{"id":23845,"date":"2019-05-11T11:18:03","date_gmt":"2019-05-11T18:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=23845"},"modified":"2019-05-11T13:03:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-11T20:03:13","slug":"on-the-general-coarsening-of-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=23845","title":{"rendered":"On the General Coarsening of Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donna and her sister Georgie are back from their 10-day California trip. Last night they dragged me, kicking and screaming, to a quilt show at Tucson Botanical Gardens.\u00a0The exhibit, put on by Quilt for a Cause<\/a>, will be at TBG\u00a0through the end of September, so if you’re a local or if you’re planning to be in Tucson anytime soon, do put it on your list. I was more than pleasantly surprised, and had a great time. Donna had many friends there, and so, it turned out, did I: my riding buddy and motorcycle maintenance guru Ed was there with his daughter Hannah, a student at U of A, along with his wife Sue, a prize-winning quilter.
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Donna & Georgie<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n
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International Man of Mystery™<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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Cactus flowers<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n
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Group selfie w\/Donna’s sewing guild friend Millie<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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\nOn the way home we stopped at Mariscos Chihuahua for camarones rellenos, and while there I discovered a type of hot sauce I hadn’t encountered before (if you can’t make out the label, it’s Mexico Lindo Salsa Picante Negra). It’s on my must-have list now. There are plenty of Mexican specialty markets in this little cow town, so finding it shouldn’t be a problem.
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\nGeorgie brought a freeze-pack of venison with her from Michigan, and today I pulled out a roast to thaw. I’ll make it in the slow-cooker tomorrow, my contribution to Mother’s Day. Georgie heads back to Michigan on Wednesday, and then Donna and I will settle in for a long hot summer.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite bloggers, Nancy Nall<\/a>, said this two days ago: “I no longer watch Jeopardy but will start again once this James Holzhauer guy goes back to Vegas. He\u2019s taken all the fun out of the game, at least for me, so someone let me know when he flames out.” Yes, that’s it. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what bothers me about that asshole. She nailed it. I think he’s ruined the show and that it’ll never be the same. I expect other professional gambler types to copycat and wreck other game shows too. Hey, it’s easy money, and isn’t that what it’s all about? The only game show I could ever stand to watch was Jeopardy, and I don’t really give a shit what happens to the others, but this guy, to me, puts a face on the general coarsening of society.<\/p>\n

Speaking of bringing society down, why is it that whenever I see a sexually crude, grossly inappropriate post on Facebook, it was put there by a fellow Hash House Harrier? What are we, a pack of sniggering 13-year-olds?<\/p>\n

Our neighborhood, grandly called Sunnywood Estates, is a modest subdivision of 34 homes built in the late 1980s. One of the original residents, Bob Hawks, died last year. He was our unofficial mayor, a more-or-less permanent member of the homeowners’ board and the organizer of our yearly 4th of July parade and block party. He could be seen walking his dog every morning right up to the end. There are two dead end streets in the hood (I was going to say “cul-de-sacs” but I looked it up and the plural is “culs-de-sac,” which looks so ugly in print I can’t bear to see it on my blog). Each has a circular common area and roundabout at the end. We’re all chipping in to make the common area nearest Bob’s old house into a memorial mini-park, with a flagstone path and bench. Everything’s done now but the bench. As you can see, Mister B approves.
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\nI have a love\/hate relationship with Google News<\/a>. Lately it’s hate. Not Google’s fault … the problem is the media outlets Google News links to. You see headlines on Google News, but when you click on them for the rest of the story, nearly everything is blocked. You either hit a subscription paywall or a screen demanding you disable your ad-blocker first. They say we shouldn’t get our news from headlines, but in the online world that’s increasingly all we can get, and it’s a poor way to stay informed. Of all the online news sites, two good ones I’ve found that don’t require subscriptions are Reuters<\/a> and The Guardian<\/a>. Both British, yes, but with excellent US coverage, and nothing’s blocked.<\/p>\n

We once planned to retire in Grass Valley, California, so when stories about the town appear in the news I always click the link. This one caught my eye: Bizarre Conspiracy Theory Cancels Grass Valley School Fundraiser<\/a> (there’s a small “please turn off your ad blocker” popup on this site, but you can click it away and actually read the story). The story is off-the-rails insane. Conspiracy nuts have always been with us, but today the crazies (QAnon members in particular) have more tools than ever before—the internet, email, and social media—and with those tools they can do real harm. Have you heard of “swatting<\/a>“? The Grass Valley Charter School Foundation didn’t get swatted, exactly, but what actually happened came pretty close.<\/p>\n

I’m planning to ride to the site of this blog’s namesake and inspiration one day next week. Yes, I’m talking about The Thing?<\/a>, the infamous roadside attraction near Wilcox, Arizona, about 100 miles east of Tucson. They’ve renovated the place and added new exhibits, and it’s time for a return visit. Yes, I’m bringing my camera, and there’ll be a photoblog.<\/p>\n

That’s all the news that’s fit to print, at least for now. More soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking of bringing society down, why is it that whenever I see a sexually crude, grossly inappropriate post on Facebook, it was put there by a fellow Hash House Harrier? What are we, a pack of sniggering 13-year-olds?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,555,16,5,2,1601,827,6],"tags":[2753,2751,2749,2750,2752,2642,2633],"class_list":["post-23845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-hash-house-harriers","category-local-color","category-media","category-motorcycling","category-personal","category-photoblogging","category-social-media","category-a-series-of-tubes","tag-grassvalley","tag-jeopardy","tag-popularculture","tag-quilting","tag-sunnywoodestates","tag-qanon","tag-thething"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23845"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23860,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23845\/revisions\/23860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}