Homeless in Bethesda

A homeless woman has commandeered a park bench on Wisconsin Avenue at the Bethesda Metro station. She’s been on the bench night and day since the end of June.

She has a shopping cart full of her stuff and petunias next to the bench. It’s her 6’ x 6’ piece of land.

More desirable benches exist in the area. A couple of nice parks and a homeless shelter are nearby. But the woman wants to live on Wisconsin Avenue, and so she does.

The Languid Potomac

Drink

"Let's have some wine and women, mirth and a laughter. Sermons and soda-water the day after."

~ Lord Bryon


"A woman drove me to drink and I never had the courtesy to thank her."

~W. C. Fields

Currently

Reading: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, a wonderful book about the creation of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago and the gruesome doings of H.H. Holmes, the infamous serial killer.

Listening to: Corinne Bailey Rae (infectious voice, pure pop)

Following: The Baltimore Orioles, as they sink further in the standings

Pulling for: Floyd Landis, the American cyclist in the Tour de France

Had enough of: the tourists in Lebanon screaming for the American government to get them out. We can’t hold your hand in every dangerous place you choose to go.

Get Kinky in 2006

Kinky Friedman is running for governor of Texas.

Kinky's a country-western singer-songwriter (Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys) and mystery book author (he's written 23). His best-known song: "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore."

Back in the '60s, after graduating from the University of Texas, he joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Borneo where, he says, "I was supposed to teach agriculture to people who had been farming successfully for 2,000 years."

In the early '80s, he was doing a lot of dope. "I quit doing cocaine," Kinky says, "when Bob Marley fell out of my left nostril."

Now at age 61, Kinky believes, "I'm too young for Medicare and too old for women to care."

He promises big changes if elected governor. He claims he'll legalize casino gambling and use the proceeds to fund public schools - "slots for tots."

He's for gay marriage: 'They have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us."

So vote for Kinky for governor 'cause how hard can it be.

Field of Sunflowers

Swift Justice

Less than three months after President Lincoln’s assassination, a military commission found four people guilty of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination.

Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were handed their death warrants on July 6, 1865. The sentences were carried out the very next day.

Photographer Alexander Gardner captured the gruesome hangings.

Gratuitous Nude

This Morning, 6:43

“I can’t remember exactly when I did it for the first time…but I certainly remember when I did it the last time, to the exact minute.”

~ Russian President Vladimir Putin, on sex

Steel Pier, Atlantic City, N.J., 1950s

Amish Youth

Amish youth contend with and assimilate into modern culture.

Introducing the 2006 Schnellwagon SE...

• Captures the Charm of a Bygone Era
• Extraordinarily Plain
• Zero Financing
• Environmentally Friendly
• Powerful One Horsepower Engine (not included)
  

French Bread

Two stories:

In the bad old days of the fourteenth century, when the popes ruled from their palace in Avignon, the penalty for making substandard bread was severe. The guilty baker would have most of his clothes removed before being tied up in front of his shop, and then the good people of Avignon were encouraged to hit him with a stick as they passed by. The quality of his bread tended to improve dramatically.

~~~

When normal methods of village diplomacy in Provence came to nothing, bread was the last resort. Once a year, on Christmas morning, villagers would take bread they had baked to the fountain, leave it on the edge of the basin, and take away a loaf made by a neighbor. This was said to renew good relations between inhabitants who had fallen out with one another during the year.

From Confessions of a French Baker by Peter Mayle and Gerald Auzet