Keystone Towers Kaput

As of 8 a.m. today, Keystone Towers is no more.

About 750 pounds of dynamite and other explosives were ignited, therefore imploding the abandoned building on Indianapolis' near northeast side.

I had written about Keystone Towers and what it had meant to me before in this blog. For those who'd like to know what I said, please click here.

I had driven by the building Saturday morning because I wanted to see it one last time.

I was surprised; it was a bare skeleton of itself.

All the glass and about 600 tons of steel had already been removed. Some constructions workers were wrapping the building in layers of fabric and chain-link fence to force the building's remains inward during the operation.

I wasn't going to see the implosion in person, even though two public viewing areas had been set up north of the site. I didn't think it was necessary for me to witness it.

Besides, I had seen Market Square Arena in downtown Indianapolis imploded on July 8, 2001: Just a little more than two months before 9/11. Looking back, it gave me an eerie preview of the falling of the World Trade Center.

Advanced Explosives Demolition, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, was in charge of the Keystone Towers implosion, and also for the one at Market Square Arena.

(Photo from indystar.com.)

Suze

I was off the internet during most of today; in fact, I wasn't even near a computer most of the day.

So I turn on my computer around 4 p.m., get on the internet, and see this sad story:

Suze Rotolo, Bob Dylan's longtime girlfriend during his fledgling days as a Greenwich Village folk singer and the woman who appears alongside him on the famous cover of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," passed away this weekend at her home in Manhattan following a long illness, Rolling Stone reports. Rotolo was 67.

In addition to forever being captured on the Don Hunstein-photographed "Freewheelin' " cover, Rotolo's three-year relationship with Dylan, from 1961 to 1964, also inspired him to write three of his early love songs, "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," "Tomorrow is a Long Time," and "Boots of Spanish Leather." (Dylan's breakup with Rotolo also influenced one of his most vitriolic tunes, "Ballad in Plain D," a song Dylan later regretted recording.) Rotolo is also acknowledged for pushing Dylan toward the political awareness that flavored his Greenwich Village work.

"All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight. I gagged twice, doubled, tears blinding my sight. My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night. Leaving all of love's ashes behind me," Dylan wrote in "Ballad in Plain D" after his breakup with Rotolo. "The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet. The words to say I'm sorry, I haven't found yet. I think of her often and hope whoever she's met, will be fully aware of how precious she is."

In the many writings about the pair, their relationship is invariably described as "tumultuous" or "rocky." In its obituary for Rotolo, The New York Times points to her autobiography, "A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the 60s" where she describes her difficulty with being a "boyfriend's 'chick,' a string on his guitar."

Following her August 1963 breakup with Dylan, Rotolo reunited with film editor Enzo Bartoccioli, who she met in Italy a year earlier. She later married Bartoccioli, and the couple remained together until her death this weekend. Over the past decades, Rotolo rarely spoke about her time with Dylan, but that changed within the past few years. She was interviewed for Martin Scorsese's Dylan documentary "No Direction Home," and later authored the highly regarded biography "A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties." Rotolo was also a noted illustrator and artist.

She was the woman in the famous iconic album cover of The Freewheeling Bob Dylan: One of my favorite records. Here it is:

I read her book either last year or during 2009; I've forgotten exactly when. I remember little of it now as I think about it. But it had an explanation, which I finally understood, of the idea of the grapevine: How the vines on a grape arbor get tangled and go off in all different directions, like talk often can.

(News story from Amplifier, a music blog at Yahoo.com.)

Keystone Towers

There's some good news for Keystone Towers: Or at the least, the land on which it sits.

The city of Indianapolis will take title to it after no one bid for it and its $1.3 million in unpaid property taxes.

I've been fascinated by these buildings ever since they were built. Back in the late 1970s, I drove by it at night. When it was lit up, it looked like a monolith in the middle of a field. And that impressed me.

It was at the corner of Keystone Avenue and Binford Boulevard, northwest of the Indiana State Fairgrounds. It was at the west end of a trail that ended on the east side of Indianapolis at a three-way crossing among East 38th Street, North Shadeland Avenue and Pendleton Pike.

Also during the late 1970s, a friend told me that he had been invited to a swingers party there, but declined. He might have heard of a rumored swingers party there, but I doubt he was invited. I knew his upbringing, and because of that, he would not have known of or associated with swingers.

My Fellow Citizens

My fellow citizens ... my fellow citizens ...

Jesus! How stupid they must be!

One of five of them now believe that President Obama is a Moslem, despite the proof put before them. For more details, please click here and read the story.

Believe it or ... do something to show your despair ... like shake your head or throw up your arms.

It does not help Obama since he said he supported the Moslem worship center now being built near the former World Trade Center. If you want more details, please look for stories about it via your favorite search engine.

I won't wrote any more of this matter because I feel strongly disgusted when I think of it. And if I write of it, I'd have to think of it.

Damn!

i, i, i ...

This week, Apple admitted that there had been a data breech in some of its iPads. Because of it, hackers could've gotten information for about 114,000 people who owned one.

When I heard about the breech, this line of thought came to mind:

iPad

iPod

iPhone

I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot no deputy

I love a parade

Iraq

Iroll

Iran

I did it all for love

I did it all for you, baby

I spy with my bloodshot eye a drunken sailor passing by

I is the first letter of it, is and if -- also of irony and ivory

I shot an arrow into the air.
It fell to earth --
no, not there --
It went into the heart of my mortal enemy.
Death!
Kill!
Death!
Kill!
DEATH!

Some Comments On Health Care

Well, Congress has passed, and President Obama has signed, legislation that has greatly changed health care in the United States.

If you want the details, please go to other web sites -- preferably news sites and those sites of a liberal/progressive nature.

Don't go to conservative sites. Too, too many of them have opposed health care reform. Some have mentioned the free-market approach to health care.

Well, if our health care system in the U.S. is free-market oriented, then why can't I open, say, my brain-surgery center next week?

That's the snarky, sarcastic, smart-ass reply. For one, I'd be arrested and charged for practicing medicine without a license. I would get one if it was like, say, getting a permit for any other business. But the medical establishment won't allow that.

Health care in the U.S. had a serious flaw. Medicine in this country is a guild, with admission to it very, very limited, and it charges what it wants, like any businessman.

I have a personal example of how screwed health care was, and I bet will be in the future.

Back on a Sunday night in December 1977, I was opening a pack of lunch meat to make a sandwich when the knife I was using to cut open the pack slipped and cut the underside of the middle finger of my left hand.

I tried to wash it and bandage it, but blood from the wound still kept flowing. I decided that I couldn't fix it myself, so I went to the emergency room of my local hospital.

When I got there, the people in charge realized that situation didn't need immediate care, so I waited until help was available. A nurse came and washed it. She said I would need a shot to fight any possible infection, but had to wait on the doctor on duty to give it.

I found that funny, because junkies give themselves shots all the time. They didn't need any specific training to do that.

The doctor came, gave me the shot, and then sewed up the wound.

The whole procedure, if I remember correctly, cost between $220-$230. The nurse or any emergency medical technician could've done it. But the doctor had to do it.

So I have little pity with doctors and insurance companies who piss, bitch and moan about the changes. They overcharged; they're the type of people who give capitalism and the profit motive a bad, bad name.

This is all that I have to say about the situation as of now. If I have anything else to add, I'll put it in this post later.

These Times, Part 2 ...

As I did last week, I present a link to Gawker.com about these times. If you want to read it, please click here .

The most amazing -- and saddest -- part of the post is this: Detroit is reverting back into semi-rural farmland by plan.

You read it correctly: Back to semi-rural farmland by plan.

Go to the fifth paragraph of the post, and click where noted.

Again, I ask you: How fucking screwed are we?

These Times ...

Lately, I've felt a little perturbed about the times. Three things put those vague thoughts and feelings about that into words.

The first was this review of the book Next Man Up: A Year Behind The Line In Today's NFL by John Feinstein. In it, he quoted Brian Billick, the former head coach of the Baltimore Ravens. It appeared in the January 8, 2007 issue of The New Yorker:

Billick says grimly about cutting players, "Whenever I have to make these cuts, I always think about what Clint Eastwood said in 'Unforgiven': 'when you kill a man, you not only are ending his life, you're taking away everything he ever had or is going to have.'" The unhappiness that you feel among the (Baltimore Ravens) players is hardly the misery of the oppressed, but is something more familiar these days, the rancor of the near-miss. Why them and not us? is a radical question. Why the guy at the next locker and not me? a bitter one.

(I forgot to note the author of the piece. For that, I apologize.)

The second is from the blog Gawker.com. It's entitled What Are You Even Doing, America? Here's the first paragraph:

The Way We Live Now: Ass out. We barely even know what we're doing any more. Stealing a bus? Living on the front lawn? Buying in before yet another real estate crash? It's a party!

The rest of the post was written in the same tone. Click here to read it.

The third is also from Gawker. It's about Joe Stack, the man who flew his private airplane into an Internal Revenue Service office on February 17 of this year in Austin, Texas. Click here to read it.

After I read all of them at about the same time, I wondered to myself: How fucking screwed are we? The bad economic times do not seem to be going away. There's a strongly vocal minority who opposes the president either for his policies, his race, or both. Add to that the lousy weather this winter. It's no wonder that I, along with many other people, feel somewhat helpless.

But when I think of all that, I think of this picture:


It reminds me of a famous quote from Candide, the satirical novel by the 18th-century French writer Voltaire. While Pangloss, Candide's mentor, tells him that "All is for the best in in the best of all possible worlds," Candide replies, "We must cultivate our gardens."

I cultivate my garden the best that I can. I hope you do the same.

There also is a quote by Shakespeare that's from Act 4, Scene 1 of King Lear:

And worse I may be yet: the worst is not/So long as we can say, This is the worst.

I believe that. I hope you do, too.

So take care, please.

The Health Of Some Counties

Things are somewhat healthy, and somewhat unhealthy.

So are the findings in a report released Wednesday about Indiana's 92 counties. It was produced by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute.

The rankings are based on behavior, access to health care, economics and environment.

I live near four counties. Here are their rankings:

• Hamilton, 1st.
• Hancock, 22nd.
• Madison, 79th.
• Marion, 80th.

The worst is Scott County.

A Shooting In Alabama

I saw on TV Friday night that a professor in Alabama had killed three people. If you want details of the shooting, click here for more information.

When I heard it was a woman, I thought: What the hell? Women don't do the mass-murder shooting thing; that's usually done by men.

Strange. And so noted.

twitter twitter twitter

for many people, twitter is the new rage/hot thing/soup de jour on the internet.

twitter is a place where you can post your latest thoughts or musings in 140 characters -- that includes spaces -- or less to a central site so people can read them.

i'm definitely not going to use it because it's truly and deeply narcissistic.

but this use of twitter by this guy truly takes the cake.

spring arrives

to mark the start of spring, which starts today, i post the dance, a painting by the french artist henri matisse, on display at the museum of modern art, new york.

it's a compositional study of a similiar painting, which is on display at the hermitage in st. petersburg, russia.

and this, according to wikianswers.com, is why spring is starting today:

Spring comes in between the 19th to the 23rd of March and at different times. It changes on a yearly basis because the first official day of spring is ... when the sun is directly above the equator. It rises due east and sets due west and does not do so on the exact same day every year since the calendar is not exactly 365 precise days every single year. In 2009 ... the sun will be above the equator and crossing to the northern hemisphere around 11:45 p.m.

it's early, true. but better early than late and better late than never.

and as i post this, the temperature is in the low 30s -- definitely not most people imagine spring at all.

not that surprising

so i'm surfing the internet and find this story.

it isn't so much news as just a confirmation of what i usually thought.

newsflash:

• sun rises in east, sets in west;
• ocean often salty, also wet.

but they're going to need something since they're going to need something to get through the bad times when money and prayer doesn't work.

notes on a few presidents, a scientist, and a socialist

first, happy 200th birthday to abraham lincoln.

sir, you and theodore roosevelt were the only republican presidents who were worth a damn. i don't count dwight eisenhower as a republican because he wasn't one fulltime and since his youth

(a sidetrip in this post: although warren harding was a fool and his administration was full of corruption, he did one good thing: he freed eugene debs, hoosier and socialist, from prison because he was against world war one.)

also, congratulations to your number one fan, so to say: barack obama, who got an economic stimulus bill passed by congress this week.

i saw this picture on the net and downloaded it. i think now is the best time to use it.


presidents' day will be this monday. that's the day where the country honors all of its presidents, and not just lincoln and george washington. but i know one man who refuses to do that because, as he told me, "there's no way in hell i'm going to honor richard nixon!"

also, happy 200th birthday to charles darwin. but i note it with mixed emotions, because many of my fellow citizens don't believe in the theory of evolution. if you want to read a story about it, please click here.

it's wonderful to read, huh? it's truly uplifting and heartwarming. it makes me feel very optimistic.

to call these people my "fellow citizens" presses my tolerance to its limit. many of them are evangelical protestants and bible literalists. they consider me, a deist, to be a hellbound sinner and a terrible american.

as for you, i hope you don't have such foolish beliefs. i also hope your day was satisfactory.

closings

i note the following news about the muncie public library closing two of its five branches. here's a link to a news story about it.

i know i'm about a couple of weeks late in telling you this, but i want to note it.

i've been a big supporter of libraries most of my life. when i read about the closings, a little bit of sadness came over me.

odds and ends about today

one
the temperature, as i write this, is in the middle 60s. that's way above the average high for this time of year. temperatures are forecast to be in the middle 40s to the high teens for the next few days.

but the winds are heavy. i was out doing some errands this morning and it took some effort to keep my car from drifting, ever so slightly, when i was driving in the country.

however, it's overcast, as it has been for at least the last two weeks. the sun came out a few times this morning, but they were short.

on christmas day, however, the sunlight shone bright and pure. only a few clouds were in the sky.

we had no snow on the ground in central indiana, so even if we didn't have a white christmas, at least it wasn't a gray one. and no snow is forecast to fall until the new year.

two
early in november, i had posted about gasoline prices. if you want to read what i wrote, click here.

while i was out this morning, i saw that gas was $1.539 per gallon at a station about five miles from where i live.

crystal meth -- a winner?

while i was surfing the net last night, i found this story at gawker.com. it lists what it calls the winners and losers in this economic setback, or recession. or whatever you want to call it. if you want to read the whole story, click here.

i haven't posted about the recession because i can't get a handle on writing about it, and no one will get a handle on the situation until barack obama becomes president next month, since the cheney-bush administration has been awol on it.

however, it had an interesting quote about crystal meth dealers. supposedly, they'll be one of the winners in the recession, because crystal meth is, as gawker said:

a perfect drug for this new american era: cheap, powerful, and terrifying.

that phrase caught my attention, because a big part of the american mentality -- or soul, if you will -- is cheap, powerful, and terrifying. i'll try to figure what exactly that is, and will post about it later.

addenum, december 11: crystal meth has the nickname of tina. at first i thought it came from a transformation of words -- from crystal to cristina to tina. but tina is short for one-sixteenth of an ounce.

i found this out at rotten. com, a website that i knew better as a place for eccentric items often in very bad taste, like autopsy pictures of tupac shakur. for those of you who are curious, it has more details about crystal meth here.

simpson sentenced

earlier, i had posted about the verdict in o.j. simpson's trial for robbery in las vegas. if you want to read about it, click here.

he was sentenced today. the details are here.

simpson is 61 years old. if he gets out at the earliest time possible, he would be 70 years old. and if he serves the full term, which is 33 years, well ... it's a life sentence.

it's good to see justice served.

english versus latin

some folks in england want to use the english versions for some terms in latin that are in everyday speech and writing. a story with the details is here.

as for using some of those terms, i could take or leave them. but some i don't want to see again because i don't use them. they are e.g., i.e., and especially inter alia and nota bene. if someone uses them when he writes, and especially when he speaks, i consider them pretentious. if he's trying to impress me, he doesn't and he won't.

simpson guilty

so i wake up this morning, get on the internet, and found out that this happened.

it happened 13 years to the day that simpson was acquitted of charges in connection with the murder of nicole brown simpson, his ex-wife, and ron goldman, her friend.

all i'll say for now is that: those two can truly rest in peace; justice has been served, and truth is definitely stranger than fiction, because no serious novelist or short story writer would create that scenario.

also -- most of my posts have been humorous, i'll admit, but sometimes -- and more often than i have during the last few days -- i'll post more things that are serious.