This Morning's Revelation; A Great Book
"Save America
Defeat Liberals"
On a big white American car, with a Bush '04 sticker underneath.
I maintain that this is still a courteous nation. We've all had our run-ins with rude salespeople and such, but their rudeness is always an affront--something to remark upon--which makes me think it's still abnormal. However, in the world of car commuting, rudeness is everywhere. Shocking, I know.
On another note, I'm reading a great book! It's called "Rising Tide" and is about the 1927 Mississippi River flood and the huge (according to the author) consequences it had on America. It was an even bigger flood than the mammoth 1993 disaster. For instance, at the peak of the 1993 flood, where the Missouri empties into the Mississippi at St. Louis, the river was roiling at 1 million cubic feet per second. In 1927, a little further south in northern Mississippi, it was pushing 3 million cubic feet per second. That's a lot of water. Shocking, I know.
I have always been fascinated by rivers, even more so than by the sea, which is quite fascinating. So you can imagine the heights of fascination here. And this book starts by telling the story of the men who fought to 'tame' the river--levees? or outlets? etc. And it tells the story of the river itself. How it doesn't have just one current that goes faster or slower depending on the amount of water it's carrying. It has many currents--it's like a writhing river of snakes, all with their own mind, yet all prisoners of their mass. Closer to the Gulf, the bottom of the river--over 200' deep in the 1800s, was below sea level. The water on the bottom was essentially static, with no particular place to go, yet the mile-wide mass of water on top, still above sea level, pushed to the sea with the weight of the continent's rainfall behind it. And the massive S-curves in the river push and pull on the land and on itself in such chaotic ways that sometimes the current dives straight down to the riverbed, pulling anything on the surface down with it. Many people in the 19th century felt that traveling on the Western rivers was far more dangerous than crossing the ocean.
For a gal who could sit beside a river all day, daydreaming about a time before levees and the Army Corps of Engineers, who would name twin boys Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, it's an engaging read.
Defeat Liberals"
On a big white American car, with a Bush '04 sticker underneath.
I maintain that this is still a courteous nation. We've all had our run-ins with rude salespeople and such, but their rudeness is always an affront--something to remark upon--which makes me think it's still abnormal. However, in the world of car commuting, rudeness is everywhere. Shocking, I know.
On another note, I'm reading a great book! It's called "Rising Tide" and is about the 1927 Mississippi River flood and the huge (according to the author) consequences it had on America. It was an even bigger flood than the mammoth 1993 disaster. For instance, at the peak of the 1993 flood, where the Missouri empties into the Mississippi at St. Louis, the river was roiling at 1 million cubic feet per second. In 1927, a little further south in northern Mississippi, it was pushing 3 million cubic feet per second. That's a lot of water. Shocking, I know.
I have always been fascinated by rivers, even more so than by the sea, which is quite fascinating. So you can imagine the heights of fascination here. And this book starts by telling the story of the men who fought to 'tame' the river--levees? or outlets? etc. And it tells the story of the river itself. How it doesn't have just one current that goes faster or slower depending on the amount of water it's carrying. It has many currents--it's like a writhing river of snakes, all with their own mind, yet all prisoners of their mass. Closer to the Gulf, the bottom of the river--over 200' deep in the 1800s, was below sea level. The water on the bottom was essentially static, with no particular place to go, yet the mile-wide mass of water on top, still above sea level, pushed to the sea with the weight of the continent's rainfall behind it. And the massive S-curves in the river push and pull on the land and on itself in such chaotic ways that sometimes the current dives straight down to the riverbed, pulling anything on the surface down with it. Many people in the 19th century felt that traveling on the Western rivers was far more dangerous than crossing the ocean.
For a gal who could sit beside a river all day, daydreaming about a time before levees and the Army Corps of Engineers, who would name twin boys Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, it's an engaging read.
posted by lulu | 6:40 AM
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