Things that surprise you

[NotHardUp1]

One of the YouTube channels I follow is Just Rolled In, a compiler of outrageous vehicles brought into garages for repair. At the end of each, the host features a clip of some dreamy hot rod or restored relic.
Today, he featured this roadster:



I was amazed at the quality of the faux grain paint job. Then I read the comments, and the number of people amazed at the level of carpentry skill involved. That took me aback, that people would think that. Then I read the host's replies, and the car is indeed encased in a wood shell, mounted on fiberglass forms instead of metal.

Ya just don't expect to see a wooden car. Sure, "woodies' with panels for trim, but not an actual wooden body.

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(I have no idea why the Facebook link is in German. The page is not.)

It is impressive, even if the carpenter did use a CNC to make it.

What about you? What have you come across online or elsewhere that suprised you recently, or long ago?

 

[NotHardUp1]

Honestly? Not even a joke about a woody?

 

[gsdx]

^ That surprises me.

 

[Vannie]

Does Turtle Wax make furniture polish?

 

[NotHardUp1]

He keeps telling people it's made of cherry, but all they can smell is Lemon Pledge.

 

[Kahaih]

I certainly won't be pining over it.

 

[rareboy]

A more serious note....

I am surprised every day that we are moving backwards.

Surprised that we are fighting structural racism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia in 2023.

Surprised that we are still fighting medieval imperial wars.

Surprised that science is now being overtaken by superstition and ignorance.

Surprised at the glorification of ignorance as a virtue.

Every day.

 

[LoveMyPeppermill]

Superstition and ignorance have always fought back against the advance of knowledge, I'm afraid.

And "medieval" imperial wars? As opposed to 19th-century ones? Or 19th-century BC ones? It wasn't until after World War II that any sort of serious consensus emerged that starting imperial wars was wrong; for the vast majority of human history, imperial wars were simply what any nation strong enough to fight them would be expected to do. And that consensus against them is hardly solid even today (and I'm not only talking about Russia).

 

[gsdx]

It's the New Dark Ages.

As Dr. Daniel Jackson once said to Col. Jack O'Neill: "They didn't call it the Dark Ages because it was dark."

 

[NotHardUp1]

A more serious note....

I am surprised every day that we are moving backwards.

Surprised that we are fighting structural racism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia in 2023.

Surprised that we are still fighting medieval imperial wars.

Surprised that science is now being overtaken by superstition and ignorance.

Surprised at the glorification of ignorance as a virtue.

Every day.

The glass is half-full. I'm certain of that.

I do not concur that we are moving backwards. My read is that we are not moving forward in the same social evolution that Utopians projected. We saw this same failed idealism at the turn of the 20th century. Wars would cease. We'd not need prisons any longer. Science would cure all. Industry would provide for all. Democracy would ensure equity.

Then WWI happened, the Spanish Flu, and the realization that all that slaughter in the mire in Europe was just for the industrialists to get richer. Instead of enlightenment, we rushed to dissipation and the hedonism that was the Roaring 20's. It was quickly punished by Nature herself, and the God of Economics.

Now, we look back at a similar recent misread of the direction and speed of progress. A progressive Supreme Court in the U.S. pushed back Jim Crow, ensured industry and university alike would have to give women and minorities a chance, and Natives more respected peoples instead of just caricatures of bad cinema. The focus on the spearpoints of the most progressive movements for gays or trans citizens is an unfair magnificaiton of one segment of social progress. It's the equal of saying the 22 carat gold is inferior. It is not.

And religion didn't curl up and die as some prophesied. It didn't even shrink as hoped by many, not really. And it's more than alive and well in its many strains and variants. And the "progressive" denominations of Christianity handled change so utterly ham-handedly that they unraveled themselves, ceding the field to the retrograde movements. Nice work there.

We have progressed in a thousand ways, but we have far to go. It's not fair to say we're going backwards. We're not.

 

[NotHardUp1]

This popped up today in YouTube.

When I visited San Francisco in the early 90's, the streets were already a bit of a worry, even for the young man I was at the time.

It has been a very wealthy city for well more than a century. It is sad to see it in decline. The last time I was in Seattle, less than a decade ago, it showed similar signs of the rot. When tourism wanes in these great cities, they will face increasing problems paying for their programs that are obviously not working as great cities.

 

[rareboy]

Demographics is a cruel thing.

San Fran's appeal to our generation really wasn't sustainable.

And COVID has likely been the death knell for a lot of cities that relied on Boomer tourism and conventions, etc.

I struggle to think of any reason why younger people would want to go to SF or Seattle or a host of other cities that used to attract us.

 

[NotHardUp1]

The city has long been unaffordable to the young and working class.

Now that it's becoming a hub of crime, of open drug abuse, and a panhandling Mecca, it's charm is gone.

I had such good memories from my week there now decades ago, although even then, they included panhandlers and dopers, just not so many to be overshadowing of the cultural offerings.

 

[EddMarkStarr]

It has to be one of the beautiful concert venues on the west coast.

The Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington State was hosting the Beyond Wonderland Music Festival over the Father's Day/Juneteenth Holiday weekend.
But the second day of the concert was cancelled when two people were killed and three were injured in a shooting that took place in one of the vast campgrounds that surround the Gorge Amphitheatre. In fact, the venue is so large that many concert goers had no idea that a shooting had taken place.

What surprises me is the realization that shootings in the United States really do happen everyday, but I pretend they don't for my sanity!