how to throw a Zoomball.

3. Since they already announced Chris Finch as his replacement, I wonder if the timing was because they wanted to get him signed before letting Saunders go. Still, very Wolvesy, although the truly disrespectful thing was letting him be a terribly unqualified head coach in the first place.

4. True story: I was the lector at church this past weekend, and the story was of God making his promise to Noah that he'd never flood the Earth again. Obviously the word "bow" in that reading is pronounced as in "rainbow," but every time I saw it my mind wanted to say "bow" as in "ow". To keep myself from making that mistake, I just made sure I thought of our friendly citizen Beau. And it worked! Though I almost dropped his last name into the reading too... "God set his Beau ****** in the heavens..."

   1. I am honored. Especially since two people in the last two days have looked at my name and called me Boo.

      1. The Last Remake of Boo Geste

         1. Hunny Beau Beau

5. So one of my employees resigned this morning over text. How's your Monday going?

   1. At a previous employer, a guy that got hired for a fairly high-profile position did that...on the morning of what would have been his second day. Can't imagine doing that.

   2. We had one do it via an interoffice memo. My assistant accidentally resigned for him as he left us voicemails.

      Oh, and I get to do his job and my job for the month of February.

      1. Hey I'm about to that for a co-worker that suddenly was no longer with the company on Friday.

         1. Good times!

6. So, here's something that's been rattling around in my brain this weekend. Thomas Jefferson died almost 195 years ago. If he were to come back to life for one day and you were charged with telling him what life was like in the US of 2021, what would you tell him? Suppose you could tell him only five affirmative facts about the last 195 years, but he would be able to ask questions.

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   1. 600,000 people died in a civil war within 40 years of his death. Slavery was abolished. A black man served as a two-term president and the current VP of the US is a black woman. 2. The world almost completely tied together. Communication with anyone in the world can be accomplished almost instantly. 3. The US has a standing army of millions of soldiers, is involved in wars all over the planet, and spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined 4. England is our oldest and closest ally; they still have a monarchy; the British Empire has crumbled to almost nothing 5. Agriculture, while still important, is hardly the engine of our economy. The US was the most industrial country in the world, but has transitioned to a service economy and shipped millions of jobs to low wage Asian countries.

   1. I think you're overselling #3

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      We live in the most peaceful times the world has ever known. In spite of the proximity of the Doomsday Clock's second hand to midnight.

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         maybe the two are related?

         1. Don't give Tommy too much info.

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      You made it on to Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. That's a new colony (state). Oh, and there's this thing called DNA. Remember Sally Hemings?

      1. Ha -- you went there!

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         The inclusion in point one of the VP being a black woman was added specifically because of Ms. Hemmings.

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      We've had a national bank (this time) for over 100 years. It works just fine despite printing literally tons of paper money. Also, countries all around the world use our currency in international trade and on their local black markets because it is so reliable. Some people on the far side of the continent in the state of California (south of places that Lewis & Clark visited) wanted to create a new state named after you. They are inane kooks, so it's not happening. America has a vibrant wine industry. Our grape rootstock actually saved the French industry from diseases. That thing that Ben Franklin did with the kite.... almost everyone has indoor plumbing that handles human waste, and machines that wash clothes.

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         Our soil actually gave France the diseases that our rootstock saved it from.

         1. I...did not know that!

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         you re on the $2 bill. And your buddy Hamilton is on the $10.

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            You're buddy Hamilton got a HUGE hit musical written about him. You were only a bit player in it.

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               Your bud John Adams got an HBO series celebrating New England, and you were shown as a pedantic twit whose claim to fame wasn't by your hand.

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                  My thinking, along these lines, was something to the effect of: Recent history has been more kind to all of your contemporaries than it has been to you.

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                     Feels like he was given a deft hand for a long time and it was just his turn since people "knew more about the larger figures" but shrug

                     A lot of rhetoric and myth that flows through these stories. I'm happy Stick is taking on this challenge its been a long thing w/ my dad doing this journey though we haven't done it in order.

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      The US was the most industrial country in the world, but has transitioned to a service economy and shipped millions of jobs to low wage Asian countries. And despite this, unemployment tends to be really low in the US, thanks in no small part to a tremendous system of public education and a network of public and private colleges and universities that are the envy of the world, with many loosely modeled on your vision for the University of Virginia.

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         Despite your words in the Declaration of Independence, a bunch of nitwits believe your actions speak louder than your words and gathered in your town and did some shameful shita few years ago. (Related: you may have wanted to have been more clear with your buddies about which specific arms we have a right to bare. )

   5. While I’ve generally heard France described as the United States’ oldest ally, that honor might actually go to Morocco:

      Morocco was one of the first countries to recognize the newly independent United States, opening its ports to American ships by decree of Sultan Mohammed III in 1777. Morocco formally recognized the United States by signing a treaty of peace and friendship in 1786, a document that remains the longest unbroken relationship in U.S. history. Full diplomatic relations began in 1905. Morocco entered into the status of a French protectorate from 1912 to 1956, and normal diplomatic relations resumed after U.S. recognition of Moroccan independence in 1956.

   6. My 5

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      1. The atrocity of slavery (and its related ills) have left deep scars on our nation and society. Uncountable millions have suffered directly and indirectly from it, it tore the country in half during a brutal Civl War, and the greatest (or second-greatest) President in our history was assassinated for successfully waging a war to preserve the Union. Deep-seated, widespread prejudice and institutionalized disenfranchisement meant it took 220 years for a black man to be elected successor to George Washington, and many Americans are still systematically disenfranchised. A woman of African and Asian descent is our current Vice President. 2. The United States landed men on the Moon before it reached its bicentennial. (We managed this with the help of scientists and engineers who had been our enemies, who were war criminals for inventing weapons used against non-combatants, and who used slave labor to build those weapons.) Twelve Americans have walked on the surface of the Moon, but all of those visits happened within three years. No American has returned since, and no person from any other country has been to the Moon. Dozens of other Americans have lived in a space station we built with other friendly nations, and we have landed robots on Mars in preparation for sending people to the red planet. Tell your buddy Ben Franklin that electricity thing he was curious about powers our entire economy and most of our entertainment, and that we can make it by damming rivers, splitting atoms, building windmills, or simply absorbing it with little plates left out in the sun. 3. The United States is the fourth-largest country on Earth, and the third-largest by population. However, the two countries with higher population each have more than a billion more people than the United States. Despite that, the US has the world’s largest economy and its most formidable military, both of which we occasionally use for good, but more frequently pollute the Earth, oppress people, and get us into serious foreign affairs trouble abroad. 4. Despite having the world’s largest economy, millions of Americans — around 10.5% of all citizens — live in poverty. Over 77 yeas ago, our second-greatest (or greatest) President proposed a second Bill of Rights to try to address many of the economic and social problems faced by our country, but other than one significant effort by one of his successors about half a century ago, most of our politicians effectively shrug their shoulders at this problem and instead worry about displeasing their corporate masters. They can do this without fear because the Supreme Court decided that corporations spending money on political donations is protected speech under the Constitution. 5. Scientists have known for decades that the Earth is getting warmer because humans are reliant on dirty forms of energy that pollute the atmosphere. Despite this knowledge, our politicians effectively are doing nothing. There is strong reason to believe the outcome of this continued warming will make millions of Americans refugees in their own country, leave large parts of the country uninhabitable, disrupt agriculture, flood coastal cities with seawater, make weather more unpredictable and storms more severe, and produce conditions for massive wildfires. See points 3 and 4 for why this is a problem that we have left go unchecked for far too long.

      1. I tried to write something similar to your #4, but was never satisfied with how it read

         1. I genuinely wonder how many of today's problems Jefferson would consider problems.

            1. He may both marvel at the progress and grandeur, and recoil at the intensity and gross, inhuman, inertia of it all. * **
               * Or maybe that's just me
               ** Needed a better word for that last phrase to capture the immutability of destruction and development we find ourselves in.

               1. I meant more like "I don't know that he'd care too much about poverty or global warming, he seems a bit of a jerk."

                  1. I think Jefferson would have cared about global warming. I think he would have supported scientific research.

                     What I wonder about is whether he would have been supportive of government spending on research. I think he would have been indifferent to the poor.

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         Tom, in 1986, there were a total of 70,300 large metal canisters deployed in special hidden places around the earth. Each of these canisters carried an elaborate rocket bomb which could cause massive destruction - deployed en masse, they would have obliterated the world's populations. The world's Presidents carried around a special valise with them with secret ciphers that would enable them to set off these rocket bombs at their enemies should they want to. As of 2019 there are approximately 3,750 of these rocket bombs still active and available to be fired. The ones that aren't active anymore were just hidden away, but not destroyed.

      3. Good list. I thought the moon shot as being one of my top five. I chose the inter connectivity instead because of how much difficulty there was in communicating. Had I fleshed this out further, I would have talked about transportation in the 21st century and how you can travel to Europe in a matter of hours.

         The inclusion of the mention of BHO was because Jefferson believed that if/when slavery ended, blacks would have to be sent back to Africa because different races could ‘t live together. Also I mentioned VP because she is a biracial woman of African descent, just like his concubine/slave, Sally Hemings.

         The inclusion of the state of agriculture today was because of his belief that the US would function best as an agrarian state seemed to be ridiculous even in the late 18th century.

         The standing army was because he was adamantly against a standing army and he dismantled some of the navy that Adams put together. We’ve had armed misadventures for most of the last 200 years, but I thought about highlighting our entanglement in Europe in the 20th century’s two world wars had massive (mostly positive) global implications.

         The point on England isn’t particularly important, but he was adamantly against the US aligning itself with Britain. Of course, that was a different proposition in 1795 than today. If he knew what a joke many people think France is today, I think he’d be stunned. But in retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have been in the top 5.

         I do like Brian’s contribution re: public education and the university of Virginia. I would think that the concept of the “unitary executive” would (rightly) have Jefferson aghast. On the other hand, mostly universal suffrage would probably not be something that he’d be on board with.

         I’m well into my Madison book and Jefferson is the person more than any other who has looked much worse than I thought he’d look.

         1. I’m well into my Madison book and Jefferson is the person more than any other who has looked much worse than I thought he’d look.

            That sentence sums up my feelings after each book I read about that era. The historical Jefferson is not the same as the pop culture Jefferson.

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      You won't believe what they're calling a sandwich these days...

      1. Ha -- you went there!

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   A purveyor of flavored ices in Massachusetts built an exact replica of Monticello for $8 million dollars, then abruptly sold it for $2.125 million.

   1. 

8. Last week we had a couple of -25 overnight lows. Today it's 40 and I have the kitchen window open. Nothing like a 65 degree warmup to make you think spring.

9. Here’s another fact that I’ve learned about the early years of the Republic. When the capital was in Philadelphia, there were serious Yellow Fever outbreaks in the summertime. During one year, about 5000 (10%) of the people living In Philadelphia died. Unknown at the time was that Yellow Fever was transmitted by mosquitoes, and the particular mosquitoes that transmitted it were from Africa, most likely brought to America on slave ships.

10. Tyler Clippard to the Snakes.

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