Leahurst

Wirral, UK

I look and see…cyclists on the road when theres a perfectly good cycle path right next to them safely on the curb. Are these people on a suicide mission or just out to annoy us drivers?!

A selection of news stories from the Lancashire Evening Post released on 26th November 2009.

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The first story concerns a prison raffle offering inmates the prize of a day of freedom.

The second looks at the recent council meeting to decide the fate of Yates’s Wine Lodge on Church Street, Preston.

The third considers the need for new safety measures on a dangerous stretch of road.

Finally, the fourth is the story of the rescue of a man trapped on a flooded bridge outside Lancaster.

With some regularity it seems there is some survey or other about road layouts that cause fear and consternation (but, one assumes, relieve constipation) in drivers. In this latest one commissioned by Britannia Rescue the “scariest” junctions were, in order of horror:

Gravelly Hill (Spaghetti Junction), Birmingham
M8 junctions through central Glasgow
Marble Arch, London
Magic Roundabout, Swindon, Wiltshire
Hanger Lane Gyratory, west London
M5/M6 intersection, Birmingham
Piccadilly Circus, London
Five Ways junction, Birmingham
Magic Roundabout, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
Kingston Bridge, Glasgow

So Swindon’s Magic Roundabout is more alarming than Hanger Lane? Hmm, but then again I cross the Magic Roundabout nearly every day so it holds no fear, being so familiar to me. Not on this list but equally confusing is the new road layout on the A419 Swindon by-pass, also worth adding the M4/M5 Southbound interchange at Bristol.

While I wouldn’t use the word ’scary’ myself, these roads are complex to understand quickly, especially when you – and everybody else – are travelling them at high speeds. I’m sure planning ahead and driving sensibly are advisible things to do on some of these roads but often they way they are laid out doesn’t always make that easy. Neither do the attitudes of other drivers, although many do gesticulate helpfully and enthusiastically as I drive obliviously through.

More than a century ago, English engineers built a barrage near Ghaziabad for storing the river water, which was diverted to the R. Yamuna, to improve the latter’condition, by a link canal. That time it was indeed a brave attempt.

Today, if one visits the first river linking canal, one is bound to feel the limitations of human calculations.

First, its dirty condition. All the urban waste, down the canal, is discharged into the canal. One cannot go near it, without covering the nose by a thick kerchief. It is a breeding ground for mosqutos.

Secondly, a number of bridges had to be built, when new housing colonies and roads came up, something unimaginable in 1908, when east Delhi was a waste land.

Lastly, the rulers just forgot the existence of this canal.

If the Ganga – Kaveri link canal is built, it will be a national latrine!

Happy Thanksgiving to all you navel gazers out there, American and non-American alike.  I’ve been thinking about a vague promise I made sometime ago to post something on roads and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really have anything terribly interesting to say on that subject at this point in time.  I have come up with a somewhat experimental and, I hope, satisfactory alternative.  Earlier this year I gave a conference paper on the characters Dean Moriarty and Raoul Duke as American versions of the divine idiot.  Both were characters who spent lots of time on the road and the product of real-life minds who themselves were rather well-travelled.  Over the next few days I’m going to post the text that I spoke from.  Questions, rants and objections in response to my thoughts are welcome.  Do keep in mind that this represents me just beginning to flesh out an idea that could potentially be much larger.  It could also be nonsense.  Enjoy.  (n.b. I’ve done my best to include my footnotes in this posting in a way that will enable readers to navigate from the text to the citation if they wish to do so.  My works cited and works consulted lists will make up part of the final posting)

Holy Goofs: Dean Moriarty and Raoul Duke, Two Holy American Idiots

Jack Kerouac’s depiction of Neal Cassady as Dean Moriarty and Hunter S. Thompson’s autobiographical alter ego, Raoul Duke have aroused interest and debate since they first greeted readers from the pages of On the Road (1957) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971). While part of their continuing popularity lies, at least among undergraduates and adolescents, in their rebellious indulgence of excessive appetites and extreme exercise of personal freedom, Moriarty and Duke are more than drug- and drink-fuelled iconoclasts driving at high speed across the American landscape. Instead, closer consideration of Duke and Moriarty on their own and as a pair reveals that they are in fact two American examples of the holy fool, divine idiot or, as Dean is branded in Kerouac’s book, “the HOLY GOOF.”¹

In an insightful 2003 article entitled “Holy Fools, Secular Saints, and Illiterate Saviours in American Literature and Popular Culture” Dana Heller argues “that the divine idiot in American cultural history is an overlooked site of contestation and meaning production in our myths of nation, a chiasmatic figure who occupies the in-between spaces where U.S. cultural authority is fought over, negotiated, and renegotiated.”² By offering an examination of the pair as holy fools whose actions and behaviour question core American values and myths my comments seek to redress a small portion of the oversight Heller identifies. Though both Dean and Duke have a strong basis in the biographical realities of the men on which they were modelled they remain the fictionalised creations of their authors. As a result, their alignment with defining American myths and assumption of the fool’s role begins to emerges as a potentially powerful a means of exploring and critiquing the United States through which they move.

That Dean Moriarty and Raoul Duke are consciously aligned with totemic American figures and myths is, perhaps, more rapidly apparent, than their status as holy fools of an American stripe. Recounting his first impressions of Dean, Sal Paradise the narrator of On the Road, reveals “My first impression of Dean was of a young Gene Autry – trim, thin-hipped, blue-eyed, with a real Oklahoma accent – a sideburned hero of the snowy west.”³ Though readers may rightly question how much of a hero this former “jailkid” may actually be, the comparison with Gene Autry and his description as a western hero firmly aligns Dean with that archetypal hero of the American west and rugged individual freedom, the cowboy.⁴ Not only does the fact that Dean has actually spent time working as a cowhand further cement his position at a crossroads between American myths and realities, but a brief look at this same description in the infamous scroll version of the novel which omits the phrase “a sideburned hero of the west” suggests that in addition to substituting the name Dean Moriarty for Neal Cassady Kerouac sought a greater emphasis of Dean’s mythical standing.⁵ While later events and Dean’s propensity to what might be considered stunning selfishness may reveal the character as an ambivalent hero at best, his alignment with mythical American figures remains uncontested during his peregrinations with Sal Paradise. In fact, it is only by recognising Dean’s status as a holy fool that the continuing valorisation of Dean can be reconciled with Sal’s candid admission that Dean “was a con-man. . . .”⁶

Like Dean, Hunter S. Thompson’s Raoul Duke quickly emerges as a figure aligned in some way with defining American myths. Not only is the subtitle of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to Heart of the American Dream heavily suggestive of the possibility that in Duke readers encounter a figure standing at a point of intersection between American myths and realities but, like Dean, he is quickly connected to a particular figure or trope in the form of the rags-to-riches individual of the Alger mythos. As Duke tries to explain to readers and himself why, at the book’s outset, he is speeding toward Las Vegas with a car full of drugs he asks: “But what was the story? Nobody had bothered to say. So we would have to drum it up on our own. Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas.”⁷ Where Moriarty’s status as an ambivalent American hero emerges alongside the insistence that he embodies the cowboy archetype, Duke’s association with the nation’s defining myths in the form of the American Dream and Horatio Alger are destabilised from the outset. That being said, though Duke does confound reader expectations of what it means to be a Horatio Alger in search of the American Dream achieving massive inebriation rather than impressive wealth and social achievement, at the narrative’s close Duke can still insist “I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger . . . A Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.”⁸ As with Dean Moriarty, in order to reconcile Duke’s status as what Heller describes as a “chiasmatic figure,” one standing between more conventional American myths and values with his extreme, even criminal behaviour it is necessary to consider his role as an American type of the holy fool.

While it is not possible in an argument of such brevity to adequately survey the historical, social and literary evolutions of fools, divine or otherwise, it is worth mentioning that the tradition of such figures is both widespread and of significant longevity. Though Dean and Duke are not divine madmen seeking to reconcile the temporal world with a spiritual Christian order there is good reason to view them as American outgrowths of a tradition that stretches at least as far back as Paul’s commentary on divine foolishness in 1 Corinthians 1:25 where it is written “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” John Saward helps to sum up nicely the long story of divine foolishness that includes this verse with his assessment that “The holy fool is a commonly encountered figure in the folklore of many cultures and religions. In Jewish-Christian tradition perhaps the earliest example of a religious form of folly is the ‘symbolic action’ of the prophet, the strange, sometimes quite outrageous form of behaviour imposed upon him by the Lord to shock the people into perceiving the truth of their situation.”⁹ Moriarty and Duke may not be called upon to behave as they do by the Lord, but I would like to suggest that just as their more devout forebears they do have the capability to startle others into new channels of perception.

Significantly it is possible to view both of these characters as clownish versions of the fool rather than simple madmen; agents who pursue their desires and adhere to certain values with such intensity that, in the final estimation, their apparent recklessness and idiocy undermines the assumed good-sense of more conventional behaviours. Not only does “holy lightning” flash from Dean who is elsewhere described as “having the energy of a new kind of American Saint” but, at one point we are informed that in its most mature form Dean’s role of as a fool assumes the form of a “W.C. Fields saintliness.”¹⁰ Descriptions such as these emphasise the inseparability of Dean’s Beat saintliness from his role as a ragged clown. As a holy goof he may play a serious role, but it is not one of measured restraint or even careful argument being characterised instead by an intense spiritual energy and clownish kineticism. Nor does Dean achieve the status he does because he rejects the values of the nation and generation he plays jester to. Stephen Llano aptly describes what motivates Moriarty and what kind of figure he becomes with the words “Dean, through his desire to fully enact American values, tries to push them beyond their own logical extreme. Dean is trying to be too American and in doing so he becomes a clown and presents a powerful critique of capitalist society.”¹¹

1Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Penguin Modern Classics, intro. Ann Charters (London: Penguin Books, 2000) 176.

2 Dana Heller, “Holy Fools, Secular Saints, and Illiterate Saviours in American Literature and Popular Culture,” CLCWeb: Comparitive Literature and Culture, ed. Benton Jay Komin 5.3 (2003), 24 Nov. 2008 , <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol5/iss3> .

3 Kerouac, 2000, 4.

4 Kerouac, 2000, 3.

5 Jack Kerouac, On the Road:The Original Scroll, Penguin Modern Classics, ed. Howard Cunnell (London: Penguin Books, 2008) 110.

6Kerouac, 2000, 6.

7 Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Flamingo Modern Classics (London: Flamingon, 1993) 12.

8 Thompson, 204.

9 John Saward, Perfect Fools: Folly for Christ’s Sake in Catholic and Orthodox Spirituality (Oxford: OUP, 1980) 1.

10 Kerouac, 2000, 6, 35, 109.

11 Stephen Llano, “The Clown as Social Critic: Kerouac’s Vision,” Clowns, Fools and Picaros: Popular Forms in Theatre, Fiction and Film, ed David Robb (Amsterdam-New York, 2007) 202.

My job description requires in the moment a lot of travelling. Going to meetings  means passing the N1 and N2 again and again and being reminded all the time that we are close to the soccer world cup 2010. No, to be reminded there is no big advertising necessary, just experiencing the stop and go between all the road repairs and reconstructions gives you plenty of time to reflect on the coming event. We South Africans are happy about the repairs, especially not knowing whether this will happen again in the next twenty years ahead of us. So all is welcome what will make our lives easier after 2010…

Having seen the traffic tripling the last 10 years without any new lane of road has taught us that there is a limit to more cars on the same roads, going from the airport to town in the mornings have become a nightmare scenario.

It is also nice to see the squatter camps disappearing from the motorway, so that the visitors of 2010 do not see too much poverty along the way to town. Even if it is partly because of dressing up the country for the world cup, it without doubt helps people to better their living situation.

So, while driving there is much to reflect and to consider and I specially admire those cutting grass and hedges along the motorway – sometimes only protected through a lonely red flag waving person in the curve without doubt heaven must hold its hand here to protect the workers who sometimes seemingly not notice the danger they are in…

And there have been the meetings today too besides all the reflections: one to one meetings, but also a trustee meeting of IAM, an organisation looking into the ministries for GLBTI communities within the churches. Hosting good old friends this evening at home was a great chance just to catch up and to indulge in the good old times… yeah, even priests do have some…

We arrived in sunny Mallorca on Saturday at a huge 22 degrees.. Kath and I immediately stripped off (well took our jackets off).. Kath’s aunt Maxine and Grandpa met us at the airport to pick us up. Surprisingly enough our flight was early, good old Ryanair.

From the airport we headed to Maxine’s flat which Kath and I are staying at. (Maxine and Tommy have a beautiful house behind the flat. We then headed out to lunch to an all-you-can-eat (and drink) buffet. We all stuffed ourselves full then headed into Port de Polenca to take Kath’s Grandpa home. He has an apartment right on the waters edge, beautiful location. We then went to Maxine and Tommy’s house and had watched some tv on the wide screen and had some wine.

On Sunday we had a pretty quiet day and headed out to a Medieval Fayre Markets which we walked around an old church courtyard that had a whole pig on the spit. Maxine bought us some slippers to keep our feet warm in the evenings. We went to a Kebab place for lunch. It was the biggest kebab ever!And Tasty!!

On Monday, Maxine was going to hire a car for us. So we drove into the town centre of Port Pollenca and tried to hire a car, however we were to young so we drove to Alcudia and Maxine hired us a little blue Ford Ka.  It’s a nice little 3 door car. In the afternoon we drove up to Formentor which is up narrow little roads up mountains and through tunnels to get some great views and to see a far which is a lighthouse. The views were absolutely amazing! Got to love the Mediterranean.

On Tuesday, we filled the car up at a petrol station in Alcudia – the guy came up and filled the car up for us and then you just go in and pay – it was great!! We then drove through Arta, then to Cap de Pera and went up to the lighthouse and had a nice little break – the views on this corner of Mallorca were just as beautiful if not better. We were having a snack of some cheese chip things and all these cats come out from nowhere – there was like 7 cats! We then drove around for awhile trying to find the coves de arta. We got 2 euros of our tickets which was good – the caves were great – the guide spoke spanish, some english and a little bit of french – Pretty impressive!

We then drove home and had a nice night in. On Wednesday – Kath started to feel a little better and we went in to Port Pollenca and had a quick walk around the markets and then came home- to go off for a nice drive up mountains to Port Solla. The roads were narrow – but the views were amazing. There was an odd car who we think were driving around the tourist stop points seeing if people left there cars open. We had parked our car at one photo spot, and we were taking some photos and just sitting in the sun when Kath see’s this car come from one direction and turns around and drives back the way they came and parked right behind our car, the passenger guy got out and started to look at “the view” and then when he saw us walking back to the car he got back in and had to REVERSE to drive off. The fact that he was that close when There WAS like at least 100 other places seemed odd… as we were driving along we saw the same car within like 3kms like 5 times. We think he was driving around the tourist photo stops. So we kept driving to Port Soller and had a nice walk around the water and tried to make sense of the menus etc…  We ended up getting ice cream.

We then headed through some towns and ended up in Palma (the capital of Mallorca).. The traffic was horrific through the town centre. We then headed back up to the flat. We’ve seen some fantastic views and are loving the sun and warm weather we are having.

HAIKU

Tumbleweed cavorts

along the roads and highways

windy Wyoming

12/11/99 Phyllis VanVleck

It’s not just a place where the Liberty Bell resides, where Rocky ran up a whole lot of stairs, or where you can get soft pretzels fresh from the oven at 1 in the morning. It is also a place where gray concrete meets colorful community gardens and car fumes meet parades of many themes. Philadelphia is a place where we come home to see some of the most beautiful familiar faces and places in our world!

We were instantly in a world of comforts and familiarities, and it was actually an adjustment to have bright lights inside at night since we have become so accustomed to oil lamps and candlelight! Despite the changes, it didn’t take long to make our-selves at home at Beck and Gar’s, and it was such a treat to spend time with them, Addy, the Cooks and the Hannigans!

In addition to the ball game, Halloween was also approaching, and it was so fun to see our young niece and nephew in their costumes!! Later in the evening we had the great pleasure seeing our friend Ali and perform with Philly Bloco at the World Cafe Live – drums, Brazilian beats, dance grooves, and great covers from Stevie Wonder and the “King of Pop” (RIP)… Good times were had by all!

We also came home to attend our old friends wedding that took place at their homestead / farm in the heart of Germantown. The ceremony was beautiful to say the least, and, despite downpour during the reception, people had a fun filled time of socializing, eating, and dancing! There were also pictures taken and can be seen HERE. It is amazing and inspiring to see that city living can include so much backyard harvest, acres of vegetables, and harmonious communal living!

While in town, The Phillies beat the Dodgers and back to the World Series they went. Philadelphia was stirring just as it had been just weeks before we left in April. We spent a lot of nights with friends excitedly rooting and rallying around a TV. It was something special to partake in the celebrating of our home team’s successes, and to see so, so many people coming together with uniting a common interest. Such enthusiasm kept our visit exciting, and it is good to see that people are capable of making time and sharing such energy together.

Other awesomely notable moments during our visit included eating at some of our favorite restaurants, Michael Dur’s birthday, a sleepover in South Philly at Kristin’s, visits with our families; Pepe’s, Spivacks and Sunds (what a pleasure!), a fall hike thru Philadelphia’s beautiful and scenic Fairmount Park’s Wissahickon with Jay and Dot, and lots more…

Always representing the “City that Loves you Back.” Thank you Philadelphia!

View more photos of Philly, Phamily, and Phun on our Flickr page!!!

Each day as I drive my routes I am constantly bombarded with subjects to write about.  It totally amazes me that people are not aware of why school buses do what they do.  Drivers don’t know how to react to some things and because of this they are putting themselves, the children, and me in danger.  Todays story is about trains, railroad crossings, the school bus, and how it affects you.  

As I was approaching a railroad crossing this morning, I did what I automatically do.  I put on my four-way emergency flashers , slowed down, and came to a stop.   I opened my door, listened for a train, and looked down the tracks to my right.  I then looked to my left and noticed a car stopped right in the middle of the tracks.  I’m talking right in the middle.  If a train was coming this car was going to be hit and it would be a good possibility I would not escaped total harm either. 

This driver had no clue what I was doing.  I think he thought I was stopping to pick kids up.  All he saw was a big yellow school bus with flashing lights.  He did what he thought he was supposed to do.  HE STOPPED!  In the worst possible place he could have, but he stopped. 

Federal laws are what we are tested on but we must follow state laws when driving.  In Massachusetts that means putting our emergency flashers on 100 feet before the crossing and stopping 15 to 50 feet from the tracks.  Opening the door, looking, listening, and proceeding across.

1. We can only cross if we have enough room on the other side to completely clear the tracks.   That means if we are in a high traffic area and cars on the other side of the tracks are stopped we can not cross if we can not fit that whole bus with room to spare.  .  
2.  We can not cross if there is another commercial vehicle crossing at the same time or if any vehicle that blocks our line of sight is on the tracks.  That means any panel vans, large SUVs, or full size pickups.  If we can’t see, we can’t cross. 
3. Another thing that keeps us from crossing is the red flashing railroad lights.  Doesn’t matter if there is no train.  If those lights are flashing we need to get assistance from the police or a known railroad employee.  As nice and helpful as some of you are, you can not legally cross us. If it’s safe to do so, you can go around us, but we can’t move the bus.  We need to sit there and wait.   

 The lights we use at a railroad crossing are the four-way emergency lights.  They are the same lights you have on your car.  They are located by each headlight and tail light and if used separately would be your blinkers or directionals.  The only difference is a school bus also has some that blink on each side of the bus.  Located just behind the passenger door on one side and the closed stop sign on the other.

When you approach a school bus at the tracks it is perfectly legal to cross the tracks in the opposite direction.  It may or may not be legal for you to pass a bus that is stopped when travelling in the same direction.  Be aware of “no passing” road signs and double yellow divider lines.   

In closing, please take care at all times when driving near trains.  They may not appear to be traveling fast but they are big, heavy, and can’t stop quickly.  They will win every time.   Stay safe.

The rock slide on I-40 in the North Carolina Smoky Mountains is causing big problems for businesses in the area….  it looks like they could soon get federal assistance.  I’m generally a hands-off kind of guy when it comes to govt. aid.  However, a natural disaster that impacts business is an exception.  The rock slide might not seem like a major natural disaster, but when a small business that depends on people driving down I-40, it’s a major disaster when those drivers are re-routed away from their businesses.  You can read more about the federal aid here…  http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20091122/NEWS01/911220314&theme=ROCKSLIDE

The work on the rock slide is going to take awhile.  12 trucks are working on carrying away the debris… as of Thursday, they had already taken 130 loads of debris away from the interstate.  It looks like they are keeping the debris for future use in road-work.  That’s a great way to recycle the materials.  Read more about moving the debris here… http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/1064623.html

Sunday morning streets
Remembering their days as
empty country lanes

At Monday’s Conservation District meeting, Conservation Technician Fred Berry said there has been an increase in gas well drilling activity. He said some of the companies are from Texas, Utah and Louisiana and are not familiar with state and federal regulations.

Berry said he has been working to get these companies into voluntary compliance. He said some of these operations have more than five acres total of land disturbance. According to the state regulations, any operation which disturbs five or more acres of land must have an erosion and sedimentation control plan.

This total acreage of disturbance includes pipelines, well pads, and access roads. Berry said there were other regulations in place, such as setbacks for well pads and access roads from wetlands and streams.

via Courier-Express/Tri-County – Out-of-state drillers worry local staff.

They call it the “Pennsylvania Wilds,” more than 6 million acres of relatively unspoiled forests and mountains in 12 northern Pennsylvania counties.

The area has long been known for its remnants of virgin forests, pristine mountain streams, abundant wildlife and magnificent vistas. More than 2 million of those acres are public land, an area equivalent to the acreage occupied by Yellowstone National Park.

Today, however, if you were to visit this part of our commonwealth, you would be greeted by a different environment. You would find a proliferation of new roads being cut into the forests, with semis and tanker trucks hauling tons of heavy equipment and water to remote destinations.

via Marcellus shale drilling is biggest threat to Pennsylvania wilds | Our Views & Yours -.

Louisiana Oil & Gas Association President Don Briggs got a personal tour Monday of DeSoto Parish’s roadways that are disintegrating under the weight and volume of truck traffic generated by the Haynesville Shale play.

And he saw the complaints from parish officials are justified and magnified beyond what he expected based on what he’s been hearing at his Baton Rouge office.

“There’s no question that this is a major issue,” Briggs told DeSoto police jurors following his afternoon road trip with Superintendent Clinton Sharpley. “It’s much more so than I realized.”

via LOGA president pledges support for DeSoto road solution | shreveporttimes.com | Shreveport Times.