Author Archives: Richard

MOVIE REVIEW: Lady Death (2004)

Things keep getting worse for Hope, a teenager in 15th century Sweden. Her dad’s a right proper bastard of a nobleman, and he’s forbidding her to leave his castle grounds, much less see her boyfriend. The locals are generally OK with him, as long as he keeps winning battles against whatever heathens are in the area.

Well, Dad goes a bit too far with his “recruiting techniques”, and soon enough, there’s an uprising. Dad pulls an ace out of his sleeve – he’s actually Lucifer himself! He makes his escape – but then the mob turns on Hope. She has to be an accomplice, and must be burned at the stake for her witchcraft!

Before she can die, two flying “things” come and take her away, bringing her to Hell. Dad / Lucifer will let her live, but she must worship him. Well, Hope isn’t having that – especially since Dad has the souls of her boyfriend and mother as prisoners. She winds up being banished to the farthest reaches of Hell (apparently, Dad can’t bring himself to kill her / let her die) – where she sets about plotting her revenge. Continue reading →

Detroit – 6

It seems that these days, every large enough city with something resembling a waterfront is required to turn that waterfront into a park. Detroit is no exception; their riverfront has been turned into a nice promenade, with scattered trees, grassy areas, and benches. There’s even a small state park to show what a natural riverbank is supposed to look like, with the corresponding environmental benefits.

There are also a couple of party boats and river cruises available – none of which I took advantage of on this trip. No ferries between the two countries; I guess they aren’t needed.

Maybe if I had a party of 200….

Plenty of those electric scooters for rent. I suppose that maybe someday I’ll use one – if the rental company would make them more user-friendly, and post signs at the charging stations showing the rates and where the nearest other stations are, so you’d know exactly what you’re getting into with one. You could even stick a QR code on the sign, that lets you download the app right away! Come on, people! It’s not that hard!

One cool thing of note was a vending machine in the snack area at the Michigan Science Museum – salads in a jar! I forget which one I had (lots of bean sprouts), but it was tasty and substantial. A bit messy getting everything out of the jar into the cardboard “bowl”, though.

Something that struck me was the lack of traffic Downtown – both foot and vehicular. For a major city, it was weird to see so little activity in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. Was everyone off on vacation somewhere? Things were pretty sparse even in the major office complex of the Renaissance Center.

By the way, it’s pronounced “shine-O-la”……not “shin”……

Detroit – 5

Every major city is going to have some sort of art museum and a science museum. If the place is old enough, it will have a history museum, too. Being a first class city, Detroit has all three. I don’t know if they planned it that way, but all three are in the same neighborhood. You can even see all three of them if you stand in the right spot. Not that I’d try and visit all of them in the same day. Well, you could, but you’d have to rush through them and you’d miss a lot.

Let’s take the Detroit Institute of Arts first.

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Detroit – 4

Comerica Park is conveniently located downtown on the site of an old law school. Seems like no one uses that name; everyone I heard referred to it as “Tigers Stadium”. Maybe the block of land the place is on is the “Park”, while the building itself is the “Stadium”. Whatever. What I do know is that it’s still very appropriate to call it “Tigers Stadium”; there are plenty of tiger statues around.

Photo (tweaked by me to bring out details) of one of the many tiger-head “gargoyles” around the stadium exterior. Note the baseball in its mouth.

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Detroit – 3

It is truth universally acknowledged, that the best thing to do in a city you are visiting for the first time is to take a walking tour led by a local guide. Well, it’s acknowledged by me, anyway. I booked a downtown tour with City Tour Detroit. Lorrie was the guide for our group of about 10 people; she was very knowledgeable and pleasant.

We started in the Guardian Building, an art-deco masterpiece known as the “Cathedral of Finance” (since it started as the Union Trust Building), in comparison to the Woolworth Building’s “Cathedral of Commerce” moniker. The style – both exterior and interior – belong to that subset of art deco called “Mayan Revival”. Lots of rectangular shapes, bold colors, mosaics…. At the far end of the main lobby is a giant fresco with a stylized depiction of Michigan, showing all the industries that power the state’s economy.

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On the Paris Olympics

I didn’t follow them that closely – as you can tell from the previous and subsequent posts, I was distracted. But I did catch a couple of events, and keep an eye on the press articles.

Paris and France did a great job with everything; I didn’t hear of any real complaints. The few that were made – like the quality of the water in the Seine – were the sorts that come with trying to put on an extravaganza at that scale.

“Scandals” of the sort that seem to pop up every time at the Olympics were mostly absent this year. I saw nothing about cheating or biased officials. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention, but let’s instead go with the belief that everything on the fields of competition was honest, fair, and above-board. Such griping as there was had more to do with a perhaps too strict enforcement of the rules than from people trying to evade them.

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Detroit – 2

If you must know, I stayed at the Hollywood Casino Hotel in Greektown. I don’t know why it has the “Hollywood” name; I never noticed any connections with Hollywood. “Greektown”, on the other hand, is a small neighborhood that was settled by Greek immigrants in the early 1900s (after the Germans who arrived in the early 1800s moved out). It’s a very small neighborhood – maybe four blocks, at most – but there’s a very high concentration of Greek restaurants and bars. And not your basic “Hellenic” diner places; these are real honest-to-Zeus Greek restaurants. Don’t let the tourist propaganda fool you – if there’s no festival or event happening, the place is fairly ordinary.

It does happen to be rather centrally located in “downtown” Detroit, within easy walking distance of a lot of attractions.

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Detroit – 1

This year’s big vacation is a trip to Detroit. Now you’re probably asking “Why Detroit? Isn’t it a dump?” Well, maybe so, but it has a couple of advantages. First, I’ve never been there before. Changing planes at the airport doesn’t count. Second, it’s home to a major league baseball team – so I can take in a game or two. And finally, there are direct flights from my local airport to Detroit. Put it all together, and it makes a little sense.

As always, I’m going to pad my post count as much as possible.

So before I arrive in the “Motor City”, my tips on packing and other travel-related stuff. Continue reading →

Pond in a Jar – 6

There’s a good deal of new growth in the plants – those tall, thin things weren’t there a couple of months ago. I’m not sure how healthy they are; some of the leaves are a little discolored. The top ends of the older plants seem to have been bitten or cut off. They come to an abrupt end with no “tapering off” of their leaves. Curious. There’s no sign of any animals in there that could do it.

There are quite a few dust mote sized swimming things. One of which ls large enough to show some color – I call it “Bluey”, because it is clearly a dark blue. There are also at least three tiny snails; maybe four. It’s rare to see more than two at the same time. One of them is the size of a sunflower seed. I can make out details with my little pocket magnifying glass, but nothing to give me a clue as to what species it might be.

There are also a lot of dark flecks that don’t move (at least when I’m watching). They might be dirt, they might be dead things, they might be their own organisms. They are too small for me to tell.

I’m honestly surprised that it’s lasted this long.

I think it’s time to add a little more water.

Book Review: If it Sounds Like a Quack

If It Sounds Like A Quack: A Journey to the Fringes of American Medicine
Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
Public Affairs Books
Copyright 2023 by the author

It starts out innocently enough. Maybe you see the rare occasion when an old “folk remedy” actually works. Or the lifestyle changes you promote (usually diet and exercise) along with your treatment help the patient heal themselves while your treatment does nothing. Or maybe it’s just the placebo effect. In any case, the end result is the one you hoped for. So you become convinced that you have the One True Cure that can fix all the things that ail people. You go into business promoting and selling it, and an understaffed FDA (and other government agencies) can’t get out of the way of its own bureaucracy fast enough to stop you.

Word spreads, and people dissatisfied with the current health care industry (which often seems more concerned about profits than patient care) buy your One True Cure. What can go wrong, especially now that the money is coming in?

Multiply this by the Internet which gives everyone both a platform to hawk their wares and a way to find out about these “treatments”, health care “deserts” in rural and poor regions that push people to seek out cheaper alternative treatments, and a political party that encourages “individual freedom” over the needs of the society as a whole, and you’ve got a story that, in the hands of Hongoltz-Hetling, is both funny and infuriating.

Continue reading →