SWCAMBORNE

“Vote for the man who promises least; he’ll be the least disappointing.”

Bernard M. Baruch

1870 – 1965

“The park bench statesman”

To make a cell phone work there needs to be a cell tower within a few miles.  The towers look like what they are big metal towers and often neighbors don’t like them.  A current solution is to disguise them as trees. We have seem palm tree towers and pine tree towers.  Lillian took this picture of a pine tree tower near the road to Lake Arrowhead:

This is a start but why not celebrate the existence of the towers and turn them into large pieces of public art? Like this cell tower model that is a celebration of the working man:

Read the rest of this entry »

We got this flyer at our home and it made us smile.  In the great American tradition an entrepreneur is trying something new:

It used to be that if you wanted your trash cans taken out you would pay the neighbors kid.  Now someone is trying to turn it into a real business.  It will be interesting to see if there are enough people willing to pay to make it viable.  If it works in Pasadena it is an opportunity for people across the country.

One of the great thing about capitalism and freedom is that new things can be tried and if they work, like bottled water, we can all say “Why didn’t I think of that.” And if it doesn’t work we can say “I told you so.”  But in either case our lives are enriched.

Karen was one of the excellent traveling companions on our first walking tour in Italy.  She is a very good professional photographer and has just updated her excellent web site. She has a series of photos on her site of the Sea Islands of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.  They are going to be published in a book next year.  Definitely worth a look.

My photo from Italy to get your interest

On our trip to Maine and New England last month we visited four different small museums. As a result we unintentionally made it a focus of our trip.

Henry Moore at Storm King

By the time we realized we had a theme going on we were at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont.  All four of them were founded by rich families to preserve collections and to extend the memory of the family names.  There are hundreds of little museums spread around the USA.   More photos click here.

These four are an interesting cross section of the genre. Read the rest of this entry »

They are giving out a little newspaper at Starbucks called Good. It seems that Starbucks is taking a risk by aligning with this promotion.  If they are too controversial they will lose customers if they are too bland no one will read it and the value as a marketing tool will be lost.

The first one was about Carbon Emissions and had a major biased claim in it:

Even the UN which is a “Henny Penny” about carbon doesn’t think the sea level will rise 21 inches by 2050.  So I figured that they had a hidden agenda and their bias would be their undoing.

The next one I saw was about immigration and it was bland.  It was mostly about the costs of immigrating and the complications of the process.  Some of the numbers were wrong (7.9 Million = total US immigrant population last year) and one line in the introduction showed a bias that I agreed with “why coming illegally might seem like an attractive option.”

The latest Good was on education and it avoided controversies like mainstreaming, funding and charter schools and just reported facts about performance and dropout rates.

My opinion.  They are trying so hard for balance, simplicity and to be non controversial that they are not contributing to the debate on these issues at all.  I predict that the effort will fail.

My proposal.  Have a person from the right and the left on each of the issues make their arguments with back up data (that has been fact checked) and publish them side-by-side.

Here is an idea whose time has come:

Boiled Wood

The PC Restaurant

Nanny State Approved

Coming soon to somewhere in Southern California

• No Trans Fats
• Strictly Vegetarian
• Low Salt
• No Fried Food
• Teflon Free Kitchen
• Low Calorie
• High Fiber
• Carbon credits with every order
• All wood from sustainable forests.
• Fair trade certified
• A Prius only parking lot

In fact BOILED WOOD is so environmentally and politically correct and that just thinking about eating here will make you glow with self-righteous pride.

“Windmills were the great invention….

of the early Middle Ages.”

Paul Johnson

Historian

This is a business opportunity idea that will be immediately obvious to people who have dogs and like to go on walking tours.

Missy

The idea is Country Walkers or Wayfarers for people who want to take their dogs with them on organized trips.  It would have vans, dog friendly Inns and a couple of dog walking or frolicking activities each day.  There are some towns that are billing themselves as dog friendly and they could be the focus of the tours.  Carmel, CA and Kennebunkport, ME come to mind.

Arrow, Missy and their Mistresses

We have been on tours with both of the above companies and both could easily organize a dog tour as a trial.

This is the season when everything is political.  Everybody I know and some people I don’t know are willing to give me their opinion on the elections. It was refreshing at the Sushi bar last week to hear a reminder of the way I used to think.  A man in his forties heard us talking about the election and said: “Don’t worry about who gets elected.  Just focus on your own life.  Control what you can control.”

It reminded me that I used to say:

“Don’t try to change the weather.  Just bring along your umbrella when it looks like rain.”

The ebb and flow of politics is like the weather.  Energy spent trying to effect political outcomes will be only slightly more useful than energy spent trying to change the weather.

At this point in history many people who vote think that more government can make there lives safer.  I doubt it.  I can however make excellent compost and grow my own vegetables.