Two fires.

On Friday, the Great Lileks of Minneapolis closed his blog to comments for the first time I can remember since he began allowing comments. He had written a heartfelt entry about the riots racking his beloved city. I think he knows how much his regular gang of Bleatniks feels for him and his town, but I think he didn't want to have to deal with trolls. Maybe he didn't even want to deal with sympathy. When something hurts to a particular degree and there's no means of relief, sometimes you have to endure it in solitude.

Today is Pentecost Sunday.

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

The description of the visible effect of the Holy Spirit's descent, tongues as of fire, is particularly powerful. Fire burns, but energizes; it gives life; it gives light. Before the nineteenth century we lived in a world lit only by fire. But it is dangerous.

The other fire we see today is lit by rioters who mostly don't care about the initial cause of their anger. I don't think the arsonists just want to see the world burn, although the high spirits of destruction adore that sort of thing. This is the spirit of the other kind of fire, born in hate, not in love as on Pentecost. The kind born in love endures all things, turns the other cheek when struck, forgives its persecutors. The kind born in hate despises its own nation and people, destroys the homes and livelihoods of innocents. The authorities could take a page from those who have us COVID-19 and do a Tienanmen Square on them, but they won't even take reasonable responses let alone unreasonable ones. 

This insane year has seen plenty of fevers, but is now reaching a fever pitch. I think our friend PLWoodstock surmised on Lileks's Thursday page that a lot of this destruction may be fueled by quarantine frustration too, and I agree. Violent, greedy, foolish actions are what we can always expect from a mob, but this is another level, the fire fueled by insanity as well as anarchy. And it started in the state known as the nicest in the country.

I know that people are legitimately angry about the issue that sparked this whole thing, and many may cite the famous but anonymous maxim popular with abolitionists: Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum, "Let justice be done though the heavens fall." But who will dole out justice to those who are burning businesses, homes, low-cost housing that belonged to or was meant for their neighbors?

Nothing much can be done from my desk but pray. Come, Holy Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.

Explosion.

My wife came running over to the cellar stairs. She flung the door open in fear of what she would see. She had heard the loud curse, the thump, thump, POW, and imagined the worst. "Are you all right?" she cried.

"Watermelon," I said.

I was fortunate that I had not suffered a terrible fall on the steps, as our friend Mongo had some weeks back. It was not me that was making the loud sounds of crashing, but the watermelon that had popped out from my left arm as I reached for the doorknob with my right.

Our garage leads to the cellar stairs, so most of the time groceries are brought up that way. I had just returned from the supermarket and several of the bags were still at the base of the steps. And now, so too was an exploded watermelon.

If you've never bounced a watermelon down a flight of stairs, let me tell you, it is not easy to clean up. I had my back to it as it was going down, so I did not see its trajectory, but the thing seems to have bounced twice before it shattered on the third step from the bottom and sent watermelon bits flying. I say this because half of it wound up under the stairs, in one big hunk and a thousand little pieces, while the rest landed at the foot of the stairs. I had expected to see a simple blast site, but it must have split, partly ricocheted off the wall, and scattered in two spots. I think it would have taken the splatter experts at CSI: Produce to figure it out.

An exploded watermelon is a hell of a thing to clean up. I don't know how Gallagher's people do it. It took me a large number of Lysol wipes, a heavily filled trash can, the disposal of a doormat, washed-off groceries, and I still think we have a fifty-fifty chance of ant infestation.

Now, I know I could have avoided this if I had carried the watermelon up by itself. But come on. It is the way of my people -- those people being males.

It's amazing I didn't have all the groceries plus a watermelon in my arms.

I would say this whole thing was a learning experience, but I can't tell for sure until the next time I'm bringing home a watermelon from the store. Will I carry the watermelon on its own or try to jump back on that ol' hoss? I could say that I learned what kind of a mess a watermelon makes when you bounce it down the stairs, but I think I might have guessed that. I will say that if your buddy ever tells you, "Hey, let's see what happens when we bounce a watermelon down your basement stairs!" you tell him you would prefer not to.

Guy's gotta work.

Break me off a piece of that birthday cake.

As you may know, I've become something of an expert on things that taste like birthday cake that are not actually birthday cake. A few of my investigations can be found here, here, here, and here.

This week brings a new one, in the guise of Kit Kat -- and I mean the candy bar, not the cabaret:

The cashier had not seen the display for this product in the store, and was very excited about it when she saw it in my order.

The Kit Kat bar has an interesting history, especially in the United States, as summed up nicely by the History of Candy site at Penn State. It was invented in 1935 by the British chocolatier Rowntree’s. Says the History site, "The name of this delicious candy comes from the Kit Kat club, which is named after  Christopher Catling. Catling would hold a famous political and literary club in his London pie shop in the 17th century." But the weird thing is that while Kit Kat is sold everywhere else as a Nestlé product, in the United States it is a Hershey product. Rowntree's licensed the trademarks for the U.S. market to Hershey beginning in 1970, a license that did not lapse when Nestlé bought Rowntree's in 1988, per our old pal Wikipedia. It's one reason that the primary Kit Kat bar is different in the United States than in other countries. Then again, Nestlé isn't even Nestlé anymore in the U.S., since the Swiss company sold its American candy business to Italian candy king Ferraro in 2018.

Also, Hershey gotta Hershey; anyone familiar with the history of the company and its founder, Milton Snavely Hershey, knows how he was so sore when the Swiss wouldn't show him how to make milk chocolate that he went and invented it all over again himself -- in a distinctive type and flavor. That said, the chocolate in a regular American Kit Kat has never tasted like Hershey's typical chocolate to me. But I do believe that the company fooled around with the Kit Kat formula to try to make it more appealing to the American palette.

Enough of this schlep down memory lane; how does the new limited edition Birthday Cake Kit Kat taste?

Pretty darn good!

Despite white chocolate replacing the milk chocolate, it is not insanely sweet. The cake-flavored wafers seem to keep it in check. It has more birthday-cake flavor (meaning yellow cake with vanilla frosting) than any of the other birthday products I've tried. And yet it has that nice, light Kit Kat candy mouthfeel and crunch. Really good job on this one, Hershey.

I see online that other countries have a ridiculous variety of Kit Kats; Japan has ten unique flavors ranging from must-try (Strawberry Cheesecake, Grape, Choco Banana) to crazy-rich-Asian (Apple Vinegar, Sweet Potato, Wasabi). I don't think Hershey is willing to push the brand that far, but you never know. We live in wacky times. Why not an American version of Japan's Sweet Corn Kit Kat?

Fred's Book Club: Cold War.

Wednesday is Hump Day, so it's time for our Humpback Writers feature, with no actual humps involved. Although today's book does have a very famous Bulge.

As it is the week of Memorial Day, I thought it would be good to look at a terrific history of one of the world's greatest battles, the third-deadliest ever involving American troops, the horrific last-ditch fight of the Third Reich to break the advance of the Allies and cut their troops off from supplies.

The attack was to be made through the Adennes on a sixty-mile front between Monschau (twenty miles south-east of Aachen) and Echternach (a similar distance north-east of Luxembourg), with an initial object of seizing bridgeheads over the Meuse between Liège and Namur, thereafter aiming for Antwerp. Randstedt and Westphal both pointed out after the war that there was almost no planning for the phase beyond the Meuse to Antwerp, and none whatsoever following the port's capture.

Peter Caddick-Adams's Snow & Steel: Battle of the Bulge 1944-45 is one of the best military history books I've ever encountered. I found its history of the battle, from the top of the leadership chain to the grunts in the snow, to be completely compelling. Its description of the bizarre and deadly winter of 1944-45 (that actually began in autumn) could make you feel cold while sitting on the beach in your shorts.

I am not sure I had enough conceptions about the battle to even have misconceptions, but I guess I had the thumbnail sketch most of us had: Hitler, back against the wall, took advantage of terrible weather to launch a huge surprise attack and try to snap the Allies' race across Western Europe. That much is true, but Caddick-Adams makes a couple of things clear up front:

1) Hitler was not as nuts as he would be later, but he was still nuts;

2) The Allies were caught with their pants down because they were too optimistic.

First, about old Adolf, he writes that Hitler was trying to relive the triumphs of the past in this attack, not just the Blitzkrieg that rolled west, but earlier than that:

Hitler was obsessed with his Reich retaining the military initiative, which all knew had been surrendered since Normandy; grand, proactive offenses were part of his psyche, as he'd revealed far, far earlier in Mein Kampf. There is no doubt that in 1944 he intended to relive the early, heady days of the March 1918 offensive in which he personally took part....

Second, having broken out of Normandy, the Allies were outstripping their own supply lines. They were sick with a terrible case of victory fever:

The Allied intelligence failure over Arnhem would precede the much more serious one before the Ardennes, both shortcomings made for exactly the same reason. Due to the prevailing victory fever, which affected all levels of the Allied governments and military chains of command, Montgomery (and Lieutenant-General "Boy" Browning of the First Airborne Army) displayed a worrying tendency to disregard unwelcome intelligence. 

That supply problem was no small thing, especially with the early onset of a devastating winter.

Some historians have alleged that winter clothing was sacrificed to male more room for gas and ammunition, but this is nonsense -- winter clothing was not ordered or requested from the US because the Allies expected a victory before the winter of 1944-45 arrived. 

American troops were also facing some battle-hardened Germans from the Russian campaign who retained excellent winter gear.

Caddick-Adams gives credit where it is due, to military commanders on both sides (including natural politicians like Ike) having to fight in terrible conditions with the end of the war in sight. Did Hitler's staff know he was losing touch with reality? Was Patton really a genius? Was Montgomery an overbearing pest? Find out inside!

I can only do a little justice to the book with a few quotes, but I found the author to be very good at some of the popular historian's tougher acts -- describing memorable personalities in brief; setting the place to bring the reader in rather than just reeling off dates and map points; letting the causes and effects unwind as only hindsight can unwind them. The book is also full of fun ordnance facts, like:

The new American proximity fuse, which detonated a warhead when near, but not on, the target was also felt to be a hugely important innovation. Prior to the Ardennes the device, known as a VT (Variable Time) fuse, had only been issued to anti-aircraft units for fear the Germans might retrieve one and learn its secrets. Devastating against unprotected infantry, where the fuse could be set to explode a shell as an airburst fifteen to twenty feet above ground, it soon became the US weapon of choice against the Volksgrenadiers.  

In the end, it was a tremendous Allied victory, but at a cost of 89,500 Americans killed, wounded, or missing.

As you see, I do recommend this book for anyone interested in military history, Western history, 20th century history, or just interested in interesting things. I picked it up because of research I was doing for another book, and I'm glad I did.

My security force.

In memory eternal.

Edward Dickinson Baker, senator from the newly minted state of Oregon, was the first member of Congress to not only address the chamber in full military uniform, but to resign his seat to lead his regiment to war. He believed in Constitutional order; he loved the United States, and had served in the Mexican War. Sadly, his career in the Union Army did not last long, as he was killed less than three months later in the Battle of Ball's Bluff: "Lightly schooled in military tactics, Baker gamely led his 1,700-member brigade across the Potomac River 40 miles north of the capital, up the steep ridge known as Ball's Bluff, and into the range of waiting enemy guns. He died quickly—too soon to witness the stampede of his troops back over the 70-foot cliffs to the rock-studded river below. Nearly 1,000 were killed, wounded, or captured."

Colonel Baker was hardly the only intelligent man caught fatally by the change of war tactics in the Civil War. The Gatling gun, invented in 1861, came as something of a shock too, although it was not as commonly used in the war as I had been led to believe in history class.

I had heard that disease killed more men than either the Blue or the Grey, and that is correct. In fact, it's more lopsided than I thought. The National Park Service Civil War site lists these figures:

The 642,427 total Union casualties have been divided accordingly:

·         110,100 killed in battle

·         224,580 diseases

·         275,174 wounded in action

·         30,192 prisoners of war

The 483,026 total Confederate casualties have been divided accordingly:

·         94,000 killed in battle

·         164,000 diseases

·         194,026 wounded in action

·         31,000 prisoners of war

Baker was in the distinct minority, as the Union disease deaths were two to one over battle deaths.

In these Chinese Death Virus times, we remember that those who put on the uniform in war are resigned to the possibility that they will never take it off, whether by enemy action, accident, or illness. God bless them, and God rest the souls of our war dead.

J-skool play skool.

Journalism itself has been in the news of late, partly because there have been more layoffs of journalists at places like Vice Media. And if you find it hard to believe that a place like Vice Media actually employs journalists, you're not alone. Poor, poor Disney.

This kind of news story sparks some hilarity from some of the older guys in the game, like P.J. O'Rourke and Andy Ferguson, and (a bit younger) Kyle Smith. They have reminded me of a few points of importance:

1) Journalists have gone from being tough, man-of-the-people guys to pesky do-gooders who might have joined the Peace Corps in other times.

2) The movie version of All the President's Men is the main reason why. No modern journalist thinks he or she is doing his job unless he gets a Republican to leave office in shame. Every intern covering the town council tax revision meeting dreams of it.

3) In the olden days, reporters all learned the craft by covering boring meetings and writing obits, but now they arrive with master's degrees! and expect to start closer to the top. Even if they write like drunken buffalo. And because they have not learned the basics of the job, most of them have wasted untold thousands on that degree in journalism (at "J-school") and, with the shrinking market for journalists, can never earn enough to justify spending the money.

And in my experience in the field, I would add:

4) Many of these kids came from rich or at least way-upper-middle-class families, because no family like mine would have put up with footing the bills while the kid took an unpaid internship at some media outlet that pays more to blow-dry an anchor's hair in a week than to develop young talent, if it said talent even exists. This puts the young journalist in the awkward position of having been spoiled rotten and yet still exploited.

5) Also, one must add a note from President Obama's own Deputy National Security Administrator, Ben Rhodes: "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing."

They literally know nothing, but think they know everything, so much of it that they are too full to add any more. Liberal Arts programs are in the business of filling up heads with intellectual Twinkies so there's no room for a porterhouse. In fact, journalists think they can tell us how awesome Communism is and rewrite history, which leads me to think it's not just the under-30s who literally know nothing.

Therefore, I offer the free course below for all journalists of every age, because I think most of them have demonstrated the need for it.

Of course, the main bit of wisdom I would offer the youth of America is: Don't plan to be a reporter; find something to do that you like better and that pays more. Whatever you do, don't pay a place like Columbia a small fortune for a useless credential. Or let your parents do it.

People!

I'm running a little short today, and that's not because someone cut me off at the knees. No, what happened was this: An old friend -- I think we've been friends since age 15 -- arranged a Zoom Virtual Bar & Grill last night to kick off the weekend with a bunch of the old gang. I thought it might run for an hour, but we stayed on yakking for almost four hours.

I can't begin to tell you how good it was to see the faces of my old pals again.

Part of me, and not an inconsiderable part, sometimes wants to go find a cabin in the woods where I can take up housekeeping with a shotgun. It's a retirement plan for if my wife leaves me. I'll live on Social Security, half for food and half for shells, and fire blasts into the air anytime someone gets within a football field of my front door.

But it's all nonsense.

On Thursday I mentioned in the comments section of the Great Lileks's site that some of the local fellows and I were going to meet up in a public place, lawn chairs and masks and social distancing, and just spend an hour enjoying the sun, human company, and see if we got arrested. I brought junior varsity dog Nipper for protection, so if others gave us trouble he could lick them. Not only were we unpestered by any police or any Karens (sorry to good women named Karen), but we also had a really nice time. Nipper even behaved beautifully. I felt a kind of warmth and peace after that little get-together that I had not known was missing.

It's not like I never see anyone. My wife is here with me all the time, and we get along very well. Seldom is there any friction between us. And I do get out of the house for the odd errands. But it's not the same. Maybe everyone I see is a friend I haven't met yet, as the optimists say, but it's not likely I'll meet anyone masked and six feet away.

Nope, I have to resign myself to the fact that I like to see and talk with people after all. That they are positive influences in my life, and lead to greater peace and happiness. Some others may disagree...

... but that is my experience. At least I don't have to buy a shotgun now.

Everybody loves a comedian.

A little tip.

Yes, today is Ascension Thursday, but there's another holiday on the calendar to note. May 21 is also National Waitress Appreciation Day.

Not these Waitresses, although you may appreciate them if you like.

National Waitstaff Day, as it is also known, is yet another one of those weird "holidays" that are like holidays except usually nothing happens and nobody cares. Where did it come from?

"Gaylord Ward founded the holiday to create an opportunity for restaurant owners and patrons to recognize excellence in their waitstaff." per National Day, which doesn't bother to tell us who or what Gaylord Ward is or was. Neither does the Dish.

So: Who or what was Gaylord Ward (sometimes rendered Gaylord F. Ward)? I haven't a clue. Was it a restaurateur? A restaurant? A waiter? A maître d'? A pumice stone? Who knows? He, she, or it just tossed the holiday into our laps and ran, and now we have to deal with it.

But a day it is, and I think it's not a bad one. Most waitstaff work hard, and have to deal with all kinds of customers -- slobs, dumbbells, drunks, snobs, brats, cheapskates, chiselers, grabassers, loudmouths, dine-and-dashers, and the unappeasable aggrieved. They are also especially disadvantaged in these Chinese Death Virus days, with so many restaurants closed or on limited takeout or delivery duty. People have emphasized the need to tip now more than ever, and I agree. In fact, a month ago or so I went to a restaurant in which my wife and I had eaten in the good ol' days (last year) to get takeout. It was so weird to see the whole place shut down except for some kitchen staff and a lady at the bar. I paid by credit card and included a generous tip. I mean, it wasn't so crazy huge that it made the news, but I got a text from the credit card people asking if I meant to leave that big a tip.

Unfortunately the food was terrible. I got the feeling the cook was sad and getting hammered.

Anyway, if you're doing takeout or delivery today, or even actually able to dine out, let's give our waiters and waitresses a little extra politeness, a little extra kindness, a little extra respect, and a little extra recognition (i.e.: moola). It's been a tough year.

Fred's Book Club: Itty Bitty.Books.

Welcome back to the Humpback Writers, the book feature that has little to do with humps or backs, or sometimes even writers, but always falls on Wednesday.

This week we have a twofer -- two miniature books from the great year of 1995 that are very different indeed. Actually it should be a fourfer, but I'll explain.

In 1995, the Penguin publishing company was celebrating its 60th anniversary, so they decided to do a run of little tiny books called Penguin 60s. In Penguin's ancestral home of the UK they released two sets of these, each with 60 books (a "black" set and an "orange" set, based on the spine colors), but in the US/Canada they just had one set of 60 in orange. I think they all retailed for 95 cents ($1.49 Canadian!) and were usually found near the cash registers, which is how I came to own these. I'm a sucker for impulse buys in bookstores. The books were either self-contained pieces (stories or essays) or excerpts from longer works. Writers included modern and past luminaries like Goethe, Will Self, Poe, Robertson Davies, Kipling, Patricia Highsmith, and so on. Penguin, of course, made its name beginning in 1935 as a publisher of paperback versions of good literature, intended to make the benefits of quality books available to all. You can see their original ten books here.

The company seems to have done similar anniversary series for their 70th and 80th anniversaries, but I think only in the UK. Whether they will do a 90th anniversary series in 2025, who knows. Impulse buys in bookstores don't move the way they used to, because there are fewer bookstores. I would doubt it anyhow. Penguin merged with Random House in 2013, and now the fabled publisher is a mere imprint. Nothing like a merger to wipe out a company's culture and history.

But the Penguin 60s series was fun, and played on the publisher's mixed history of classical literature and new books. Take for example the Milne Pooh book on the right; it takes pages from Winnie-the-Pooh, When We Were Very Young, and Now We Are Six. The Teachings of Jesus book contains excerpts from the King James Version of the New Testament written out as essays. I also have The Lives of the Saints, excerpted and translated from Fr. Omer Englebert's encyclopedic biography. These books are all 50 to 90 pages long, and fit in your shirt pocket or the palm of your hand.

I used to have a fourth book in the series, a story published previously by Stephen King in his 1993 collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes: Umney's Last Case. It's an interesting and weird detective novella. God knows what I did with it. Could be with the box of books in the cellar, or maybe I lent it to someone like an idiot. The story was adapted for TV in 2006 for TNT, starring William H. Macy.

So those are some of my small books, but these are not the smallest books I own; that pride of minuscule place still belongs to the baseball book I profiled here back in January. And, as I said earlier this month, aren't miniature things fun?

Get a Clue.

Miss Marple: "Oh, my word, one doesn't often see terrible things like poor Mr. Boddy in such dreadful condition, does one? My word no, no one even seems to know whether the poor gentleman was shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned, or what all. Well, naturally one ought to suspect that nice Miss Scarlet. Oh, dear, yes, it is clear that she and Mr. Boddy were more than just friends, you see. These things do sometimes end poorly. But I wonder if she was in the library at the time? Have you noticed the many candlesticks in there? Quite a few for an electrified manor in a room full of valuable and delicate manuscripts, don't you think?"

Sam Spade: "I don't like that Green guy, and that White lady looks a little too rattled for my money. Something is going on there, but no one's talking. But it's that Plum that looks the most shady. What's he doing in the kitchen all the time? Looking for something? I need to find out what room he's in. I'm sure he's got some connection to the university scandal. He'd probably fold like a cheap suitcase, but I don't want to get into the rough stuff yet. And what was that White lady saying about a missing monkey wrench?"

Sherlock Holmes: "Now look, Watson, we must be careful none of the suspects leaves these premises. I've noted when Miss Peacock arrived in her traveling suit the faint outline of a bicycle clip still in her trouser leg. Indeed, she has some small Tribulus terrestris burrs on her tweed jacket, which would indicate recent travel by that means somewhere far from this location. What I shall do is locate the bicycle and remove the air from its tires. Meanwhile, I request you locate Colonel Mustard and engage him in conversation. He claims service in the Afghan, but I'm certain you can determine if this is true from your own experience in that hostile land. I last saw him in the billiards room, examining the revolvers on the wall. Perhaps you ought to carry your own."

Father Brown: "A man enters a room and no one goes in; the man never exits alive. A very wicked entity has entered this manor, and that entity is devious and diabolical; more so as he or she is desperate. Boddy certainly fit the description himself, as no doubt the police will discover now, but where is the weapon that brought him to his earthly end? A pipe is missing from the kitchen; but more telling is that the wrench that sent it missing is itself missing. This manor is like the man who owned it, shifting and mysterious; but the hall is the least likely place for a wrench or a loose pipe, and I propose that these items then must be found there if either or both were used."

Nero Wolfe: "I do not wish to be involved in this case, and yet it appears once again I have no choice. I should never have left West 35th Street. Archie, you must get your mind off the Scarlet woman and focus on Green. Find his room and see what he has. There was a man named Chartreuse involved in the Founders Bank scandal who disappeared with fifty thousand dollars. As I recall, he matched Green's description. Meanwhile, I shall see what our Professor Plum finds so interesting in the kitchen. No, I am not simply looking for food! What? Plum is in the study now? How did he get there without our seeing him?'

Hercule Poirot: "You see, 'astings, 'ow Mme. Peacock smokes ze cigarette weeth no 'older? I suspect she eez not as 'ow you say 'upper crusty' as she would like one to think, n'est pas? And yet I do not think this make 'er our suspect. Use ze little grey cells, 'astings! M. Boddy, 'e make no noise when 'e is killed, oui? No gunshot is 'eard. No smash, no blood, eh? Ze rope, 'astings! We must find ze rope and see who could have used it to strange our 'ost. Quickly, to ze ballroom!"

Dr. Gideon Fell: "Archons of Athens! What seems to be overlooked in this case, and I do not think it presumptuous of me to say, is that Boddy was found in a room which was locked from the inside, the windows in the same condition. I have on many occasions disproved the idea that one can successfully escape up the chimney in such instances, so how did the killer escape, hm? Once we know that, and find the knife that has gone missing, we shall know the killer."

Little Stiiv (age 10): "It was Colonel Mustard in the Lounge with the Wrench."

All others (looking at cards): "Crap!"

Mask on, mask off.

On Saturday I had to pick up a medicine for large economy size dog Tralfaz. The vet's office is closed to hoomans (as the dogs supposedly say) but you can drop off dogs for exams and things. If you're picking up meds or special foods, you can use the courtesy walk-up window. You call to say you're there, give them a credit card number, and they slide the receipt and package to you along the table.

Of course I put the ol' mask on to pick up my package. I don't think it matters much at this point, even in southern New York, but I am willing to do it as a courtesy. Of course, Governor Corleone insists on it. The day before I was on the highway and these signs appeared every fifteen miles or so:

Hey, if I had his face I'd cover it all the time. And look, I could even get official MLB face coverings with the logos of my favorite team! Which is kind of weird, since there's no baseball because of this damn Chinese death virus.

However, Saturday was a lovely day, and when I passed by the park I noticed it was crowded with people walking the trails. And guess what? The majority were not complying with the state edict. Maybe a quarter or an eighth had masks over their noses and mouths. Some had them askew somewhere on their heads, but most wore nothing over their faces. As Instapundit noted, most people started staying home before the government told them to, and now most of them are breaking out before the government tells them to. It's not an angry protest; quarantine fatigue is a real thing. Americans are good and caring people on the whole, but our institutions are throwing away our trust in them at a fast pace these days. With each day the "stay-at-home" orders get harder to obey, financially, psychologically, socially.

It certainly doesn't help me when I see propaganda based on old Soviet artwork, either. Have you encountered this thing? Drippy girl with torch in peasant hat? I have never seen a poster more calculated to elicit the romance of Soviet butchery. Who the hell thought this was a good idea?

I want to grab her little torch and stomp it out, rip off her phony wings, Frisbee her peasant hat, and send her home crying with her juice box. Of all the annoying commercials with sad piano music, the messages that people who don't give a damn about me are here for me, the moronic celebrity videos filmed in the part of the house where the help lives (so as to not be too showy) to say we're all in this together, of all these things, none of them makes me want to go running through the streets unmasked, ungloved, coughing and sneezing and spitting everywhere, more than this stupid, creepy poster. Nice job, Ad Council, you pinko wankers.

When, where, and how will this all end I do not know. I'm usually happy to do as requested; I continue to put out my bottles and paper on recycling day even though I am 90% sure it all goes to the landfill. But I'm not doing this shelter-in-place crap into July.

Murder them all!

I sprayed tick killer around the edges of the yard again yesterday, out where the high grass grows. Murder them all! Mwah ah ah!

But keep it under your hat. I have a friend whom I think is the bees' knees; she has a science background, she's funny and thoughtful, and she is completely upside-down bass-ackwards on this topic. For example, last fall she posted something like this:

It wasn't this exact bit of propaganda, as hers was more butterfly-centric, but the message was the same. Leave the leaves! More leaves now = more butterflies tomorrow!

Yeah, and you notice how the poster above just trails off ("beetles, bees, moths, and more")? Guess what the "more" is. That's right! Our old friend the tick, and in this neck of the woods, the Lyme-bearing deer tick is everywhere.

Don't take it from me; watch the Consumer Reports video at this page and note the expert advice (spoiler alert: "ticks like to live in leaf piles"). They are not alone in this assessment.

Hey, I like butterflies as much as the average guy, but if it means no ticks, au revoir, Monsieur Papillon. I've known too many people whose lives have been derailed by the disease from those bloodsucking freaks, including a police detective who had a brilliant career thrown into chaos and a mother of four who's been suffering the effects of Lyme for years. And that's just one disease the little arachnid bastards spread. Here's a CDC list of fun things you can get from your friendly neighborhood tick.

The Law of Unintended Consequences is always around to ruin everyone's fun. The thing is, most of the time the consequences are unintended because they are not foreseeable. In this case, the potential danger is 100% visible and being ignored anyway.

Well, I doubt I can ever change my friend's mind on this, but we can always focus on the things about which we agree. Like ice cream. I just hope she doesn't go vegan.

Whitelegs McGee.

Sorry to have to keep this short, but there's a couple of reasons. Mainly, yesterday was a combo of big deadline and technical difficulties, but in the end everything worked out okay. Still, it kept me from thinking of more important things, like my blog.

Also, I was obliged to be outside -- by my wife and the dogs. Less than a week after it snowed, we had 82 degrees Fahrenheit. It was so nice, I actually put on shorts.

Me. Shorts. That may not seem momentous, but only me wearing mandals would be as shocking.

I have never liked shorts. Not sure why. Mosquitoes love me, and sun burns me, and my knees were always getting skinned as a kid, so long pants offered more protection. Also, I always need pockets, and shorts used to only have either no pockets, lame pockets, or goofy old-man pockets, at least before cargo shorts became big.

Anyway, I am known to wear long pants all summer long. Consequently, my legs are so ridiculously white only the American Academy of Dermatology would say they looked healthy. As in this picture:

You think I exaggerate? Well according to StyleCraze, "During the Elizabethan age a pale complexion was considered as a sign of good health and prestige. Poor people could not achieve such complexion due to the burden of going out and working hard for their living, resulting in a tan. Wealthy women to gain such a complexion used several different things; the commonest way was to use Ceruse, a foundation made from mixing the poisonous white lead and vinegar. Many people preferred to apply tin ash, sulphur, alum, etc."

Those Elizabethan ladies would have said my legs were too white. "My goodness, get some sun, old chap."

Japanese women famously use methods to try to whiten their skin, and they'd say my fish-belly legs are too white.

The rest of me gets enough sun to pink up a little, but not my legs. I told my wife that the police made me come back inside because the glare from my legs was blinding drivers. 

In fact, I wrote this haiku in honor of the Japanese skin-whitening ladies:

My legs are so white 
The kids down the street thought it
Was snowing again

The shorts are in the washing machine as I write this, making the roads safe once more. 

Camp songs.

My wife and I got into a scriptural disagreement the other morning, because we are highly educated Catholics and do that sort of thing, you know. I made a passing reference to the fact that some Bible translations of Genesis say it was gopherwood from which Noah built his famous ark, although other scholars are uncertain what gopherwood is, and some think it was cypress. Mrs. K disagreed; in her studies she was informed that the ark was actually built of "sticks and barky barky."

Her source for this was, of course, sleepaway camp, where she was taught the following 'round the ol' campfire:

So Noah, he built him, he built him an arky arky
Noah, so Noah, he built him an arky arky
Made it out of sticks and barky barky
Children of the Lord

You can see how difficult it is to argue against evidence like that. But it didn't end there. When I mentioned that in the book of Jonah, chapter 2, the reluctant prophet was swallowed not by a whale but by a "great fish," I was rebutted again with a different song:

Jonah Jonah Jonah
In the belly of a whale...

Obviously camp songs have a lot of misinformation about scripture. So I decided that I would write a biblically accurate camp song.

I don't have the melody -- heck, we don't know if anyone's actually going to a summer camp this year -- but I came up with lyrics about King Saul and his anger at David. It goes a little something like this:

Old King Saul was jealous
Because David was so zealous
And he saw him as a rival to the throne (boom boom)
Saul's son Jack said "You should beat it
Or my pop will make you eat it"
David thought he would leave well enough alone (boom boom)

(Chorus) And Saul chased David here
And then Saul chased David there
From Keillah down to Nob 
King Saul he chased that little slob
Mighty Saul chased little David everywhere! (boom boom)

Angry Saul he then killed thousands
As he pushed through towns and mountains
Hoping that he would at last chop David's head (boom boom)
But then David got the jump and
As old Saul, he took a dump, and
David cut a piece of kingly robe instead (boom boom)

(Chorus)

Then once more they went to Ziph
And David had a great epiph-
-Any to scare off Saul by leaving him his spear (boom boom)
When Saul saw it by his head
And realized Dave could leave him dead
He said, "Okay, Dave, I'm buggin' out of here" (boom boom)

(Chorus)

There. I hope at least the kids will get this story right.

Next up, my camp song about how David arranged for Uriah to get killed so he could make whoopee with Bathsheba. Arky arky indeed!

Loving dogs.

It may be safe to say that Americans who have dogs are divided into people who love their dogs too much and people who treat their dogs like garbage. There seems to be precious little middle ground, at least at the cultural level. I don't even want to talk about places where they treat them like dinner.

My wife and I are, of course, squarely in the "love too much" camp. I had to sleep on the sofa the other night when Tralfaz was having one of his freak-outs because it was so windy. I would have laughed at people like me before we got this dog. Ha, ha. Then he made me fall in love with him, damn it.

My wife's no better. She doesn't go around calling herself a pet mom or a furbaby mother, but I think she thinks that way sometimes.

Other people never take their dogs to vets, leave them chained up, or in hot cars, let them run around near busy streets, ignore them, starve them, use them for convenience, make them fight. There's nothing wrong with having working dogs; that's what most of them love best, is to have a job. But they ought to be treated well. Police dogs are treated like partners; Army dogs are non-commissioned officers who outrank their handlers. Junkyard dogs famously rank with the junk they protect.

Then there are people like this:

In The Hounds of Heaven, Stephen Bodio describes his quest to Kazakhstan to procure "the ancient saluki-like tazis of Central Asia." These are no ordinary dogs, as he reminds constantly in the book, but essentially the Mongol warriors of dogs -- sleek, mighty, tireless, proud, ferocious, fearless, intimidating, blah blah blah. I don't want to poke Bodio too hard on this, as he will send his vicious beasts after me, but it's clear that he regards all normal pet dogs, which is virtually every non-tazi dog on earth, as a pansy little hairball. If a dog can't run 500 miles and then take down a caribou solo, it's just a useless toy.

Well, I don't know. Maybe if I lived in Nowheresville, Non-County, New Mexico, as he does, I'd find a use for wild canines. Here in civilization we like our dogs to be useful, but affectionate; spirited, but trainable.

I've always said that people are weirdest about money and sex, but if there's a next tier down I might add pets. Well, pets and food (what with vegans, pescatarians, fruitarians...). Pets, food, and politics. And religion. Ah, the hell with it -- people are weird. If our dogs are weird, it's because they've been hanging around with us too much.

Dogs have a strange history with us, of course. They don't do well in Middle Eastern cultures, currently or historically or biblically. And then there's the man-bites-dog cultures of whom it is racist to speak. Still, I think Frederick the Great was right in calling dogs Man's Best Friend. We eat a lot of the same things and enjoy a lot of the same activities together, from hunting to playing ball to loafing on the couch. How many other animals would even want to apply for the job?

Fred's Book Club: I Think I Can!

Welcome to another Wednesday, and thus another episode of the Humpback Writers, so named for the day of the week and not any humps whatever. Let's kick things off with a song:

Now, Fred's an intellectual, brings a book to every meal
He likes the deep philosophers, like Norman Vincent Peale
He thinks the army's just the thing
Because he finds it broadening
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier!

Of course Tom Lehrer was not referring to me as the Fred in his song "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier," but he does make a reference to one of the most popular writers of his time, Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote this little tome:

"This book is written to suggest techniques and to give examples which demonstrate that you do not need to be defeated by anything, that you can have peace of mind, improved health, and a never-ceasing flow of energy" writes Dr. Peale in the introduction. "In short, your life can be full of joy and satisfaction. Of this I have no doubt at all for I have watched countless persons learn and apply a system of simple procedures that has brought about the foregoing benefits in their lives."

Sounds like a massive promise, doesn't it? And indeed The Power of Positive Thinking had and continues to have a massive impact on modern culture in a number of ways I know. It was published in 1952, when America was in a new war having just gotten through the big one, and the world had been exposed to the staggering effects of evil ambition; yet this little seeming Pollyana of a book struck a chord with millions that reverberates to this day. It spoke to the aspirational soul of America, but its appeal reached beyond our national borders. The idea that one could change one's circumstances by changing one's mental condition was not new (Émile Coué had led the pack on that) but Peale tied it to our characteristic evangelism and made it much more than Emersonian self-reliance.

The book is mostly made up of anecdotes of biblical-based optimism and fervent, steady prayer leading to amazing results. This was not the way most of our European ancestors saw prayer -- beseeching a distant and dangerous God. This was a scripture-based plan to attune one's self to a loving and helping God; what could be more positive than that? Take the obstacle man:

He then reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. Under the isinglass window was a card on which were written some words. He shoved the wallet across the table and said, "There, son, read that. That is my formula, and don't give me the song and dance that it won't work either. I know better from experience."
     The obstacle man picked up the wallet and with a strange look on his face read the words to himself.
      "Read them out loud," urged the owner of the wallet.
     This is what he read in a slow, dubious voice, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Philippians 4:13)
     The owner of the wallet put it back in his pocket and said, "I have lived a long time and have faced a lot of difficulties in my time, but there is power in those words -- actual power -- and with them you can remove any obstacle."

The rest of it is basic, practical, easy-to-understand instructions, as in this list at the end of the chapter "Try Prayer Power":

1. Set aside a few minutes every day. Do not say anything. Simply practice thinking about God. This will make your mind spiritually receptive.
2. Then pray orally, using simple, natural words. Tell God anything that is on your mind. Do not think you must use stereotyped pious phrases. Talk to God in your own language. He understands it.
3. Pray as you go about the business of the day, on the subway or bus or at your desk. Utilize minute prayers by closing your eyes to shut out the world and concentrating briefly on God's presence. The more you do this every day the nearer you will feel God's presence.

And so on, ten tips in all, gently leading the reader to a better prayer life.

You may wonder how a dazzling sophisticate like myself came to read a book with such homespun cheerfulness. Well, it was a particularly dark spot in my young manhood. I'd been dumped by four girlfriends in a row; I had a crap nowheresville job taken from hunger after a long layoff; my dad was very sick; everything looked bleak. I'd certainly heard of the book; everyone had for fifty years after its introduction. The chapter titles really appealed to me -- "I Don't Believe in Defeat" (I did); "How to Break the Worry Habit" (I had it); "The Power to Solve Personal Problems" (I had those in spades). When I found out I was working near the church where Peale had been senior minister for 52 years (the lovely Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue at 29th), it seemed like fate. Even the story of how Peale got that position seemed to back up his thesis -- one day in 1932 he had to fill in for another preacher unexpectedly, and he held the job until 1984. He lived to a ripe old age of 95. (Incidentally, Donald Trump attended Marble Collegiate growing up, and married Ivana there, for what that's worth.)

Peale's great message was turning prayer into a hard tool people could use to transform their lives. Although explicitly Christian, this had some similarity to  Pragmatism, the "whatever works" religious school of William James and Charles Peirce. Alcoholics Anonymous had adopted it as a means of using a spiritual basis for recovery in the 1930s. Whether Peale knew anything about this or not, there was a practicality for people in distress that he shared with average readers to improve their lot.

I had some stumbling blocks when I read the book, and I still do, and they're not all the same. Take for example his story of the salesman;

"I'm a traveling salesman," he explained, "and I drive around all day calling on my customers, I have discovered that while a man drives he thinks all kinds of thoughts. If his pattern of thought is negative, he will think many negative thoughts during the day and that, of course, is bad for him; but that is the way I used to be. I used to drive around between calls thinking fear and defeat thoughts, and incidentally that is one reason my sales were down. But since I have been using these cards [scriptural cards with Matthew 17:20 and Romans 8:31] as I drive and committing the words to memory, I have learned to think differently. The old insecurities that used to haunt me are just about all gone, and instead of thinking fear thoughts of defeat and ineffectiveness, I think thoughts of faith and courage. It is really wonderful the way this method has changed me. It has helped my business, too, for how can one expect to make a sale if he drives up to a customer's place of business thinking he is not going to make a sale?" 

It's hard to argue with that. But what if this man was a salesman for a company that made cheap crap that broke after the first use? Or useless snake oil? Or Chinese medical supplies? Ought he to expect divine help for selling this garbage, no matter how virtuous he may be?

Also, I have to think that Peale's legacy includes the so-called Prosperity Gospel movement, which seems to me like a complete reversal of the actual Gospels' love and humility, even a shameful and childish worship of wealth disguised as altruism. What happens when followers fail to achieve prosperity, as some must? Goodness knows there are plenty of people around who are deluded about their own talents. Will they blame God, become atheists, fall into despair? Does belief that God will help you become healthy and rich if you pray enough set believers up for a catastrophic failure of faith? I suspect so.

As I've noted elsewhere, "when bad things happen to good people" is not just a ponderous question in life; for Catholics, it's kind of our mission statement. But Peale never meant that Divine Worship was a money machine that would drop sacks of cash into the laps of believers. He simply meant that people who expect to fail will, and these people can be helped by a higher power that can change their attitudes. He made a brilliant career of it and probably helped a lot of people.

Maybe I'm still just too pessimistic. I will say that the book was only of limited help when I read it first, mainly because I had no faith in anything. It was like trying to build a table without tools. My life did get better, as it often does, and at least reading this gave me some hope for that dark period.

You know, I wanted to run this book today because I thought it would help us get cheered up in a time of trouble. Actually, I think I feel a little better now.

Wonderboy!

You remember in the film version of The Natural that hero Roy Hobbs has a homemade bat called Wonderboy, I'm sure. Unlike every other baseball bat made of wood, this mighty bat remains intact as his career flourishes. It is his signature, his totem, his Excalibur.

Behold, my Wonderboy!

This mighty stick was seen on the tree, the sole dead branch of the living timber, and I snapped it off with a pull of my arm. Then I wandered in the yard, where many a tennis ball lay, neglected by my faithful hound, who was eating grass. And lo, I used the bat to whack fungoes up toward the house, with such ease and agility one might think that I actually had talent. It looked like I had found the weapon I had sought all my life, the staff of power for the striking of tennis balls and other foes.

Then my dog got hold of it.

To borrow a page from Eddie Murphy, any guy who'd had his stick cut in half is gonna be upset.

Junior varsity dog Nipper is an insane chewer of sticks, as I've mentioned here a number of times, and he can make short work of any raw piece of wood. Shortly after the second picture Nipper started jumping at the stick remainder, and reduced the whole thing to toothpicks before we went in.

Maybe it's just as well. I'm too old to try out for Major League Baseball now. I suspect my stick was not regulation anyway.

At least it kept Nipper out of trouble in the yard, for a minute and a half or so.

D&D: Virus of the East module.

Dungeon Master: Okay. You have at last found the Secret Storehouse of the Merchant Kings. The weather remains gloomy. There are signs of other life present within the storehouse.

Bob: What kind of signs?

DM: Other carriages, wagons, and beasts of burden in the parking lot.

Sally: We find a place to park the War Wagon.

Jasper: The Valiant!

Bob: By Plymouthe.

Pete: My thief looks around for any vehicles that might contain riches.

DM: (rolls die behind screen) You see a sign on a post that says "Ye Premises Watched by Beholdervision. All Perpetrators of Criminal Activities Shall Be Annihilated."

Bob: Forget it, Pete. We can't take a beholder.

Pete: Could be a bluff.

Sally: We have a mission, Pete. I say let's go inside and get what we need.

Bob: Can your cleric read the scroll again? Jasper, make a list.

Sally: All right:

From Merchant Kings you must acquire

Five items for your mission dire.

A chest of gauntlets sized for all

To stop yon terror's horrid pall.

A bag of webs need for ye cause 

Protection for ye mouth and schnoz. 

For sustenance the pearls of might 

Of pinto, kidney, black and white.

Elixir of cleansing made with booze

To rub ye hands with thus ye use.

A roll of vellum nice and floofie

To clean excreta from ye tushie.

Gather ye stuff to fight the beast

That grips ye town from farthest East.

Jasper: So, gloves, masks, beans, hand sanitizer, and TP. 

Bob: Let's move out. I'll take the front, Pete will watch our backs.

Jasper: I want a cart.

Bob: We don't need a cart. We can carry it.

Jasper: People always say that and then they find a dozen other things they need. 

Sally: Well, we don't want to have to fight while holding a case of beans. Not like we have a Bag of Holding. Are there any carts?

DM: (rolls dice) There's only one nearby. One wheel looks a little wonky. A small party of goblins is eyeing it.

Jasper: I go grab it. 

DM: Okay. (rolls dice.)

Jasper: What? 

DM: Your mage has no gloves. 

Jasper: Damn it! Did I get hit?

DM: You'll find out in an average of five to six days.

Jasper; I won't touch my face! Come on, Allie Kazam's got a huge intelligence.

DM: Okay, make an intelligence roll.

Jasper: (rolls) Son of a bitch!

DM: I'd say you've already stuck your fingers in your nose.

Sally: Why didn't you let me do a Detect Disease, stupid?

Jasper: Crap!

DM: You see a couple of fat orcs coming out of the storehouse, both coughing heavily....

So it snowed.

Yep, woke up Saturday, May 9, to snow on the ground.

It was the coldest May 9 in New York City since 1891. That far back there was only one borough in the city; the Brooklyn Bridge was only eight years old; the Statue of Liberty had been in place for only five years.

My neighbor had opened his pool on Friday, which my wife found hilarious. Less so the fact that the weather flat-out killed the blooms on our rhododendrons. They were on their way out, but still. They'd had a spectacular spring, and it was sad to see it come to an end by lunchtime Saturday.

By that time every flake had melted. But the fact that we had snow, and enough to stick, more than a week into May made it a headline event. You might expect that to happen in Canada, or even in colder and snowier spots in New York like Buffalo, but this was a first for me and the lovely Mrs. Key. I had to pull my woolly cap and scarf back out of storage. One of the kids on the block had left a Wham-O Snowboogie out on the lawn, which looked a little silly by the afternoon.

It did inspire your musical friend here with a song:

There's no boogie like Snowboogie
Like no boogie I know
Everything about it is astoundin'
Not the type that comes out of your nose
It'll take you down the side of mountains
And leave you countin'
Fingers and toes....

There's no people like snow people; they smile when they are froze.

The robins have built a nest in the back deck again, and every time I go back there, with or without the dogs, Mrs. Robin flies off and peeps angrily at us from a tree. Yesterday I told her to get her butt back on the eggs before they froze, but she didn't listen. Robins only listen to Batman.

The dogs had fun, of course, being very hairy canines and inclined to enjoy cold-weather sports. I was even able to frolic with junior varsity dog Nipper in the backyard, throwing snowballs for him to catch, or try to. It did, however, result in the meme below:

I'm telling you, man -- this stuff ain't normal.

A little soda.

We take a needed break from heavy topics today to bring you the smallest possible beverage you can try.

Isn't that cute? It's one of a limited edition Coca-Cola flavored Tic Tacs that I impulse-bought in the store. I'm not much of an impulsive person; only if it costs less than ten bucks.

So yes, Tic Tac is making these Coke-flavored candies, and aren't they just darling? I have always liked the taste of Coke, and growing up in a Pepsi family, the struggle was real. These days I usually eschew the classic sugary sodas, preferring to spend my calories on eats rather than drinks. But here's a little 2-calorie treat that has the great taste of Coke!

Or does it...?

It starts off with the usual Tic Tac sugar taste, then you get a hint of cherry. As you go you start to get the traditional Coke taste. It's a little strange that, without the fizz, it actually comes across more like flat cola syrup, used for stomach ailments. My mom relied on that stuff, and it is effective for mild upset stomach. (When she a tot they would get it from the drugstore soda fountain.) So yes, the Tic Tac tastes like Coke, with a bit of that vanilla flavor that sets Coke apart from the others of its class.

But never mind what it tastes like. It's irresistibly small. Look at that logo!

People love tiny things. Kids, of course, but everyone else too. Dollhouses, model trains, and so on. Who is not wowed by the guy who makes carvings from pencil lead?

My wife loves Ann Reardon, food scientist and expert baker, especially when she bakes her miniature cakes -- they are real and they are tiny. You can see some of her videos here.

I find tiny crafts fascinating, but I don't find watching videos of these things relaxing, as some do. I keep imagining myself in the moment, working on a minuscule project, hands shaking, and whoops! Broke it! Or ACHOO! Where the hell is it now? Or worse, taking a calming breath and inhaling it. Oh, great, the miniature model of Mount Rushmore I carved is now stuck in my left sinus.

Anyway: Tiny crafts good; Me at them bad; Coke Tic Tacs pretty good, but a little weird. And that's good enough for a Saturday!

For a breath of fresh air.

IN THE LATE AFTERNOON OF April 22, 1915, members of a special unit of the German Army opened the valves on more than 6000 steel cylinders arrayed in trenches along their defensive perimeter at Ypres, Belgium. Within 10 minutes, 160 tons of chlorine gas drifted over the opposing French trenches, engulfing all those downwind. Filled with pressurized liquid chlorine, the cylinders had been clandestinely installed by the Germans more than 3 weeks earlier. The order to release the gas was entrusted to German military meteorologists, who had carefully studied the area’s prevailing wind patterns. Disregarding intelligence reports about the strange cylinders prior to the attack, the French troops were totally unprepared for this new and horrifying weapon.

So writes Dr. Gerald J. Fitzgerald in "Chemical Warfare and Medical Response During World War I" (American Journal of Public Health, April 2008). This was the first known use of a chemical weapon, and it blasted through the French lines with terrible effect. But, as typical for World War I, the Germans were not prepared to follow this advantage, so everyone wound up back in the same positions within days. Not that such weapons were not effective. "By the time of the armistice on November 11, 1918, the use of chemical weapons such as chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas had resulted in more than 1.3 million casualties and approximately 90,000 deaths," writes Fitzgerald.

All this going around and wearing masks to fight the Chinese Death Virus has made me think a bit about mask-wearing in the twentieth century. They say gas masks used in the Great War killed the beard for men for fifty years. Blake Stilwell in We Are the Mighty writes, "Just twenty years prior, beards were a common sight in the Spanish-American War. Troops and their officers thought nothing of a well-grown face of whiskers.... When the Germans started using poison gas on World War I battlefields, the Army started issuing gas masks — and these new safety razors. Suddenly, shaving was a requirement as well as a lifesaving tactic. In order for these early gas masks to fit properly, the men needed to be clean-shaven."

"May I borrow your safety razor, old chap?"

One of the things my high school class had been taught by a history teacher was that troops had been told to use damp cloths over their faces to protect themselves from mustard gas, but that tactic actually made mustard gas more effective. This was greeted with a typical Har har stoopid past people fighting wars so stoopid from the class, which seemed to be the attitude of the teacher. However, I am unable to find any evidence now to back up that assertion. I did find that in the early days of chemical warfare, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia, a damp cloth did offer protection against chlorine gas: "Some of the Canadian soldiers who had been trained in chemistry had recognized chlorine gas from two days earlier and had instructed men to wet cloths with water or urine to offer minimal protection."

I guess instead of N95 masks they had P95 masks (yukk yukk). It would seem to make sense to use a dampened cloth, as water droplets would close more gaps in the fabric, but I have found little on this either way. If any of you out there in Blogland know anything about it, I'd love to hear it.

This leads me to today's thoughts:

1) I'm glad we are currently battling a virus and not huge rolling clouds of chlorine gas.

2) It's unlikely that the Chinese Death Virus will cause a change in men's facial hair.

3) World War I was hell.

4) People I see around who don't know how to wear masks and always leave the nose exposed would not have lasted long in the trenches.

5) No matter how bad things may be from COVID-19, we are not losing 1,300 men every single day, as was the average daily death toll for the entire length of that war.

Maybe it's not a cheerful Friday thought to know that things could be worse -- but hey, they could be.

Workin' at the car wash, girl.

I was quite proud of myself for washing the salt off the cars.

This was no small feat, if you've followed the progress of my achin' back from physical therapy to hospitalization to the current day. I thought it was taking a chance, but all the local car washes are still closed due to Governor Corleone and the Chinese Virus of Death, and I couldn't bear to see the cars look like lumpy pretzels in May, so the time had come.

Sunday was a gorgeous day, so I got to work. I wanted to make a good job of it. First I vacuumed out all the dog hair, little rocks, etc. from the interiors and cleaned inside, getting all the windows. Then outside I splashed, soaped, splashed again, and wiped down in a frantic hurry, aiming to leave no streaks. Finally, I cleaned all the exterior windows again with glass cleaner to ensure clarity. Lookin' good!

I was stiff the next day, but that good kind of muscle stiffness that says "I accomplished something," not the bad kind of back pain that says, "Is the surgeon available?"

The worst thing about the job was the music. Every house around me has hooked up a sound system in the back deck. So far they have not started vying for supremacy but I think that'll happen this summer. As it was, I only had to hear the neighbor's choice and it sucked. I know it's common that once you reach thirty, then forty, and so on, to think that the kids today listen to crap, but it is absolutely crap these days.

Don't take my word for it; use any search engine and ask "Why does modern music suck?" and get enough results to read and watch for the rest of the day. The usual suspects are all there and all true -- musicians valued for looks over talent; Auto-Tune voices that make everyone sound like a computer singing through a kazoo; stunted and shriveled range of musical notes and song subjects; moronic and uninspired lyrics; sophisticated but unimaginative use of synthesized sounds. To me, it comes to this: Pop musicians used to want to write a song with a great hook that would get people to remember the song; now they just write the hook and nothing else. One snippet of melody, repeated eight hundred times. Loud rhythm that never varies, so one may presumably dance with one's arms in the air as if one simply did not care. This is music for Club Lobotomy, not a lazy Sunday afternoon, and yet there we were. Worse, the family all went inside and left me with their stupid music.

I guess there's probably only one song that really goes with car washing, though -- yes, the immortal Rose Royce and their megahit "Car Wash"!

Not really my kind of music either, but compared to modern pop it's Beethoven.

The song "Car Wash" was of course from the soundtrack to the 1976 comedy film Car Wash. I don't know if you've ever seen it. I don't know if I have, either. I mean, yes, but it was years after the release and I had to be talked into it. Of course, with a cast that included Ivan Dixon, Richard Pryor, Irwin Corey, George Carlin, Garrett Morris, and Danny DeVito, it probably wasn't too hard for me to be talked into it, but I know we were drunk at the time. I remember liking it but maybe it was the beer. That was a long time ago and I haven't seen it since.

Maybe it was actually D.C. Cab we saw, come to think of it. In fact, I know it was. I think I saw Car Wash some other time.

Kids, don't drink and watch movies. You forget what you saw.

Anyway, I'm very glad the cars are clean and winter salt is gone, even if we have nowhere to go. Oh, and P.S.: Friday night it's supposed to rain and the temperatures are supposed to drop to freezing, so there's a chance the town will be salting the roads again. In which case, I may have to put a car in drive, lie down in the driveway, and run myself over.