Rejected from the Roses.

Today is the Tournament of Roses and the Rose Parade, which has mostly been going on since 1890, barring a few interruptions like World War II and the Chinese Death Virus. Normally it's held on January 1, but not if New Year's Day falls on a Sunday; in that case it's moved to Monday -- today! And here we are.

Many fraternal, professional, and business groups organize the popular floats for the parade, which are generally festooned with flowers and must be covered with organic materials. Equestrian groups also ride, marching bands march, and some dignitaries wave from flower-bedecked automobiles. What's not known is that over the years, the parade has refused entry from a few groups for various reasons. Here are six interesting cases.

1901: The Mighty Cowmalazoo Marching Society

A combination marching band / bovine act had hoped to be featured in the parade -- a large group from Kalamazoo, Michigan, who played their instruments while riding cattle. Of especial interest was the cow-mounted pianos played by the 88 Keys Joy Squad. Officials ultimately deemed the act too messy, too disruptive, possibly dangerous, and not nice to the cows.

1939: The German American Bund

The pro-Nazi German American Bund asked to appear in the parade, sending some of its bigwigs in one of those newfangled "people's cars" that the Germans had introduced, a vehicle they called the Liebe Käfer. Parade officials said no, that only their own officials were allowed to ride in cars. Oh, and also: Nazis.

It would take almost thirty years for this type of "Love Bug" to be seen on American streets.

1955: The Potrzebie Special 

A float called the Potrzebie Special was registered with the parade by one A. E. Neuman. When asked to explain the theme of the float and who would be constructing it, a return telegram from Mr. Neuman in New York replied "please buy this magazine" and "the usual gang of idiots." When pressed about the design for the Potrzebie Special, Neuman would only say it would be "completely covered in nuts." Suspicious, officials declined to allow the Potzebie to participate.

1979: Disco Demolition Float

A group from Chicago asked to construct a float made in the likeness of popular disco records of the day, and blow it up as it completed the parade route on Paloma Street. Officials determined that the group was serious about using explosives and denied entry. The Chicago group ultimately decided to host a disco demo event in their home city later that year. 

2000: The Last Float Ever

The Y2K Last Float Ever was proposed by a group from Silicon Valley who anticipated that with the end of the world coming on 1/1/00, thanks to the Y2K bug, we all might as well go out with a bang and have the parade as the world fell into chaos. The parade officials informed them that in the event of Apocalypse, the parade would be canceled or at least postponed. 

2021: The High & the Mighty

A float completely made of pot was the theme of the High & the Mighty, sponsored by the California Marijuana Association Dudes. Officials bickered over whether a recreational drug themed float would conform to or contradict the parade's theme that year of "The Power of Hope." With the COVID outbreak, the decision was made to cancel the event anyway. By the time the parade returned in 2022, the Dudes had lost interest, deciding instead to sit on the sofa and play World of Tanks. 

Memories of fruit.

It's the season for the most amazing produce, and I grabbed a bunch of it at the store last week. Fruitwise, I hit that department but good. Watermelon, berries, mangoes, and other stuff went into the cart without a second thought, joining the celery, corn, bell pepper, and onion already present. 

It made me a little reflective yesterday, actually. I was cutting this and peeling that and chopping the other thing, and it brought back memories of produce past. Without further ado, here's some Froot of My Yoot.

Plums -- My dad was crazy for plums. When they were in season, my mom could not buy too many. He'd fool with the thing for a bit, nibbling and breaking the skin, then twirl it around and get the good stuff, then suck that pit dry. Nary a drop got on his shirt. Somehow he did it without dislodging his dental bridge. He was a maestro with the stone fruit. 

Blueberries -- I have always loved blueberries, but the best I have ever had or probably ever will have were wild blueberries in Scandinavia. I'm not bragging; our trip there when I was a child was 90% family business, not because mater and pater thought it would be broadening. But it was amazing, and the woods seemed to be full of wild blueberries, a powerful sweet flavor. We were sent to gather some with our distant cousins and had quite a treat. If I ever go back, I am going in the summertime and leaving everyone and running into the woods with a basket until I find some. 

Mangoes -- We were not mango people. They weren't as widely available in my childhood as they are now, but I do recall Mom buying one to try it. I was put off by the flavor, as it was not one of the Four Fruit Flavor Groups with which I was familiar, those being Omnipresent (apples, bananas, grapes), Summer (plums, peaches, nectarines), Floridian (oranges, grapefruit), and Candy (Jolly Rancher, Kool-Aid, Jell-O). Mom liked the mango flavor, but didn't like cutting it because the mango made a hell of a mess, and the only things she'd tolerate that made a hell of a mess were her kids, and those just barely. Later I came to love mangoes. I've probably peeled and cut more than a hundred of them since, and every one has been a barely avoided ER run for stitches. I'm sure there are people who make a living peeling and cutting mangoes, and I'd like to see their technique.

Strawberries -- For some reason, Dad decided one year to plant a patch of strawberries on the lawn. He was a fan, and strawberries were pricey at the time. Well, the collie next door, a pinched-brain little ditz, peed on them, and decided at that moment that there was no place else in the world upon which she'd rather pee. We didn't live in a duplex, note -- to get to our yard this dog had to escape her own yard, run down a path, down a flight of steps, leap a short fence, and run all the way across the lawn to the spot to pee on it. This dog was putting in the work. I've always treasured a good strawberry since, because we sure as hell didn't get any that year. 

Blackberries -- We actually had some wild blackberries growing in a wooded area outside our property, and while they were not as memorable as the blueberries I've described above, they were pretty darn good and the price was right. The only problem was that we had to be exceptionally alert to when they were ready to pick, because the blue jays loved them even more than we did and would strip the plants in no time.  

Watermelon -- Always a summer treat. Also, more of a project than a fruit. As regards the messiness factor, see mangoes, above. We didn't have a lot of barbecues at my house, but when we did, the presence of watermelon was as certain as marshmallows to roast over the charcoal embers. I don't have a lot childhood memories that other kids have -- catchin' tadpoles, playin' ball at the park, climbin' trees, goin' to summer camp -- but those times I remember very fondly. And I still like watermelon. A few years ago when the Mrs. and I were on a trip to Southern California to visit friends and family, in the arid in-state areas, we stayed at a hotel that kept a cooler full of water with watermelon in it out in the lobby. It was the most refreshing water I've ever had, and in the desert, this northern boy needed it. 

Honorable mention: Nectarines and Tangerines -- When I was a kid I always thought the nectarine had to be a tangerine-like fruit because of the name, and to this day I have to remind myself it's really halfway between a peach and a plum. The confusion comes, as with so many things, from the French. The -ine suffix means like or related to or made of; the nectarine is "like nectar" and the tangerine is "from Tangier" in Morocco. Thanks, French! 

How about you? Got any fond food memories to share?

Illegal snacking.

I was getting to the bottom of a bag of healthy snacks. You can tell they're healthy because they feature the words "good" and "health" and "veggie" right on the front. 

These potato-based snacks also claim to have 30% less fat than regular potato chips, and yet they are still tasty. But are they actually healthy? I wonder. Well, they're tasty.

Here's the thing that shocked me most, seen on the back of the back as I crumpled it up:

"Not for Sale in California"? What the hell?

The Good Health brand is owned by Utz, purveyors of fine snacks, and the fine slogan "Make Utz Yours." Utz potato chips are my wife's fallback to Lay's; they also own Bachman pretzels and a number of other solid brands. Nothing wrong with them. Why the hate from California?

California has some weird rules and wants to dictate policy to the rest of the country by virtue of its size. If CA says no toluene in nail polish, the cosmetics companies must go along or lose access to the 39.5 million men and women in the state. And I do mean men, because there are probably more men in California wearing nail polish than there are women in Ohio. Other states may look to the federal government for that kind of action, but Cali likes to throw its weight around. 

But why would CA make Veggie Stix illegal?

It turns out that California is having a little hissy fit over acrylamide. "Consuming this product can expose you to chemicals including acrylamide, which are known to the state of California to cause cancer. Acrylamide is a chemical that can form in some foods during high-temperature cooking processes, such as frying, roasting, and baking," according to the warning of its Proposition 65. Either the state is preventing the sale of Veggie Stix, or the Utz people don't want to have to put the word CANCER on its food (which would be on bags sold nationwide), or Utz is just sick of hearing lots of YAK YAK YAK from California. And since the whole state is run by Karens, who would? But as JD Supra noted last year, regarding a suit by the state's Chamber of Commerce: 

Although acrylamide has been shown to cause cancer in mice and rats, there is debate on whether studies actually show that greater consumption of acrylamide in food increases the risk of cancer in humans.  The Chamber’s lawsuit therefore argues that compelling businesses to provide a warning that acrylamide is “known” to the State of California to cause cancer violates their First Amendment rights, because consuming food with acrylamide is not “known” to cause cancer in people.

As usual, California has gone it alone, hoping to be a beacon to light the way to the rest of the nation. And indeed, if the rest of the nation wants to have revolving-door DAs, thousands of drug addicts camped on the streets, crumbling roads and bridges, bullet trains no one wants, a dying or fleeing middle class, unrestricted illegal immigration, and a new feudal class, then yes, let's all follow California's example in all things. Meanwhile, Utz can sell its potato chips in California with all that extra fat, but God forbid you should have more than 140 micrograms per day of acrylamide. You'd be spitting cancerous cells if you ate 141 micrograms. 

(BTW: 140 micrograms = 0.14 milligram. There are 28,400,000 micrograms in one ounce. Obviously acrylamide is the most toxic substance in the history of chemistry.)

Not to pile on, but California is the same state that's famous for being unable to supply its own electricity and yet is banning the sale of portable gas-powered generators. It really must enjoy the feudal past, because it is planning to condemn its citizens to the Dark Ages. Or at least its poorer citizens; the wealthy will have large non-portable generators on their estates. 

I'm glad that California has nothing better to do with its time, but I think it ought to consider taking a long nap and perhaps rethinking its priorities. I don't know, it may be too far gone. Maybe we should just wall it off. 

Flying pachyderm mandate.

AUGUST 15, 2057 -- This morning California Governor Hedley Skwirm signed into law the so-called Flying Pachyderm Bill, mandating that all elephants in the state of California be required to travel by flying.

"This is a great day not just for California, not just for Californians, not just for elephants, but for everyone who wants to see a flying behemoth," said the governor as xe signed the bill into law. 

The law was passed by the California Senate and Assembly over objections by the three non-Party members in the Assembly, who noted that elephants cannot actually fly or indeed be made to fly.

"Aren't those guys silly!" said Senate leader Biff Barbiekins. "This is why these unaffiliated assemblypersons must be voted out of office, just as they have been silenced on all Internet platforms. Everyone says something is impossible until we pass a law requiring it. Some people see what is and say 'Why?' We see what we want and say 'Why not?'"

According to the new law, any elephant or similar mammal must be able to become airborne under its own power no later than January 1, 2058.

"This will be another example of how the power of our collective will can defeat mere reality," said the governor. "We mandated 110 percent recycling, which required the recycling of 10 percent of landfilled garbage, and it happened. We mandated the end of gas-burning cars for clean electric power and they went away like magic. We said we could house every drug addict, mentally ill person, undocumented worker, and other transient in the world without building one new structure, plus provide free food and medical care, and we have done it. We said our state would consume no more carbon fuel or nuclear power, and we do not. We required a minimum wage of $500 an hour and it became real. Now we've decided it would be great to see elephants fly, and we will make this happen too!"

"All of those laws have been an utter disaster," said one of the assemblypersons we are not allowed to name in this news report, "and we are the laughing stock of a world that's almost as crazy as we are. None of them work and everyone lies. The entire state is delusional." The assemblyperson was then led to xer mandated re-education meeting in an unmarked wind-powered van.

"No doubters, hatemongers, or insurrectionists can defy the power of the people!" said Governer Skwirm in xer passionate closing remarks. Xe then retired to the temporary Governor's Trailer as firefighters continue to try to extinguish Sacramento.

Castles, cottages, and cabins.

This castle has towers that are probably full of the bones of fair maidens who died waiting to be rescued by the mighty princes who were imprisoned in the dungeon, whose bones are in the dungeon. There are also bones of fair princesses littering the grounds, badass no-nonsense princesses who were not going to wait for their prince, who plummeted to their deaths. Which at least was faster. This creepy castle is also regularly visited by man-eating dragons, not the kind who sit down and chat with you but the kind that slither up behind you and eat you whole. It takes a while to digest a fully armored knight, but these dragons are prepared to do so. This castle was owned by Mad Queen Plychwych, who liked to drink the blood of infants to stay alive. Didn’t work. Some say she haunts the dark and spiderweb-encrusted halls, rattling chains made of bones, waiting for the Devil to come take her away. Good schools, minutes from train. 18 bd, 12 bth, 25,562 sq ft. Best offer. Contact Bobbi Smith, Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate, 555-9855.

Handyman special, needs a little love and some paint. Manor, stone keep, towers, cellars, kitchens, a great hall, gatehouse, chapel, amazing views. Unlimited parking. Not all features still in place. Terrific fixer-upper bargain. For sale by owner. Serious inquiries only. Contact Glenn c/o Knobblebury Pizzeria and Post Office. 

Begorrah! Sure'n 'tis a perfect little country cottage ye be wantin', and this little thatched item is just what ye need! Two rooms (not incl. mushrooms), outdoor bath, charming windehs, cozy as a goldcrest's nest. Secluded. 1/2 pot o' gold or equivalent lucky charm value. Listing via Sean Seamus Fergus-Fergus at Fergus-Fergus and Fergus-Fergus, Inc., fergusfergusfergusfergus.com.

Lovely cabin for sale. Excellent accents, gorgeous accessories, location fungible. You will tell your friends: Isn't it good? Swedish wood! Some assembly required. Free meatballs. Visit us at ikea.com for more details. 

Paradise on earth! Amazing place, perfect weather, opportunities galore! Highly diverse population in exciting location! Plenty of wealth to be made for spirited go-getters. Wonderful schools, incredible shopping -- no place finer in the nation. Restrictions apply. Many, many, many restrictions apply. Call today! Inquire c/o G. Newsom, gov. 

It's a hot heat.

You get used to a lot of things in New York, weather-wise -- mounds of snow, slush, huge puddles and potholes, ice, harsh winds, hot summer days of high heat and 100% humidity, gorgeous fall leaves that turn into a wet slippery menace, and so on and so forth. But we seldom worry about temperatures in excess of 100 degrees, and in my experience never in excess of 110.

So I was almost shocked past the stage of pity when friends in Southern California reported 117 degrees yesterday at 3:00 pm Pacific. 

That's just mean. 

They live inland, closer to Joshua Tree than L.A., and I suppose they had what you might call a "dry heat." Or, "the seventh circle of Hell." (Burning rain and sand, blood + fire, etc.) 

And here we were in the Hudson Valley, having the most glorious weather of the year this Labor Day weekend. 

I mean, I don't even know what to say about 117. It's just mean. The mind boggles. 

A few years back I read a book about a guy who decided to live in a cabin in the Alaskan inland, using wood and coal for heat, and one night it hit 70 below zero. Most Alaskans probably have not had to endure those kind of conditions. Extreme temperatures are just stunning.

I remember some summers in New York where we had heat waves you could literally see, and the temperature might get to 104. A bad fever, but probably not fatal. Of course, being New York, it was most decidedly not a dry heat; you could almost stick to the wall like Wacky Wally. Maybe 117 with low humidity is nicer than 104 with high humidity, but I doubt you could call either really nice. 

My main concern for our friends is that California does not have the best track record of keeping the air conditioning on (or for that matter the lights). And indeed they started to have power problems Friday night. 

Even professional-strength A/C struggles when you have this kind of heat. The only time I know I was someplace with comparable temperatures I was changing planes with the Mrs. in Phoenix, and you could feel the baking heat humming into the windows of the airport like a glowing red field of radiation. We were kind of glad to change planes elsewhere on our way home.

Our friends are tough cookies and will survive a little baking. And when we're freezing under a pile of snow in five months I'm sure they'll be enjoying perfect California weather. Although they may still be doing it by candlelight -- them being in about the only state in the union run by bigger morons than our state. 

We need a lot of Christmas.

I heard a heartbreaking story the other day. That's not too uncommon around Christmas, when newspapers will publish such stories for fund-raising appeals. Or maybe it's just bad news in a family that seems particularly poignant because it strikes at Christmastime. Terry Teachout, writer on the arts for the Wall Street Journal and other outlets, provided one like that this year, and God bless him and his wife.

The story I heard was from an acquaintance whose female friend was in California for Christmas, in all likelihood to watch her grandchild die helplessly, while the baby's parents were off to score more drugs. The baby was born in a flop hotel and dumped at the hospital. The parents entered the wind.

My friend's girlfriend (seems an odd word for a woman with a grandchild) is doing what little she can, but it is very little. The child, born with all kinds of health problems, including opioid addiction and one dead kidney, is a ward of the state, and not likely to be released into Grandma's care even if he survives. The parents? Well, one presumes they are normal enough young people, or were before addiction got into them tooth and claw; now they are like a devil's own upside-down version of the Nativity, uncaring producers of an unwanted child doomed not to die for our sins, but just plain doomed to die without ever having lived.

California has become a magnet for this behavior, by refusing to enforce any kind of control on it. As if allowing this kind of thing to go on is some kind of mercy to the mentally disturbed, to the addicts and drunks, turning the streets into a fecal swamp. The big companies haven't run for the hills yet, but small businesses can't keep their doors open, surrounded by and victimized by this criminal activity. Failed nations allow this because they have no resources to control it; American cities and states are allowing it because they are run by the insane.

How is this any kind of kindness? Can anyone think that the mother will ever want to get straightened out with the knowledge of what she has done to her child? Addicts have one answer to feelings of guilt and shame (and in fact to everything else): pick up and use. Had the authorities enforced rules against vagrancy and drug use, the mother might have been confined someplace safe and drug-free, the baby born without so many health crises, and perhaps the mother and even the father would have had a moment of clarity to encourage the desire to get and stay clean. Now none of that is probably ever going to happen. The local government will bear the cost of disposing of the bodies, the one type of street garbage that it's still willing to haul, for now.

So yes, we need Christmas, and a lot more of it, and everything else that comes because of it. I said the other day that Hollywood doesn't understand love at all anymore, and this is true; but no one in California seems to understand justice and mercy, and that you can't have one without the other. The state is run by people who act like giving a baby hard candy because he wants it is the kind thing to do. When he chokes to death on it, well, their hearts were in the right place.

At least, as Selena Zito reminded us a couple of days ago, many and maybe most places in America are not this stupid or nutty. In her profile of the lovely little town of Everett, Pennsylvania, a place of generosity and civic spirit, she writes, "I think America is mostly this way. At least, America is more like Everett than it is like whatever you see on cable news. You just sometimes have to slow down to see it."

I think she's probably right about America. I just don't know how long it will last.

Oh, boy.

Scene from the last legal gender reveal party in California before
the passage of the Gender Prenatal Nonassumption Act.

Leaf it as is?

In my town everyone was raking and blowing (and blowing and blowing) leaves to the side of the street. Guys were out with leaf blowers and flashlights in the dark. We don't do a pickup of leaf bags; what we do is, starting this year on November 5, have crews go around with a street sweeper and suck up all the leaves on the side of the road. There's no way to know what day they will show up. You have to get those leaves out ASAP and keep adding to the pile until they come by. After they've been down your street, any remaining leaves are your problem.

Well, they hadn't gotten down by my house yet, and now it's all gone to hell. The snow we got last night and into this morning required the town plows to come out of storage, so all those piles of leaves along the curb just got thrown back onto everyone's lawns.

This is why I use the lawnmower and mulch. It helps that I don't have a lot of tall trees.

Meanwhile, in California there are terrible wildfires killing people and razing entire towns, and the finger of blame is being spun around like the spinner in the Game of Life. Some people say it's global warming, and until we reduce carbon emissions to zero, wildfires will keep raging out of control. Others point to the more down-to-earth problem of poor forest management; when President Trump suggested that, all the smart people in the media had a collective cow. But he did not just make this up; serious foresters have suggested that the budgetary and environmentalist turn from thinning forests and removing brush is the obvious change that preceded the years of terrifying fires we see now.

I guess we'll find out, or not. The United States keeps lowering its emissions of carbon, but India and China and plenty of other countries keep pumping out more. So, if that's the real problem, better move out of California because there's nothing we can do.

Then again, there are memes like these that make the rounds:

Yep, all those dead leaves provide places for the butterfly larvae to chill out over the winter, I guess. And you know what else dead leaves do? Burn.

Dead leaves don't burn as well as dry grass, it's true -- like the grass that California has with its antiquated water system -- but there's more life in grass even this late in the year than there is in the fallen leaves. I wonder if a forest ranger would look me in the eye and say that a lawn with the leaves cleared off is in more danger of spreading fire than one with dead leaves thick on the ground.

Anyway, I can hardly trust the pop environmentalism one sees about. "Don't kill the dandelions!" they say. "Save the honeybees!"

Well, guess what? Dandelions are a poor source of food for honeybees. But they seem to be great for wasps. I don't have honeybees. I haven't poisoned the dandelions in a couple of years, but only because my doggone dogs keep eating the grass and I don't want them getting sick. But all I see are a scattered few bumblebees and an enormous number of yellow jackets, and I'm allergic to wasps, so to hell with them.

Besides, as Glenn Reynolds says of global warming (among other celebrity crusades), "I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who keep telling me it's a crisis act like it's a crisis." Those folks will have to give up their big houses, their private jets, their big cars. Hell will freeze over before that happens, so if it does happen I guess there'll be a cooling trend somewhere.

Plastic bags.

New York wants to do away with plastic shopping bags, as California has.

They can take my plastic bags when they pry them -- well, actually, they won't have to, because like California, New York is shedding citizens quickly. The last person left will be in a plastic-bag-free zone, I guess.

But that's not the issue I was addressing today. It's the plastic bags that dry cleaners use. My question for you is, do you leave your clothes in the bags when you bring them home from the cleaner, or do you take them out of the bags?

NO! DON'T DO WHATEVER YOU DO! DO THE OTHER THING! YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

Sorry. It's just one of those stupid issues where people will tell you something with absolute assurance and be contradicted by a similar person a moment later. The Internet seems to be falling out of love with the YOU'RE DOING _____ WRONG storyline, but it loves to make the same scold in different ways.

I usually leave my dry cleaning in the plastic when I bring it home, to keep the nice clothes safe and free of odors (i.e., bacon) until the next time I wear them (e.g., someone dies and I need the black suit again).

Well, how dumb am I? The environmental loons at EWG tell us that dry cleaning chemicals are so toxic that you have to air dry your clothes outside after you get them dry cleaned. So the birds can put back what you just had the cleaner take out, perhaps.

Others, perhaps less frantic, say you need to take the clothes out of the plastic to get the chemicals off-gassed before they can discolor your clothes, and also that dampness from the cleaning process may cause mildew. And everyone hates plastic anyway because it's garbage that lasts forever.

But wait! My dry cleaner has this poster up:

"Protects clothes in your closet! Breaks down in the landfill!"

Okay! So maybe it's all right to leave biodegradable plastic on my clothes? No, that can't be right.

This particular cleaner with the sun-bleached poster is proud to avoid using the popular dry cleaning chemical PERC, a.k.a. perchloroethylene, which is probably healthier for the workers (per OSHA) but will have no effect on anyone else.  But WAIT! EWG would want to know, does he use Siloxane D5? Hydrocarbon cleaning fluid? "There are very few truly 'green' dry cleaning technologies," they say, and go on to list no actual processes one might consider "dry cleaning."

So many perils! So many wrong choices to make! What do we do?

You probably know what my advice is in these circumstances: Do whatever the hell you want. Seriously. You're going to be wrong anyway, according to all the right people, so do what you want. Leave the bags on? Groovy. Take 'em off? Fine. Inhale chemicals? It's your trip. Smell like bacon on your job interview? Go for it. When we're always wrong, we might as well be wrong in the way we like best.

Personally, I will continue to leave the bags on in the closet. That way, when I have to wear the black suit to my own funeral, you won't smell the bacon. I mean, I know the formaldehyde with which they shall fill me will likely drown it out anyway, but you don't want to give people the wrong idea. "I thought I knew what Fred was made of... turns out it was bacon."

Water.

Here's a bit of the ol' forest primeval, where I took little dog. Afternoon sun filtering through the pines...

Bit of a pathway by an old duck pond...

And just inside a chain-link fence...

Everything about this scene is man-made, or at least man-moved. Nature or Nature's God made the pines, but they were planted there by men. The duck pond probably was not there until it was put on the hill as a means of dealing with runoff, and under our feet is the giant concrete system to keep every house on this large hill nice and dry.

I've talked about this kind of thing in the past, mostly about water towers, but I'll say it again -- we don't appreciate how terrific we have it in America thanks to quality engineering. When bridges fail or a natural disaster wipes out a town it's awful, but we also know that poor municipal budgeting and sometimes stupid ideas make things worse. Systems require upkeep, and bridges need to be built with long-established math stuff. States racked by drought shouldn't have to rely on century-old systems designed for much smaller populations because the politicians spent all the money elsewhere. What I'm saying is, we have excellent and often unseen engineering going on all around us, and we ought to demand it all the time and appreciate it too.

And I really mean that. If we did appreciate it for the modern miracle it is, promoting health and prosperity, people would really celebrate the opening of a new wastewater management plant rather than find it an occasion for mockery because it's BORRRR-ring. If we were grateful for things like well-constructed overpasses and upgrades to roads, our political class -- which never misses a chance to run between a project and the cameras -- would fund them adequately, and spend less money on vote-buying and monorail-type schemes.

As it is, it's a miracle we have such fine work being done. Software engineering is probably the only kind that can make the engineer rich overnight, and even famous, but we really need engineers of water systems, roads, bridges, and electricity more. Things would be a lot messier around here without them.

Cheesy rider.

California's highways have been plagued in recent weeks by gangs of hipsters on Harley-Davidson penny-farthing cycles.

California Ban on All Food Containers Takes Effect.

By Staff Reporters

No containers of any kind for anything will be permitted under California's new law, as signed by Governor Jerry Brown last March. From today forward, everything must be sold in bulk; consumers may take products home by bringing their own reusable jars, boxes, cans, and other containers.

"It's a stupendous day for freedom," said Brown. "Freedom from pollution!"

"This is great for the environment of California, and a great means to set an example for the entire nation," says Alice Koklamara, 49, president of Californians Against Noxious Trash, a grassroots organization that lobbied hard for the new law. "Millions of tons of trash that would have clogged California's landfills and rivers will now never exist. It's just splendid!"

But consumer Peter Freid, 53, of San Bernardino, expresses reservations. Speaking to reporters in the parking lot of his local Stater Brothers supermarket, while cupping sliced pickled beets in his hands, Fried says, "This is the stupidest thing I ever heard of. There's people in there with dirty old jars getting filled up, people walking around holding raw meat. Someone's going to get sick. We're all using the same spoon to ladle things. Can this possibly be sanitary?" Sighing, he adds, "How am I supposed to drive home like this?"

In the store, many people were confused, trying to figure out the application of the law, and lines were long as cashiers tried to deduce how much to charge consumers for products in cereal bowls, Tupperware, plastic tumblers, pockets, and whatever else people had around the house. "We're resorting to dickering," says cashier Terri Skyu, 18, of Redlands. "It's taking longer, but I think most folks still feel like they're getting more for less, as our slogan says. I hear at Safeway there are fistfights in the aisles, but not here! Yet, anyway."

"It's just another example of what Californians can do when we pull together," says Koklamara. "We've always been very forward-thinking in this state. When people ask me, 'What will it take until you lunatics are satisfied?' I just laugh and say, 'What else you got?'"