Author Archives: Richard

On the Fourteenth Amendment

It’s been popping up in the news every so often these days. People, worried that Donald Trump might actually get elected after having tried to overturn the results of a legitimate election, are using Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment as justification to keep him off the ballot in a number of states next year.

That was one of the post-Civil War amendments that ended slavery and gave rights to the former slaves. The particular section under consideration was added to prevent leaders of the Confederacy from taking office at any level where they could presumably work to destabilize the country (again).

The text is:

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BOOK REVIEW: Empire of Ice and Stone

Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk
Buddy Levy
St. Martin’s Press
Copyright 2022 by the author

It’s the explorers going for “firsts” that get all the press. First to the South Pole, first to summit Everest, etc. The ones doing the actual science and cartography, filling in the blank spaces on the map, are the ones who get forgotten – even if their travels and travails are far more interesting and exciting.

In 1913, Vilhjalmur Stefansson decided to lead an expedition to the “High Arctic”, setting out from Alaska and moving up into the Canadian north. The “Canadian Arctic Expedition” would map the territory and do assorted scientific explorations, looking for sea life and recording the weather – and staking claim to any new lands. Stefansson, meanwhile, knew where the real profit was; he arranged for exclusive publication rights to pretty much everything produced by the expedition. There would be two ships to take all the scientists; Stefansson would captain the Alaska; Robert Bartlett would head the Karluk. Continue reading →

Pond in a Jar – Update 2

The jar was nice – but it wasn’t particularly aesthetically pleasing. It was a jar fer cryin’ out loud, with bands of gunk on the outside where the label was glued to it. Not really the kind of thing you wanted to see on your desk or windowsill. As it happened, while poking around in the kitchen cabinets, I found an old wine carafe (from way back when Almaden Vineyards was selling wine in lidded carafes, for some reason) that had managed to survive in there for decades.

“This would make a much better ‘Pond in a Jar’”, I thought. “It’s larger, the outside is cleaner, and is much nicer to look at.” All I had to do was go back to the pond, get another eight ounces or so of water and bottom sediment, and carefully transfer everything into the carafe.

That was done two weeks ago.

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Book Review: Why We Love Baseball

Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments
Joe Posnanski
Dutton Books
Copyright 2023 by the author

The title is something of a misnomer. The book is not a collection of essays on how great baseball is, nor is it a historical chronicle of key events in the history of the game.

Over and over again, with his many books and articles and essays and blog posts, Joe Posnanski has shown himself to be a master at telling stories. Here, he puts that skill to work, with what turns out to be over 100 stories of baseball at every level.

Sure, there are plenty of things from the Major Leagues and World Series. But that’s not all there is to baseball. A Little Leaguer learns the knuckleball from and old star, and uses it to toss a perfect game…. A real potato makes an appearance on the field in a minor league game…. A team pulls of the perfect “hidden ball” trick in the College World Series.

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Little Shorts of Horror

It’s that time of year again. TV networks and streaming services roll out their libraries of horror movies to throw a “Friday Night Frights” or “Nights of Horror” thing at you.

Should you want to try something different – or perhaps you don’t have enough time for a full-length movie – there are plenty of short (typically less than 30 minutes) horror films out there online.

ALTER and CryptTV are YouTube channels devoted exclusively to horror. Short of the Week and Omeleto are for general short films, but they both have a category for horror.

DUST is a channel for science fiction shorts, but since the two genres frequently overlap, they’ll occasionally drift into horror. For example, here’s “Laboratory Conditions” by Jocelyn Stamat (and starring Marisa Tomei and Minnie Driver):

Since one can easily get tired of blood, gore, and ghosts, it’s nice to find a horror-comedy every now and then. Like Dylan Chase’s “A Night in Camp Heebie-Jeebie”:

And sometimes you’ll come across something that on the face of it looks like a typical horror tale because the elements are all there, but it quickly goes somewhere completely different. To wit, “Summon a Fiend” by Eleanor Cho…..

 

Pleasant dreams!!!

MOVE REVIEW: Princess of Mars (2009)

It boggles the mind (well, mine at least) that it took nearly a century for one of the most important works in all of science fiction to be adapted for the big screen. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Barsoom” novels, starting with 1912’s A Princess of Mars, have influenced everything from Ray Bradbury’s “Martian Chronicles” to James Cameron’s Avatar. The novels have pretty much everything you’d want in a grand epic. Action, adventure, romance, and spectacle, all in an exotic (but still understandable) setting. Admittedly, depicting giant, four-armed, reptilian warriors on any screen would be a problem – but nothing that you can’t use an Artistic License to work around. Ordinary two-armed people in latex head masks will do fine.

That’s the method chosen by Asylum Pictures, the rulers of the “direct to DVD” domain, in their 2009 adaptation of the first of the novels. They must have gotten wind that Disney was going to throw megabucks at their own version, and figured “Anything you can do, we can do cheaper and faster.” With some $300,000 at their disposal, they set to work.

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Pond in a Jar – Update 1

Well, it seems that the plant I thought was Elodea is actually Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum), commonly known as “Coon’s Tail” because of its appearance.

A tip of the cap to the hobbyists at Aquatic Plant Central for helping with the I.D.

The darn thing grows really well; in the wild it’s eaten by fish and ducks. But in contained environments, it can grow to the point where it crowds out other plants – unless you trim it regularly. Well, so much for a maintenance-free jar.

Since trimming it will take nutrients out of the jar, I’m a bit worried. I don’t want to have to worry about resource depletion. Maybe I’ll save the trimmings, dry them out, burn them, and put the ashes back in. Or, since I found an old wine carafe (with lid!) that has a much greater capacity than the jar, maybe I’ll just get more pond muck and water (and critters, hopefully) and dump everything into the carafe.

By the way, I did see three diving beetles moving around yesterday. Seems they are most active in the evenings. There are also quite a few snails of differing sizes.

BOOK REVIEW: The Last Campaign

The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America
H.W. Brands
Doubleday Books
Copyright 2022 by the author

A while back I got involved in a discussion on what movies or TV series could not be made today. The 60s comedy F Troop immediately came to mind. Even in what was clearly a comedy, there’s not a chance in heck that you’d be able to get away with stereotyping the natives in such a manner today.

The contrarian in me started wondering what you’d have to do if you wanted to have your “pitch” for a reboot taken seriously. Obviously, the natives would have to be the only sane, decent, honorable, and intelligent characters. And you’d want them played by Native American actors (assuming you could get enough willing to take the roles).

Then you’d want to get a decent enough grasp on the history of the “Indian Wars”. That’s where H.W. Brands comes in.


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Pond in a Jar

Not too long ago, I came across this article about a biologist who happened to scoop up some pond water in a jar, just because. Looking at drops of it in her microscope, she was surprised to see a specimen of a rare and unusual protozoa – one that just might turn out to be a new species.

My mind went back decades to my own youth, when I had my own “pond in a jar” for a while. I don’t remember what motivated me to make one, but I enjoyed watching water fleas swimming, a hydra anchored to the side of the jar, and even a little freshwater clam doing its thing in the muck at the bottom.

I thought, “There’s a pond near me with a shallow area at one spot, and a good amount of plant life in it. I’ve jot the jar, why not make another one?” Continue reading →

Boston – 6

As always, a few random thoughts to wrap this thing up.

At least in “downtown” Boston, streets can change name without notice. Streets at opposite sides of a perfect four-way intersection (a “+”) will have different names for no apparent reason. Arch turns into Chauncey, Essex becomes Boylston, and Summer changes into Winter without going through Autumn (or Spring).

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