From The Charleston City Paper (thanks to Bob P.)

Former President Donald Trump attended  Saturday’s USC-Clemson football game as he and thousands of fans encountered seven electronic billboards around Columbia highlighting an anti-Trump message:  “You lost.  You’re guilty.  Welcome to Columbia, Donald.”  

The billboards, which also say “Sponsored by League of Radical Leftist Vermin, Jay Bender instigator,” referenced a comment Trump made in a New Hampshire speech on Veterans Day to root out “radical left thugs that live like vermin.”  

Manager Dark said, ‘There’ll be a man on the moon before he hits a home run,’ and he was right. (Thanks to Bob P)

Thanks to Ann M.

“How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.”
— John Burroughs

“I hope I can be the autumn leaf, who looked at the sky and lived. And when it was time to leave, gracefully it knew life was a gift.”
— Dodinsky

“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.” 
― Oscar Wilde

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
― Albert Camus

“Autumn colors remind us we are all one dancing in the wind.”
― Lorin Morgan-Richards

Beautiful on the surface, deep in meaning. Let’s live like the leaves, dancing together without separation or prejudice.

Joel 2:23: “Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.”

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
― Albert Camus

“Autumn is the time of year when Mother Nature says, “Look how easy, how healthy, and how beautiful letting go can be.”
― Toni Sorenson

Even when the leaves have been shed the life remains in the tree. Like “an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves” (Isaiah 6:13). In the same way, the Lord is able to revive us spiritually.

The bright, fresh color of the leaf of a tree or plant shows that it is richly nourished by a good soil, hence it is the symbol of prosperity (Ps 1:3; Jer 17:8). A faded leaf, on the contrary, shows the lack of moisture and nourishment, and becomes a fit emblem of adversity and decay (Job 13:25; Isa 64:6).

Thanks to Sybil-Ann

2 tickets are available for the December 10th 2 PM Sunday Matinee. Orchestra Center Row U seats 1 and 2. Price $150 for the pair (purchase price $198). Currently 3 seats are available on the Skyline van. Contact Jim deMaine if interested.

Thanks to Mary Jane F.

                                   Happy Be Thankful Day!

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” – Maya Angelo

“When you think something nice about someone, let them know.

It’s a shame that we often wait until a person’s funeral to say all of the nice things we thought about them.

The next time you have a positive thought about someone — Tell them, right then!                   

It’s a wonderful thing.”

“Don’t let the ugly in others destroy the beauty in you.”

“Blessed are we, who can laugh at ourselves. For we will never cease to be amused.”

“Good things come to those who believe. Better things come to those who are patient and the best things come to those who Don’t Give Up.”

“People are not beautiful for the way they look, walk, or talk. They are beautiful for the way they Love, Share & Care.”

“Your mind will always believe everything you tell it. Feed it faith. Feed it truth. Feed it love.”

1. Compliment three people every day.
2. Watch a sunrise at least once a year.
3. Be the first to say, “Hello.”
4. Never give up on anyone. Miracles happen.
5. Forget the Joneses
6. Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.
7. Be tough-minded but tenderhearted.
8. Remember that overnight success usually takes 15 years.
9. Be kinder than necessary.
10. Learn how to show cheerfulness, even when you don’t feel like it.
11. When you arrive at work in the morning, let the first thing you say brighten everyone’s day.
12. Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.

Thanks to Sybil-Ann

Reminiscent of Burma Shave. Thanks to Sybil-Ann.

The Bells

Edgar Allan Poe (to be read aloud with friends!)

I.

        Hear the sledges with the bells—
                 Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
        How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
           In the icy air of night!
        While the stars that oversprinkle
        All the heavens, seem to twinkle
           With a crystalline delight;
         Keeping time, time, time,
         In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
       From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
               Bells, bells, bells—
  From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

        Hear the mellow wedding bells,
                 Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
        Through the balmy air of night
        How they ring out their delight!
           From the molten-golden notes,
               And all in tune,
           What a liquid ditty floats
    To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
               On the moon!
         Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
               How it swells!
               How it dwells
           On the Future! how it tells
           Of the rapture that impels
         To the swinging and the ringing
           Of the bells, bells, bells,
         Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
               Bells, bells, bells—
  To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III.

         Hear the loud alarum bells—
                 Brazen bells!
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
       In the startled ear of night
       How they scream out their affright!
         Too much horrified to speak,
         They can only shriek, shriek,
                  Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
            Leaping higher, higher, higher,
            With a desperate desire,
         And a resolute endeavor
         Now—now to sit or never,
       By the side of the pale-faced moon.
            Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
            What a tale their terror tells
                  Of Despair!
       How they clang, and clash, and roar!
       What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
       Yet the ear it fully knows,
            By the twanging,
            And the clanging,
         How the danger ebbs and flows;
       Yet the ear distinctly tells,
            In the jangling,
            And the wrangling.
       How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
             Of the bells—
     Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
            Bells, bells, bells—
 In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV.

          Hear the tolling of the bells—
                 Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
        In the silence of the night,
        How we shiver with affright
  At the melancholy menace of their tone!
        For every sound that floats
        From the rust within their throats
                 Is a groan.
        And the people—ah, the people—
       They that dwell up in the steeple,
                 All alone,
        And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
          In that muffled monotone,
         Feel a glory in so rolling
          On the human heart a stone—
     They are neither man nor woman—
     They are neither brute nor human—
              They are Ghouls:
        And their king it is who tolls;
        And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
                    Rolls
             A pæan from the bells!
          And his merry bosom swells
             With the pæan of the bells!
          And he dances, and he yells;
          Keeping time, time, time,
          In a sort of Runic rhyme,
             To the pæan of the bells—
               Of the bells:
          Keeping time, time, time,
          In a sort of Runic rhyme,
            To the throbbing of the bells—
          Of the bells, bells, bells—
            To the sobbing of the bells;
          Keeping time, time, time,
            As he knells, knells, knells,
          In a happy Runic rhyme,
            To the rolling of the bells—
          Of the bells, bells, bells—
            To the tolling of the bells,
      Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—
              Bells, bells, bells—
  To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

Thanks to Sybil-Ann

By Jim Margard in the Post Alley News

Since when would a series of store closures along First Avenue help to revitalize downtown Seattle? Mayor Bruce Harrell and Seattle Department of Transportation’s vision of a First Avenue connector streetcar would risk such an exodus. If city officials were to honestly engage business owners and managers along this vibrant commercial area with over 500 small businesses, they would get an earful.

I recently visited with dozens of such stakeholders on First Avenue from the Pike Place Market to Pioneer Square. When informed that the connector would eliminate street parking, left turns, most commercial and passenger loading zones, and reduce traffic to one no-stop lane in each direction, virtually all were alarmed, many saying it would do irreparable damage to their ability to operate.

One Pioneer Square owner, still reeling from First Avenue utility construction completed a few years ago, said: “ I’ve run multiple stores here for almost 40 years, through roadwork, the Great Recession, and the pandemic, and the Connector is the one thing would kill us”.

We’ve already seen this movie. Merchants were key to stopping the SDOT-proposed First Hill streetcar line extension north of Denny Street in 2016. After initially embracing the project, the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce changed its tune, opposing it after witnessing the damaging impact the line had on businesses on Broadway. Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Sierra Hansen commented, “If we want to see Broadway thrive, the streetcar is actually the best way to undermine that…it would basically gut access to businesses on Broadway…it limits the access to panel trucks which are the lifeblood of these businesses”.

Advocates cite the operational prospects of a combined streetcar network joining the Capitol Hill Line, terminating in Pioneer Square, and the South Lake Union Line, terminating at Westlake Mall. The existing streetcars averaged about 3,000 passengers a day in 2022, a shrinkage of 35% since 2018. Among the reasons for the decline: would-be passengers worked from home or switched to the new “C” Line and bus routes 40, 62, and 70. The bus lines are frequent, penetrate downtown, and have better transfers with Link Light Rail.

The South Lake Union line had 180,211 passengers in 2022, an average of only 4 riders per trip, despite terminating in the downtown shopping core, a few blocks from the Pike Place Market. I don’t believe that tepid ridership is what streetcar proponents imagined when they conceived the system two decades ago. SDOT’s ridership projection for a connected line has been 20,000-24,000 riders per day. That would equal about 125-150 riders per trip, every hour, 16 hours a day. In what universe is that even possible?

The connector has recently been re-branded by SDOT as the “culture connector.” That designation is a stretch. The proposed Connector network along First Avenue barely comes within a half mile walk of Climate Pledge Arena, The Seattle Rep, Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Museum of Pop Culture, Space Needle, Children’s Museum, Children’s Theater, Chihuly Museum, and Science Center. It would take more than twice as long by traffic-battling streetcar than to go on foot from the Capitol Hill Line’s terminus at First and Jackson to reach the Paramount, ACT, the Moore and 5th Avenue Theaters in downtown Seattle. One of the two arts venues the connector would pass directly in front of (the Showbox) would face an unmanageable loading situation. The project’s “culture” connection would be thin, at best; destructive at worst.

If public transportation to cultural venues is desired, the city should consider less costly, inefficient, and less rigid options that would not require dedicated lanes, and would reach such venues more directly. Electric bus routes could be adapted to downtown needs as they develop rather than be permanently set in concrete like the iron tracks of a streetcar.

First Avenue businesses and residents would not survive without commercial and consumer delivery, passenger load, and disability access vehicles. The new waterfront park will bring more passenger cars, not fewer. Parking demand would rise in the midst of fewer parking options. Eliminating First Avenue parking would further reduce customer visits. Dependent on street parking, Pioneer Square would be hit particularly hard. Vehicles going in and out of parking garages onto single lane traffic on both sides of First Avenue near Columbia Street would cause chronic multi-block backups in both directions. Worse, the First Avenue Connector wouldn’t add a Pioneer Square stop south of Cherry Street.

Then there is the exorbitant price tag of about $300 million ($140,000 per yard) for the three-year Connector construction project. Plus the 50% higher perpetual operating costs relative to buses, long maintenance lead times, and safety issues to pedestrians and two-wheelers. Factor in how slow and unreliable streetcars are, and their disappointing passenger counts. Then consider the irreparable damage to the historic and thriving business and residential communities along the First Avenue route.

The last thing we should do for our fragile downtown is to create new economic dead zones downtown. The Seattle City Council will soon make decisions on funding feasibility studies for the midtown Connector and associated capital spending. That money would be far more constructively used elsewhere.

Jim Margard is a retired entrepreneurial investment manager, founder and partner of Rainier Investment Management, and a Chartered Financial Analyst. He serves on the Finance Committee of the Pike Place Market Foundation and resides at First and Union.

Thanks to Pam P.

Clarence Thomas Collapses from Exhaustion After First Full Day of Regulating Himself   Other Justices are struggling with the arduous self-regulatory demands of the code of conduct, too.   By Andy Borowitz