the good old days

The White House is getting a modern day Victory Garden!

I expect their garden will be a lot more successful than ours. For one thing, they’ve got gardening staff who know what to do. And, our soil in the South Carolina Midlands is pure sand. We planted a lot of stuff last week, and so far there are only two sad little sprouts outside — I think they’re beans, but they might be weeds. The tomatoes were started inside, and are doing much better. (The eggplants, also started inside, are not doing much at all.) We’ll see how it goes. With luck, I’ll be complaining about my excess of vegetables in a few months. More likely, I’ll be relying on the local farmer’s market again — the CSA I planned on joining ran out of 2009 shares within days of announcing they were on sale.

What I’d actually like to see is a greater encouragement of food preservation. It’s not really that hard to get good fresh vegetables when they’re in season (whether you grow your own or buy from a farmer). But even in South Carolina, where the growing season is 364 days long, you can’t get tomatoes in February unless you canned or froze some. Everyone’s got a freezer, but safe canning requires investment in some serious equipment — most vegetables requires pressure cooking to reach the necessary temperatures.

So an initiative to set up community canning centers, stocked with appropriate equipment and knowledgeable staff, is something I would really welcome. And I doubt I’m the only person who finds herself buried in green beans in August, wishing she could have them in December. (Maybe I’ll talk to my advisor about whether this would be a good paper to write — evaluating the economic and nutritional impact, balanced against the necessary investment… Seems an appropriate project for a sustainability lab, right?)

Presidential garden map via the New York Times article. Poster is by Herbert Bayer through the WPA, for the USDA ca. 1941, via Library of Congress.

Buying amoxicillin with no prescription, using it while pregnant, where to buy amoxicillin, amoxicillin cheap

I have gotten dozens of spams about this antibiotic in the last week, while my usual weekly spam comment total comes up to just about twenty.

My question is not: “why am I getting loads of spam?” My question is: “why would anybody want to spam about amoxicillin?” It’s not Viagra or Percocet, it’s not porn videos, it is easy to get when you need and pointless to take when you don’t. It’s like the medical version of where to buy bread spam. WTF!

(It still makes more sense than the comment which praised my coverage of radioactive dating, though.)

Nurse Chapel and Lwaxana Troi were some of my favorite Star Trek characters over the years. When I finally got to see the never-used pilot The Cage, I also loved the brilliant (and female) first officer.

Majel Barrett-Rodenberry passed away yesterday. I haven’t been an avid Trekkie for years, but I will always remember her as an aspect of the show I consistently enjoyed.

When Buck Rogers in the 25th Century made the jump from theaters to television, some recasting was planned.  That’s pretty usual in such situations; a show that arises spontaneously out of a film’s success may be lucky to get the leading actor back.  When, as with Buck Rogers, the plan was always to make the TV show (unless the feature film bombed) you should expect some continuing cast.  But some actors aren’t going to want to make the longer term, less profitable commitment to a weekly show.  Buck Rogers in the 25th Century actually got pretty lucky.  They only had to recast the computerized voice of Dr. Theophilus and Kane.  (Henry Silva, established B movie actor, was apparently too busy to reprise his film role, even though Kane had been downgraded from Buck’s arch-nemesis to occasionally recurring schlub,  Silva sure showed them he had better things to do with his time by making Escape 2000.)

The thing was, they thought they were going to have to recast Wilma Deering as well.  Erin Gray didn’t want to continue with the television series at first, so the producers selected Juanin Clay to take over the role of Col. Deering.  But Gray changed her mind and did do the TV series.  The produces magnanimously gave Clay the show’s third story, “Vegas in Space,” as a consolation prize.  Wilma has a minimal role in the story; another officer, Maj. Landers, who might as well be a carbon copy of Wilma (except for her brown hair) takes her place.  It makes the story seem a bit odd, since Buck’s temporary partner behaves exactly the same way as his regular one.  The sooner you flat-out forget that he’s not working with Wilma as usual, probably the better.

Besides his Federation partner, Buck has another romantic interest in this episode.  (Practically all the episodes featured attractive new females for Buck to take a liking too, but his relationships with these women weren’t always romantic.  Often he behaved more like a big brother or fun uncle than a potential mate; and sometimes the women were already attached, although often to villainous boyfriends.)  This is Tangie, indentured casino hostess on Sinaloa, the space station where most of the action takes place.  She’s needy, annoying, and scantily clad in the remains of a disco ball.  But Capt. Rogers just can’t resist a woman in trouble.

Tangie gets mentioned several times later in the series.  (At one point, Buck is supposed to take a vacation with her.)  That’s part of something I actually like a lot about this show.  Events in earlier episodes are regularly referenced later in the series.  It makes the characters seem more real; they don’t restrict their attention solely to plot points introduced in the last thirty minutes, and they are concerned about the same minor issues over extended periods of time.  In fact, this is the only show I can think of besides Mystery Science Theater 3000 in which they’re willing to set up a joke and delay the punch line several episodes.  (And the joke in question was about a rubber plant, which I think are intrinsically funny anyway.)

Returning to the specific episode “Vegas in Space,” we have a plot where an interplanetary supercriminal (Mr. Velosi) abducts the secretary of a competing supercriminal to his deep space casino.  Buck and Wilma The Artist Formerly Cast as Wilma head out to rescue the innocent young secretary, before she’s subjected to a mind-rape interrogation and then killed.  The rest of the story is pretty routine.  They get to the space station, gamble (after Buck figures out blackjack is now called “ten and eleven”), figure out where the girl is being held (by interrogating Jonathan Banks, playing the least threatening thug of his career), use some feminine wiles to steal a key to the incarcertaion area, and finally bust the prisoner out.  There were few surprises, except for the afrementioned Tangie, who was surprising only in her poor choice of costume and her amazing whinyness.  It was not a memorable episode, in terms of characters, setting, or effects.  I enjoyed watching it once, but unless I decide to watch the entire series again, I probably won’t be coming back to “Vegas in Space.”

The May 1936 issue of Popular Mechanics contained an article called Rolling around America.

I nursed a pet theory for a long time before I was able to try it out. I believed it was possible to spend thirty days seeing America from coast to coast, and from Canada to Mexico, at a total cost of $100 per person in actual travel expenses….

I took a thirty-day trip through America. I drove 11,500 miles — and did all the driving myself. I visited thirty-one states and the District of Columbia. I touched both coasts, drove through Ontario in Canada and took a glimpse of Juarez, Mexico, passed through three national parks, visited fourteen state capitols, stopped briefly in some 500 American cities and towns — and I did it all for less than $400.

The author is being a bit disingenuous with his figures. “$100 per person” doesn’t mean that one person would be able to make it around the country for that; it means that the trip costs around $400, and he conveniently divides that by four because up to four “young men” could go on the trip together.

Inflation means that $100 in 1936 is equivalent to just under $1500 today, meaning the 30-day cross-continental trip runs about $6000. (The cost of gas today, even accounting for inflation, is roughly double what it would have been for Reynolds; I’m not going to bother with careful math, but the total bill will probably end up more like $8,000 to $10,000.) This is actually very affordable for a month-long vacation for four.

Nevertheless, something about the article feels a little off. As the Senator describes his land yacht, the $400 budget is blown out of the water; the author insists that “any ingenious boy” could build his own trailer and camp in tents for this trip, and it’s a bit disappointing that Popular Mechanics wouldn’t decide to feature THAT story instead of Reynolds’. He occasionally went without “shaving, bathing or changing clothes” — OOOOOOH, what sacrifice — but still managed a steak dinner every night. And who gets to take 30 days of vacation in one chunk?

Finally, for a bit of additional historical interest: the author, Robert R. Reynolds, was a senator from North Carolina and a Nazi sympathizer.

Anyone who watched the fourth Indiana Jones movie and, like me, was groaning in indignation at such things as refrigerator scene… that painful, painful refrigerator scene… the scene which insulted both basic physics and basic common sense in one colossal moment of STUPID, and epitomized the limping wreck that the movie became…

ANYWAY, you should appreciate today’s UserFriendly comic strip

Take a few moments to celebrate how we totally showed the commie bastards we were best: by spending millions of dollars to be the first ones on the moon

If you’ve got 30 minutes free, enjoy the official NASA footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission. (If you’ve got only a few minutes, enjoy the first few minutes at least — that’s got Neil Armstrong stepping off the LEM.)

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If you’re in a sillier mood, enjoy this 1935 cartoon instead…

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I bet you thought that was just a question of chromosomes. HA!

Not so, according to this 1930 quiz (now available through interactive Internet Magic). It’s how you behave towards your spouse that makes you better as one or the other.

In true “What were they thinking back then” tradition, there’s a bit of plausible advice for a good relationship (do you taunt and belittle your spouse in public), buried under seriously bizarre gender role questions (does wife “wear pajamas instead of nightgown”). A few questions are way out there — like whether the wife “praises marriage before young women contemplating it”. I didn’t know we were supposed to be recruiting. (Or is it proselytizing?)

88 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior

31 As a 1930s wife, I am Poor

Take the test yourself — and get your spouse to take it too, just for giggles. Thanks to What Tami Said for bringing it to my attention

Start your day with a bit of blasphemy…

Of course I “Love My Country.” But let’s be real for a minute on this day and remember that the “Founding Fathers” would probably not have associated with you unless you wore a powdered wig and banged your slaves. It’s fine to celebrate our past, but don’t color history in such majestic and glorious shades that you repaint it entirely.

We still have a long way to go as a country. We are just as divided today as we were then. 40-45% of the colonists supported the rebellion. 15-20% of the population remained loyal to the British Crown and the remaining 35-45% attempted to remain neutral.

Hear hear. History is useless — indeed, dangerously deceptive — if it is incomplete. For instance, did you know that there weren’t “Presidents” before 1789? It took a long time to get things sorted out, even after hostilities with Great Britain were finished.

Since the 4th of July is symbolic, one day on which to try to celebrate decades of turmoil and upheaval during the founding of a nation, just settle for enjoying your burgers, beer, watermelon, and fireworks. Save serious thought for tomorrow.

This post is dedicated to great-great-great-great-great-uncle correction: first-cousin-seven-times-removed Thomas Mifflin, who served in the Continental Army and was the fifth President. Of course, that’s President of the United States in Congress Assembled, before there was a Constitution… but I’ll take what I can get.

For snarky humor aimed at the clumsy advertising of yesteryear, Kitchen Retro is always good for a laugh.

What 1936 Betty Crocker advised us: Men are incompetent housekeepers who transition from mooching off their mother to mooching off their wife, and of course are never satisfied with the cooking of the wife.

Which, if you think about it, means that cooking skills are quantitatively getting worse with every generation. In another few centuries, we’ll all be putting dirt on plates and sobbing apologies for not being able to get the worms “just like mother used to make”.

Maybe I should stop thinking about it.

Anyway, the biscuit-loving husband picture is a riot. Can’t say it much better than Lidian did…

Check him out, holding up the Bisquick biscuit and grinning. Getting to be a swell cook? Getting to be? How many goddamn batches of biscuits does a person have to make and shove down his throat before he coughs up an unadulterated compliment!

Gee, isn’t that swell?