We think the fall colors were at or near peak in the parts of the southern Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan were we traveled, though these pictures don’t do it all justice.
This first picture is from the top of Pine Mountain, Iron Mountain, Michigan
We drove through the Tunnel of Trees on M119 in northern Lower Michigan. The trees in this picture haven’t really turned much yet.
This next picture shows the colors better along M119 with Lake Michigan in the back ground.
Here are a couple of Great Lakes pictures from our fall trip. The first is of Lake Huron.
And this is Lake Michigan.
Last week we went on our annual fall trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and I took this picture of the Mackinac Bridge.
Great win by the Chicago Cubs last night to force a division series deciding game on Saturday night. They finally score in more than one inning of a game in this series! Both teams could employ bullpen pitchers to start the game and that will make it interesting. I do have a bone to pick with MLB for making the Cubs/Brewers game the late starter last night rather than the Dodgers/Phillies in LA, that made no sense.
Freedom For Whom
I am reading Thomas Zimmer’s essay about Russell Vought that I think correctly states what is happening in the United States. The MAGA project is the destruction of the United States that they view as already been destroyed. In their view this is the third American Revolution, the second American Revolution started with the New Deal and culminated in Obama’s election. I think in order to fight against this I think more attention needs to be put on the question of what comes after the U.S. government is entirely destroyed.
Rooted in this question is the reality that these people only place value in freedom for themselves, freedom is not for their opponents. Democracy, including the U.S. Republican one, allows the possibility of one’s opponents gaining power and therefore impeding upon their freedom. Consequently, Democracy is flawed and the only way to assure their freedom is a dictator. The form of what is in place may have the appearance all one thinks of about the United States, a Congress, President, Supreme Court, but for that structure to remain there must be guarantee the opposition can never gain power.
Consider the current government shutdown, doesn’t it feel different to you? The difference is that the current Republicans behind the shutdown do not fear the voters, they don’t fear not being re-elected, because they believe so long as the fall in line with the MAGA project they will continue to have a share of power.
Of course, anyone who understands what is going on ought to be sober enough to know that when everything relies on human feelings rather than laws sooner or later you can, and likely will, become the opposition to that person. Marjorie Taylor Green might being finding this out right now.
Stop calling it mainstream media, instead call it corporate media or capitalist media. What is even considered mainstream today any way? It is definitely not “the press” as intended by the First Amendment.
I think that Craig Counsell has done a poor job of managing the Chicago Cubs in this NDLS against the Brewers. First, he should not have started Boyd for game 1 on only three days rest and second it is absolutely wrong to not start your hottest hitter, Michael Busch even when going against left handed pitcher. How do you justify starting PCA who clearly has difficulty with left handed pitching and no start Busch. Pat Murphy was Counsell’s bench coach and I am beginning to think he did more the managing than Counsell when he was in Milwaukee. His performance does not justify being the top paid manager in baseball. David Ross could have equally managed to the two losses that have occurred in this series.
The Viwoods AIPaper Mini
Reading The Web
Today I finished reading Stephanie Booth’s three series posts on “Rebooting The Blogosphere” cited by others who I follow. In general I agree with Stephanie’s points and her description of a web reading tool that easily provides a way to create blog posts based on another post being read, create new blog posts from scratch, and convert a comment you are writing on another’s blog into a full post for your own blog. Her suggestion assumes one is reading within a RSS reader app like NetNewsWire.
Like Stephanie I would prefer less friction between reading and posting about what I am reading to my blog. The problem, however, is that most RSS feeds that I follow do not include the full content of a post. The sites that rely on advertising usually include just a link to their site or a snippet only so that you must end up going to the site to read the entire post.