I have a feeling that 2023 is going to be a break-out year.
To my vast following of readers I bid you good health and prosperity in the coming year.
The MAISON IS THE #1 VENUE ON FRENCHMEN STREET FOR LIVE MUSIC, DINNER, DANCING, PRIVATE EVENTS, DRAG AND BURLESQUE SHOWS AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!
Today brings the Trifecta:
The Mighty Fendertones, The Royal Philharmonic and a spectacular live studio version with Brian Wilson and Al Jardine.
Crank-up the volume for Sloop John B.......
In Ancient Greece, Socrates had a great reputation of wisdom. One day, someone came to find the great philosopher and said to him:
The process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how something is more environmentally sound. Greenwashing is considered an unsubstantiated claim intended to deceive someone into believing that a product, plan or decision is environmentally friendly.
I have blogged about this subject before.
Now it seems the United Nations is getting-in on the game and is scolding businesses to stop greenwashing.
Between you and me I don't happen to think this falls within the bailiwick of the UN to become the world's Eco-Nanny.
Nevertheless, it is becoming clearer to me that appearances are important and if gullible individuals are going to believe that a corporation with a big, filthy-dirty carbon footprint has all of a sudden gone green then I suppose that gullible people are free to be suckers. I'm not falling for it. PT Barnum had a term for this.
Anyway, you read more about the snit over this here.
You're welcome.
Literal translation: Snow Deer.
Whitetail deer sport a uniquely adapted winter coat that efficiently absorbs the scarce winter sunlight. Solar heat is trapped by coarse and hollow outer guard hairs. Underneath is a dense, soft and heat-retained hairs closer to the skin. Deer also produce an oily substance that is distributed throughout the entire outer coat thereby enhancing waterproofing. These insulating properties are so incredibly efficient that snow falling-upon the back of the animal will accumulate without melting. Furthermore, the dull brownish-grey coat this time of year is superb camouflage.
The whitetail deer is a marvelously adaptable animal.
All the way down to below zero......
Well, Santa didn't bring a Lab puppy for Christmas.
Maybe that will change in 2023.
Time will tell.
Hardly a day goes by I don't miss having dogs underfoot....
The staff here at The Platz would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas no matter what you find under your tree.....
All of us here at The Platz extend our best wishes for a Very Merry Christmas.
Conditions are brutal out there so throw another piece of stove wood on the fire, put your feet up, snuggle with your sweetie content with the knowledge that Santa Claus is on his way....
Even the song birds are getting into the Christmas spirit decorating their house before winging it off to a warmer location....
Likely one of the most adorable advertisements I've seen around these parts.
And who doesn't like a trampoline.......
From the blog archives there is this.
I originally published this photo on February 20, 2013 pitching it as a shot taken from a new location.
I cleaned it up a bit and cropped it to remove the date and time stamp. I suggested that it might be one that will make it to the collage of pictures in the 2013 Christmas card.
I cannot recall if it made the cut for the Christmas card but it does date how long a trail cam has been at this location.
A decade of uninterrupted and patient monitoring of who stumbles across this intersection of three trails. It is such an excellent spot for wildlife monitoring that a Wisconsin DNR Snapshot camera was located there on October 20, 2018.
The trees that the cams are strapped-to are ash trees that are almost dead so I'm going to have to do something about that. But it's been fun performing a longitudinal monitoring of the same location for such a long time.
Cheers!
The hiemal solstice or hibernal solstice, sometimes
called midwinter or astronomical winter. More commonly known as the winter solstice this event occurs when the
Sun reaches its most southerly declination of -23.4 degrees. It is that point
in time when the sun is exactly over the Tropic of Capricorn. In other words - when the North Pole is
tilted furthest away from the Sun. If you are persnickety we will enjoy only 8 hours and 46 minutes of daylight today.
The Bible story of the virgin birth is at the center of
much of the holiday cheer this time of year. The book of Luke tells us that
Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem because Caesar Augustus decreed a census
should be taken. Mary gave birth after arriving in Bethlehem and placed baby
Jesus in a manger because there was no room for them in the
inn.
Some people think Mary
and Joseph were mistreated by a greedy innkeeper, who only cared about profits
and decided the couple was not worth his normal accommodations.
This version of the story (narrative) has been repeated many times in plays,
skits, and sermons. It fits an anti-capitalist mentality that paints business
owners as greedy, or even evil.
It persists even though the Bible records no complaints and there was
apparently no charge for the stable. It may be the stable was the only place
available. Bethlehem was over-crowded with people forced to return to their
ancestral home for a census – ordered by the Romans – for the purpose of
levying taxes. If there was a problem, it was due to unintended consequences of
government policy. In this narrative, the government caused the problem.
But these laws would also have
unintended consequences. Fewer investors would back hotels because the cost of
the regulations would reduce returns on investment. A hotel big enough to
handle the rare census would be way too big in normal times. Even a bed and
breakfast would face the potential of being sued. There would be fewer hotel
rooms, prices would rise, and innkeepers would once again be called greedy. And
if history is our guide, government would chastise them for price-gouging and
then try to regulate prices.
This does not mean free markets are perfect or create utopia; they
aren't and they don't. But businesses can't force you to buy a service or
product. You have a choice – even if it's not exactly what you want. And good
business people try to make you happy in creative and industrious ways.
Government doesn't always care. In
fact, if you happen to live in North Korea or Cuba, and are not happy about the
way things are going, you can't leave. And just in case you try, armed guards
will help you think things through.
This is why the Framers of the US Constitution made sure there were
"checks and balances" in our system of government. These checks and
balances don't always lead to good outcomes; we can think of many times when
some wanted to ignore these safeguards. But, over time, the checks and balances
help prevent the kinds of despotism we've seen develop elsewhere.
Neither free market capitalism, nor the
checks and balances of the Constitution are the equivalent of having a true
Savior. But they should give us all hope that the future will be brighter than
many seem to think.
Credit - First Trust Advisors
In case you've been wondering if I've been naughty or nice I'm feeling just a wee bit irreverent today.
And couldn't resist sharing this
little tidbit of holiday humor set to traditional Christmas carols...
I'll tell you what's-up - the price at the pump is about half of what it was in June of this year.
I've published content on the subject of energy economics here before and market forces are doing what they've always done - they go up and down and ebb and flow. And I know I sound like a broken record - presidents of this great nation do not arbitrarily set the price of a gallon of gasoline. That is nothing but nonsense that emerges from the Face Book cesspool of lazy economic thinking. But I digress.
At their peak six months ago, gasoline prices were well over $5 a gallon in mid-June. Today the price of West Texas intermediate crude oil (the US benchmark that serves as the main driver of gas prices) has fallen to its lowest level of the year. After rising above $120 a barrel in March and June it is now hovering around $72 (give or take).
The drop in gasoline prices has been led by a decline in worldwide energy demand which has driven oil prices lower.
This bears watching because it may be leading indicator of a recession in 2023. I'm not suggesting this is a prediction as I had to surrender my Crystal Ball and Tarot Cards when I retired from the day job. So I'll stand with watching how this and other possible economic indicators reveal themselves.
Until then this is how market forces work.
Mom and Her Litter
image NOAA
The next time someone calls you SNOWFLAKE, my advice is to chill out and consider yourself a marvel of nature. And the name-caller a scientific philistine.
The formation of a snowflake begins by means of the combination of a pollen or dust particle, a water droplet and extreme cold conditions. When a water droplet combines with the particle and falls to the ground. Water vapor freezes to form an ice crystal - a symmetrical form - as a consequence of the internal order of the water molecules.
It was a fella from Vermont - Wilson 'Snowflake' Bentley - became the first individual to photograph a snowflake in January of 1885. He eventually photographed more than five thousand snowflakes without ever locating a duplicate.
What is it that creates the conditions of non-identical snowflakes?
Temperature at the front end and to a lesser extent humidity are primary contributors to shape. The formation of a single arm is a consequence of the atmospheric conditions as the ice crystal descends thru changing layers of temperature and humidity contributing to a change in pattern.
With so many snowflakes and permutations in conditions as they descend each and every crystal forms in its own unique pattern.
It is a wonder of water molecular science that creates the conditions of each crystal to be unique!
This tune was composed by Graham Nash while a member of the Hollies - although it was not recorded or performed by that group. I was released in 1970 by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The original recording also featured Jerry Garcia on a pedal steel guitar. Who knew?
The single peaked at 16 on the Billboard Top 100 that year. An altogether memorable year for this blogger.
This version happens to be one of the best I've stumbled-across.
A placeholder on my personal Top Ten List, Teach Your Children.....
Go to the link for the Wisconsin Christmas Tree Producers Association Member Farm Map.
I've been collecting these odds and ends about the peninsula for some time and it's about time I shared them with my readers.
Conventional wisdom suggests that the permanent, year-round population of Door County is only about 26,000 individuals. According to the last census (2020) the figure is 30,000. Either way, the total for the entire county is significantly smaller than the population of 48,000 individuals that live in my former hometown of Wauwatosa. We're small, basically rural with the major population center and industrial hub being Sturgeon Bay.
Door is a curious name for a county dontcha think? The peninsula takes its name from the treacherous passage and dangerous shoals found between the tip of the peninsula and Washington Island. The passage is littered with shipwrecks and thusly the early French explorers dubbed it: Porte des Morts. Which literally translates to death's door or door of the dead. The completion of a ship canal in 1881 connecting Sturgeon Bay with Lake Michigan allowing shipping access to and from the bay of Green Bay and Lake Michigan eliminated the longer, time-consuming and dangerous passage around the tip of the peninsula.
Door County consists of 2,370 square miles of which 482 is Terra Firma and 1,888 (80%) being water. There are 298 miles of coastline. Only the islands that make up Hawaii have more coastline. Door county's coastline is home to 11 lighthouses. Only Long Island's Suffolk County has more lighthouses. Speaking of shoreline, with the construction of the ship canal (see above) everything north of Sturgeon Bay is technically an island. Albeit and artificial island but cut-off from the mainland nonetheless.
The existence of the peninsula is a consequence of the Niagara Escarpment - a very tenacious
formation of dolomite limestone that extends all the way from Buffalo, New York
through the Fox Valley. Multiple glaciations were
unsuccessful in scouring it from the face of the earth.
About 10,000 years ago when the last ice age
visited Wisconsin my part of the world was buried beneath an ice sheet almost a mile thick. The earth's crust is
still rebounding from the weight of all of that ice.
The Green Bay shoreline is characterized by pebble beaches and the cliffs of the escarpment - sometimes call The Ledge. Moving east the landmass slopes gently to sea level on the Lake Michigan shoreline which is blessed with sand beaches. Cursed by shallow soils, for most of the county the depth to bedrock is less than five feet. 17% of the landmass has less than 18 to 36 inches of soil with 22% less than 18 inches. If you live on the escarpment or the northern two-thirds of the peninsula you build your house atop the dolostone bedrock.
Evidence of the most recent glaciation survives. Eskers can be found in the southwest corner of the county and drumlins and moraines further up the peninsula.
The highest point in the county can be seen from my house - Brussels Hill towers a mighty 102 feet above the surrounding countryside.
Door County is also home to the state's tallest sand dune. Located at Whitefish Bay State Park, Old Baldy is 93 feet above the lake level.
That should give you a decent start on the lay of the land around these parts. Economics, people, culture and more to follow.
Stay-tuned as I'll be dribbling-out more Door County factoids from time-to-time.....
Last weekend was Wisconsin's Farmland Antlerless Hunt. And another deer camp has come and gone and while we reveled in the typical camaraderie, dined on terrific food, consumed adult beverages, told tall hunting tales and ribald jokes, sate outdoor in the cold and drizzle there were no deer killed.
Not a single one.
Which is strange. We saw a few deer - on the neighbor's side of the property line or without a shot situation (the animal had antlers, in bushy clutter or moving too fast). There was snow on Sunday morning and we were witness to countless new trails and tracks.
Conclusion: They're basically moving nocturnally and bedding during daylight hours. Likely a consequence of more than a month of steady hunting pressure.
I guess that's why they call it hunting. If it was easy it would be called shopping.
Anyway here's some photos and a recipe you can attempt at home.
Happy Hour - featuring three kinds of fish - smoke salmon, Portuguese sardine pate and smoke rainbow trout spread....
Deer camp lasagna...
That is a Moon Pod. Think: High Tech Bean Bag Chair. If you are old like me and sit in it you cannot extract yourself from it very easily. If you're in the market for a holiday gift it's available on Amazon....
Deer camp SOS. A dish that invokes both fond or not-so-fond memories. We happen to like it so this delicacy is served once a year on principle and it happens to be a camp favorite. Back by popular demand...
Recipe here.....
One of the fun things about winter is the night sky. Cold, clear, winter skies are characterized
by a lack of humidity and if you live in a rural community there is very little urban
light pollution creating some spectacular opportunities for star-gazing.
December brings a couple of meteor showers to
the night skies. The Geminid meteor shower is the more prolific of
the two bringing as many as 120 shooting stars per hour. The show began on November 19 and lasts thru December 24. It's a rather reliable act if you have a dark location. Peak performance occurs December 14 and 15. The meteors will appear almost anywhere but originate from the constellation Gemini in the eastern night sky.
This December a waning gibbous moon will cast some light competition. Nevertheless, the Geminid meteors tend to be bold, bright and quick. The brightest will overcome any light cast by the moon.
Shooting stars are most often associated
with the Earth’s passage thru the debris field of a comet. The Geminids are a bit of a mystery as they
are related with an extinct or dormant comet which also happens to be a near-earth asteroid named 3200 Phaethon.
December also brings the Ursid meteor shower with 5 to
10 shooting stars per hour as the Earth passes thru the debris field of Comet
8P/Tuttle.
 |
| EarthSky.org |
We put ten deer on the meat pole the weekend of the gun opener.
If I had to hazard a guess the neighbors likely killed some measure of the local herd.
From the trail camera November 23 there was this.
We didn't get them all.....
Jägermeister is a German liqueur made with 56 herbs and spices.
Developed in 1934 by Wilhelm and Curt Mast, it has an alcohol by volume of 35%.
The recipe has not changed since its creation and continues to be served in its signature green glass bottle.
And traditionally following a successful hunt we toss-back a shot of the stuff.
Prosit!
This English singer, songwriter, guitarist was brought to my attention by a friend of mine who recently attended a concert. She was discovered by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics at the age of 16.
In 2010 she won the Best Female Vocalist British Blues Award and in repeated the feat in 2011. Add to that the Songwriter of the Year Award in 2011.
She is that good.
And if you like blues you are gonna like Joanne Shaw Taylor.....
Thursday marks the start of Wisconsin's antlerless gun hunt. Another terrific tool to reduce the population of the local deer herd.
I also couldn't resist trotting-out this classic Gary Larson cartoon....
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, gave a lustre of midday to objects below, when what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.
-'Twas the Night Before Christmas, Clement Clarke Moore
 |
| 12-11-19 Full Cold Moon |
Yeah, there's been a dust-up over Donald Trump's breaking bread with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. I was not surprised.
Then he called for the suspension of the Constitution of the United States and reinstatement as president. I was unsurprised.
This is what Trump does. Testing the limits of outrageous behavior is his most endearing personality disorder. Gaslighting his antagonists too. He is a master at disrupting the news cycle.
Then there came the Kabuki theater and the ensuing dance. Asked about this last week and over the weekend a few establishment Republicans expressed shock and called for an apology. Several sounded perturbed. A remaining couple implied this was fatiguing. Yet most all were uniformly silently noncommittal and tiptoed evasively around the subject matter. You'd think there was a booby trap tripwire in the room. Is this because they are afraid? That would imply they are cowards. Are they waiting for another shoe to drop? That would imply they know more than they admit.
But I digress. Enough with any baseless speculation.
Of critical importance is this: If anyone thinks any of this has diminished Trump; they didn't read the memo.
Donald Trump is going to be the 2024 GOP candidate for president. That is a fact, Jack.
Trump lost the last three election cycles and depending-upon the outcome of today's Georgia runoff, may have not only have delivered Joe Biden the senate on a silver platter, but committee control as well. Nevertheless, he's declared his candidacy and will be the nominee.
The 2024 election - especially the run-up - is certainly going to be interesting.
I can barely contain my enthusiasm.
Read more about the impending arson over at The Bulwark....
_____________________________________________________________________________
There is a population of conservative Republicans, center-right individuals., and independent-minded voters who place a high value on facts and the truth. Marginalized because they refuse to embrace baseless conspiracy theories nor demonstrate sufficient fealty and obeisance to the former guy - exile is their cross to bear.
Well, I see good things about Hitler… I love everyone, and Jewish people are not gonna tell me ‘You can love us and you know what we’re doing to you with the contracts, what we’re pushing with the pornography.’
But this guy that invented highways, invented the very microphone I use as a musician. You can't say out loud that this person ever did anything good and I'm done with that. I'm done with classifications. Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.
- Kanye West
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