I found this 1946 Life Magazine article while searching for vintage Kansas photos (the article features a farmer from Shawnee County, KS and a future post is forthcoming). We frequently hear about the way it used to be, stable middle class of the past, high taxes on the wealthy and many other economic and cultural realities that were lost over the past 60 years. The article briefly touches on several segments of the post-war society, their roles in the economy and their material well-being. The language of the article is strikingly similar to what we see in the media today. Over time, the classes described in the article were redefined or disappeared; rich people are not content with just two Cadillac’s; no one is paying two thirds of their income in taxes; and $12,000 a year does not equate to being successful. There is one notable exception: the teachers are still being screwed. Anyway, the article is short, enjoy.
Due to my bad memory I now have to write down the things that grind my gear-skiy, which grinds my gear-skiy even more. So lets just get to this month’s edition:
Any business with the words “granny” or “grandma” in the name should immediately be shut down by authorities for not passing the “stress test”. There is some mortgage company whose radio commercials start with the words “Kids? Granny!”. This is one granny I can’t wait to see dead.
People who list every ingredient in their meal adding the word “organic” to it, something like “I got two slices of organic whole grain hand-ground bread, one half of an organic free-roaming hormone-less chicken breast on top, with an organic home-grown tomato and topped it off with an organic, non-GM slow-mixed dressing”. Makes me wanna eat something with a good helping of fertilizer and die.
White people who accentuate their super-correct pronunciation of Spanish words and names. Something like “Viarrrragosssssssa“. Concentrate on the other 4 Spanish words you know: taco, burrrrrrrito, cerveza and “¡Yo quiero Taco Bell!“.
Have you ever walked into a grocery store to the smell you imagine to be the smell of hell, where the combination of fire, brimstone and sinners being fried produce a distinct unbearable stench? Then you have witnessed a food demonstrator who can’t cook. It’s hard to believe what one (old) person with an electric skillet can do to stink up a store the size of a football field. This doesn’t apply to food-sampling people at Costco who only demonstrate the foods with pleasantly delicious smells.
Have you seen these electronic billboards along the highway that seem to change every 30 seconds? Sometimes it takes me 3 days to get the whole ad; most of the time I catch the beginning, middle or the end of the display in random order, not that it matters – most of them are for either Dane or David Cook (I’ll have to drive by few more times to see which one for sure). By the way, if you paid for tickets to see Dane Cook, I don’t mind losing you as a reader.
People who put bible verse numbers on their license plates. Let me get my pocket reference bible out to find out which verse you are quoting – about the “eye for an eye” (EX 21:23-27) or about not eating pork (Leviticus 11:7-8). How about just sticking with generic state-issued numbers or something less cryptic like:
And now, since we are on the photo portion of this post, here are a few more:
If you visit The Pitch’s website, this picture is probably very familiar to you, it was their illustration to the article about people who overcame the rickets.
Lastly, I am a big fan of all things multitasking, like this new supplement which can help you eliminate two opposite conditions – constipation and diarrhea, not to mention urgency. To that I say: genius! Next in the pipeline: drugs that simultaneously cure baldness and excessive hair growth, reduce and increase appetite, and always popular supplement to treat insomnia and help you stay awake at the same time.
Every time I visit my friends and relatives on the East Coast the question I am being asked the most is “when will you finally move here”. I have to admit that it’s a pretty tempting idea that ocasionally visits me since I moved to Kansas City almost 16 years ago.
If you are a long-time follower of this blog, I am sure you already know that today is the day to fly your red flag to celebrate another anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution – a holiday no longer celebrated in Russia where people for some reason blame it for 70 years of crappy life. I am not going to repeat my previous posts on the subject, so this year we will celebrate with another batch of old photos taken at the Moscow’s Red Square on this day in 1962.
On this photo we see the current leadership of the USSR – Comrade Khrushchev is the 5th from the right next to Comrade Brezhnev. In a few years, acting exclusively in the interest of saving Comrade Khrushchev’s health Comrade Brezhnev will replace him while he will be away on vacation.
These people are happy, just imagine their faces when they are not.
Due to my bad memory I now have to write down the things that grind my gear-skiy, which grinds my gear-skiy even more. So lets just get to this month’s edition:
