Jerry Stratton's Blog

Today is National Potato Day. Why not have some potato chips or hash browns, and top them with one or both of these easy-to-make dips/sauces? They’re great on chips, on a baked potato, or in a potato salad—or with just about any vegetable or thick stew.

The British Grenadiers provides an interesting period melody for The Rifleman’s Song at Bennington; also, the original 1837 Rifleman’s Song lyrics from The New-York Mirror.

“To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a special lecture at The University of Texas at Austin, followed by a moderated Q&A with questions from students.” “I was proud to say that I was American by birth, and Georgian by the grace of God.”

Clarence Thomas delivered a wonderful hour-long lecture on the Declaration of Independence, touching on the Founders, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

“When you lived in a segregated world with palpable discrimination and the governments nearest to you enforced laws and customs that promoted unequal treatment, it was obvious that your rights or your dignity did not come from those governments, but rather from God.”

You can’t actually see the salt works this marker describes: they’re under Lake Buchanan. But it, plus the granite industry, are a fascinating bit of Texas history.

“In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o’clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o’clock! As if it were afraid that nobody would.” A little something for your August 4 enjoyment. Bradbury wrote this in 1950 for Collier’s, and then included it again in The Martian Chronicles of the same year. The story begins on August 4, 2026, and ends on August 5.

For the 1997 edition of The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury chose to increase the timelines by 31 years, changing this story’s date from 2026 to 2057. This, despite Bradbury often saying that he was not a science fiction writer. Given the retro nature of technology in his stories even for the time, this made no sense. It only served to make the stories less compelling by making the technology outdated instead of fantastic.

Wonderful story, nonetheless.

The best time to start reading Mark Steyn was twenty sod-bollicking years ago. The second best time to start reading Mark Steyn is right now.

The best in music, literature, current events, and civilizational collapse.

The best time to start reading Mark Steyn was twenty sod-bollicking years ago. The second best time to start reading Mark Steyn is right now.

The best in music, literature, current events, and civilizational collapse.

From this viewer’s perspective, it certainly looks as though Google is deliberately wasting the money of their advertising customers. Google and YouTube have massive information on every viewer, and seem to delight in targeting ads in a way that is guaranteed to fail to sell the product.

“Such men need no trophies; they ask no splendid mausoleum. We are their Monument: their mausoleum is their Country.” John Adams and Thomas Jefferson’s death on the same day, 50 years to the day from the first July 4, was an inspiration to a young nation.

The Liberty Hill Cemetery is famous more for its age—dating back to 1852, before it was even an official cemetery—than for its residents. The people buried here tell a story of the old west, however, that is as interesting as any Louis L’Amour novel.