Mannies wanted

Eugen Keler with his black nanny, 1874. Public domain by copyright expiration.

Not long ago, really only a matter of decades, entire generations of wealthy Southern males and females were raised not by their mothers, but by, usually black, servant ladies who went by names like "Miss Marcy" and "Miss Denise" and who were given the important job of raising the next generation of a wealthy, Southern family. When these men came in to town, the first person they visited was not their parents, it was who raised them.

It was a good deal for the Mannies too. The pay may not have been much, but their erstwhile "masters" were often very generous in the form of gifts and benefits, and this member of the family was taken care of exactly like that - a member of the family. And they could live in a nice room in a nice mansion, and when the family got Filet Mignon or ate out, so more often then not did they.

Today, wealthy, intelligent women with hard careers aren't having children. Now it is true that there is the little matter of passing a bowling ball through a tiny hole (it may be hard to "put a camel through the eye of a needle" in the words of scripture, but women do it on a regular basis), and no one can really help you with that, besides the obvious possibility of cutting you open, but we as a society can help you with what comes after. We can provide Mannies, people to take care of the child you are too busy for, and he will still be yours, and family, but if you are too busy with your career what is not neccesary need not be minded.

It seems that today we have a resistance or hate or even unnegotiableness to the notion of Mannies, to the notion of someone else raising our children, but we shouldn't. Why shouldn't someone who has time look after our kids? Is it better if no one is there for them just because you can't be? Is it better to simply never have children, and never experience any of it, just because you can't handle all of it? And obviously this solution only works for the wealthy. But why shouldn't it work for who it does?

Classic American Cities - Seattle

Downtown Seattle from Gasworks Park (Mine,public domain). Above: Pioneer Square, 1917, C.F. Todd

I grew up just across Lake Washington from the mighty metropolis of Puget Sound. This city, renowned for it's coffee, it's hippies, and it's software and businesspeople, has a complex personality at once laid back and pretentious, hot-headed and calm, Western and modern, rebellious and traditional, and both outspoken and quiet.

Courtesy of National Parks Service. Public domain.

The downtown area of Seattle was originally a tideflat with islands. In the center of the above picture is a triangle of three streets, known as the Denny Triangle. That triangle was an island that the first part of downtown Seattle was built off of. Today, you have to walk several blocks to the water and the docks. Garbage and landfills were used to fill the tideflats, depositing additional land off of the triangle for more city to be built. In addition, Seattle, in 1907, destroyed a hill and deposited the dirt that was contained in it across the lowpoints. Denny Regrade:

Public Domain. Courtesy of Wikimedia

The hotel in the background still stands, known as the Josephinum, at 1902 Second Avenue. To this day, the attitude of being able to shift mountains and proudly, perhaps even foolishly, see no obstacle is a major part of Seattle's character.

The University of Washington has been a part of Seattle since 1861. It's original campus was on University Street in Downtown, although it is now located near the Montlake Cut about 5 miles Northeast. The University, according to William Spiedel in his book "Sons of the Profits," was fonded off of leasing a land-grant contianing nearly the entirety of the Lake Washington shoreline. The land was leased out for building of industrial facilities too large for a homestead, and lead to the development of Seattle's Eastside off of industry (of which almost none remains today, except at the North and South ends, Kenmore and Renton.)

Ballard is a Scandinavian ethnic neighborhood to the Northwest of downtown.

Ballard from the air, Walter Siegmund. Gnu License 1.2

To this day, the Ballard high school mascot is the Vikings, and many Ballardians are commercial fishermen. The area has a very different social ambience to it, a feeling more down to earth then the rest of Seattle, very welcoming, and very humble. The scandinavian immigrants are part of why Western Washington is different from any other Western State, and you will find them throughout the state, but make sure, when you are in Seattle, to take a trip to Ballard, the epicenter of it. And don't be surprised when you hear hymns in Norwegian at church.

One of the many fine Scandinavian traditions carried over to Seattle is celebrating Midsummers Day, also known as the summer solstice. In Fremont, a traditionally hippyish neighborhood near Ballard, they have a nude bicycle race every summer solstice.

Seattle does have a tradition of Seattle Nice, and Washington State being partially Scandinavian and partially Scots-Irish, it can be considered roughly a mix of Minnesota and Colorado. The very happy side to their nature is they do tend to be welcoming and open. The dark side to their character is they have a tendency to expect people to be perfect and emotionless. And their "nice" does not cover you when you say extremely stupid things, or what they pereceive as such - nor does it prevent them from trash talking. They do have a sense of honor, however - witness people working in Seattle and you will see some of the most dilligent and motivated workers you have ever seen. And despite their tendency to trash talk, both aggresively and passive aggresively, they And they can be very free-spirited and entrepreneurial, though some of that is now disappearing.

Seattle is, unfortunately, effeminizing right now as every shop and business has decided that if they paint the walls pastel, create a painting of a wineglass somewhere and sell tacky merchandise they will make more money. Add to this some recklessly bad transportation policy (like charging $6 to get in to the city from the Eastern Suburbs, and wasting billions on a rail system expected to carry 20,000 passengers) and it comes down to this: If you want to Seattle, hurry, it may not be there tomorrow.

They will learn eventually, though. :(

American Cuisine - a socratic rant

American cuisine can be essentially broken in to four parts:

1 - Fast Food
2 - Southern
3 - Old North
4 - Southwest

2 & 4, and 4 & Mexico overlap to a point, as does 1 & German. Stereotypically, however, "1" is most frequently associated with the US, most likely because it is easily industrialized, inexpensive and serves a useful purpose in an urban or automobile-nomad society.

"3" is the perhaps the most forgotten off all, but dishes like New England & Manhattan Clam Chowders and Maine lobster remain very common dishes well outside the Northeast. "4" is fairly memorable, and probably could be called to mind very fast to any foreigner, but as the unofficial Texas State Motto goes "It's a whole 'nother country down here."

"2" is perhaps the most unsung, and most unique. Also probably the best of American cuisine. Be it the Cajun side, the Atlantic side, the Black side (geography in the South is three-dimensional, partially dependent on color), or the Appalachian side, the quality of Southern cooking will resonate with anyone who has tried it. Though there is always some dispute as to which is which, and which is also outside influence, Southern cooking really is the best in the country.

Possibly the least impressive region in the country cooking-wise is the Midwest. Outside of Chicago, nothing significant in the culinary area can be attributed to them. California can lay claim to fast food, and the Northwest (2nd worst) can lay claim to a unique way of preparing salmon and a few other such things but I know of nothing that can be attributed to the rural Midwest.

Cowboys and Indiankillers

The Western United States has a split personality. The film that exemplifies what I'm talking about is Serenity. In that movie, Earth, too overpopulated to sustain those on it, is left by large numbers of settlers for a new solar system. The Inner Planets form a totalitarian Interplanetary Alliance, while the Outer Planets remain essentially freewheeling and libertine. I guess you could compare the first set to:

- Washington State: Where the City of Seattle has a bottomless supply of schemes to force (notice I didn't say encourage) people out of automobiles.
- California: Where at one point they were attempting to make homeschooling illegal.
- Oregon: I'm not quite sure exactly what they are doing but this state gives me the creeps. --Austin, TX/Denver, CO: the twin towers of Southwestern-style doom, which watch the West Coast in admiration and are emulating them.

While the second set would be more comparable to Montana, Eastern Washington/Eastside of Seattle, Wyoming, Colorado, West Texas, Idaho, Nevada.

Really, it comes down to the people who created the West. On one hand, you had the corporate men, the government, the cavalry, the people who came more for money or power then freedom, land, or a simple life, and they attached themselves to high convoluted ideas like, Manifest Destiny, and if you and yours didn't fit in to their little vision, you had better get out of town because they would find you and kill you, just as they did with the Indians. They wanted to make Europe, wanted to make a grand civilization, and then they started Starbucks. They may be city people, and they may act effeminate and drink Lattes, but don't let that fool you, they are mean nasty dudes. If the gangs in Philly saw these guys riding over the ridge, they'd wimper, they'd cry, they'd quake in their boots and they'd get out of town immediately, and to their credit, some of the cities with this mentality (like Seattle) have low crime rates.

Now, in this day and age, they don't really kill people much - maybe they softened up a little, or maybe they just know that now lawman has arrived, you can't get away with that kind of BS anymore. But that doesn't mean they don't still want Eurotopia. They build mass-transit systems, and then insist people ride them, as if the people are for the train, and not the train for the people. And if you don't listen, they throw a $6 toll on the bridge from your town in to the city, and if you still don't listen, they restrict parking and shut down all garages beyond a certain size. And in California, to get their little slice of heaven, they take a useful industrial town and use a wacky combination of environmental activism, population limits, and bizarre byzantine regulation to push all useful business out of the town and make it in to a Hacienda for the rich and glamorous - it's called Santa Barbara.

But then theirs the other western mentality, the one that John Wayne tried to portray on TV and was usually showcased (not very well) in the Western's. The loud, but humble, ambitious, but simple, open-minded, but honorable, lawless, but responsible, American Cowboy. He's the guy who just want's to be left alone and go on his way, and he's like the crew of Serenity. See, he wasn't the one who killed the Indians. He thought they were just folk. He wouldn't have done it, he wouldn't have seen it as right. It was all the pretty people off in LA and SF who did that dirty work, plus the law men, or contracted out the Army to do it, and even to this day they still try to rid the West of all that isn't European. One target down, so many to go.

Of course, the way Obama, and California, is going, who knows, 2012 could be their last stand! But, probably not, probably just a minor setback.... (notice I'm trying to incite an argument.)