Tulip City Dispatch

While this whole series on golf draws heavily on the delightful Youtube personalities at Stacked Golf, I've also got a destructive personality.  Just by the nature of being around golf since the mid to late 90's, I've accrued a plethora of golf balls - a whole shag bag full from a neighbor who moved, a spare dozen or so from the golf bag I bought at the thrift store, finding a pocketful of golf balls, and picking up a sleeve or two as door prizes at golf outings.  It's just one of those things. With that in mind, I busted out the ol' PVC cutter and took a leaf out of Rick Shiels' book:  I gathered up a bunch of old and spare golf balls and sliced them open, to record for posterity! Kirkland Signature 3-piece Bridgestone e6 Soft Callaway ERC Soft - note the "infamous" off-center core, towards the top of the ball Dunlop DDH Distance - one of my favorite balls as a junior, that I was happy to find being reissued Top Flite XL Top is a Taylor Made Noodle, b...

A third edit...yet more feedback: If you can justify the statement that "Trump made me rich enough to retire" by being born in 1950, reaching actual retirement age in 2015, then waiting out the last year of Obama's presidency (and the economic recovery from the 2008-2010 Great Recession) before retiring in June 2017, then I can justify the statement that "Donald Trump's economic policies cost me 2 jobs." The person who said this reentered the workforce in 2019 to get out and get some fresh air, taking the job I was being prepped for at a fraction of the cost (because he had a fully-funded union pension to retire on), and his hire was the reason I left that place of employment to take the job at the cabinetmaker.  When he reentered the workforce, he took the job I was slated to move into. Yet another edit to this one, to address more feedback: This was shared to illustrate my experience with certain controversial federal political concepts, and how they impac...

 Chatting with a friend-of-a-friend in the Before Times (before March 2020 when a national State of Emergency was declared for the CoVid-19 pandemic, and before mask mandates and stay-home-stay-safe orders were on the books), I asked her opinion on current events from the point of view of someone a few years younger than myself.  While I'm quite firmly in the Millennial age group, her point of view was from someone who straddles that gap between "Millennial" and "Gen Z".  Her response was "Every day I wake up is the worst day in history." That gave me chills. Every day during the Trump presidency, there was a new scandal, or a new major event.  That was generally Trump's playbook:  Do or say something extreme to distract from other current events.  These past 4 years have been exhausting to live through, trying to stay on top of the news, and being an active consumer by filtering out the bad sources and digging through the fluff and biases to deter...

"The Cult of Tradition", characterized by cultural syncretism , even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by Tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement. "The Rejection of modernism ", which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system. "The Cult of Action for Action's Sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself, and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism , and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science. "Disagreement Is Treason" – Fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as w...

July 2011 was a hot one - hot as balls outside, and even hotter in the streets around West Michigan.  The afternoon of July 7 rolled around, and I made my way to work - second shift at a furniture factory (for the period of about 2 weeks, until I inquired with the temp service about a shift premium, then was promptly moved back to first shift).  Work started at 2pm and went to 10pm.  We were training a new guy that day, and had him at a workstation looking out the window, facing the intersection of Rumsey and Godfrey Avenue in Grand Rapids.  Sometime before our first break at 4pm, a bunch of police cars began circling around.  This new employee was getting edgier and edgier, more and more paranoid as he was watching the police cars outside.  The poor guy split at break time, leaving us to handle his workload. As the rest of us continued our work day, we eventually wrapped up our responsibilities, turned off the ventilation and lights, and shuffled down the ...