Hello, friends! I'm sure you've been wondering through the discombobulation, uncombobulation, anticombobulation, recombobulation, and plain old combobulation of the last few months whether Fredcoin, the world's most Fredlike cryptocurrency, would be back to its old self. And I'm glad to say: Yes, yes it is.
So, what is actually going on? Well, we know that the problems for disgraced crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried are only beginning, although having bribed all the right people he may escape with a slap on the wrist. I guess it depends on the honesty of our politicians. Although SBF was responsible for greater personal financial losses than the late Bernie Madoff, he has managed to keep from being a poster child for fiscal malfeasance. Somehow his weird drugged-up lifestyle and crazy hair and apparent youth seem to have protected him from the fury of the masses.* And if the masses are not furious, the top dogs get to slip out of trouble.
You know what that means? It means it's time to give your money to me, Fred, and exchange it for good, solid Fredcoin! Because no one understands cryptocurrency, so no one gets mad about it. Sure, Fred's one of the smaller operators, but that's a good thing -- unlike BitConnect and Coinbase, my operation is too small to get the attention of the SEC. So no regulators will come pounding on your door,** no matter how rich you get trading in Fredcoin!***
Just to be on the safe side, however, I'm planning on growing my hair out crazy Bankman-Fried style. Madoff's problem was that he was too bald. Actually, since my hair has been making for the exits for some time, I'll get a big Fred fro wig. I think it will provide extra protection against the fury of the masses and the lickspittles in the press. Seems to be working for Sam!
* Meaning, the press has shown no interest so far in attacking him like the hyenas they are. I'm not sure why this is, but I suspect they think he will escape and still have lots of money to bribe them, too.
In 2020, in a weird and empty Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Takuma Sato won the 500 in a slow procession. An accident caused the last five laps to be run under the yellow flag, so everyone had to keep their positions and drive like a grandma. Dull and depressing and disappointing, like everything else in 2020.
It seems that the Powers That Be at Indy were determined not to let that happen again. So this year as the race was drawing to a close and accidents started to pile up, they pulled out the red flag multiple times, twice in the last twenty laps, putting a complete stop to the race each time, so that the laps that were run would be at full speed.
So yeah, the race ended under green -- exactly one full-speed lap. It was dramatic, but it was also kind of stupid.
It did result in the first American victory since 2016, as Josef Newgarden passed Swedish champion Marcus Ericsson in that one lap and roared to victory.
Ericsson seemed sore about the whole thing after the race, which I think was related to the way officials handled the accidents. I don't have any ideas to fix the race; I'm barely a casual fan. The event was accident-free for quite a while. But track conditions and car conditions suffer through the race, and drivers take chancier moves later in the game, so it's not a problem that's going to go away.
However, I would like to offer condolences to Ericsson -- and his countryman and contender Felix Rosenqvist, who was a victim of one of the accidents -- with a little musical tribute.
You all know the melody; sing along!
Here he comes
Here comes Svede Racer
He's a jäkel on wheels
He's a jäkel and he's gonna be chasin' after someone
He's leanin' on ya and you're gonna lose a fenda
He's gonna bump your car right in its big bakända
And when the odds are as lousy as lutefisk
You bet your life Svede Racer will see it through
Go Svede Racer
Go Svede Racer
Go Svede Racer GO!
I hope that makes them both feel better. Good luck on the circuit, boys!
Maybe I've mentioned it before, but I don't know of a single member of my family on either side that died fighting for the United States of America. A lot us only got here recently -- like, in the last century or so -- and since then we've all been either too old or too young when a crisis broke out that was beyond the capacity of the standing forces. One of the men was 4-F with asthma, though he tried to enlist; another was old enough to join in World War II only as it was coming to a close; another did die while serving, but at home, in peacetime, of natural causes.
The most recent miss was 9/11. But I was too old, too out of shape, and had absolutely no skills that the military would have deemed necessary enough to waive my lack of youth and vigor. Being able to translate English into... better English is not something they care that much about.
But I hope that I'm not presumptuous to claim a familial loyalty to those who loved America enough to put their lives in danger, to face the possibility of the ultimate sacrifice, although mine is a loyalty far less tested than theirs proved to be. I hope everyone who loves the United States and the principles upon which it was founded -- principles that we seem so far away from now, alas -- can find the feeling of brotherhood with those who died in service for all our benefit.
We salute our honored dead on this Memorial Day weekend. We should not and shall not ever forget. The blood is far too strong.
I've had some discussions with the bugs lately, and I must say they have not been very satisfying. We have been unable to reach an accommodation. Steps have now been taken.
The gnats, for one thing, have been much more poorly behaved this year than in the last couple of years. I suspect that it is because the spring started very wet and turned very dry, and for some reason this created an opportunity for them to get going in earnest. The backyard has been almost a no-fly-zone because of their insistence on getting in my face.
Me: Get out of my face, gnats.
Gnats: Make us.
Me: Why are you hanging around me? You're not drinking my blood like those other flying pests. What do you want?
Gnats: To drive you insane by going in various orifices in your deliciously moist and salty face.
Me: Doing a good job at it.
I would have been willing to concede the yard to them for the time being, but Izzy the hairball dog wants to go back there. Worse, he gets into the tall grass edging the property, and you know what that means. I pulled three ticks off him the other day, one of which I'm pretty sure was a deer tick. If it bit him it would die (we use Simparica Trio) but there's a good chance it would wander off him and onto me or my wife, and abracadabra! Lyme disease.
I squished one tick in a facial tissue, but it kept squirming.
Tick: You can't kill me! I am mighty!
Me: Say hello to Davy Jones. [FLUSH]
The ticks freaked my wife out, and I was dispatched to the backyard to spray Triazicide all over the place. In years past it has worked to make tick attacks less common and seems to keep the gnats down too. Sorry, bugs; you brought it on yourselves.
Izzy likes to just hang out on the porch when the weather is nice, and it has been quite nice. Unfortunately the wasps are busy looking for places to open up their Branch Office of Hell, and they keep hanging around. I mean, I know I'm a sweetheart, but do they have to hover around me like I'm a rose? You can't swat them like flies; it just makes them mad. I have plenty of Raid to knock out any nests, but what if I'm minding my business with the puppy? An errant shot would be bad for the dog. Are they going to ruin whatever's left of my spring?
But then, my sainted bug-hating wife gave me this.
Zevo makes a line of anti-bug stuff that's safe around children and dogs. I'm not the kind of guy who buys organic or worries that a moment's exposure to pesticide is what will kill my dog ten years later. I am however the kind of guy who knows my dog will go right after the most dangerous thing present. because he's a dog. In fact, he found the scent of this can so appealing before I'd even used it, he wanted to chew on it. The products may be safe, but I'm pretty sure chewing on a pressurized can is not.
Anyway, I got to test the spray just minutes after it arrived in the mail. A fat ol' yellow jacket came buzzing me on the porch. I whipped out the Zevo and fired. One smooth shot, a thin but concentrated line, knocked the flying schmuck out of the sky. It lay on the porch like it suddenly remembered it had a splitting hangover.
YJ: What... what was that?
Me: There's a new sheriff in town.
YJ: You're the guy who tries to stop us with hairspray.
Me: That was then.
Sadly, Zevo is not an instant kill product. The wasp got up, determined to hector me again, and I nailed it a second time. Then it flew off, never to return, and hopefully to go die somewhere else. Zevo's wasp spray ingredients are cornmint and rosemary essential oils, and unnamed soap ingredients, so although it claims to be deadly, I have my doubts. But it got the aerial-hole gone, and left the porch smelling like a pricey bodywash.
So feel free to talk to the local bugs, and make sure to tell them who's boss. They may be venomous, and may have numbers, but we have all kinds of toxic crap and we're not afraid to use it. Well, I'm not.
You know, every month is like a level in a classic video game. Your little character goes along with his little bundle of tricks, looking to earn points and powerups along the way. As he goes, he must overcome obstacles (work) and combat enemies (bills). Some of the enemies will be mere nuisances, like the water bill, and some will be more serious, like the utility bill at the height of winter or summer. You can get past those, but you have to be careful. You don't want to use up all your power on the little guys, because you know at the end of the level (the month), you have the boss battle waiting.
Repeat twelve times, and that's the game for the year. If, like a lot of us. December is the month in which you spend the most, consider that the endgame boss battle. Yeah, it's lame to have the same boss to fight every month, and technically those Christmas bills on the credit card will come due in January, but do you want to enjoy a nice metaphor or get into an argument?
The level/month analogy does make sense, in that a mortgage or rent payment comes at the end of the month and is traditionally the highest monthly bill most of us face. I say traditionally because some people really have a problem with credit card debt, some people are getting murdered by the IRS, some people have teenagers and a phone bill that is mindboggling, and so on. But the roof over your head is supposed to cost 25 to 30% of what you bring home, and if it's more than that, well, welcome to 2023.
Now, having defended my metaphor, I'll tear it down.
🎮Videogames are fun. People like them because they're challenging. No one likes a bill that's challenging.
🎮A gamer playing a level that's easy calls it boring. No one calls a month of lighter-than-average bills boring.
🎮Rich people have accountants pay their bills for them. While the strange phenomenon of watching other people play videogames is indeed a thing, no one pays someone to play Call of Duty because he just can't be bothered to do it himself.
On the other hand, if paying bills has become too easy -- say, we got a better job -- we take steps to bring the challenge back to it. We buy a house, or a bigger house, or get married, or have a child, or redecorate, or renovate, or buy a boat, or take up cocaine, and next thing you know, paying bills becomes a challenge all over again. I swear, human beings will tolerate almost anything rather than face boredom.
Today we take a moment to remember a superhero with a genuinely unique superpower, one I believe led to his undoing, and not in the canonical way. I refer to Chemical King, a youngster associated with DC Comics' Legion of Super-Heroes, whose adventures take place a thousand years in Earth's future.
Poor Chemical King was doomed before he even first appeared.
When readers first met the Legion in 1958, it was because Superboy (Superman in his youth) met them on a time-traveling trip. There were only three members in the so-called Legion at first, but since readers liked these teenage heroes of the future, more adventures were written and more members joined.
Then Superman made a trip further into the future in 1967 and met members of the Legion when they too were grown up. He found some sad memorials to members of the Legion who had died in action, including some that readers had not yet seen, including Chemical King. We would not meet the character until a teen Legion story more than a year later, in 1968. Confused yet?
The point is, readers at the time had not even met the character but knew he was fated to die in battle. Whatever else they were told in that 1967 story, they knew he would not make it to adulthood.
But I think there was another reason he got bumped off.
When we finally got to know CK, we learned he had the truly unusual power to control chemical reactions. He could speed them up, slow them down, and make them pause. And at this juncture I would like to remind readers that in those days the editors of DC Comics liked to slip educational facts into their books (especially legendary editor Julius Schwartz), either in the stories or in little did-you-know type features. A superhero whose usefulness depended on the writer's knowledge of chemistry would definitely fit that description, even if the means by which the powers worked were pure fantasy.
Alas, there's the rub. For I think Chemical King was doomed anyway. Because who wants to do homework?
Green for chemistry!
Other members of the Legion were generally straightforward. Colossal Boy: Gets big. Shrinking Violet: Gets small. Sun Boy: Gets hot. Brianiac 5: Super smart. Lightning Lad: Shoots lightning. Karate Kid*: Martial arts expert. And so on. Not too hard to knock off a scene for any of these characters to take on their adversaries. But control over chemical reactions? This is homework!
As silly as comics of the Golden and Silver Age could be, they were largely written by guys who also wrote science fiction stories in that industry's Golden Age, so they were interested in science. Starting in the seventies you had comics writers who were more often interested in comics themselves than science, which could bring a new depth to storytelling but were not always great at dealing with sci-fi concepts. And in 1968, Jim Shooter, a young writer himself at the time, dumped this chem-homework-laden superhero on the team.
I used to collect comics from the Silver and Bronze ages quite a bit, and as I recall, Chemical King was rarely seen in Legion stories. Back then he might pop up and rust some iron or make a guy pass out from indeterminate biochemical process fiddling, but that was about it. It would be easier to deal with the character now, I think. You just hit the Googs for "chemical reactions" and you learn in a flash that there are six main types and what they are, and suddenly you can make a big list of things CK can do. But back in 1978, when Paul Levitz was the editor and writer for the Legion's series, the Internet was itself barely more than science fiction. So Levitz brought Chemical King's career and life to a close, the hero sacrificing himself to save others.**
Did Levitz decide it was time to kill off the character because his powers were too annoying to write about? I was discussing this with a friend of mine who reached out to the comic book legend via social media and got a response -- Paul remembered bumping off Chemical King soon after being assigned to write for the Legion, but did not mention why. All I can say is: If Paul did kill the King because his powers were annoying, I would not blame him.
I've written before about a character who was a pain in the butt to draw, so now you have one who was a pain to write. But Chemical King did get a good honorable death, and for the most part -- through reboots, threeboots, and noncanonical adventures -- writers have let him rest in peace through the forty-five years since. That's a rare thing in comics.
🦸💀
* No connection with The Karate Kid movie, except that the producers did reach out to DC Comics to clear the use of the name.
**I would never badmouth Paul Levitz, mind you, whose Great Darkness Saga was not only the best Legion story I ever read but also among the very best comics stories I ever read.
Hello, young graduates. I congratulate you on surviving whatever school you have just or are about to just be ejected from, to find yourself spreadeagle in the center of the road of your new career.
You may be tempted to just take a little time off, figure out what you want to do, before you commit. This is the first time you had nothing expected of you since preschool, right? Why not relax, hang out this summer, play videogames, and freeload some more off Mom and Dad?
DON'T DO IT! It's a trap! I understand that you don't want to start a whole new grind right now, but do you really want to punch your ticket to Loserville? Trust me: Loserville has a high population, but it's still the loneliest place on earth. If you get cozy being a lump all summer, you'll still be cozy being a lump in the fall. It gets harder the longer you hang around. Have you earned the right to live off someone else's effort as an adult? Of course not.
Now, don't fret; it's not as awful as it may seem. Your first job may be horrible, but you know what? It's not like your grammar school. You can leave. You can find a different job. You're young; your skillset is growing. You're not cast into a highly specialized role. Just don't go back to the sofa.
There are a few other things I think you should keep in mind, some of which maybe no one had to think about decades ago because they were not an issue. But for your career health and mental health I recommend the following bits of wisdom.
🛠 If work was fun, they'd call it play.
🛠Do your best even if the job is lousy. It's good for your self-respect to establish good habits.
🛠Your workplace is not like family, no matter what they tell you. This is important. Startup companies can have that feel, but it's illusory. Say you join software startup TwoGuysAndAParakeet.com, working long hours to develop some damn business software (we don't make things anymore in America, we make software to help other people make things, usually somewhere else). At first it's exciting, and you feel very close-knit. Trust me: The rounds of fund-raising will end and PyroQEET.com will be launched, and the first time quarterly earnings projections fail, your "family" will have no problem divesting itself of you.
🛠It gets worse than that. You know the people in high school who always kept score, who never forgot a thing you did and would use it against you? They're out there working too now, and they have not changed. Pettiness and backbiting are fun ways for some people to liven up the day.
🛠When it's really bad, remember that rampant workplace politics are the sign of a sick organization. Get out!
🛠Don't be too impressed by so-called serial entrepreneurs. It's not that they fail a lot -- most new businesses fail -- it's that they chase that excitement of a new venture like some people chase new love, and like those people they cannot be trusted in the long haul. Plus, when they do fail, it's usually on someone else's dime. And you're the one who's out of a job.
🛠Do not expect to or even desire to want to bring your "whole self" to the job. If the company tells you that it wants to engage your "whole self," they're wholly full of crap. No one wants to deal with anyone else's detritus at work, and everyone's "whole self" includes sacks of detritus. No one cares, and that's okay. We were never meant to find personal fulfillment at work, unless the work itself is that fulfilling, and even then, leave the personal stuff at home where it belongs.
🛠And on that note, there is a very good chance that you will have to pick between the personal fulfillment of a great job and the actual fulfillment of your bank account. The really satisfying jobs don't pay as well as the others by and large for the simple reason that people will do them for free. I'm not advising you which to pick if you find yourself at that crossroad. Either choice is all right.
So there you go, my young friend. You can take my advice or leave it. I'm not wealthy, and no one is asking me to do any TED Talks, but I can assure you that part of the reason is that I did not adhere to these tips for my own rambling path in life.
Do you want to have a good career or not? Then you must learn not only from the successful but from the rest of us as well. We know a lot, believe me.
I've mentioned before that the most frustrating part of fact-checking work -- real fact-checking, not rubberstamping opinion, as the Washington Post does -- is checking quotations. Writers cull quotations from exceptionally unreliable sites like BrainyQuote all the time. They don't even care if the quote is true. What matters is that it illustrates the writer's own point and sounds like it comes from someone much brighter than the writer or the reader.
That second bit is where the real trouble starts. For example, say I was writing an article on the modern view of religion, a topic for which one might expect a learned readership largely immune to boredom. And say I want to use an interesting quote from Charles Peirce, founder of Pragmatism, who noted that "a pseudo-evolutionism which enthrones mechanical law above the principle of growth, is at once scientifically unsatisfactory, as giving no possible hint of how the universe has come about, and hostile to all hopes of personal relations to God." Well, most readers, even those who read The New Yorker (maybe especially them, these days), would have no idea who Charles Peirce was, and so the impact of the quote would be diminished, even by taking the time to explain Peirce and his connection to the topic.
BUT! I attribute his thoughts to Einstein, and everyone smiles and goes on his merry way, both educated and miseducated at a stroke.
Poor Einstein is a particular case. He's misquoted more than anyone else I know, more than Churchill, Lincoln, Hemingway, Warren Buffett, and Oprah combined. Here are some quotes commonly attributed to the late professor that he did not say, according to our friend at Quote Investigator:
"Any Fool Can Know. The Point Is to Understand."
"The Search for Truth Is More Precious Than Its Possession."
"Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results."
NOT EINSTEIN!
I bring this up because a month or so ago I was asked to fact-check a series of health-related articles that turned out to be very easy. The information was all pretty well documented and not controversial. I spent far more time sourcing and mostly disproving quotations the author had inserted. It was not even why they asked me to do the job, I'm sure, but it turned out to be the most expensive part -- for them. I got paid by the hour.
Since people refuse to consult Bartlett'sFamiliar Quotations or the Oxford one or even The Ultimate Quotable Einsteinbefore they throw around quotations, I decided: That's it. I quit. I too am going to make up quotes and slap them on Albert Einstein, or as his personal friends like me called him, Cheech. Here's an anecdote with a 100% fake quote:
One day I said to Einstein, "Cheech, that chick in Accounts Payable is a knockout. I've got to get her number."
The great professor looked me in the eyes sadly. He put his hands on my shoulders, and said, "I musht tell you a piece of advice I got from mine own grandfather. He vuss a genius, maybe schmarter than me. You vould do vell to listen to him, ja?"
"What was it?"
"I had a shimilar problem vhen I vuss young like you unt asked him vhat to do. He said to me, very solemnly, 'Al, Tauchen Sie Ihren Stift nicht in das Tintenfass des Unternehmens.'"
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"Don't dip your pen in the company inkvell."
Feel free to use the story, pass it around, put it in your doctoral thesis, whatever. Scientific papers are loaded with junk citations now. No one cares anymore! Everyone is happier with lies, so why be different?
Yes, my friends, it is Birthing Persons Day once again, also known to our betters in society as Persons with a Cervix Who Have Employed It in Perpetuating the Species Day. Because the whole world is run by stupid people who are also crazy.
Nevertheless, you may be at a loss as to what to get that special Birthing Person in your life, be it a female-identifying parent or guardian or a female-identifying spouse. Well, worry no more, because our friends at Lalafanc know just what she wants.
Actually it's Lalafancy; the dropout white Y is invisible.
The Cleaning Brush Kit for bathrooms is the miracle of Communist Chinese manufacture you might hope -- a scrub brush on a pole. What says "I love you" more than a gift that also says, "Birthing person, I do not want you to have to scrub the tile on your hands and knees ever again! Here, use this!"
And look at the helpful instructions:
That's literally the extent of it, but it's OK. There's a three-piece pole to put together, and if you can't do that you probably shouldn't be loose around cleaning supplies anyway.
I HAVE THE POWERRRRR
All right, the truth is, my wife got this for me. One of her favorite influencers online recommended the thing, so here it is. As longtime readers know, the one condition my wife had in our marriage was that I would never ask her to clean the bathroom. She just can't bear the job. I think she had the priest slip something into the vows about it.
My review of the tool? It's a lot easier on your back than scrubbing the tub by hand. It is not as effective as my favorite method, which is Formula 409 coupled with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, but it does the job well enough. Certainly good for a quick weekly clean. If you have houseguests coming, though, you'll probably want to use some old-fashioned elbow grease, the kind you just can't get when the scrubbing surface is at the end of a lightweight three-foot pole.
I hope the Lalalfancy people don't get upset that I didn't go bananas over this thing. After all, as they like to say:
Eternal pursuit! Aw, don't be so hard on yourselves, Lalafancy. You're sure to catch up to my satisfaction eventually.
And yet, for that special cervical someone on your list, the Cleaning Brush Kit probably would not in reality be a great gift idea. So let me recommend instead: Slice!
Another item bought by my wife, Slice is really a clever little tool. It's got a tiny ceramic blade on the pointy end that is perfect for cutting open those frustrating plastic packages or shearing impenetrable packing tape, but is incapable of cutting human flesh. It's also magnetic, so you can stick it on the fridge until you need it.
I love this thing. Totally works as advertised. Lousy steak knife, sure, but not meant to be. It's Slice!
That's all for today -- go be nice to the mothers out there! And no, Samuel L. Jackson does not count.
Just for the record, Walmart totally lied to me and knew they were lying and did it anyway.
One day I went into the store, as one does, and forgot to bring my reusable bags. The People's Republic of New York has outlawed the complementary plastic bags that have been used for forty-odd years, but grocery stores all have paper bags that the consumer can buy for a nickel. That's the law, and they all comply.
Except that this time, with a cart full of Walmart crap, I pulled up to the checkout to find that the paper bags were no longer available. I had forgotten my stupid and probably germ-laden reusables, but figured I could blow forty cents like a Rockefeller on paper bags. But no -- no paper bags anymore.
I guess I could have just taken everything out of the store loose, but that would be hard to deal with in the car, and that's if the Greeter Patrol didn't stop me because it looked like I hadn't checked out. This is not some lawless horror show like Portland or Chicago, where one just takes what one wants and leaves. So I bought some more stupid reusable bags.
When I got home, I wrote to Walmart, asking what was up with no paper bags. Sadly, I did not retain the conversation, but the poor schlub (probably on the other side of the world) explained to me that this was Walmart's latest effort to save the environment in which we live, by doing away with paper bags.
Uh-huh. Okay. I thanked the person with the phony name and said I knew he/she/it was lying, but had to repeat the company line.
Proof came a couple of months later, when I was in Pennsylvania, and stopped into get a couple of things from their Walmart. And what was at all the checkouts?
Plastic bags.
So clearly, Walmart -- a company that sells more cheap and easily broken plastic garbage than any other on Earth -- doesn't give a damn about the sainted environment. (I know, you're heading for the fainting couch as you read those words.)
I still don't know why the New York Walmart decided to make life even more annoying for its customers than the law requires. I doubt they think that New York's environment must be preserved but Pennsylvania's can go to hell. But, yeah, Walmart lies, just like every other damn institution these days. You literally cannot trust any institution to tell the truth about the slightest thing.
Shame on you, Walmart. You can't even be honest when it would cost you nothing. I shall be making a greater effort to avoid Sam Walton's misbegotten beast in the future.
I have just been through a manuscript with a lot of inappropriate single quotes. Now, I'm not one to shame singletons in general; standalone items and persons are perfect the way they are, and do not require a twin to be made complete. However, standalone quotation marks in inappropriate places are a black mark, or lack of one, and something up with which I shall not put.
Single quotes -- and here I'm not discussing apostrophes -- are seldom used in American English. We've settled on the double quotes for quoted material, as a means of setting off someone's words, and we like it that way. Single quotes are almost exclusively used for quotes within quotes.
"Hot damn," said Barney. "This morning Betty said, 'Get your lazy ass out of this house!' Can you believe it?"
The British do it the opposite way, which is their problem.
'Blimey!' said Barnabus. 'This morning Betsy said, "Get your idle arse out of this house!" Can you imagine?'
The rule for single quotes goes as follows, and I quote from the seventeenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (chapter 13, verse 30):
Quoted words, phrases, and sentences run into the text are enclosed in double quotation marks. Single quotation marks enclose quotations within quotations; double marks, quotations within those, and so on.
The problem, however, is that all of a sudden people -- and here I'm referring to professional writers -- seem to think that if it was not said aloud, it doesn't get the double quotes. Like so:
Sam went for his gun, the gun he liked to call 'Boom Hilda' for some strange reason.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong. There are two better choices than single quotes in standard text before we even get back to the double quotes. Words as words (like the name Boom Hilda used in that sentence) may be italicized, or they may be given no special treatment at all. Chicago 7.63 says:
When a word or term is not used functionally but is referred to as the word or term itself, it is either italicized or enclosed in quotation marks.
You can argue that Boom Hilda is not really being used non-functionally and leave it alone, no italics or quotes. Or you can italicize it, which would be the preferred method in books. Or, if you were texting the sentence or otherwise dealing in a method that allows no italicization, you would use double quotes. But there's no call for single quotes here.
Somehow, though, just in the last couple of years, I get these manuscripts in which people cannot bring themselves to use double quotes except for directly attributable speech. How did this happen? I blame COVID.
Well, maybe not, but it happened around the same time. I think the real problem with the pandemic was that it made everyone stupider. But that's a much larger problem, and one for another day.
I don't think that I'm really worthy to make any comments on English royalty, being an American. There were reasons beyond the crimes of George III that we wanted out of the empire, but man, did we give George the business in the Declaration of Independence.
Still, I am glad that the royal family remains a rallying point for many Brits who love their country. Genuine patriotism is a genuine good, and is being steadily killed by the people who run countries, and to hell with that. I also don't care if the royals stole stuff from other cultures, diamonds and whatever. All top dogs tend to be very grabby, and if they were better at it than the heads of other nations, too bad. If the tables were reversed and the Great Emeralds of Yorkshire (can you imagine such a thing?) were held by the Chinese, say, hell would freeze over before Yorkshire got them back.
But today I'm writing as an American a little annoyed by Americans' interest in the whole Royals saga and spectacle. Yeah, it's history, but when you get down to it, it's really institutionalized celebrity and worship of wealth, all tied up with a cord made of Disney/Hallmark culture and a cord made of soap operatic mishmash. Something for everyone, I guess. It's happy fun royalty, with all the dough and pomp but without the teeth. Charles III may be able to have someone bumped off if he really needs it done, but it won't be legal and it won't be public. No hanging of his enemies and leaving the bodies to rot on display at Execution Dock.
Many Americans may think they would like to be a king or queen, but these people really would not want to live under the rule of one. If they think they would, ask if they'd like a King Joe or King Donald. One or the other would make them throw up. There's only one way peasants can get rid of a tyrannical family, and it's not an outpatient procedure.
Well, the job's done, Charles is installed, and I didn't watch a bit of the Coronation, although I was up early enough.
Speaking of the kingship not having any teeth: People who did watch the show tell me that Chuck 3 doesn't look too healthy, a much older 74 than his mum was at that age in 2000. I trust the gang at the Crown Jewel room in the Tower of London has Wills's hat size on file. Might need to resize some crowns soon, is all I'm saying.
Greetings, my friends! The weekend was acceptably lovely and busy. I did pick the winner of the Kentucky Derby, but only because a friend of mine was once really into an independent comic book by the same name. Alas, I put no money on the horse. Did I spread mulch this weekend? Yes sir, I did. Just ask my back!
Today, I offer fresh picked memes to start your week. Don't all hurrah at once.
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Thanks to fellow Bleatnik rbj13 for the otter picture
Tom Lehrer made an astute observation lo these 64 years ago: "the reason that most folk songs are so atrocious is that they are written by the people." This was in the late 1950s, when the scourge of folk music was sickening the might of this great nation. Since then we're had a lot of other things to sicken us.
But if there's one folk group I have a soft spot for, it's Britain's Steeleye Span. Their nation being much older than ours, they have a better excuse to sing folk songs, because Brits were around long before professional songwriters got into the business. Also, Span went electric in 1971 like Bob Dylan did at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, which probably offended the most annoying folk-loving people. And third, they had the angel-voiced Maddy Prior, who would have elevated any group of singers.
Maddy did not sing lead vocals on the song I draw your attention to today, however, which I bring up on account of this being the Kentucky Derby day, the first leg of the Triple Crown. That song is "Skewball," a folk song of long and confusing lineage.
According to Dr. Wikipedia, "Skewball" was the name of a racehorse of the 1700s, and the song is about the animal's greatest challenge. Now of course, being a folk song, every damn thing about the story is completely folked up. "His name has been recorded as 'Squball', 'Sku-ball', or 'Stewball'" says Wiki, and I sure hope it was not Stewball, which sounds like a dish made with the leftover parts of a gelding. So the song is sometimes called "Stewball," which remains unappetizing. A skewbald horse is patchy white on a nonblack coat, so that name makes more sense.
Like so.
Also, the name sounds like screwball, a more recent Americanism but one that sets our hero up as a zany character, and helps put the race in a kind of Seabiscuit vs. War Admiral, David vs. Goliath frame.
You gallant sportsmen all, come listen to my story It's of the bold Skewball, that noble racing pony
In the song, performed with gusto and tension by Steeleye Span (the late Tim Hart on lead vocals), Skewball has been brought to Ireland from England to race, and is the underdog against the great mare Griselda, whose very name is fearsome. Our hero has one advantage -- a delightful owner, a sportsman of a type vanishing today:
Arthur Marvel was the man that brought bold Skewball over He's the diamond of the land and he rolls about in clover
A popular and lucky man, in other words, wealthy and cheerful, the kind to take losing and winning with the same grace, and nowadays you'd know he's the murderer in the first ten minutes of the movie. But back then, they knew even a rich white guy could be a decent sort. Was that the real name of the owner at that time? It hardly seems possible, Arthur being such an important English name and Marvel coming into the English language in the 14th century meaning something that causes astonishment. Seems very appropriate, certainly.
Soon heavy bets are placed and the race is on. Skewball quickly demonstrates another interesting and dare I say zany quality, by chatting with the jockey:
Then halfway 'round the course up spoke the noble rider "I fear we must fall back for she's going like a tiger!"
Up spoke the noble horse, "Ride on my noble master! For we're halfway round the course and now we'll see who's faster."
Well (spoiler alert!), Skewball wins the day, overtaking the mighty Griselda. Then he and the jockey order booze and toast their worthy opponent:
Past the winning post, bold Skewball proved quite handy And horse and rider both ordered sherry, wine, and brandy And then they drank a health unto Miss Griselda And all that lost their money on the sporting plains of Kildare
And that's the story, and it's a neat little song. If more folk songs were like this, there'd be more to love about them. But no, they were always about tools and jails and fights and sung by lily-handed middle-class communists, at least back when Tom Lehrer was turning his gimlet eye toward them.
Just remember, kids, that hard liquor is not good for horses. If you actually have a talking horse, however, then he might be different. Just make sure you haven't been drinking before he starts talking, or the cause of his loquaciousness might be suspect.
So baby dog Izzy is turning two -- or is he? Maybe he's fourteen? Or maybe twenty-four?
For many years people have used the 1:7 ratio for dog years, assuming for instance that when the dog turns three he is the equivalent of a twenty-one-year-old human. As it turns out, that's not a bad rule of thumb, but it depends on the dog.
I have long suggested that, thanks to humans, there is more variety among the canines than any other species. Take two perfectly healthy dogs -- a chihuahua, for example, and a Leonberger -- and you're looking at adult weights of 4.5 pounds and 170 pounds. One is almost 38 times the size of the other, and yet you could probably make a crossbreed between them -- presumably in a laboratory -- because they are the same species. Does any other mammal species have as much variety as C. familiaris?
We know that the bigger the dog, the shorter the lifespan tends to be. It's brutal for those of us who love the big galoots, and it's something prospective owners of said galoots are warned about going in. I was interested to get this chart via email from a local animal hospital, which gives a better estimate of a dog's age dependent upon its size.
Izzy's a large dog, so by this reckoning he is turning twenty-four. It makes sense; on a recent visit the vet said that he was fully grown now, and any further weight he gains will probably be fat (as she gave me the side eye). But no, he still can't drive the car. Get a job, Izzy!
What makes this sad, though, is the thought that our other guys didn't make it to what could be considered a ripe old age for big dogs. Fazzy was a giant, and almost made it to nine years old; that would have put him at seventy-one, six years under the US human male life expectancy. And Nipper, a large breed, was only four when cancer got him -- just a kid in his thirties.
However old Izzy is, though, we count by trips around the sun, and we celebrate his birthday. He was the most frustrating of the puppies, though. I saw my wife get more insane over his behavior one time than she's ever gotten over mine, or that of her crazy family, and trust me when I say that's a strong statement. And yet he has turned into the most affectionate dog of them all, a total cuddle muffin. I hope he has a long and happy life with us.
It's May Day, kids, the day on which we celebrate that wonderful invention that's catching on with so many of you hipsters -- Communism! All the gang are getting into it. It's just the groovinest thing!
What? You haven't heard of it? Why, friend, let me tell you why Communism, especially New Improved Communism, is just the greatest thing since collectivized bread!
1) It's not Capitalism.
Boo, Capitalism! Strictly speaking, Capitalism is not an -ism, which implies a constructed idea; it's just what happens when two people want something the other has and work out a nonviolent means to satisfy them both.
Guy 1: I would like some of that food.
Guy 2: I made it myself. I would like that nice rock you have.
Guy 1: I will give it to you for half that food.
Guy 2: Okay.
How stupid is that? Someone's obviously being exploited here; either the rock is worthless and Guy 2 is a sucker or the rock is valuable and Guy 1 is being taken. There is no middle ground!
Under a Communist system, the needs of all are satisfied. Like so:
Guy 1: We need to give Bob some food here too. He is sickly. But we are out of rocks.
Guy 2: Sucks to be Bob.
Guy 1: Hoarder! (Stabs Guy 2 to death) Hey, Bob! Lunchtime!
Bob: This is great. Where did this guy get this?
Guy 1: Uh, I don't know. He said he made it.
Bob: How?
Guy 1: Uh...
See? Capitalism is a basic human interaction, and who wants to live in the stone age? Communism is completely made up, worthy for human intellect! Yet it teaches a simple lesson: When all else fails, just apply more violence. Which brings us to our second point:
2) It's anti-human.
Boy, don't humans suck? You bet they do! Well, under Communism, more of them are dispatched from the earth than by any other means. Look at these figures:
Reign of Bloody Mary (five years): 280 killed
Spanish Inquisition (356 years): 1,500 killed
Communism (~78 years): 154 people killed every hour
You don't get more efficient at bumping people off than that! But don't worry, I'm sure it was no one you know. You'd be fine. And that leads us to our last point:
3) What, me worry?
You're worried about paying the rent, buying food, getting healthcare, aren't you? Well, under New Improved Communism, you'd never have to worry again! Nature may be red in tooth and claw, but animals in the zoo get everything they need, and so can you! Just do what you're told and don't do what you're told not to do and leave the decisions to the Scientifical Smarties using things like math to make the decisions, and everything will be fine. Sure, maybe sometimes we'll run low on things, maybe there won't be enough for everyone, but we covered that in point 2.
So this May Day, leave all your troubles to the Communist leaders and celebrate this brave new workers' paradise. One way or another, all your worries will be over!
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