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By MITCH TRAPHAGEN
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Road Food!
It is summertime in Florida and that says that people with the means to do so are getting the heck out of here. Actually, I like the heat and humidity; it’s helping to thaw out parts of my body still frozen from the past few years in Iowa. But for those on their way to cooler climes, the question is, as always, where can we get some decent food on the road? I’ve spent a good bit of time on the nation’s highways over the past several years, but I’m hardly an expert. Despite plans and dreams to the contrary, I somehow end up at places with drive-thru windows.
Enter Roadfood.com. This is a website dedicated to finding good eats along the highways and byways of America. From the best hot dogs in the nation to finding out where you can get a huge hunk of ham tossed over fried eggs and potatoes served on the skillet, Roadfood has the places to eat. The website allows you to search by city for restaurants, but the most useful feature is its discussion forums. There you can find up-to-the-minute information about the best and worst of everything, from the hoi polloi to the hoity-toity, along any route you take. And if you can’t find what you are looking for, just post your question and a roadfood warrior will almost certainly fill you in. Visit www.roadfood.com.
Library of Congress Image
A Civil War era photo of Trinity Church in Washington, DC, with the U.S. Capitol Building under construction in the background.
A compelling window to the past
Photographs from the past are like having a window through which to view our ancestors. It is simply fascinating to see how people lived, to see the things we take for granted either just being constructed or not yet even imagined. Last week we visited a website called shorpy.com that contained high resolution photographs from the past. This week I offer a collection of Civil War era photographs offering hope and heartbreak with stunning clarity. The site offers a long forgotten glimpse into the personal horrors of the war with a troubled nation still hopeful and building for the future as a backdrop. There is a photograph of President Lincoln’s inauguration in front of the partially completed U.S. Capitol dome. There is destruction, beauty and determination in the photographs of children in uniform; the dead who, even a century and a half later, should not be forgotten; the cities and their architecture; the generals and the privates.
In all there are 258 photographs, most from the Library of Congress, compiled on a single page for easy viewing. The website is: www.mikelynaugh.com/VirtualCivilWar/New/Originals2/index.html. It is well worth a look through this very fascinating window to our nation’s past.
Laughter the best medicine
It is tough watching the news today. Sometimes it seems we are living in an era of bad news that is getting worse by the hour. The economy and the oil spill don’t exactly provide fodder for laughter. The photos of the oil covered birds are enough to keep me away from the news in general. I’m not particularly a softie (OK, so I am. Sue me), but a few of those photos have torn my heart out. I now open up CNN and other news websites with one eye closed and my finger on the mouse ready to bolt.
Somehow in this environment, The Onion, a news parody website, has provided an opportunity for a chuckle or two in a faux news report on a subject that is entirely void of any humor whatsoever. Young people love to use the phrase “LOL,” which stands for Laughing Out Loud, in their text messages, but how often do they really mean they literally laughed out loud? Well, I laughed out loud (or at least chuckled a bit) when I read The Onion’s article. Before I get to the link, there is a strong disclaimer: if your sensibilities are such that you’d rather not see a commonly used, but crude four-letter (OK, it’s frequently an eight-letter) word on your computer screen, you won’t want to read the article. It is replete with the single expletive. In fact, I can’t even directly give you the link in this family newspaper because it includes the expletive. As such, if you work at an elementary school or on a computer screen visible to customers, I would have to describe it as NSFW (not safe for work) viewing. But the article does provide a humorous, apolitical and unique take on a crisis and, after all, the Reader’s Digest taught all of us (over the age of 40, at least) that laughter is the best medicine. Heaven knows we could use a bit of laughter these days.
Since I can’t post the actual URL, I created a masked URL for the purposes of this article — visit http://tinyurl.com/2e893xx. Or, to make it easier, visit our website at www.observernews.net to simply click on the link in this article under Observing the Web.
Again, if expletives violate all that you hold dear, don’t bother with the article. Even if you are OK with it, you may still find yourself offended — but I’d be surprised if you didn’t also catch yourself chuckling at least once or twice.
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