If you live almost anywhere in the southeast, you’re going to have planes flying over all day and night, coming or going from Atlanta. It isn’t unusual to sit on my patio in the evening and spot three or four commercial jets overhead at any given moment and, of course, a perpetually drifting web of contrails. It isn’t unusual in normal times, that is. These days I can sit on my patio and gaze at an empty blue sky for what seems like hours; it’s even small cause for excitement when the occasional lone flight does happen by. “Oh, look! A plane!” I know the flipside of this and other commercial inactivity is economic hardship. I have been lucky so far. Making a living from royalties, I get paid today from sales generated weeks earlier, but I fully expect soon to be sharing the pain of struggling newspapers, an industry that never really recovered from the downturn of 2008. However, God help me, part of me enjoys living in a quieter world. I might as well, if it’s happening anyway.
“Birds of a feather murder together”
By Jimmy Johnson
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29 responses to ““Birds of a feather murder together””
You ought to live in Memphis. Fed Ex sends out most of their fleet at night. Bless them! They provide a gazillion jobs.
JJ- I hate to suggest it but to bring in a few $$ -Put A&J on pay per view?
I wouldn’t do that to you!
great- thx
Yes, I think that it is important to look for the positive in all situations. There are certainly enough negative out there. Today I was able to see my chiropractor with no one waiting and we could actually have a nice conversation. Of course the reason for the visit was quite negative.
I was walking around my street, which is a circle. On my last loop I saw a small car jockeying around his driveway and as I approached, I made eye contact and proceeded quickly around his car. Unfortunately he did not have the same understanding and gunned his vehicle straight out and knocking me on my derriere. There were several witnesses, a couple saying to stay down and another saying “Call 911”. I was able to quickly get up. The passenger apologized profusely and I just yelled that he needed to be more careful.
I got home, iced my back and noticed some swelling on my forearm, so I iced that. After numerous attempts of getting up out of the chair, I decided that bed was the best bet. I did get up around 10:30 to take a shower and that helped me sleep. Before I went to sleep, I texted Chef Robert Irvine from Restaurant Impossible, who I am friends with, and he implored me to see a doctor. I am really glad he did as the Doctor confirmed that this was not serious.
I hope to be able to walk soon and maybe stop by and have the kid pay my co-pay. Better that than have his insurance company raise his rates. I feel very very fortunate.
Glad you seem to be OK – but unless your chiropractor has a x-ray & MRI in his office, please hie yourself to the ER forthwith & consult medical professionals to assure you’re not doing further damage.
We really don’t want to come back here & read “Did you hear? Steve FRO,M died of internal bleeding!”
Yes he has an ex-ray and that is how he made his diagnosis.
My local paper, The Nashua Telegraph (New Hampshire), just went to an internet only news source, with no comics, puzzles or Dear Abby. They will still have the Sunday paper (the only way they can get ads into your hands), but I predict that it’s not long for this world. Our monthly subscription runs out this week and we’re not going to renew it…..
Our local daily (which went to tabloid format & ceased the Sunday edition several years ago) is currently – allegedly temporarily – not publishing on Monday.
The local bi-weekly in the little town in AK where my youngest lives (to which I also subscribe – and which is a far superior paper to ours) is currently online-only, also intending to resume normal operations after the Trump Plague.
Oh, yeah – we’re about 70 miles out from O’Hare, Jimmy, and I’ve noticed the same thing. The folks who live next door to Midway must be loving that aspect of all this!
The Telegraph was one of my customers in the mid 90’s, one of the larger newspapers to which I provided service and equipment. I had a small consulting firm that supported a particular data collection product (a front-end as it were). I have an old Rolodex of the customers with street addresses from all over the U.S. and Canada. For fun I sometimes look them up on Google Earth. Sadly, many if not most of those publications are gone and the buildings shuttered or razed.
I wonder how much of the collapse of local newspapers is related to their being bought out by media conglomerates based and run far from the localities where the readers live? The more homogenized the “news” gets and the greater the mass of the mass media, the less relevant having a local outlet becomes. What you need to know right now comes via local tv and apps on your personal communication device, like Janis’ weather app.
There is truth in that and this has been happening for many years. But frankly the access to digital information, that is instant really was the straw that broke the back. We need local journalism more than ever and I am not sure that I have an answer.
Steve, one of the things that is killing off readership in the conglomerated newspapers is that the opinions and slant of the news tends to represent the distant owners and not the local readership. It becomes harder and harder to find a reason to spend money on something that does not represent you, your views, or your locality. Ownership keeps cutting out what you really want and by the time they’re through, you are better off with the free shopper newspapers.
Back in my Deep South neck o’ the woods, we have one of those apparently really rare birds…a locally-owned, locally-operated print newspaper. (Reduced over the years to three editions per week, but one can’t have everything.) I subscribe to the e-version of it, and they do a good job. (Excellent local coverage , and they even carry A&J. 🙂 ) They are facing hard times now, primarily due to the decrease in business advertising caused by the Rona. I hope they make it.
A…lot.
Excellent artistic job on the shirt JJ.
Maybe that further raises the question Jimmy raised: What kind of art is parrots on a shirt—in *this* particular way? Well, I don’t really know, and very likely will never own parrots on a shirt. But I will agree with you 100% that the four (or so) were well placed—especially from a side view!
I own probably close to two dozen “aloha” shirts. None, as I recall, have parrots on them, however.
There are flight-tracking apps that allow one to see on one’s smart phone what’s pulling those contrails. For instance, a Southwest Airlines 737 just passed southeast of me at 40,000 feet, making 405 knots ground speed, in route from Little Rock to Las Vegas. Kinda of like train-spotting, I guess. Perhaps not too interesting to non-pilots and non-aircraft buffs, but anyhow…
Speaking of Las Vegas, it may well take a very hard hit from the Rona virus. Likely, only the most hardcore gamblers and dedicated fun-seekers will be will willing to cram themselves into commercial airline cabins for hours; check into mega-hotels; and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with like-minded people at crap tables or sit shoulder-to-shoulder in entertainment venues in the immediate future…if ever. Lots of mid- and lower-level jobs will be on the line. The city may live up to its nickname of Lost Wages, but not in a way anyone expected.
Is anyone else trying to garden during the Plague? Seeds are in short supply but I managed to find some. I have about a dozen 20 x 20 square pots on front deck with lettuce sprouts.
Have some cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, watermelon seeds up in peat pots. Planting more things this afternoon.
My gardens have pretty much been a wasteland. My friend Marlena and I are fighting as well as two old broads with metastatic cancer can fight. I actually got herbs in ground and sprouting. Planted lots of kinds of basil.
Way to go, Jackie!!!!
How many remember running outside when ANY plane went over – it was a big deal.
Tenant just got corn in ground before rain – He does in one day what it took us a month to do.
JJ. Since Gene’s place is a specialty place he should use a delivery service (or do it himself.
Tough time require innovative solutions.
We hit 74* yesterday, first time in 7 months. (50* today)
Ice-out on states largest lake. Missed the average by one day.
Local lake has never had Ice-out on the average.
emb – Bemidji must be going out soon?
We lived just a few miles from the Memphis TN airport, so seeing passenger or commercial planes wasn’t a big deal. But helicopters sure were, especially the military ones!
Rode by S end yesterday; thin sheet still floating out there. Not often w/in sight of Lk. B. these days, so may miss ice-out. Also, smaller S third is the end I’d see.
When actively volunteering at SHB again, I’ll again get up whenever I might see an air ambulance arr. or lv. Pad is not far from W pkg. lot, not a good place to be in winter [Sep-Apr].
Peace,
Cranes have all left the E NE refuge to breed, some as far as E Siberia. Nearest to here w/b in the wetlands of NW MN, nr Gully, in the bottom of what was Glacial Lake Agassiz. Agassiz, BTW, was an interesting sort. Swiss, dad was a minister [may I guess Calvinist?]. Louis Agassiz is worth doing a search. Founded Harvard’s Mus. Zool. Ironically, his Harvard office was, I believe, inherited by the [late & peaceful] Marxist paleozoologist Stephen J. Gould.
Copied the extract below from a biogr. site. Knew about the anti-evolution stance, but not about the racism. Believe “polygenism” is the notion that the [older] 2nd creation story [Adam, everything else, Adam’s rib, Eve, & the talking snake] was about us Caucasians, and that there were separate creations for “lesser” folks, who didn’t rate Biblical accounts. Don’t know what polygenism says, if anything, about souls. All sin, and all is forgiven, and Agassiz probably knows better now. Wonder if Elaine has met him?
“In the 20th and 21st centuries, Agassiz’s resistance to Darwinian evolution, belief in creationism, and the scientific racism implicit in his writings on human polygenism have tarnished his reputation, and led to controversies over his legacy.”
Peace,
When I’m out and about in “normal” times I am usually wearing such a shirt or a shirt with cars on it. Re the vp’s failure to wear a mask in the hospital I highly encourage that continue as well as potus goony bird.
It was 66° (actually made a typo as 666°:-) ,) and even though I am pretty stiff from getting run over from the day before, I did walk 2 miles around my circle drive. I have to admit that I was super cautious and turned my head every time I heard a car move, but it helped both physically and mentally. I slept better last night and am slowly getting more range of movement. I really hope that all of you can get the chance to venture outside, if only to sit on the porch or drive somewhere and roll down the windows. The vitamin D from the sun and the fresh air really helps.