If Why Then Vanish, 13th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Deneb): In the last decade of the 20th Century and continuing into the first decade of the 21st Century, there was significant tension in Georgia between owners of industrial property and the state environmental bureau, the Georgia EPD. The property owners objected to the strenuous cleanup requirements imposed by the state and particularly to their associated high costs, while the State felt they were responsible not only for the environment but also for the effects on human health if the stringent cleanup standards weren't met. 

As an environmental consultant caught in the middle, I understood both sides. The state had deliberately set the standards low to protect potential future sensitive receptors - a cleanup standard for lead in soil based on exposure to the current adult industrial workers wouldn't be appropriate for children if the property was sold and redeveloped as residential property. On the other hand, technologies to achieve some of the State's cleanup goals either hadn't been developed yet or were exorbitantly expensive, and many of the property owners being required to foot the bill weren't the parties that contaminated the property in the first place.

A solution of sorts were reached when Georgia started accepting the use of engineering controls to address contaminated land. If contact to lead in soil by children was detrimental, instead of removing the soil why not simply put a concrete cover or other cap over the soil to prevent contact? The state agreed with the solution in principal, but was worried what would happen in the future when a new property owner decided that the concrete didn't fit in with their development plans, or when the concrete eventually began to crack, weather, and fail.  

The solution to that concern was institutional control. If a notice that a concrete cover was required to be maintained on site was put onto the property deed and, further, that the notice be a permanent fixture on the deed from one owner to the next, that would address the concern. Deed notices could also require annual inspections of the cap and yearly notifications to the Georgia EPD that the concrete still effectively prevented exposure to the underlying soil. 

These engineering and institutional controls could also be made to work for contaminated groundwater. The Property deed could state that under no circumstance could water beneath the property be used as a drinking-water supply, and annual groundwater monitoring and reporting be performed to assure that the contaminated groundwater didn't migrate beyond the property boundaries.

The downside was that implementation of engineering and institutional controls meant that there would be less cleanup in Georgia, and as a result more contaminated soil and groundwater would remain in the state. The upside is that there'd be less human exposure to that remaining contamination, including to the cleanup and hazmat workers performing the remediations. Property owners were happy because it reduced their out-of-pocket cleanup costs (even as it arguably lowered future property values), and the Georgia EPD was happy because it meant less resources were needed for contentious enforcement actions, it avoided litigation, and the burden of future oversight was shifted from the State to the property owners.   

This approach to addressing contaminated land was institutionalized with the Georgia Uniform Environmental Covenant Act, which went into effect on July 1, 2008. Since then, more than 300 deed notices have been recorded on properties throughout Georgia. 

The EPD has gained experience with this approach over the past decade, but is now reporting instances where property owners claim to be unaware of the deed requirements or are failing to follow the requirements. As examples, they note:

• The owner of a property that contains landfill material was required to maintain a cap over portions of the property, perform annual reporting, and submit notice to EPD of any planned changes to the cap. Georgia learned that, in violation of the requirements, the owner had removed the concrete cap, graded the site, and covered it with soil and gravel.


• A property that contained lead-impacted soil had restrictions on land-disturbing activities and required erosion-control measures, worker protections, and annual reporting. However, a new owner moved the lead-impacted soil around on the property and into a stream buffer and stream, claiming to have no knowledge of the requirements.


• A property that requires groundwater monitoring and annual reporting was sold without notification to Georgia EPD, and required annual reports were not submitted. When the new owners were contacted, they claimed no knowledge of the monitoring and reporting requirements.


• Another owner reportedly did not sample all the required monitoring wells and then sold the property without notifying EPD or the buyer about the monitoring requirements.

These are all examples of where deed notices were in place but the engineering and institutional controls failed. Unfortunately, as the number of properties subject to these controls continues to grow, the number of violations like these will also increase. But rather than scrap the program and abandon the approach, Georgia EPD is proposing that, at a minimum, to ensure that these sites remain protective of human health and the environment, all future environmental deed notices notify the property owners of the requirements on their properties and alert the State to circumstances when follow up is needed. 

To this end, the State has announced development of a standardized Annual Certification form and an online reporting tool, and intends to send automated annual reminders to those associated with properties subject to environmental controls. 

In my years of consulting work, before my retirement, I found the use of engineering and institutional controls to be an effective approach to addressing contaminated land. It was certainly more cost effective and avoided a lot of the litigation associated with expensive remediation requirements. Like anything, there are always instances when bad actors or simple human nature can cause any approach to fail, but it is my hope that the changes proposed by EPD will allow this approach to continue in Georgia. 

It rained again today. I missed my walking day today.

 

Day of the Wand, 12th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Castor): Google stats show that this blog gets 2,000 to 8,000 views per day, with 100 to 150 views per hour. I don't believe it.

First of all, why? Who would want to read this, and to what purpose? A certain percentage of views might be people who've stumbled onto a post here based on a keyword search in Google, but quickly moved on once they realized that nothing's being said here. I'm also doubtful because I've performed test searches on Google for key words used here, like "water dissolves water" for instance, and not received links to this blog.  

I think that if the Google stats are anything near correct, most of the views are really AI bots routinely scraping content on the internet, or spammers, cybercriminals, and hackers scanning the web for vulnerabilities. Some of the views might be my own, even though I keep telling Google Analytics not to track my own views, but I can assure you I don't view this blog anywhere even remotely close to a thousand times per day. Maybe two or three of those 2,000 to 8,000 daily views are mine, but that's about it.

For the record, I don't care. I'm not trying to monetize this blog and I'm not trying to get noticed or build a readership. In fact, I like the anonymity; I can be more honest that way. If you're reading this now, stop. Go away. A little privacy, please?           

Also, who reads anymore? A recent article in The Atlantic identified a worsening “literacy crisis” in the U.S. and beyond. Book reading is down substantially over the past twenty years, although reading of other material, Instagram Reels subtitles, emails, and Reddit posts, has taken its place. Literacy experts argue that deep thinking, textual comprehension, logical reasoning, and inference-making have been lost in the transition away from long-form books, and that we have entered a “post-literate” age. 

It’s a race to the bottom, and humanity is losing.

It's raining outside right now. Again. Fourth consecutive day with measurable rainfall, and eighth in the last ten days, and even when it hasn't been actively raining, it's been mostly overcast and oppressively humid. These Dog Days are wetter than I expected.

 

Day of the Dealt Hand, 11th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham has died, age 71. Impermanence is swift.

I did not care for the politician and even though I did not know him personally, I imagine I would have liked the man even less. Still, a life ends and that in itself is sad - a tragedy, although an inevitable one. All life ends. Impermanence is swift. I'll leave the obituaries and the political analysis to the pundits, and if you want snarky remarks or performative tributes, open social media. Your mind is already made up about his legacy and there's nothing for me to say.

I cut my walk short today after a 1.9-mile Washington when I saw an approaching thunderstorm. I got in the house not five minutes before the wind started whipping and the thunder and lightning started crashing. But I wasn't sorry to cut things short - it was so humid today that it was unpleasant just being outside, mush less exercising. But still, a Washington - barely worth lacing up my hiking shoes.    

The storm has passed but I just took out the recyclables and it's still yuck outside.

Meanwhile, these languid days and nights continue to pass as if in a dream. I missed the anniversary, but as of June 30, I've been retired for seven years, and have pretty much managed not to do even a single productive thing.  

Billows of Possibility, 10th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): The Okefenokee Swamp in Southeast Georgia is a natural treasure, an ecologically diverse biome and important freshwater resource. Water in the swamp is contained by natural beach ridges formed during the Pleistocene as sea level rose and fell. 

Did you ever notice on a map of Georgia that odd little area that hangs down along the southern border with Florida? It looks like a pair of tonsils, or a nut sack if you have a dirtier mind. That's Trail Ridge, one on those beach ridges, and it forms a natural dam that prevents swamp water in the Okefenokee from draining to the Atlantic. 

However, placer deposits in the beach ridges of Georgia and Florida are mined for titanium and zirconium. These ridges surround the Okefenokee and are enriched in rare-earth minerals, including ilmenite, monazite, and xenotime, that eroded from the Appalachian Mountains and accumulated in the sediments that constitute the beach ridges.  

Rare earth minerals are increasingly valuable for their usefulness in semiconductor and computer-chip manufacture. The demand for rare earth minerals, found mostly in China and Myanmar, has led to exploration for new sources, especially in North America.

Fortunately, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding wetlands are protected under the Endangered Species Act, which safeguards the habitats of the red-cockaded woodpecker, wood stork, eastern indigo snake, gopher tortoise and other federally listed fauna. These protections restrict activities on federal and adjacent lands that would jeopardize the survival of these species. 

Last year, a proposed strip mine along Trail Ridge for the rare-earth minerals titanium and zirconium was defeated, but not without great effort by environmental groups. But that was last year, and since then the demand for rare earths has only increased and the federal government's appetite for protection has only decreased.   

As discussed here yesterday, the Stable Genius has gutted key provisions of the Endangered Species Act, lessening the protection for habitats like the Okefenokee. The demand for rare earth minerals, driven by large AI operations and data centers, could well result in new proposals to mine and extract minerals from the beach ridges surrounding the swampland. 

It is not difficult to imagine the Stable Genius' administration brushing aside all environmental protections ("regulations and red tape") in a strategic effort to increase the U.S.'s share of the global rare-earth market. 

It's not like we're going to lose the new arms race for AI superiority to China over a woodpecker, am I right?

Grain Passage, 9th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Helios): In his nearly unfathomable wisdom, the Stable Genius, too busy to sign the bipartisan housing bill ("a big yawn," he called it) that's been sitting on his desk for a week, today has repealed a crucial part of the Endangered Species Act. The replacement rule will open habitats of endangered wildlife to development, logging, mining and other uses.

For the last 50 years, the Endangered Species Act relied on a broad interpretation of the word “harm.” The broad interpretation ensured that not just plants and animals were protected, but also the habitats that are critical to their survival. The inclusion of habitat in the “harm” definition was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1995 in a case protecting old-growth forest for the endangered spotted owl.

But despite widespread public support of the Act and hundreds of thousands of public comments submitted opposing the change, the Stable Genius decided that the broader interpretation of "harm" was “regulatory intrusion that interfered with private property rights.” 

Habitat destruction is the single greatest driver of extinction. The Endangered Species Act has helped safeguard more than 1,700 species and their habitats, preventing 99% of those listed from going extinct, including the spotted owl and the bald eagle. Excluding habitat from the definition of "harm" could cause catastrophic damage to species already on the brink to extinction, and the loss of some of the most beautiful and pristine land in the country to exploitation. 

But should we have expected anything else from the Stable Genius? As a popular internet meme correctly points out, he's a convicted felon, an adjudicating rapist, and a pedophile-protecting, porn-star banging insurrectionist running a dumpster fire of an administration. 

Tonight, 600,000 homeless people will be sleeping on the street. Forty percent of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. Insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. Medical debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy. Women are dying in hospital parking lots because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.

The U.S. locks up more of its own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has two million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.

Our life expectancy is going backwards, the only developed nation where that's happening. Our infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Our kids do active shooter drills in school.

The minimum wage hasn't changed in 15 years. Teachers work two jobs to make ends meet and veterans sleep under bridges, all while the government spends one trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack us.

And now, we're going to open up the Okefenokee and the Everglades to strip mining, clear old growth forests and fell sequoias for timber, and open pristine Arctic lands for oil drilling. 

Other than some lobbyists and a handful of greedy industrialists, no one asked for this.

 

Bugling It, 8th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Electra):  A recent poll showed that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is more popular among U.S. Jews than Bibi Netanyahu. Even the Stable Genius is getting sick of Bibi's shit. 

Yesterday, a 65-year-old Palestinian aid worker on his way to a World Cup watch party was killed by an Israeli airstrike. Israel claims it was targeting a Hamas militant, but admits to collateral casualties. That's been their go-to excuse for years now. 

A 65-year-old aid worker. On his way to a World Cup watch party. 73,000 Palestinians already killed and the Gaza Strip reduce to rubble. And yesterday's victim was not Hamas. In fact, he had been arrested and tortured by the group before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack because of his opposition to Hamas.

In the Old Testament Book of Psalms, it is written "Bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure" (Psalm 7:9). Another passage states, "In the words of the wicked, violence is  concealed" (Proverbs 10:6). A famous Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, once said, "All who draw the sword will die by the sword."  War is not the answer; eternal war even less so.   

 

Last Awe of Sentries, 7th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Deneb): "We don't torture, we're a civilized nation" - The Au Pairs. 

We now have photographic evidence that Israel is torturing Palestinian prisoners. You've probably already seen the picture in the news. It's revolting and I won't link to it or copy it here: a man, face down on a cot, stripped to his boxer shorts, blindfolded, and a metal rod tied along the length of his body, from the base of his neck down to his right heel. 

More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, with over 173,000 more injured. Several thousand are missing, presumed dead beneath the rubble. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, over 1,000 Palestinians have also been killed during the same period.

Sympathy for Palestinian men, women and children, and horror at the sheer scale of the killing isn't antisemitism. It's called being an empathic human being. Israel has a right to exist and has a right to defend itself, but this isn't that. This is genocide, no matter how vigorously they deny it and (some) U.S. politicians don't want to hear it.

Out of concern and respect for Israeli lives, the killing and torture has to stop. Violence only begets more violence, hate only generates more hate. Do Israelis really believe there will be no reprisals for their horrific actions? If only there were some book or reference to provide Israel with moral guidance . . . 

This issue has been talked to death over the last several years. It's been the subject of editorials, op-eds, op-op-eds, panel discussions, and social media frenzy. I have nothing to add to the conversation that hasn't already been said, but in light of the recent torture evidence, I cannot be silent. 

Stop the war. Stop the killing. Stop the hate. Just stop it!            

 

Tremendous and Sheer, 6th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Castor): I finally beat Volgin last night and have moved on in the game, for those of you keeping score at home. 

Back in 2009, I came across an enthused coworker in the office. He was hunched over his phone, and let out a loud cheer over what he was seeing. When I asked what he was so excited about, he said that it was just announced that the 2016 Olympics will be held in Rio.

"You a big Brazil fan?," I asked.  He didn't look or sound Brazilian. No, he answered, he was just glad that the Olympics hadn't selected L.A., because newly elected President Obama had been lobbying the Olympics Steering Committee to bring the games to the U.S., and he didn't want Obama to get any credit. For anything.

I thought his attitude was narrow-minded and bigoted, not to mention unpatriotic. But now, some 17 years later, I find myself in a similar situation. I was glad last night when I saw that the U.S. Men's National Team had been eliminated from World Cup competition by Belgium. Not that I'm a big Belgium fan, but the Stable Genius got himself involved in the competition by petitioning FIFA to overturn a red card against star U.S. player, Folarin Balogun. FIFA complied, the first time a red card suspension had been overturned since 1962. 

The Stable Genius had put his fat, stunted thumb on the scale in the U.S.'s favor, and so I was glad the team lost because I didn't want the Stable Genius to get any credit or to hear him gloat. I have become just like that coworker who was so excited that the U.S. had lost the Olympic games to Brazil.

The irony about the Stable Genius' intervention was the player in question was only eligible to play for the USMNT because of the Constitution's birthright citizenship clause, which the Stable Genius had tied to get annulled. Balogun's Nigerian mother had visited the U.S. while pregnant, and gave birth to him on American soil after she was denied boarding on a flight home by an attendant concerned about her medical condition (she understandably didn't want to assist a live birth at 40,000 feet over the Atlantic). So basically, he's against birthright citizenship except in cases where he thinks it might make him popular.

The Stable Genius fucks up everything he touches. He's ruined the White House and is working on ruining the rest of D.C. He's ruined the Presidency and the U.S.'s reputation and popularity abroad. He's ruined countless U.S. agencies. He ruined America's 250th Anniversary and he's ruined the World Cup. He's like a reverse King Midas - everything he touches turns to shit.

The Stable Genius is a malignant tumor on the undescended testicle on the American body politic.

Go, Belgium! We're all Brussel Sprouts now!

 

Which Past Was Hers, 5th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): For the first day in over a week, either by my calendar or yours, the NWS didn't issue a heat advisory for Georgia today. 

Still, it was hot, 89°, and humid, 68%, for an uncomfortable dew point of 70° and a "feels-like" heat index of 91°. Betelgeuse being a walking day, I went out and hiked a 7.4-mile (according to my phone) Jackson, although the mileposts indicate I walked eight miles. 

More of those scary electrical storms passed overhead last night; one of them knocked my power out at least five times in the course of about a minute, but the power kept returning. Unfortunately, I was playing a video game at the time, and the sudden power loss wiped out my progress. More specifically, I was playing Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, a remake of MGS III (which I had never played) and in the middle of a tedious boss fight (Volgin, if you've played the game), I had rage-quit the fight the night before after I kept getting beaten. I took the game back up yesterday afternoon before the power losses hit and I was actually starting to get the hang of how to beat him. I was making some serious progress on whittling down his health when the power went out and my PC shut down, and I lost all my progress. 

Once I felt confident that the power was finally back on to stay, I started the game and the fight again, and after a few close-but-no-cigar attempts to beat Volgin, I finally did it. He went down and a little pop-up alert appeared on the lower right of my screen announcing that I got the "SEIZE VICTORY" Steam achievement for beating him. A cut scene started, but as my avatar rode away on a motorcycle, my PC suddenly crashed. No power surge, just a computer issue, apparently. When my PC started back up, I was back at the beginning of the fight, as if I had never beaten Volgin.

Fuck.

I figured that now that I knew how to beat him, I'd make short work of defeating him again, but it was not to be. I kept getting killed, over and over, just like I had the night before and earlier in the day. I rage quit the game for the second night in a row. 

I thought playing games was supposed to be fun. Between the tedious fight itself, the power loss, and the computer crash, this has been anything but.

 

Apparent Doorways, 4th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): "Regardless of what else is going on around you, make the best of what is in your power, and take the rest as it occurs." - Epictetus 

There was a whole lot of lightning yesterday. Despite the continued presence of the heat dome over the eastern U.S., or maybe because of the continued presence of the heat dome (I hadn't spent much time out of doors in days), I still got my steps in, 15,629 of them on a 5.8-mile Monroe. 

The weather forecast (I checked two sources) said no rain until late last night, but just as I had reached about the furthest point from my house, a gentle sun shower started. That wasn't an issue - I was already pretty wet with sweat - but soon after it ended I heard the rumble of thunder. There were several dark clouds in the sky, although not directly overhead, and I could see a great many lightning strikes off in the distance as I began the return portion of my walk. 

The sky got darker and darker as I walked, and the lightning closer and closer. I couldn't tell what direction the clouds were moving but regardless all I could do was continue to walk toward home. I felt like I was on the edge of a razor blade - I wasn't in danger, but danger wasn't far off at all. I completed the last mile of the walk and got in the house right before the hard rain started falling.

Later that evening, just as the sounds of the Independence Day fireworks were finally starting to subside, the thunderstorms came back. Those second storms were impressive not for torrential rainfall or fierce winds but for more lightning strikes per minute and for more minutes than I recall ever before. It was a full-on X-Men-style Storm vs. Thor lightning-bolt assault. Fortunately, there was no damage here, although trees fell elsewhere all over town. I'm amazed my house didn't lose power through it all. 

The storms returned around 2:30 am, which really bummed me out. Some new bed pillows had just arrived yesterday and, using them for the very first time, I had been enjoying a really good night's sleep (I hadn't fully realized how much my old, flat pillows were impeding my sleep). But the storms interrupted that restful sleep, although I was able to pretty quickly fall back into the Land of Nod (they're some really good pillows!).

Pow! A transformer blew around 7:15 this morning and the power went out, although it came right back on almost immediately, but every clock in my house is still flashing. A milder version of the storms passed overhead this afternoon - milder, but still more lightning that rain. There truly are electrical storms, not rain storms.

Before this heat dome settled over the U.S., the forecasts had said that one of the characteristics of a heat dome is they tend to dry out the ground, posing a wildfire threat but reducing the likelihood of thunderstorms. Boy, was that wrong, at least for this heat dome.   

"Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?” - Lao Tzu        

 

Vibrant Threshold, 3rd of the Dog Days,  526 M.E. (Helios): Happy Interdependence Day, for those of you on that other calendar.

Interdependence (pratītya samutpāda) means that nothing exists independently, everything is connected to the vast web of causes, conditions, and relationships. Realizing this interconnection dissolves the illusion of a separate ego-self and gives rise to profound compassion. 

Whatever it is that you call "you" - your memories, attitudes, personality, preferences, dislikes, and so on - are all dependent on past experience, and those past experiences were all caused by the presence and actions of others. Your memories, attitudes, etc. are interwoven with those of others - no person is an island. 

The web stretches infinitely across the universe. The memories, attitudes, etc. of others are dependent on still others, and so on and so on across all of space and time. If one gets past that sense of ego-self, "you" are the entire web and the entire web is "you." You are all men and women, dogs and cats, your fellow nationals as well as foreigners. You are refugees and immigrants, the homeless and the well-heeled, both the Palestinians and Israelites, the Russians and Ukrainians. You are sea urchins on the ocean floor and stars in the sky. You are space and time.

The United Snakes is not independent of the United Kingdom. The English gave us our language, our understanding of law, and the King James Bible, which still has a lot of influence on a lot of minds to this day. They gave us slavery, shipping hundreds of thousands of captured Africans to these North American shores with the intention to helping the colonies prosper so that Britain could compete with the other European powers. The Portuguese shipped many more slaves to Brazil for largely the same reason, but that's another story.

I don't blame the American colonists for slavery. The institution began some 150 years and many generations before the American Revolution. I blame the English, and I'm angry with the northern colonies that recognized the immorality of slavery but still allowed the slave-holding colonies to enter their union.    

I understand strength in numbers, but the new nation didn't have to be 13 colonies. The eight New England and Mid-Atlantic colonies could have seceded without Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, and formed a "more-perfect union" without those slave-holding states. Those colonies could have formed their own union, which they eventually did anyway as the Confederacy.

You might say that two competing nations on the same continent would likely have resulted in war, but that happened anyway, didn't it? You might say that including the slave states in the Union would have encouraged them to abandon slavery, but that didn't happen for some four score and seven years. If there were an abolitionist United States in the north and a slave-holding Confederate States in the south, slavery would have eventually ended, just like it did in Brazil and everywhere else in the civilized world. Post-slavery, the two nations would likely have eventually merged during the Great Expansion. But no, the Yankee cotton mills on the Merrimack and Hudson Rivers wanted their cheap cotton, and were willing to overlook their moral and spiritual objections to slavery in order to keep the Southern colonies and their cotton-picking farms in their new nation.

Shame of John and Sam Adams and John Hancock for overlooking their morals and including slave states in the new nation. Fuck Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton and John Jay for getting in bed with slave-owners and traders.   

Well, that took a turn, didn't it? I started off all peace-and-love and empathy, we're all one, and so on, and wound up at "fuck Benjamin Franklin." 

Must be the heat.

 

Each Note Felt, 2nd of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Electra): Today, both the Pope in Rome and Zohran Mamdani, the democratic-socialist Muslim Mayor of New York City, gave speeches extolling the United State's history of welcoming immigrants. When the Pope and His Honor agree on a topic, you know it must be something profoundly true. 

Atlanta experienced some relief today from the heat dome as an early afternoon thunderstorm blocked the relentless Sun, and the cool rain absorbed some of the heat that had built up on the sidewalks and pavement. Right now, it's a relatively springlike 78°, albeit humid with all the rain. Still, yesterday's heat index was reportedly 106°.

Tomorrow marks the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. This old man remembers the bicentennial celebration of 1976, and even in the wake of Watergate, the fall of Saigon, and Nixon's resignation, and a contentious Democratic primary with candidates ranging from Jimmy Carter to Jerry Brown to George Wallace, the mood was more upbeat and, well, patriotic than today. There were no blood-sport cage matches on the White House lawn, no partisan "State Fairs," and no gleeful media laughing at the paltry attendance at those partisan "State Fairs." Even Republican President Gerald Ford didn't use the occasion as a cheap campaign gimmick. 

The Stable Genius is orchestrating a 250th celebration by and for conservative Republicans, not even bothering to pretend to reach out to the broader nation, but using the opportunity to increase polarization and divisiveness. He'll be speaking tonight in front of Mt. Rushmore, that tacky tribute to Presidents of the past, with the obvious goal of having his followers imagine his face on the desecrated mountainside. Ogden Nash wrote, "I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree," and I feel the same way about Rushmore. That man thinks he can improve the natural beauty of the Black Hills by sculpting the heads of dead presidents into the mountainside says a lot about more about America's attitude toward its environment than it intended with the monument. 

And don't even get me started on Stone Mountain. While Rushmore at least presumably had reverential intent, Stone Mountain was an angry protest, meant to sympathize with white supremacists and to intimidate minorities. The ugly fruit of ugly intentions.