Consumerism

“The purpose of a consumer society is not the fulfilment of needs, but the creation of wants. In this way, the contemporary definition of prosperity is essentially synonymous with dissatisfaction.”

Photo and quote from Going Around Places

Pillsbury Doughboy Obituary

My breakfast most every morning is blueberries and full fat plain yogurt.  With the iPad in front of me as I eat, I read the obituaries of northeastern Wisconsin newspapers. The search is for entries to fill out dead ends in my genealogical data base.

The first obits read are in the Green Bay Press-Gazette. The second entry in the list was:

"Doughboy, Pillsbury, 100, Minneapolis   Minnehaha Funeral Home"

I continued reading the obits from other newspapers. Returning to the Green Bay Press-Gazette, I saved the link for the Pillsbury Doughboy. 

This afternoon, when I entered that saved link into the browser, the page could not be found. I wasn't surprised.

I wonder what happened to the person responsible at Legacy.com that had posted that obit. 


When I searched the internet for a Pillsbury Doughboy obituary, I found several of them with variations on the same theme. This is one of them:

Obituary for Pillsbury Dough Boy   

Sad news today, so please join me in remembering yet another great icon of the entertainment community.

The Pillsbury Dough Boy died yesterday of a yeast infection and traumatic complications from repeatedly being poked in his belly during his lifetime. The veteran Pillsbury spokesman was 71. Dough Boy is survived by his wife, Play Dough; three children, John Dough, Jane Dough, and Dill Dough; plus they also had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart.

Services were held yesterday at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Dough Boy (DB) was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours.

Longtime friend, Aunt Jemima, delivered the eulogy, describing DB as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. DB rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers.

He was not considered a very “smart” cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, but was thought of a roll model for millions. Toward the end, it was thought he would rise again, but alas, he remained unleavened.

Nature: Cheaper Than Therapy

Buy a Chair -- Support Your NFL team

This line up of NFL team logoed chairs were outside the Bed Bath and Beyond store. They are priced at $29.95. Each. That chair will rot in the sunshine and depending on the weight rating it may collapse when the first football sized person sits in the chair. We have all seen them in the dumpster.

My most recent purchase of (non logoed) folding camp chairs was several years ago. They were about $16. (They were used during my nomadic travels. They now reside in the shed.) Making the assumption that the same chair could be purchased today at $19.95, that is $10 paid for the privilege of sitting in a chair with your NFL team's logo. Note: that logo is not visible when you are sitting in it.

No doubt the product cost to the retailer already includes the price of the logo. Is there an NFL rep at the manufacturer counting the chairs with the logo. I wonder how much the NFL gets for each logo.

Considering the salaries of the commissioner, the league owners, and the players, a five dollar charge seems quite possible -- 17% of the chair's purchase price.

So head out and buy an NFL team logoed chair to keep your NFL team from financial insolvency.

Mini Book Review: Grizzly Years

Grizzly Years written by Doug Peacock and subtitled In Search of the American Wilderness

After witnessing the horrors as a medic in Vietnam, Grizzly Years includes flashbacks woven into Peacock's narrative of the grizzly world of Montana and Wyoming. For many years, Peacock spent spring to fall in the grizzly's neighborhood observing them from a distance of a few hundred yards. As he watches and observes, he is able to identify individuals, see their interactions, the hierarchies, and their daily and seasonal habits.

Peacock does an excellent job of relating the history of the grizzly in the US to those times when the only "good grizzly was a dead grizzly." With his book, Peacock attempts to correct those ill conceived beliefs.

I thoroughly enjoyed Peacock's very descriptive language as he bush whacks and travels through the wilderness in search of grizzly. That outdoor experience with no "civilization" penetrating that wilderness appeals to me. Unfortunately, now with settled existence I rarely get a chance to get to a wild place.

For me, there were a few too many narratives describing another summer of observations of the grizzly. That didn't detract from the book's appeal. I just skimmed what seemed to be a variation on a previous year's experience.

It is still a five star read.

---

Doug Peacock was the model for Edward Abbey's Hayduke in The Monkey Wrench Gang

Down Side of Sweet Things

Do you like sweet stuff. Of course you do.

So you have decided to cut the calories by using artificial sweeteners. You might want to reconsider. There is a downside to fake sugar as the Artificial Sweeteners May Leave You Absolutely Gutted

Did you know that sugar is a drug? Sure you did. You know the addictive nature of sweets. You didn't need this article that describes the 10 Similarities Between Sugar, Junk Food and Abusive Drugs

Wisdom

No doubt there were times that I was with the majority of people. The desire to be accepted by "the tribe" is an imbedded genetic trait in most people.

In my mature years, as an observing loner, I am frequently a skeptic. Add to that my curiosity and a desire to learn doesn't make me a good follower of majority opinion.

No doubt I have biases and look for that which will confirm my beliefs. Of course those beliefs are rarely those of the majority.

Heeding Twain's wisdom, I will continue to avoid aligning with the majority.

Another Quagmire

And don’t believe a word of “no boots on the ground,” which is a classic “just sending in advisors” kind of thing that ends up with 40,000 dead kids and thousands more maimed and mentally ill, many of which we don’t even care for now.

Quoted from James Campion's column: Reality Check: Obamawar

Silence

Saguaro NP East is a frequent destination for a hike. It is a short drive to the trail heads, but it is a pleasurable contrast to urban Tucson. For me, hikes are an escape from what is called civilization seen in the distance from a hike high point.

Like any large urban area, Tucson is not natural. It has lots of traffic, buildings, pavement and maintained landscaping. The landscaping is watered, trimmed and primped to resemble nature done by a landscape designer.

That is why it is such a pleasure to get away and enjoy a natural world which isn't someone's ideal planned landscape. In that natural world of Saguaro NP East, the living coexists with the dying or the dead. It stays there and decomposes to provide a living for the next generation of plants.

It looks good and it smells good. The great pleasure is the silence. City traffic and street noise doesn't intrude. Occasionally, there is short term noise from a plane overhead. The usual sounds are birds, the crunch of shoes and the ping of trekking poles.

The downside are the occasional agnnoying gnats buzzing around my head. That's okay. I can handle that for the pleasure of enjoying the silence.

Autumnal Equinox

Growing up with hardwood trees of Wisconsin, it was a beauty to appreciate. However, as a kid and seeing nothing of the world beyond a small portion of Wisconsin, I didn't know it had special autumnal beauty. There is scenic beauty there no matter the time of year. However, with the autumnal equinox in the northern latitudes, the colors change from green to a rainbow of colors. The sugar maple becomes a blazing red.

This is from my journey through Wisconsin in the fall of 2008.

The surrounding Tucson desert doesn't have those autumnal colors of the northern latitudes. However, the monsoon rains have kept the desert green. The summer monsoons were followed by hurricanes off the coast of Baja Califonia which sent more moisture into southern Arizona.

This was the Autumnal Equinox green view this morning as I hiked Saguaro NP East.

 

The Catalina Mountains have some small stands of aspen. With cooling temperatures, those aspen will take on their autumnal hue of yellow. Time to consider that as a hike destination.