Say what you will about night owls, but we are a tribe of mavericks. Our hall of fame — or infamy — includes rebels (Keith Richards, Hunter S. Thompson) and revolutionaries (Mao, Stalin), mad geniuses (James Joyce, Prince) and madmen (Charles Manson, Hitler). Even our conventional political heroes (Barack Obama, Winston Churchill) are remembered as genius outsiders.I like the idea of solving problems by figuring out how to say they're not problems at all but actually something good. Of course, a lot of lying and bullshit happens in that mode. But let's talk about good examples of figuring out how that's not a problem, that's a solution.
This may not be a coincidence. The very essence of our chronotype makes us oddballs, prone to looking at life through a different lens. We are the weirdos who feel most alive skulking through the darkness, secure in the illusion that we own the world for at least a few precious hours every night while everyone else slumbers....
It's especially good for those of us who value efficiency over hard work. My example is the "problem" of not raking leaves. When I first moved into my house in 1986, I raked the leaves in the backyard and dragged them around to the front to be picked up by the city because I believed that's what you're supposed to do. Then I got balky about the work and left them in place, but felt guilty. Bad me! As the years passed, I developed the idea that whatever was happening out there was fine. Violets bloomed in the spring. Wildflowers. I could think of it as a miniature "prairie restoration" and who could contradict me? In 2009, Meade came along, and tending gardens was his metier. By 2013, I was blogging "Are you keeping your leaves and, if so, have you shifted into bullying your neighbors who still put their leaves out to the curb for pickup? We keep our leaves (and even take in some neighbors' leaves)..."
So I'm into thinking before taking action and changing anything. I realize there's a problem in thinking too much and never doing anything. And yet the more I think about that problem, the closer I get to seeing how you could understand it not to be a problem at all. I mean, please do handle your emergencies and keep up with things — like bill-paying — that will get worse if left to ferment. But as to all those other problems of yours: Test out the theory that they're not problems at all or that the solutions are worse than the problem.
I've thought of another example: the problem of failing to travel. Just like the pro-morning-person message Alex Williams felt he was hearing all over the place, there's a pro-travel message I hear everywhere. Of course, there's all the advertising and promotion from the travel industry and from government officials who'd like you to spend your money where they can tax it. And there are also all the people who ask you where you've traveled and tell you where they've traveled as if it's the meaning of life. If not traveling is a problem, the solution is to travel. Get on it. Plan trips. Pack. Disrupt your routine. Hemorrhage money. Etc. etc. But there is the alternative of thinking yourself into not seeing it as a problem at all. Like Alex Williams parading his night-owl pride, you can claim to be better than those other people, who, after all, deserve the lording over after all their cultural dominance.
Say what you will about nontravelers, but we are a tribe of mavericks. Our hall of fame — or infamy — includes rebels (???) and revolutionaries (???), mad geniuses (???) and madmen (???). Even our conventional political heroes (???) are remembered as genius outsiders.
I just need to fill in those blanks and this post will be done... and yet....
Are those "(???)"s a problem?
The thing about blogging is that nothing is ever a problem. There's nothing — no length, no completeness, no adherence to form, no sticking to the topic, no level of seriousness or proportion of substance to fun — nothing required at all. People ask me, why don't you write a book? Like blogging and not progressing to something more sustained and respectable is a problem...
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89 comments:
I guess that Hitler didn't kill enough people to make the list of revolutionary heroes like Mao and Stalin.
According to the logic of this guy, Hitler's biggest crime was to lose his war. All three are stains on human history to sane people.
I would not claim Obama as one of my 'conventional political heroes' or any type of 'genius' for that matter. I think that appellation would require some sort of accomplishment besides being prom king. Also, who is to say that someone is a night owl rather than a miserable insomniac?
Kind of seems to me that the people that get up early on purpose are the outsiders.
Early risers are just Wisconsin Dairy Farmers.But what about those nefarious left handers? There are more of them than you think and their numbers are growing. There should be a law.They are the ruin baseball and golf.
Can you imagine a left handed early riser. Horrors.
I love this post. It’s so . . . Althousey.
We let the leaves rot where they drop. No one cares.
Extended traveling is generally a pain in the ass. Day trips from a home base can be great. Why have a home if you'd rather be somewhere else?
I googled "artists who awoke early" and found this quote by Freud about Leonardo da Vinci:
"He was like a man who awoke too early in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep,"
Metaphorically, the early riser.
And I wait for my leaves to get blown into my neighbor's yard.
On the other hand, Ann, when it comes to travel, you might take a message from your backyard: make like a tree, and leave!
Rotting leaves return nutrients to soil, as I understand it.
My mind turned to making the bed. Not making it one morning matters very little, as it will be undone that evening. But the routine of tending to such affairs has, I believe, an importance all its own. Establishing traditions is important. Establishing routines is important. They matter in both positive and negative cases.
Exercising control over our respective environments is a valuable goal by itself.
One way to get rid of a problem: Stop defining it as a problem.
That's called relativism and it is nothing new. People have been redefining reality for a long time. Of course today it is a virtue - a time when what is impossible is possible, what is one thing is another -- all of it an effort to bend reality to the will, the supreme will.
Snowdrops and daffodils coming up past last year's leaves and right through this year's last snow.
https://kosino.ua/spring-propose/
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/home/ct-sun-0305-garden-morton-20170223-story.html
No leaves in Tucson. I let the saguaro fruit rot on the ground so the birds and lizards can eat them.
Lots of mice and ground squirrels so I've built an owl box for barn owls. Keep the ground squirrels in check.
They've been telling me he's a genius
Since he's was seventeen
But after all this time
I still don't know what they mean.
He couldn't even craft a legacy that outlasted his "reign" by a few years. Some genius.
I like the distinction between "conventional" heroes and Mao and Stalin, unconventional heroes.
Althouse quite accurately identifies home ownership as the crucible for testing ones inclination whether to view issues as problems requiring solution.
I wonder if Leonard Bernstein felt better about his insomnia knowing that lots of great minds suffered from it. Probably not. Misery may love company, but it's still miserable.
I know it's an oft-commented upon trope, but it's still remarkable how the denizens of NYT-land just can't stop sucking up to genocidal tyrants, as long as they're the right sort of genocidal tyrant.
Oh, and – Althouse? You don't have to travel. I give you absolution. Now can you stop carping about it so much?
Without ever finding out what they are about, let all stories about Trump that include the words "porn star", "CNN" or "impeach" fall into the past.
Is it true that borax kills creeping charlie but not the grass and is not otherwise harmful?
Basically everybody is either brilliant or a genius, since the working definition of these words seems to be "agrees with the speaker." Logically then, every user of the word "genius" is a genius.
From MedicineNet.com definition of terms:
Fear of travel: An irrational and unreasonable fear of travel is called agoraphobia.
Agoraphobia is a very complex phobia. It usually manifests as a collection of inter-linked phobias. For example, many agoraphobics fear being left alone (monophobia), dislike being in any situation where they feel trapped (exhibiting claustrophobia type tendencies), and fear travel away from their "safe" place, usually home.
Some agoraphobics find they can travel more easily if they have a trusted friend or family member accompany them. However, this can quickly lead to dependency on that companion. The severity of agoraphobia varies enormously between sufferers from those who are housebound, even room-bound, to those who can travel specific distances within a defined boundary.
I have trouble sleeping and it sucks enormously, and I am not a genius. I'll fall asleep OK, but wake up between 0255 and 0315 (always these times without fail) with my mind fully alert and already going over something I had been studying or handling that day at work. If I can go back to sleep it's only after an hour or so of dealing with the issue that woke me up just to quiet my brain. What makes it worse it's usually stupid obscure stuff that for some reason I have to resolve. London building restrictions before 1666, integrated pest management and box elder bugs, 3 phase electrical systems, crap like that. Drives me nuts.
Oh, there's some redefining here, alright. It's by the guy claiming that night owls are marginalized. Some people are able to wake early, for chores or work, but that doesn't mean they're early birds. True early birds are rare. Don't believe me? Look at tv programming. What's on at 4am vs what's on at 11pm.
Obama? A "genius outsider?!!?
Oh my fucking god...it is to laugh and to cry and to puke!
He's bright, but is no genius, and he was as much an insider as one could get! He was first encouraged to run for president by Harry Reid, and Joe Biden was his running mate. His cabinet was made up of Wall Street and Washington "made men."
Trump is also no genius, but he is an outsider.
You sound like a conserative. Bravo!
I was a night owl for my whole life, and my jobs were all night jobs. When I got my first ever day job, I was 33 years old. Having to meet a 9 to 5 (now 9 to 6) schedule five days a week has made me a day person. By 11:00 or so most nights, even weekends, I'm drowsy and ready for bed.
On vacations, when I have extended time where I'm not required to be somewhere by 9:00 am, I start staying up later and later. My night owl persona, I'm betting, will reassert itself when I stop working.
Say what you will about Trump supporters, but we are a tribe of mavericks. Our hall of fame — or infamy — includes rebels (???) and revolutionaries (???), mad geniuses (???) and madmen (???). Even our conventional political heroes (???) are remembered as genius outsiders......
Hey, it works!
"Bright" means, agrees with the user of the term, but just in certain areas.
"You sound like a conserative. Bravo!"
No. Just someone who tries to recognize the facts in front of me.
A day trip to Omaha is in order. You can stay at the Embasy Suites in the Old Market or the new Even hotel on the site of the old Delmar.
Breakfast at the 11-Worth Cafe. Morning tour of the zoo and Creighton University. Lunch at M’s Pub in the Old Market. Afternoon tour of the Old Market and Holland Center. Shopping in the Old Market. Dinner at Johnny’s Cafe in South Omaha where a scene from “About Schmidt” was shot. Steak. More strolling in the Old Market after dinner with drinks at various hipster bars.
Question Authority, especially when it comes to yard work and other voluntary tasks. I couldn't agree more. The only risk is that people will consider you peculiar.
Like Robert Cook, I was a night owl as a youth- it continued right through college, too. After that, though, I had become a morning person for grad school and work. The transition was tough, but I managed it. As soon as I retired, I reverted to being a night owl. I have 3 younger sisters, the oldest and the youngest are morning people, the middle sister is a night owl like myself.
There is no genius in in being a night owl- it was embarrassing to read the excerpt from the essay. We are just on different sleeping schedules- it is neither exceptional nor detrimental.
Obama's a genius? Same as Churchill? I grant you that he did become our first half-black president. But talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations--sheesh!
I had a roommate in college who was a "Night owl" - and I'm not one. So, it didn't work out too well.
He'd come into the dorm room at Midnight, and then work on Term papers till 4 AM. Then he'd get upset at me, because "I wouldn't let him sleep" in the AM.
"I guess that Hitler didn't kill enough people to make the list of revolutionary heroes like Mao and Stalin."
Ha. Yeah, the authors categories were sorta weird. But the last thing you want is some SJW coming back and saying "Ah, why wasn't Hitler labeled a madman? Do you like Hitler"?
You know what WW2 leader who was *not* a night owl? FDR. He'd often get tired of Churchill's constant Talk-talk and wanted to go to bed.
Todd wrote: "I'll fall asleep OK, but wake up between 0255 and 0315 (always these times without fail) with my mind fully alert and already going over something I had been studying or handling that day at work. If I can go back to sleep it's only after an hour or so of dealing with the issue that woke me up just to quiet my brain."
Look up "second sleep." It's a natural occurrence and part of the body's natural sleep cycle.
Before the advent of electricity, that hour-long period was used for work, prayer, sex, and contemplation. It's much harder to achieve now for obvious reasons.
A book called "At Day's Close" is full of fascinating stories about how we humans dealt with the night throughout history.
"Even our conventional political heroes (Barack Obama, Winston Churchill) are remembered as genius outsider"
I'm with Cook on O. It is to laugh. (But Cook, why do progs slightly to your right feel the need to keep spouting such obvious BS about O even at this late date?)
Anyway, judging by results, leaving personal taste out of it, Trump might just be a genius. He reached the top in three different fields, which is very, very hard to do.
Better than Lenny, unless you want to argue that he was a great educator besides being a great performer and (occasionally) a great composer.
Better than, gasp, Winston--who was only world class in two fields (unless you want to argue, ha, that he was also a great painter--or count his drinking prowess as genius-level).
Ah, laziness as environmentalism as virtue signaling. I’ve noted this phenomenon in Olympia’s hipster Capitol neighborhood. Formerly cared-for lawns deliberately allowed to turn into dandelion-choked hayfields. Look at how much I care. No fossil fuels or chemicals are used to maintain a facade of bourgeois vanity on my property!. Of course, they’re far too lazy to do the hard work of keeping the place presentable by manual means.
"(But Cook, why do progs slightly to your right feel the need to keep spouting such obvious BS about O even at this late date?)"
Because they either do or want to believe it. They're as deluded about their heroes as the right is about theirs.
choices, Choices.
"Anyway, judging by results, leaving personal taste out of it, Trump might just be a genius. He reached the top in three different fields, which is very, very hard to do."
What three fields? Real estate, reality tv, and politics?
With real estate, he had the help (more than once) of his successful millionaire real estate developer father; with reality tv, he has just the right personality to appeal to people who get off on seeing people behaving badly; and politics is just reality tv in another realm.
If Trump has any genius, it is in knowing how to manipulate others. Of course, this could simply by sociopathy and not genius.
Thank God Cook is here. So, the Althouse crackers have someone to argue with. Did Inga take the day off?
"What three fields? Real estate, reality tv, and politics?
With real estate, he had the help (more than once) of his successful millionaire real estate developer father; with reality tv, he has just the right personality to appeal to people who get off on seeing people behaving badly; and politics is just reality tv in another realm.
If Trump has any genius, it is in knowing how to manipulate others."
Yeah, yeah. But still.
Of course, I wasn't totally, you know, like, 100% dead serious.
But still. How many people did reach the top in three very different fields?
Better than Bo and Deion, I tell you.
Funny how President Trump manipulates people, but another person of a proper leaning idealogy is a great leader.
Bill P.,
I have that book somewhere...found it, by A. Roger Ekirch. You might be right about that, and I hadn't even thought of it - I did mention I wasn't a genius. I might have dismissed the whole notion due to the fact that we retire much later than was the custom. Going to bed at 9 or so I might expect to get up after 5 hours or so of sleep. I haven't read it in years, and just finished another book, so I'll dive back in. I didn't make any marginalia or underlining on my first go through, which is curious as I usually mark the heck out of my books.
"Funny how President Trump manipulates people, but another person of a proper leaning idealogy is a great leader."
Who is that? When did we last have a great leader? We've had a series of manipulating criminals, but no great leaders anytime in recent memory.
I'm convinced that sleep patterns are acquired, not genetic. Agrarian societies had no choice but to efficiently use daylight. The most efficient societies, and then those members individually of that society were the most successful.
I had a friend that grow up on the farm, but was a famous 'night owl'. My brother farmed not far away. He was always confused that nothing was happening at planting and harvest until after noon. I went by there on my way through one night at about midnight and noticed every light on the farm was on, so pulled in. He busy fixing equipment, and since you cant get parts at midnight, he was stuck. Didn't start until noon, broke down, Tare down, wait until the next day to get parts. Rinse and repeat.
Whether you are a morning person or night person is of little consequence unless efficient use of daylight affects your livelihood.
I get grumpy if l loose my alone time at 5am. Just as a night owl might get upset about loosing their time at midnight
The old it's not a bug, it's a feature.
The early worm gets caught by the bird.
"If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." Calvin Coolidge
A bit of a tangent: my wife, her mother, and her sister are all muchly into traveling. I am not so inclined. In the interest of marital comity I agree to participate in one trip every couple of years. In the meantime, the girls go to all manner of exotic places (Burma, Sri Lanka, Morocco, etc.) and some less exotic ones (France, Amsterdam, Japan). Fortunately that means I do not have to go to these god forsaken places. I do enjoy myself when I go, just don't have much motivation or interest in the next trip. My sister-in-law and her husband are going to Eastern Europe for almost a month. I can barely stand to be away for 10 days. They, and my wife and mother-in-law, speak about it every time we get together; I find little household projects to do instead. Problem solved!
-sw
Who is that? When did we last have a great leader?
Gee I don't know. Jefferson, Washington, Madison? Churchill, FDR, Truman? Regan, Clinton, Thatcher?
But you aren't interested in the point I made, just picking a fight. I have already won this one, as is evident by your response.
So I'm into thinking before taking action and changing anything. I realize there's a problem in thinking too much and never doing anything
In our household, we call it "vapor locked". Stalled out from too many choices, too much decision making. I'm the guilty one. Too much analysis.
What is a problem for some, is not for others.
As to biological clock/sleep patterns. Since we are self employed, we are not as tied to a time schedule as someone who has to show up to work at a particular time. No 9 to 5 routine. So, we never use an alarm clock. We just rise when we feel like it and go to bed when we feel like it.
Nevertheless it seems that my husband and my bio clocks are in sync and are regular. Wake up at 5 am. Bed by 8pm and actual sleep (after reading for awhile) 9 or so. Yup we are old :-) Clockwork.
There is nothing worse than a morning person being married to a night owl. Trust me. That was my first marriage and sleeping, waking expectations were a big source of disagreements.
I never put much stock in the "morning person" vs "night person" thing. I have swung both ways easily - there's my bias. Laid off in the 2008 recession, I had a number of non-office jobs for a few years, with hours all over the place, requiring changing my habits all the time. The passage above sounds like a childish "but I'm such a cool, trendy person for being up all night" like a child past its bedtime.
Now one thing about sleep does intrigue me - highly successful people seem to sleep very little. I think how **much** a person sleeps is interesting, not when. Very driven people can't be bothered with such trivial things. Especially artists. Many tell me "I have too many ideas in my head to sleep". Me? I love to get at least 8 and I'm a fanantic about my sleep, in the way many are about organic or gluten free.
Why am I thinking that the praise of night owls is in contradistinction to Trumps early mornings and early morning tweets?
If I’m not mistaken, I believe Trump just doesn’t need/want a lot of sleep. I think he a late to bed and early to rise kinda guy.
When the car starts making funny noises, I just turn up the radio!!
A famous genius non-traveler is Kate Bush. I have a feeling Queen Elizabeth would have never left Balmoral for decades had obligations not forced her to.
We've had a series of manipulating criminals, but no great leaders anytime in recent memory.
It's a shame that FDR dropped Wallace as VP in 1944, isn't it Cookie ?
You could have had your hero.
It's illegal to rake your leaves into the street in St. Paul. Street sweeping is for the city's leaves, not yours. And yrash won't take them. And the boulevard tree leaves are your problem to rake even
though they're not your trees, and you can't remove them.
All things St. Paul as defined as "not their problem". Or, as my kids say, a YP not an MP.
It's illegal to rake your leaves into the street in St. Paul.
It's illegal to burn your leaves in St. Paul, but it's okay to have a fire-pit in your yard, or to burn God-knows-what in the fireplace.
"Say what you will about nontravelers, but we are a tribe of mavericks."
Las Vegas
Indianapolis
Chicago
Austin
Colorado (I think)
That's just in the last couple of years based on my immediate recollection. You might want to check your definition of nontraveler, or not.
My avatar is from a beautiful picture you took in Austin.
I rake my leaves under the responsible tree.
Dual magnetos are there so that you can still fly home when one fails the mag check.
Barack Obama. Genius outsider.
Now I've heard everything.
Good grief.
Ann, you are writing a book here, just a completely different kind of a book. I like it. Instead of having to go out and buy something and be diligent about plowing through and remembering characters, plots, etc., I'm following an ongoing steam of consciousness. In addition, you've got this stream of side characters, co-authors, who add their sometimes quirky streams of consciousness. It's like a book club of people who are not discussing a book, but writing a book.
1. Properly and accurately defining gets you 75% of the way towards a solution.
2. If there isn't a concrete solution, then there isn't a problem.
“Travelling” is a poor word. I don’t bother to explain, most of the time. But it implies movement, which is not the point, for most good travellers.
This week I’m riding along the Garden Route in South Africa, and if you Google it you’ll see it’s beautiful. I met a very experienced German lady travelling solo in a rental car yesterday, at a view point on the Klein Karoo, a spectacular small plateau. Today we hired a guide to take us through a township on the coast. It was eye opening.
I like the movement aspect of travel because of the adventure aspect of navigating through come-what-may, border to border, and building on the skills to do that anywhere on earth without anxiety. It’s more freeing and rewarding than I can describe.
I come here to Althouse several times a day when possible because I’m fascinated by discussion of Trump’s historic and hopefully pivotal role. In a buwaya way, specifically.
A few more weeks here and the real adventure begins!
I am totally cool with not visiting another country for a while: I'm pretty sick of this one.
Night owl here ... born this way. I read somewhere that night owls live on a 25 hour internal clock, so we hate to go to bed, but then we hate to get up! Larks, on the other hand, have a shorter internal clock, so go to bed earlier and then wake up earlier.
“I have trouble sleeping and it sucks enormously, and I am not a genius. I'll fall asleep OK, but wake up between 0255 and 0315 (always these times without fail) with my mind fully alert and already going over something I had been studying or handling that day at work. If I can go back to sleep it's only after an hour or so of dealing with the issue that woke me up just to quiet my brain. What makes it worse it's usually stupid obscure stuff that for some reason I have to resolve. London building restrictions before 1666, integrated pest management and box elder bugs, 3 phase electrical systems, crap like that. Drives me nuts.”
I had that exact form of insomnia when I was young and I solved it by listening to an audiobook, something just interesting enough to replace my own thoughts, such as Bill Bryson reading A Walk In The Woods.
Get an under the pillow speaker if you have a bedmate.
“Ann, you are writing a book here, just a completely different kind of a book. I like it. Instead of having to go out and buy something and be diligent about plowing through and remembering characters, plots, etc., I'm following an ongoing steam of consciousness. In addition, you've got this stream of side characters, co-authors, who add their sometimes quirky streams of consciousness. It's like a book club of people who are not discussing a book, but writing a book.”
That’s a variation on the idea of redefinition. Instead of redefine the problem as not a probem, define a word in the statement of the problem so that your situation is not within the problem.
Trump is not a Problem to solve. He is the President...just like other Presidents before him: Taft, Grant, Clinton, Nixon, Carter, Wilson, Obama and other disastrous holders of the office.
The PROBLEM for Democrats is what they want, and what the majority of people want, are two very separate things.
If they changed what they wanted, Democrats would solve that problem.
we hate to go to bed, but then we hate to get up!
Sounds familiar.
For someone that doesn't travel, our hostess takes more trips in a few months than I take in 5 years. Just saying.
Night Owl is usually in the top 10/25 of every Northern Soul list of the youtubes. I prefer Walking Up a One Way St but hey it's a free big ol country.
Laura Hillenbrand is a genius. She's not much of a traveller.
Hitler was not a mad-man. He brought Germany from the brink of becoming a Jewish/Bolshevik/Communist state that would have been invaded by the Soviet Union had the (((Communist))) won the election. He wanted to reunite all of the Germans in Poland and the Sudetenland who had been separated forcibly from Germany after WWI. He did not want war with either the U.S. or Britain. He knew that the (((Communists))) and the jews were Germany's enemies. Our jewish-infested government/banking and finance industry of the time and Russian spies like Hiss and Harry Dexter White convinced Roosevelt to side against Germany. The aforementioned is but a too brief/broad overview of the truth and reality of the time, but the 'victors' write history. The jewish infiltration of our country/culture was too complete at that time, and what with the jews controlling Hollywood/entertainment/radio/publishing/advertising/the news/press/banking-finance (bankrolling much of our politics) and later TV and the Internet/social media/Big Tech companies (all of this collectively known as The Jew Matrix), there was no way that the truth would ever be revealed.
Says the guy with a Jewish name.
I'm an early riser, but once, in college, I had a 2nd shift job and I didn't get to bed until 2 or 3 AM. During the period, I woke up at 10. Now I am up 5ish without fail. I struggle with insomnia--I wake up multiple times during the night and sometimes fall in to this pattern where I wake up 10 or 15 minutes earlier than I did yesterday. This goes on, earlier and earlier, until I'm getting up at 2:30 or 3:00, which is early enough to do the second sleep thing--I get up and read until I get tired, then go back to bed. When that happens, I sleep until 6 or 6:30 and the cycle starts over.
Bill Peschel said...A book called "At Day's Close" is full of fascinating stories about how we humans dealt with the night throughout history.
That sounds really interesting--how different things were when nighttime really meant darkness. Thanks Bill, I'll check it out.
Ms. Althouse, I'll have to try that, and it's nice to know I'm not unique. My wife is a fairly sound sleeper, so I'll present it tomorrow to gauge her opinion. Can't be worse than me jumping in and out of bed. I tried white noise type stuff, but no cigar. I do use static as my alarm signal in the morning, I can't stand music bursting out, far too grating. A nice AM dial hiss is perfect.
Tim,
check your local library, "At Day's Close: Night in Times Past", by A. Roger Ekirch. Dewey Decimal # should be 306.4 / Ek.
Bill P.,
Thinking on this second sleep situation, I recall that in Pepys' Diary he often talks about walking on the leads in the evening. Must be that in between period of sleep, when he would go and walk on his roof and chat with his neighbors and such. There were also ad hoc concerts when the mood fit. Interesting, although I don't think my neighbors would be appreciative now as my daughter plays the tuba, and I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. This concept will probably wake me up at 0312 in some way, shape, or form.
”Gee I don't know. Jefferson, Washington, Madison? Churchill, FDR, Truman? Regan, Clinton, Thatcher?”
I would exclude the last four of your examples.
”But you aren't interested in the point I made, just picking a fight.”
What point do you think you were making? That I criticize Republican Presidents for behaviors i “praise” in Democratic presidents? That’s the only reading I could take from it. My response went directly to my understanding of your point—disputing it—and in no way can be reasonably called “starting a fight.”
Gee Cook, Are really that obtuse?
Not D v. R, or Coasts v. the Midwest or Eagles v. The Bills.
If its someone you hold up as a person you like, they are a communicator, leader, success. Positive attributes.
If its someone you are intent on smearing, they are manipulative.
The standard fare we are use to from Trump haters that refuse to see the success all around us.
I used to blog, but had to close it due to extreme attacks by people I didn't know. I moved toward publishing in more restrictive venues, and published a bunch of books that aren't widely read, to say the least. It's not always good to have a wide readership. With a blog I was sometimes getting thirty thousand hits in a day. My books sell in the hundreds rather than the thousands. However, I get literate letters from readers, and I get reviews in respectable journals. It's a slower lane, like slow food, as opposed to fast. I wish I had the nerve to blog openly again. The problem is that people from around the whole world came to my blog. I got Islamic nutcases, and Marxist nutcases, and angry Koreans, and all sorts of riffraff, mostly coming in under pseudonyms. I felt the security risks weren't worth it in the long run, as some of them threatened my children. That was the ultimate decider for me. I have to keep my kids safe. Not that all book writers are safe! Brautigan got death threats constantly. Even in rural Montana he would get packages full of human excrement. Then again, his books were famous world-wide. I'm hardly a household name even in my own household.
That is so cruel. What would all the victims do?
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