Book Review: The Chanting

The Chanting
Beverly T. Haaf
Jersey Pines Ink
Copyright 2021 by the author

Janet is having a nightmare. She’s hearing the sound of a baby crying, but cannot get to the infant. Everything seems to be in the wrong place….

Well, she has been under a lot of stress lately. She’s staying with her sister in a rather well-to-do neighborhood near Princeton NJ as she waits for her divorce to be finalized. And she still hasn’t quite gotten over the death of her infant daughter. So yes, she’s probably imagining things.

But why does she keep “sensing” (for lack of a better term) suffering children? What’s the deal with that mute little girl who keeps showing up in the neighborhood? And that senile old woman who’s always dressed in black? And that cat that seems to have the run of the neighborhood? Is she going nuts, or is there really something to worry about with that big old yellow house?

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Adventures in Car Buying

My 2012 Ford Fiesta never gave me any serious trouble. I bought it brand new – the dealership took care of regular maintenance, a local mechanic dealt with the few urgent matters that came up, and a regional chain of tire stores handled tire replacement. Other than tires, brakes, and a new battery, nothing needed replacement – or even tinkering.

So when the “Check Engine” light turned on this February, I was a little bit concerned. The car was getting on in years and miles, so…. I brought it to a nearby parts store that offered a free “Scan for the fault code” service. The report produced said it was something that didn’t make much sense to me (I forget exactly what it was). The car was still running well, so I figured I’d keep an eye on things until my next scheduled maintenance, which wasn’t too far off.

After a while, though, the light turned off. “Hooray!” I thought. “It was just a sensor glitch, or something equally innocuous.” After another week or so, it came back on. Then it turned off for a few days. Then it came back on – and this time, there was an obvious and major problem The car didn’t seem to be able to run in any gear other than “reverse” or “first” (or “low”). My local mechanic ran the diagnostic, and said the “transmission control module” was shot.

Time to call the dealer….

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Watching Baseball at the Office

Now, I really can’t watch any games. There’s no TV in the office, and even if I had a subscription or the like that let me watch them online, I doubt they’d let me get away with it – even if it wasn’t bothering my co-workers or interfering with my work.

Fortunately, there are at least two websites that effectively track games in real time, and display enough action so that it’s kind of like listening to a game on the radio. Sort of. A good enough equivalent, at any rate. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Vortex

The Vortex: A True Story of History’s Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation
Scott Carney and Jason Miklian
HarperCollins
Copyright 2022 by the authors

In November, 1970, a cyclone slammed into East Pakistan. It was the deadliest storm in history, leaving some half a million dead in its wake. Fifteen months later, after a brutal and genocidal war, the nation of Bangladesh was born. As Carney and Miklian show, the events were not unconnected.

Through a mass of documentation and interviews with people who were there, Carney and Miklian have recreated the setting and placed you right in the action.

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And See Who Salutes

You probably missed it, but Utah has a new state flag, replacing its old cluttered and frankly ugly one:

Utah’s old flag


Utah: NEW AND IMPROVED!

A good number of other states are considering redesigns as well, and not just to remove traces of the Confederacy or other things of “questionable” merit. It’s that most state flags are crap. Vexillalogists Vexillololiphiles Flag buffs describe most of them as “S.O.B.s”, meaning that they are nothing more than the state seal on a blue field. Which does very little towards making a flag distinctive, which is one of the most important things you want in a flag.

Anyone with a minimal design sense can slap together a decent flag, as long as you follow a few basic rules: Keep it simple, have no words or numbers, make it distinctive, and give it some connection to what it represents.

Since I have at least a minimal design sense, there’s nothing to stop me from having a go at the flags of the two states that I have called home. And as it happens, they’re both SOB’s that cry out for a redesign.

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Opening Day

A new baseball season is upon us, and there are a lot of changes in store.

Rather than the basic “if everything goes right for my team, and wrong for everyone else, my team just might make the playoffs” discussion, almost all the talk has been about the many rule changes that MLB has instituted.

The pitch clock and other ones covering the “pace of play” have gotten the most attention, and as we’ve seen in Spring Training, are working out as intended. Teams have adjusted to them, as well as the rules regarding defensive shifts and stolen bases.

But there are a few others that have largely flown under the radar.

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Movies I’d Like to See – The Fantasy Series

Seems that these days, all the fantasy movies and series are based on Tolkien or similar epics, or some YA stories about wizard schools. They can be fine, but they get repetitive after a while.

As it happens, there’s a bunch of fantasy stories that, as far as I know, have never been adapted to a video medium. They deal with the adventures of two, well, “rogues” is what most would call them, but they aren’t anti-heroes or ne’er-do-wells or anything like that. They are just two great friends who travel their world looking for adventure and enough money to buy a round of drinks at the nearest tavern, and perhaps invite one or two of the ladies there up to their room. They are adult men, after all.

I’m referring to Fritz Leiber’s “Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser” stories. Continue reading →

The World Baseball Classic

For a set of exhibition games, it’s a lot of fun. Teams and players from all over the world showing off their skills, at a time when fans in the US are starved for real games. Thanks to fairly loose rules, MLB players can join the team from a nation where they have some connection. So Lars Nootbaar of the St. Louis Cardinals can suit up for Japan….

Speaking of suiting up, you have to love some of the uniforms. Continue reading →

A Working Model

One cannot help but notice that lately, some members of one particular political party are all in conniptions about other people who don’t perfectly fit into the gender stereotypes that they’d prefer. They are even trying to pass laws against anything that they imagine could possibly be considered as promoting or aiding such “deviant” behavior, as if it is somehow an existential threat to the safety of their children.

There’s a LOT to unpack in their delusion; more than I have the time or space or energy for.

But I have tried to get my mind around the whole matter, and I’ve come up with a “working model” that allows me to go about my life unthreatened by other people who, though they may not fit into the usual gender boxes, just want to go about their lives without being threatened, too. Continue reading →

BOOK REVIEW: Drunk

Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization
Edward Slingerland
Little, Brown Spark
Copyright 2021 by the author

We’re so confused when it comes to alcohol. It’s the cause of, and solution to, all of Life’s problems, according to a noted contemporary philosopher. We can’t seem to decide if its good or bad for you. “Red wine has antioxidants, which are good for you!” “Alcohol damages your liver! All of it is bad!” Some alcohol in moderation is fine!” It’s enough to drive one to drink!

You can find someone to support whatever viewpoint you want. But Slingerland steps back from all of that, and asks another, probably more important question:

Why do we like getting drunk in the first place?

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