One could bring in an archaeologist and a geologist to carefully excavate the sand layers around the base. I'm sure they could reveal disturbance of the wash floor's bedding and perhaps even determine a time range for when the pillar was installed, based on sand bedding from stream flows at times that there was water in the wash. It hasn't rained there much recently.

I could well imagine some avant-garde experiential artist placing the pillar there, saying that the emotions brought up by people encountering it are part of the art experience.

In any case, someone went to quite a lot of work.

My partner and I are on the permanent vote-by-mail list in Pima County, Arizona. We'd received our ballots in the mail late last week, carefully researched the few non-partisan candidates so as to make good decisions, filled out our ballots last night, put them in the inner envelope, signed it, put those in the outer envelope, and turned them in today. For years, we've voted by mail and mailed the filled-out ballots to the county recorder (no stamp needed!) with never a problem, But this year I didn't want ANYTHING weird to happen to our ballots in the mail, so we drove to an early voting site in east Tucson to drop them off in person.

In mid-afternoon at the voting site, there were many cars coming and going from the parking lot outside the building. In a breezeway next to the office, about 20 people were in line waiting for their first face-to-face contact with the staff (looking them up on the voter rolls?), and they were being processed quickly. To the side of the line, up at the front desk with the staff, was a big plastic bin with a cover and a slot in the cover, for people arriving with filled-out ballots in their double envelopes to deposit them. The bin was almost full, and people with colored ballot envelopes in hand were pouring in to put them into the bin. One of the staff was coming over to swap it out with an empty one. Everyone looked very happy and very engaged. I didn't get to see inside the building where the on-site voting was taking place, but there must have been quite a few voting stations to handle the quickly-moving line. One lone policeman dressed in black stood a ways away outside the breezeway, keeping an eye on the comings and goings in the parking lot, on the lookout, I presumed, for any shenanigans by the cray-crays. Almost everyone had masks on--I only saw one person without a mask. It was a very reassuring scene.

I'm so sorry that in some places in this messed-up country of ours, people need to stand in line for 8 or 12 hours to vote. I know my partner and I are privileged to have it so easy. And I'm so excited to have cast my vote for sanity, both up and down ballot!

and I'd been wondering about that issue myself in the past couple weeks, since drumpf's taking ill. I did a Web search to see what could be found, and came upon this interesting article that looks at a number of possible scenarios.

So COVID-19 has, say, a 6% death rate in the US. If 90% of the population of approx 332 million catches it to produce herd immunity, then 5.4% of the population dies, or about 20 million people. What if we were facing a pandemic with a death rate of 10%? Then 9% of the population dies, or about 30 million people. What if the death rate were 50%? Then 45% of the population dies.

And in six months to a year, when perhaps the immunity wears off, we can start the cycle of death all over again.

So, pin a slimy squirming R down: How many millions are you comfortable having die to produce herd immunity? Place those numbers on a scale of 0 to 332 million. If we were facing a pandemic with a death rate of 10%, or 50%, would they still be comfortable with the increased numbers needed to provide herd immunity?

Then really pin them down and inform them that they'll be one of the ones dying so as to help contribute to the overall health of the surviving herd. Bad luck for them, bad genetics, and all. So sad, but it couldn't be helped. It is what it is. I really don't care, do U?

... could this change his magats' attitudes about the importance of avoiding viral exposure, and make them more likely to want to vote by mail? And could that then result in the repubs suddenly wanting to make vote-by-mail easier instead of harder? Would the repubs work to make vote-by-mail harder in democratic areas and easier in republican areas? And then it goes to the courts?

Or maybe the magats will just call it fake news and continue to infect themselves.

I'm pondering such things upon learning the news tonight...

the debate format is insane, and Biden should have been debate prepping in a room full of screaming three year olds so as to practice maintaining focus while being assaulted by Gish gallop diarrhea. It really was nauseating to watch. Well, I can skip dinner tonight and lose a pound or two.

I think every single appointment judicial or otherwise, every ruling, every proclamation, every decree, every firing, every forced retirement, every departure from an international organization or treaty, every single thing that drumpf and his minions have done should be annulled. Every dollar of salary given to drumpf, his minions and his appointees should be relinquished. Every grift should be investigated and prosecuted when appropriate. Every official fired for political motivations should be returned to the job and/or given back pay, or deserved retirement benefits (Andrew McCabe). Unfortunately we can not bring back the lives and health of the hundreds of thousands dead and scarred by the drumpf plague and his failed responses to natural disasters. The title of 45th president of the United States should be stripped from the imposter and given to the next president validly elected after President Obama.

And that's just for starters.

when I was young, and even now, decades later I think of her every single time I travel that bridge. Several years and many deaths after the event, the state finally put up fencing on the bridge to make suicide attempts much more difficult.

I'm surprised that the OP's bridge would not have had barriers planned as part of its initial design. It is beautiful, though.

Sorry for your sorrow, JoeO.

The whole issue is complete asinine. How close does a flag have to be, and what group-sanctioned activity, such as the recitation of the pledge of allegiance, has to be going on, for people to be told they have to act respectfully? What if someone is disabled and can't, say, stand and put their hand over their heart? What if someone is mentally impaired and can't understand what is going on? What if you're working on projects at home while a national anthem is playing before a sporting event on the TV in the other room? What IS being respectful? Saluting, hand over the heart, sign of the cross, tap-dancing, acting out the "Stella!" scene from "Streetcar"? Where's the boundary? Why is kneeling not considered respectful? People kneel in (some) churches all the time. Are they not being respectful to their god? What if people are "acting" respectfully but thinking disrespectfully, or via versa? Are we getting into the issues of mind police? Oh, I'm burning a flag! What's going on in my mind? Am I burning it in a riot as an act of protest, or "respectfully" following the protocol of the US Flag Code? What if I'm following the protocol for burning the flag respectfully but I'm thinking disrespectful thoughts? What if I'm driving my jacked-up 4x4 with a 12-foot flag hanging off the back that has been reduced to tatters, each little bit slowly wearing off and landing in a ditch or street gutter somewhere? This whole issue just needs to shrivel up and blow away.

as in, when the metastasized mango-meal merde-gibbon says, "We're all in this together."