'When you wish upon a star...'

I have been to Disneyland in Anaheim and Disney World in Orlando once each, without young children. If I rode any rides, I have no true memories... Maybe "It's a Small World" in Orlando? Anyway, I am no expert on these amusement parks and somehow never really became a true Disney fan.

But my eye was caught by an article in today's New York Times that examined how the experience of visiting a Disney theme part has changed, mostly NOT for the better.

Unless you happen to have loads of money.

Up until about 20 years ago or so, Disneyland was quite egalitarian. You paid your admission fee and everyone stood in line. In fact, Walt Disney expressed the hope that everyone was welcome and that the park would be a unifier for the nation. "...makes no difference who you are."

But some competing parks began offering "tiers" for visitors, allowing people to upgrade, skip lines, etc. The Disney corporation couldn't resist joining in... they might be missing out on what has become the driver of the American economy, at least when it comes to travel and leisure: the top 20 percent of all families. 

Disneyland used to be a symbol of the American middle class... attainable yet magical, a place where all wore shorts and t-shirts and shared the experiences Disney offered. In fact, going to a theme park was an integral part of fulfilling the American Dream.

Today's article offered two narratives, one of a family with two adults and three children, with a combined income of $80K, and a second family - a dad and daughter - who had much more income and could afford all the bells and whistles, all the packages that translated into five minute waits for top rides rather than 75 minutes in the hot sun.

You will not be surprised to learn that the first family had a long day and only got to enjoy a few of the top attractions, while the dad and daughter breezed through the part and enjoyed every top ride (in half the time). You might be discouraged to learn, however, that the first family was already thinking about how to save enough money to go back, say in four or five years. Their visit cost them 15 percent of their annual income. 

I have to say: Disney is magic all right... at least its marketing is.

The author made an argument that many leisure/entertainment venues would be crazy not to concentrate on offering boutique services to the rich. They have the money and they are quite willing to spend it. In fact, the percentage of their wealth that they are spending is negligible compared to families with middle class incomes.

The author also suggested that the way people feel about their financial situation lies in their comparisons with those around them. So, despite nearly everyone having a job of some sort if they want one, the flow of money to the very rich basically makes everyone else an afterthought. America has unimaginable wealth. Americans, however? Well, most people would say they don't have enough.

That's capitalism, I suppose. Businesses are in the business of making money and an increasingly large number of very rich Americans can actually provide enough income to make investing in their needs and desires attractive. Why invest in people who don't bring big bucks to the party?

All that made me think about the Cracker Barrel brouhaha over a new logo. Millions of Americans apparently believe their identity is wrapped up in tourist-trap pseudo-country restaurants offering cheap trinkets and fake nostalgia. The truth is that those roadside shops were invented by rich southern corporations and were designed to draw in what we now think of as middle class whites.

They didn't exist until the late 1950s and they offer a fictional history of the south and country life. They are McDonalds for Trump voters, I guess, and how dare anyone mess with their ancient history? 

And so we stumble on into our increasingly dictatorial future, where our "leaders" depend upon our societal ignorance to distract us from the loss of our national values. Distressingly, perhaps we are simply seeing the truth revealed about those values. For some time, those old, bigoted views didn't seem fit for company, so to speak. 

Now, those blighted views are honored guests.

Let's take a drive to wine country

Just back from a whirlwind trip to Paonia and Crested Butte... all in two days. We drove Kebler Pass from Paonia to CB, and I have no idea most of it would be dirt/gravel... not to mention winding through a forest and a mountainside. It took over 90 minutes to travel 30 miles.

But we survived. That's usually the way, right? We encounter some challenge or danger or touchy situation and we live to tell the tale. 

If you have no idea where Paonia and Crested Butte might be, well, that's hardly unusual. I sort of knew they were somewhere south of I-70, and were likely in mountain valleys. Paonia came to our attention as a "hidden wine trail" that was "discovered" during the pandemic, when lots of Denver folks were looking for somewhere to drive and get away from the plague. 

Crested Butte is a classic tourist town, filled with restaurants and shops and many opportunities for the young and fit (we saw many of them) to hike and fish and ride ATVs (and snowmobiles in the winter). 

They are both a bit difficult to get to, and my Maps app added to the difficulty by sending us onto some shortcuts (including several more dirt roads). We went over Cottonwood Pass, which is only open in the summer, mostly due to the many hairpin curves around the mountain. Well, now I know where it is. 

But we sat in a comfy little courtyard our motel in Paonia offered... and had the place to ourselves. We had done a couple tastings before we checked in and had walked to the "downtown," which was mostly shut down. We had purchased a bottle of our favorite red blend from the afternoon and proceeded to drink it Thursday night. Kathleen had brought fruit and cheese and crackers... and we had a fine time.

We could have been anywhere that evening... or nowhere. It had been 100 degrees that afternoon and mountain towns (even in valleys) are not set up for that heat. Who is? 

But the heat dropped quickly after the sun got low. We got a bit tipsy. The next day we concluded our adventure with Crested Butte and on to our house in time to have our traditional Friday night pizza and a movie. 

This month, we are doing Julia Roberts movies and we watched "Eat, Pray, Love," which neither of us had ever seen. It was "meh," I would say. Julia is always Julia but the angst and self-pity and general trendy mysticism of the novel just didn't translate very well to the big screen. 

Still, happy ending. 

I felt the same about our little Colorado mountain driving adventure. There was eating and there was love, and I might have offered up a few random prayerful thoughts ("Please, don't let a massive pickup swerve over the line and push us into a ravine."). 

Happy ending.

Beware the Ides of August... it's certainly summer but there's a new school year ahead

Suddenly, a new semester is looming... after a long summer filled with judging and a family reunion and last get-togethers with granddaughter Anna... and rewatching Star Trek, The Next Generation over again, all seven seasons.

That last one I considered as therapy after hours peering at a computer display and it was quite effective. Not sure exactly what will replace it. There are some other Star Trek universe options... just not Deep Space 9 -- ugh. 

I certainly should have created a steadier schedule of revisions and additions and deletions for my CSU and Metro Canvas online courses, but hindsight is always 20-20. This week I have grabbed the "low hanging fruit," so to speak, in terms of adjusting everything from due dates for assignments to trying to make the course more transparent for even the least computer savvy students.

BTW: this new version of Blogger just popped up a message that said the robot had found four links that it would be glad to insert into my post... so I did. Three of them, when followed, take us to helpful starting points on Google to learn more details. The CSU link features California State University, so that is worthless other than to impress upon me that California State must get more searches than Colorado State.

Sorry, now back to my post. 

I hope to update all the weekly objectives for Composing Arguments by end of the day today (Friday), and the CSU Strategic Writing class will get my full attention next week.

Possibly as a way to annoy me, the two universities start a week apart, Metro on Aug. 18 and CSU on Aug. 25... and wrap up a week apart in December. The good news is that I could find the time I needed to focus on first one and then the other as opposed to doubling the hours in one horrid week. 

A number of long-term projects remain in my Tasks list, including a first draft of my next readers theater adventure, based on the 1937 Frank Capra movie "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," and a solid first draft of my history of St. Luke's project that takes us through 2003. 

I must admit to feeling a bit "blocked" for both those projects. My initial enthusiasm in researching and writing about St. Luke's, for instance, carried me for nearly a year. As I approach a natural "pause point" involving the church's third minister going on sabbatical, I now find myself waiting on a number of potential sources who don't seem to have my questions high on their to-do list. 

The Deeds script is more pressing, since a performance is on the books for November. No one cares if or when I finish the St. Luke's project (no one asked me to do it). Naturally, that moves Deeds ahead when I find some time to write and think (usually in the afternoons). 

Of course, afternoons are a great time to slip downstairs to the media room and fire up Paramount+ for some Star Trek reruns...

Nice little country you have here... it'd be a shame if something happened to it.

I stepped away from this blog for a month with my rationale being Kathleen's family reunion plus traveling plus a backlog of critiques and judging for various state and national journalism organizations and even some delayed planning for my online college classes. The Metro class opens next Monday and all my big plans to add transparency and clarity and fun, new argument models... well, now I am down to less than a week to fine-tune some of those plans. 

In other words, I have had a busy summer, but not as busy as our demented and increasingly crazed president. Some might say that I am stressing unnecessarily, but even a superficial reading of the news reveals that the country is watching Trump explore just how much he can get away with as a pseudo-dictator. 

Today, he announced that he was placing the Washington, D. C. police under federal control and deploying the National Guard... all based on an unsupported claim that the District is dangerous and out of control. It should not be a surprise that all available statistics indicate the opposite, but between the Supreme Court and the Republican "leadership," we have lost the ability to reel in our autocratic and increasingly unstable Fearless Leader.

Trump is scheduled to defy the World Court (not to mention common sense) by meeting with fellow dictator Putin in Alaska. His Russian counterpart rarely leaves his country due to being under indictment by several international organizations, but who cares about those puny nations we so enjoy bullying? 

Trump's stormtroopers, better known as ICE agents, continue to run roughshod over the nation's laws and never seem to feel the need to apologize for confusing American citizens with darker skin and international criminals. Those agents continue to wear masks, a not-so-subtle message of fear and intimidation... without a chance to even question their actions. In fact, there is no accountability and the distinct possibility of non-governmental nutcases pretending to be federal agents. 

Trump and his minions are busy bribing universities and private companies, raking in millions to grant favors and make fictional lawsuits disappear. Today, we found that Nvidia has agreed to pay the U.S. government what can only be termed a "kickback" of 15 percent of its computer chip sales to China. Trump had halted those chip sales over security concerns, but with this government, money is supreme. The security fears of the Chinese using those advanced chips to leap ahead of the U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence turned out to be "no big deal." 

Some commentators say that all these provocative actions, and too many more to list, are Trump flailing away and trying to flood the media with so many outrages that we will all forget about the Epstein files and what they likely contain: evidence of Trump as the best friend of a child predator if not being a predator himself. Of course, we already know his has a long history of abusing women. Normally, no one cares but the conspiracy nuts are "all in" on those Epstein files being full of juicy revelations about liberals and the Clintons and who knows else. 

The media continues to dutifully report each new outrage as if simply sharing the basic facts will be enough to allow Americans to find their own truths. 

But there is a larger story, and it has to be the fast takeover of the country by a White Nationalist slice of the population, and there appears to be nothing that can be done. 

Where is Superman when we need him?