Headed out today for my annual German Village bike ride to soak in the old world architecture after having read James Kunster's The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape.
Normally I would bike and explore but this time I added a meal - Katzinger’s Deli (#34, garlic roast beef on rye). But on a Friday at 1pm good luck with dat. A good 30-40 minute wait. Not exactly fast food but I figured what the heck. I haven’t been to German Village all summer (including no Shakespeare in the park) such that it doesn’t seem like I have much time these days. Nobody has enough time unless they're serving it.
But I did Words with Friends and checked the Mark Halperin daily email inside the deli before getting released to the live-long, Fall-defying summer day with the coveted sandwich in hand.
Then it was back on the bike where I roamed randomly until reaching St. Mary’s Church. I wandered in there a bit before heading back outside and drinking in the old architecture and red brick buildings. The brick reminded me of Oxford and I felt for brief interludes like I was young again.
Saw many a flag but in German Village you’re hard pressed to find a German one (I saw but one). I suspect the reason is because a German flag doesn’t make a political statement and we’re all political animals now. There were about half American flags and half Globalist or sin-promotional.
American flags are, alas, primarily a relic of Republicans and the patriotic, while Ukrainian and Pride flags speak for liberal globalism. Tis true that Ukrainian and Pride flags do split their constituency. I saw one house with both a Ukrainian and Pride flag up, which felt vaguely redundant. I pretty much know their politics on both issues from either flag.
Be interesting to see how long before the FBI considers the American flag a symbol of rightwing extremism.
But at the very end of the ride I saw a “unicorn house”: it had an American, Ukrainian and German flags up! A uniter of a house albeit no Russian flag.
The unicorn house.
My theory of the case is that the Democrat party is the European party in America. This would explains why Americans are not their priority, why they are obsessed with climate change, why a border dispute in Eastern Europe consumes them, and why we essentially fund (or are) the European military (hardly anyone other than Trump even cared that NATO wasn’t receiving even 2% of individual countries’ GDP).
I think it’s partially due to our leader’s envy of European panache and the feeling America is still the uncouth “nouveau riche” trying to ingratiate itself. The ties of Andrea Mitchell and Nancy Pelosi seem far stronger to the south of France than the south of Ohio.
Tom Luongo brought up how it’s probably not a coincidence that the green movement started in earnest about 20-25 years ago when Europe saw that they would soon be energy dependent. They had incentive to want the world to go off the energy platforms they lacked.
Certainly the actions of Al Gore and Barack Obama, to name two, are pretty relaxed about the climate since Gore travels by private jet and Obama bought coastal property that was supposed to be underwater, like, next year. They know it’s no crisis - except maybe for Europe if they are dependent on energy from people they don't like.
Next I got lost, throughly enough. Passed Parsons Ave and ended up directionally disoriented which wasn’t ideal because I could barely hear my phone directions given the traffic noise and, besides that, overconfidently thought I would run into familiar ground. But having lost my north-south internal compass all my turns were awry. Funny how once you get the compass in your mind hosed it still lingers even after you’ve been pointed in the right direction. Metaphor wrapped in an analogy.
No time to do the German Village book shop; I did cross paths with an indie shop called “Two Dollar Radio” but didn’t go in. Indie shops are notorious black holes of affirmative action writers riffing on characters who have self-nourished on victimhood. I do feel a tad jealous that the liberals get all the cool cities and interesting bookshops.
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