#joseph morris

[velvetbriar]

[tinkyrubi-png]

Made a drawing on how Henry's brother could've looked like :)

[liquidlightandrunningtrees]

I love you and it’s getting worse.

Joseph Morris

[st-just]

With enough money, you can make an argument for anything, and that’s exactly what socially damaging industries do, by funding researchers, writers, think tanks, and university departments that make their personal good seem like the societal good. The tobacco industry is the most universally-understood example of this—it defended itself with fake science and obfuscation, to the detriment of millions of people that are sick, dead, or will die early from smoking. The fossil fuel industry has used many of the same researchers, PR firms, and scientists to create an illusion of doubt that their products weren’t socially harmful, even as they knew better themselves. It’s kind of amazing, but it is taking wildfires and hurricanes to demonstrate that it was all bullshit.

Joseph Morris

[st-just]

Even before coming to any kind of prescription, the thing to recognize is that we are already doing things because of global warming whether we like it or not. Here in California, we’re mourning people who died in fires, rebuilding housing stock, wearing respirators, staying inside, not exercising, and bearing the costs of respiratory illness.

Joseph Morris

[fanciful-financial-fantasies]

The Black Businessman Who Built an Empire Despite Jim Crow Oppression | HISTORY

Using white colleagues as front men, Bernard Garrett bought real estate, made millions and uplifted fellow blacks in pursuit of the American

Apple TV

Moral of the story... keep it in the family... Joseph Morris said it best. "I don't trust anyone"...

[mylittlebookofquotes]

I love you and it's getting worse.

Joseph Morris

[joanandhelenadolondon-blog]

Joe's London Detour

In retrospect, choosing awesome tour companies was one of the best things I did for our trip.  A quick google search presents you with the obvious choices - various hop on / hop off double decker tour buses that make loops across London hitting up all the major sites and providing you with audio commentary along the way.  At first glance this seems like a good option to get your bearings, but I am REALLY glad that I did some digging on Trip Advisor to find alternative tours.   One such company is London Detours.  This is what their website says: "We have a well known phrase in the Capital called ‘The London Walk’. Most Cities around the world have there own version. It involves people walking very fast in a straight line, with their heads facing the ground and not looking where they are going. The ‘walk’ can be found on the tube, in shops, crossing the road, in rush hour, going down escalators and any other place which involves walking somewhere! Basically everywhere!  London Detours takes a different approach to how the Capital should be seen. We take groups of locals, visitors and tourists around London and encourage them to look up, look down and look around, and that’s usually when you find something you never knew was there." Now that intrigued me!  I've done enough traveling in my life to know that as a tourist, it is very easy to see the tourist version of a city.  You go to Times Square, you walk the Hollywood Walk of Fame, you go to Ripley's Believe It or Not, you drink Starbucks & eat McDonald's, but you DON'T brush shoulders with the locals.  Because that ISN'T New York and that ISN'T Los Angeles.  I wanted to SEE London like a local would, and what better way to do that than on foot… for 4.5 hours… with Joe Morris. Much to our surprise and delight, Mom & I were the only two people on Joe's tour that day.  Normally this could be super awkward, but Joe is an amazing guide, very outgoing and totally open to questions and discussion.  I never felt like Joe's tour was canned in any way, even though he does this full time.  In fact, a testimony to Joe's amazing storytelling skills is that I didn't take any photos on his tour.  I know what you're thinking - Me?? Not taking any photos?? It's shocking.  But I was so engrossed in everything Joe had to say that I felt like I would miss it.  (Later I made Mom go back to a lot of places on his tour so I could take photos.. heh heh) I learned SO much on Joe's tour.  It was truly enlightening.  But the biggest take-away was that pretty much everything I thought was in the city of London ISN'T.  Let me explain - the "City of London" is actually just 1.12 square miles and only has 7,000 residents!  "The City" is defined by the old roman wall built in 200 AD.  Over the years, the wall ended up with seven gates that controlled access to the city, and though the gates were taken down to help the modern traffic flow, those names still pop up everywhere - Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate, Ludgate & Moorgate. So when you think of famous London landmarks: Westminster Abbey?  Not London.  The Houses of Parliament?  Not London.  Big Ben?  Not London.  Hyde Park?  Nope.  The London Eye?  Nope.  Buckingham Palace?  Nope.  Pretty much everything I thought was in "London" is actually in the City of Westminster! Joe's tour, therefore, covered things within that one square mile, and as small as that seems, it is SO DENSE with history.  In 4.5 hours it felt like we just barely scratched the surface.  Nearly every five steps we would stop and Joe would say "X famous person lived here" or "this is Y famous person's favorite pub" or "Z super important historical moment happened here."  If you threw a bouncy ball down any street in the City of London, it seems that it would hit about 100 important historical places before coming to rest. For those of you thinking of going to London, Joe's tour is a must-do.    It was my favorite thing we did on the entire trip.  And if the City of London isn't your thing (not sure how that's possible, but okay), he has tours of Westminster, Southwark, Greenwich and East London.  Check out his website here: http://www.londondetours.com/