Fifteen Iguana

The end of the iguana

2011-10-05T04:50:00.000-07:00

Marine Iguana tail by bug-in-my-eye

It's time to close down this blog. I started it four years ago as part of a project at work in which we were encouraged to try out new web goodies. I think somewhere between 1 and 4 of the other blogs from my co-workers are still running (two may not have started then).

It's not that I don't have anything left to say, just that I find myself resenting the time it takes to say it. And now is a logical time to quit because the other (even older) blog I have contributed to, Criminal Brief, recently shut its doors. In some ways that one has been replaced by SleuthSayers, where I can be found most Wednesdays, bright-eyed and iguana-tailed. And I continue to report on the best mystery story I read each week at Little Big Crimes.

If you have been reading this blog regularly, I thank you for your attention. I hope you find some of the other ten zillion blogs out there to your liking. Be well.

Mr. Robert's rules of etiquette

2011-10-03T04:38:00.000-07:00

Like I know anything about manners, right? But here are a few tips I would like to share with the world.

1. When two people come to a crowded doorway the person leaving the smaller place goes first. Get it? The person coming out of the bus leaves before the other guy enters the building. The person entering the hallway goes before the person entering the room.

2. When are at a meeting and someone hands you a stack of papers to pass around the table don't start reading it before you pass them on. It annoys people.

3. When you share a microwave oven with other people and you stop it with time left in order to take your food out, hit the stop button again to reset the time to zero, so the next person doesn't wind up with 14 seconds or the like.

4. Not really etiquette, but a useful tip. To the people who lean out car windows to yell at pedestrians or people on bikes: we can't understand what you're saying. It sounds like animal noise and makes you look dumb. Thought you'd want to know.

The end of American civilization

2011-10-01T16:30:00.001-07:00

0725 Tattered Flag, a photo by kwildermuth on Flickr.

Take a look at the following quote:

I told him what I believed to be true - that [the nation's leaders] have quite completely transformed our people from a nation with pretty high and respectable ideals to just the opposite of that; that our people have no ideals now that are worthy of consideration; that our Christianity which we have always been so proud of - not to say so vain of - is now nothing but a shell, a sham, a hypocrisy; that we have lost our ancient sympathy with oppressed people struggling for life and liberty; that when we are not coldly indifferent to such things we sneer at them, and that the sneer is about the only expression the newspapers and the nation deal in with regard to such things...

Who said it? A Republican candidate for president? A liberal blogger? A TV preacher?

None of the above. It was Mark Twain, in his autobiographical dictation for March 30, 1906. (If you haven't read his autobiography, newly published, treat yourself. I recommend getting it for an e-reader, because it its big and heavy, and only Volume 1).

Where I wrote {the nation's leaders] what he actually said was:

the McKinleys and the Roosevelts and the multimillionaire disciples of Jay Gould - that man who in his brief life rotted the commercial morals of this nation and left them stinking when he died)...

In other words he was referring to capitalists and imperialists. Today he would be accused of class warfare, or worse. Maybe that's why he insisted his autobiography wait for a hundred years before being published.

Declassifying ancient history

2011-08-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a bizarre story. The National Security Agency just declassified a text on cryptology. All well and good, and glad to see government information becoming more free, etc.

Only this text is 200 years old has been in the public domain (and available) for a long time. Actually what was declassified (and there is argument over whether it was ever actually classified) is a 40 page abstract that was captured in Germany. The full 500-page text has been on the web for years. Upward and onward with freedom of information.

Tip of the tail to Secrecy News.

Just Another Day in Bellingham WA, 7

2011-08-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, technically this was a day in Deming, but the Subdued Stringband Jamboree is Bellingham's beloved hometown folk festival. We started going in the early years when it was so small it hardly seemed like it could survive. I reemmber one year there was a wedding going on in a different part of the Deming Log Show Grounds and there was plenty off room for both events. No way that would be true now. In it's eleventh year the Jamboree has spread out magnificently, taking over the place with hundreds of tents owned by eager camper/jammers. As an old codger and lifelong folkie I just love seeing so many thirty-somethings there with their kids. Makes one feel like the future has a chance somehow.

I don't know if the focus is so local because the festival doesn't have the money to fly in a lot of people from around the world (like, say, the Vancouver Folk Festival) or because Robert Sarazin Blake, who dreamed this thing up, wants it this way, but it works beautifully. Sure, there are a few performers listed in the program as being from New York, Texan, Portland, but most are proudly declared to be from: Sehome, Fairhaven, Lettered Streets, and other Bellingham neighborhoods.

Some of my favorite performers this year: the Gallus Brothers (of course), the Shadies, Kit Nelson, Giants Causeway, Mike and Makos Marker, Laurel Bliss and Cliff Perry, and Bent Grass. (I hope someone recorded Bent Grass's hilarious song about Whatcom County.)

May the jamboree keep subduing us for many years to come..

Hooray for Joseph Priestley

2011-08-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

Something we never think about: all the little standard things we do were invented by somebody. I'm not talking about the invention of the printing press. I'm talking about somebody inventing the shoelace. Who was the first person who drew an arrow and meant not "this is an arrow" but "go this direction?" Somebody dreamed that up, but we will never know who.

But we do know about Joseph Priestley.

I am reading Cartographies of Time, by Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton, about the centuries-long struggle to describe the passage of time visually. The book is full of illustrations of time as a tree, a circle, a human body, etc. and one is more complicated and confusing than the next.

But in 1765 scientist Joseph Priestley created a variation of what you see above, and called it A Chart of Biography, and suddenly the obscure became clear. Although the detail is too small to read any modern reader understands what he is showing us. This is a timeline, with the past on the left, the present on the right and each line marks off a time period, in this case, the lifetimes of great men. At a glance you can see who were contemporaries, who were in a position to influence each other, etc. Brilliant.

But you might argue that it only looks intuitive to us because we are used to it. Not so; the readers in the 1760s immediately understood it and started borrowing, stealing adapting, building from Priestley's invention.

Here's how good an idea this was: twenty-one years later William Playfair published his Commercial and Political Atlas in which he added another dimension to Priestley's work - quite literally. He tacked on the y-axis, and created line graphs and bar charts.

Pretty cool.

Bill Morrissey is gone

2011-08-02T19:36:00.000-07:00

Another great singer/songwriter gone. Died last week of heart failure. I can't find a video of my favorite of his songs, "The Last Day of the Last Furlough," so here is him singing his great song "Robert Johnson" in the movie Hellhound on my Trail.

How Overdue Books Caused The Civil War

2011-05-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

That's the title of my article, just published at the American Libraries magazine website. It is a true story of the House of Representatives, the New York Times, the Dred Scott Decision... and overdue library books.

a few words on libraries, from Mr. Lane

2011-05-16T20:49:00.000-07:00

I love the British comic mystery series New Tricks, about retired cops trying to solve cold cases. The episode I saw this week struck close to home in a lot of ways. University library budget cuts, book theft, etc. This video shows the opening with ex-copper (and obsessive/compulsive) Brian "Memory" Lane and his wife visiting their local library. The first minute is too good to miss.

National Jukebox

2011-05-12T08:22:00.000-07:00

My friend and colleague Peter pointed out the coolest government website I have seen in some time: the National Jukebox from the Library of Congress. It plays a selection of historical recordings: ragtime, choirs, gospel, etc. Very neat.

The smartest thing anyone said today

2011-05-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

From S.J. Rozan, mystery writer and lifetime New Yorker:
Killing Bin Laden is a good thing, the right thing. But the very fact that it is, is a dark fact, not the occasion for a street party.

Just another day in Bellingham, WA 6

2011-05-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

Today was the first Summer Ride organized by Everybody Bike. About 100 of us met at Woods Coffee downtown and rode through the trails and Taylor Dock to Fairhaven. It was great fun and the weather cooperated for once. Only problem was no one knew what to do when we got to Fiarhaven. Ride back? Meet somewhere?

To make things more complicated, this was Dirty Dan Days in Fairhaven, celebrating the founder of the small town which is now the southwest corner of Bellingham. (Dan made his money transporting goods between Fairhaven and Victoria, BC - by rowboat. If that doesn't amaze you, pull out a map.)

It was fun to hear the Gallus Brothers on the Village Green, but I can't bear the idea of standing in a line of 20 people for a free sample so we skipped the Chowder Festival, much as I love it (there were lines like that in front of every booth.) Instead we visited two new stores in the neighbordook: Papa's Sweets and Drizzle Oils and Vinegars. My wife's comment: the lemon vinegar was a perfect salad dressing all by itself.

Then we rode away. Lovely day.

"galloping disbelief"

2011-04-28T13:14:00.001-07:00

shep02, a photo by Grudnick on Flickr.

Weird coincidence time. I had some floors to scrub today so I popped a CD of Jean Shepherd into the computer. If you aren't familiar with Shep, he was a radio host and raconteur from the 1950-1980s. The classic movie A Christmas Story is based on his work.

Well, many of his radio shows are available on CD now and I picked one at random - September 21, 1965 - and he began by complaining about a trend he saw in modern America: "galloping disbelief."

Why is it, he asked, that we assume all politicians are lying all the time? Sure, nobody tells the truth all the time, but the assumption that everything is a lie is weird.

A week before Shep had travelled to Peru and when he came back and started talking about it some people wrote to him (and this was postage stamp time, not email) to say that he was making the whole thing up. Why would he do such a thing? Why would they think he would?

The coincidence is that I happened to be listening to this the day after Obama released his birth certificate. And some people who claimed he was lying about being born in the USA continue to insist that the state of Hawaii is part of the vast conspiracy. I don't know if Shep would laugh or cry.

Spa: The Canadian Experience

2011-04-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

Spa

Well, this is MY favorite government publication of the week.

Just another day in Bellingham, WA 5

2011-04-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

Last night I was taking a friend to an excellent concert by Cindy Kallet and Grey Larson at the Roeder Home and she complained about the weather. "Raining again? Boring!"

I laughed. "You want exciting weather? Maybe tomorrow it'll hail. Or snow!"

The photo above shows the view out my door. April 14th. My wife said "time to reboot the calendar."

Shakespeare Searched

2011-04-13T08:28:00.001-07:00

Shakespeare, a photo by Sleepy Hollow on Flickr.

I don't know why this amuses me so, but check out Shakespeare Searched. It is a search engine that only looks through the complete works of Bill the Bard. Very neat.

Swearin' soldiers

2011-04-06T07:18:00.001-07:00

Robin Williams, a photo by JJJJJPPPPP on Flickr.

There's a good piece in the New Yorker about Robin Williams and he talks about his five tours entertaining the soldiers in Baghdad. One of the things he enjoyed is that he can work as blue as he wants there; the soldiers don't mind naughty language.

Reminds me of a very old story. My father was an educator and his beloved mentor was Colonel H. Edmund Bullis. Among many other things, Bullis served under General George Patton during World War II. When the movie Patton came out my father was shocked by the profanity. He asked Bullis if it were true to life. "Oh no," said the Colonel. "Patton was much worse."

Music from Madison

2011-02-27T21:15:00.001-08:00

Lou and Peter Berryman are friends of mine and brilliant comic songwriters. (They will be playing in Bellingham again in 2012...Yay!) Last week they performed before they biggest crowd of their careers, right in their hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. They were the opening act for Jesse Jackson.

Peter and Lou Berryman from luciano M on Vimeo.

Enemy Combatants: Black Soldiers in Confederate Prisons

2011-02-10T12:49:00.001-08:00

African American Civil War Monument in DC
Originally uploaded by Brooklyn Bridge Baby

The latest issue of Army History magazine (D 114.20:78) has a wonderful article by Thomas J. Ward, Jr.

When African-American Union soldiers were captured in the south the Confederacy had no idea what to do with them. The one thing they were clear on was that they couldn't treat them as Prisoners of War.

Some were summarily executed. Some were judged to be slaves and returned to their masters. Some were made to work for the Confederate army at the front lines (until Union General Benjamin Butler put white Confederate prisoners in the same position.)

Some free blacks were turned over to civilian courts to be tried but this proved an embaressment when the court ruled that it had no jurisdiction over crimes committed by men acting as soldiers.

Later in the war some of them were treated as POWs but the Confederacy refused to swap them for southern prisoners - which would imply that white and black were equal.

Fascinating story...

Stranger Ways: Happily Ever After

2011-01-22T10:40:00.000-08:00

This is my daughter's band celebrating the release of their first CD. Pretty cool...

Measure for Measure

2011-01-22T10:29:00.001-08:00

Colored Graph
Originally uploaded by chazmatazz

The Pharyngula website pointed out the Science Hall of Fame, and the interesting thing about this is how they decided who are the most famous scientists: Google Books.

It has been said that massive computers and huge banks of data may change the scientific method: you don't need to start with a hypothesis, just let the computer crunch a big pile of numbers and something interesting will fall out.

In this case someone studied one third of the books in Google Books, going back 200 years and calculated the fame of scientists based on how often each was mentioned in books. The measurement standard was Charles Darwin: the average number of times he has been mentioned per year since he turned 30 is a Darwin (D). Most others are measured in thousands of that, or milli-Darwins (mD). There is a link to the data so you can search for your favorite name or phrase (be careful, it is case sensitive).

Amazing stuff

By the way, the lovely graph by chazmatazz has nothing to do with Google Books or the Science Hall of Fame. I just liked it..

The greatest man who ever lived

2010-12-23T06:43:00.001-08:00

George Washington, 1795
Originally uploaded by Maulleigh

Spare a moment to remember that this is one of the most important dates in American history.

The British troops left New York in early December, leaving the American army in control of the colonies. All over the world the usual result of such a situation was the head of the military declaring himself king.

On December 23 commander George Washington appeared before Congress to resign his commission and go back to being a private citizen. And ever since then in our country the military has been the servant of civilian rule.

Supposedly when King George III heard about this he said "If this is true he is the greatest man who ever lived."

Thanks to Millard Fillmore's Bathtub for the reminder.

stars and journalists

2010-12-03T18:44:00.001-08:00

Billions and Billions of Stars and a Perseid Too!
Originally uploaded by Fort Photo

You may have heard the news that scientists have concluded there may be three times as many stars as they previously thought.

Cool stuff, but what got my attention was newspapers responding to it. For example, the Bellingham Herald, my local paper, had the best headline (and it is a rare thing when I think they do the best of anything). Here is what they came up with:

Star count may hit 300,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000

On two lines, just like that. Doesn't that capture the enormity better than words would do? But the best lede for a story on the subject came from the New York Times.

It really is full of stars.

If you don't know what reporter Keneth Chang was invoking (and using to capture a sense of wonder in our amazing universe), shame on you. Brush up on your Clarke.

The Feather Trade

2010-11-24T09:50:00.000-08:00

I just discovered the Encyclopedia Smithsonian, a website that brings together articles on many subjects from the Smithsonian Institution. One that caught my eye was The Feather Trade, about a 19th century conservation movement. Feathered hats were so popular they were endangering some species of birds. Very cool stuff.

Heroes of the plantation

2010-11-17T08:24:00.000-08:00

Here is a fascinating government document (not a contradiction in terms) that you can read for free on the web. The Invisible Cryptologists is the story of an all-African American unit of the U.S. Signals Intelligence Service (SIS) that served from World War II to the mid-fifties. These men and women, all college graduates, worked at mostly boring low-paying jobs with little hope of promotion, but they categorized and translated thousands upon thousands of enemy messages. Their unit was variously called "the snake pit," "the plantation," and "the black hole of Calcutta." Not a lot of respect there.

Here is one worker explaining how he moved from the boring task of typing punch cards to a more challenging job: "I knew that somewhere people were selecting messages, and I began to wonder how did they pick some messages and throw some away. So as a result, I enrolled in a Russian course at the Department of Agriculture. Soon, I was off the machines and pulling tapes, based on keywords. Once we pulled the tapes, we bundled them in categories and put numbers on them that designated subject areas. But it was a little more complicated than that. Many times the print on the tape was not clear, so we had to read the punched holes. I think what we did was was critical because we threw away what we thought wasn’t any good. If there was anything good in there, it was lost – it went in the burn bag."

Tip of the iguana tail to Government Book Talk.

A winning title

2010-11-10T06:35:00.001-08:00

Anthony speaking at Senate committee Hearing in D.C.
Originally uploaded by sherrielynn33

You never know what you will stumble on in the Government Documents collection. Here is my absolute favorite discovery in recent years. This is the actual title of a congressional publication:

COMBATTING TERRORISM OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS.

Personally, I was surprised that the Committee was engaged in terrorism. I suspect some Native Americans would only be surprised that someone was combating it. But perhaps I grow cynical.

The photo, by the way, is of a different hearing by that committee. It was uploaded by sherrielynn33.

Just another day in Bellingham, WA, 4

2010-11-08T19:06:00.001-08:00

Unidentified: (Underpass--Binghamton, New York), 1934
Originally uploaded by americanartmuseum

Yesterday we went to the new Lightcatcher Building of the Whatcom Museum. Certainly one of the finest buildings in Bellingham, and a terrific exhibit from the Smithsonian. 1934: A New Deal For Artists. In late 1933 FDR set up the Public Works of Art Project, paying artists to create works about the American Scene. The exhibit has about 100 amazing works from this blossoming. My favorite is this stunning painting by an unidentified painter, of a new underpass in Binghamton, NY. To me it looks mysterious and classical, as if the other end of that tunnel could be ancient Athens. The gold miner is another masterpiece. (The Roosevelts chose to hang it in the White House). And my wife's favorite is a picture of cotton workers by an African-American painter who died at age 23...

After that we rushed over to the Episcopalian Church on Broadwat to hear the release concert for the third CD by Bellingham's premier klezmer band, What The Chelm. Great show and I am eagerly waiting for a chance to open Til Chem Freezes Over and pop it in the player.

Teaberry Shuffled

2010-08-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

Deja vu all over again. I saw a container of Peaberry coffee and the words Teaberry Shuffle popped into my head. For the younger generation, the CLark Company put out a commercial for Teaberry Gum in 1967 using a maddeningly memorable tune by Herb ALpert and the Tijuana Brass. The tune was a huge hit and sold a lot of gum. I had no trouble pulling it out of my memory banks 40 years later. Here it is.

I have seen the future and it's Danish

2010-08-23T21:00:00.001-07:00

Bike Lane
Originally uploaded by Mikael Colville-Andersen

Okay, maybe I am indulging in wishful thinking, but boy, I would like it to be true. Just spent a week in Copenhagen and this is, as advertised, a world-class cycling city. What you are looking at is a bike lane, physically separated from the car lanes and the sidewalk. Some of them have their own traffic lights (which give the biker a head start over right-turning cars). Some of the lanes have green bicycle imprints which mean they are part of the Green Wave - at rush hour bikers traveling at 20 km per hour don't ever hit a red light.

Denmark created a policy to encourage biking and the result is that almost 40% of Copenhageners commute that way. Incredible.

An interesting side effect: don't expect to see a lot of jocks in the bike lanes. Instead you see the typical commuters: cigarette in their lips, cell phone in one hand, no helmet.

I saw one guy with a popcicle in one hand and a map in the other, no hands on the handlebars. One day in the rain I saw a man in a suit bicycling, full speed ahead, with an open umbrella in front of him. I doubt if he could see anything, but he didn't seem to mind.

And worse, I saw a man riding with a baby (one year old?) on his hip. No helmets. Scary. As I understand it, children are required to wear helmets, and most of them did.

We rented bikes for about $80 for the week. Brought our own helmets. Our apartment was about four miles from downtown (south of Amager Faelled) Great ride to town. Highly recommended.

Oh, it probably doesn't hurt that the highest point in Denmark is only 600 feet high.

Photo by Mikael Colville-Andersen

Pass the nostalgia bag

2010-07-26T07:06:00.001-07:00

1984 Grote Beer 525inch
Originally uploaded by Jan Willem Broekema

I was at the university bookstore trying to decide whether to buy a 2Gb flash drive or blow another seven bucks for double the capacity, when suddenly I had an awful memory.

Five and a quarter inch floppies.

Unlike the three inch floppies that came later these things really did flop and were easy to bend and therefore break. The first computer I had ran on them, and I mean ran on them. You had to put in one with the operating system each time you turned the machine on.

But that wasn't the worst part. Each time you bought a new floppy you had to format it. That means you put it in the machine and the computer had to think about it before a minute or two before it could be used.

Ah, the good old days.

Using this website I just estimated that if I had a full 2Gb flash drive and for some insane reason I wanted to convert it all to five inch floppoes (and I could find an antique machine that had such a drive, it would take about 12,000 floppies. If I could format one a minute that would take more than a week, just to format. And boy, did we think those computers were great.

I like my flash drives.

Summer Haiku

2010-07-23T19:50:00.001-07:00

Nectarines are in season!
Originally uploaded by snakeandrose / socksandmittens

Take off your glasses.
Summer magic! Nectarines
turn into peaches.

Happy birthday, GPO!

2010-06-28T11:42:00.001-07:00

GPO
Originally uploaded by mag3737

This month the Government Printing Office is celebrating its 150th anniversary. This is the institution that sends depository libraries like mine thousands of publications each year so that the public - not just our students - can be informed.

They have a lovely video which I can't embed but you can see here. Can you imagine an era when a government agency provided an in-house bowling alley for its blue collar workers?

How a Bill becomes Law

2010-06-21T09:57:00.001-07:00

A very old topic for illustrations, but a REALLY nice illustration, with tons of information. Thanks to Free Government Information for pointing it out.

All Lights Burning Bright

2010-06-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

Ever since we moved to the Northwest my wife and I have gone to the Vancouver Folk Festival more years than not. About a decade ago I started getting depressed about one aspect. I am basically a fan of singer/songwriters, and I wasn't hearing any new performers there that excited me. Oh, I was happy enough to hear Utah Phillips, Christine Lavin or Bob Snider again, but where was the new talent that would knock my socks off? I thought: maybe it's me. Maybe I'm too old and jaded to get wowed by a new performer like I used to.

Then one year David Francey showed up. And I said "Nah. The problem isn't me."

A Report on Reports Canada

2010-06-18T09:52:00.001-07:00

Canada Flag Reflection Downtown Vancouver N2065e
Originally uploaded by Harris Hui

I stumbled over something pretty cool today. Reports Canada is an unofficial website that puts up links to reports issued in Canada: federal, provincial, and non-profit. Here are a few examples:

A Study of Aboriginal Teachers’ Professional
Knowledge and Experience in Canadian Schools (Canadian Teachers' Federation)

Foundation For a Sustainable Northern Future: Report of the Joint Review Panel For the Mackenzie Gas Project

Rising Tide: The Impact of Dementia on Canadian Society (Alzheimer Society of Canada)

Very nicely done.

My first ever cosmetics review

2010-06-14T21:34:00.001-07:00

Cover Girl Outlast Lip Pen Review
Originally uploaded by Violet LeBeaux

Well, actually I just want to review an ad for Cover Girl Outlast Lip Pen. I happened to be in a store yesterday and saw an ad that said CGOLP "feels five times lighter" than some competitor.

Can anyone explain that to me? Let's say you pick up a fifty pound weight. Now pick up a weight that is one time lighter. That would be zero pounds, wouldn't it? So twice as light would be minus fifty. And five times lighter?

There are three kinds of bad math: confusion, lies, and advertising.

Just Another Day In Bellingham, WA 3

2010-05-26T21:43:00.001-07:00

Bike to School and Work Day 2010
Originally uploaded by teecer

May 21st was the 13th annual Bike To Work Day. We have had rainier Bike To Work Days, and windier, and even sunnier. But we have never had a colder one, and I hope we never do.

I was part of the crew running the downtown Celebration Station in front of Starbucks. I had to go in twice to buy a tea, not because I was thirsty but because I needed the warmth. Yipes.

Nonetheless a couple of hundred brave bikers and walkers stopped at our station, and an equal number biked past without stopping. (We also had skateboarders, a unicyclist and a wheelchair user.)

All got treats and chances at prizes provided by wonderful sponsors like Haggens, Mallards, Sweet Art, the Bagelry, Starbucks, and VIllage Books, to name a few.

In the attached picture by Teecer i"m the chilly guy on the right in the hoody. Next year, let's hold this thing in May instead of February.

Just another day in Bellingham, WA 2

2010-05-12T07:51:00.001-07:00

Bird on Bicycle!
Originally uploaded by brettbigb

The first Saturday in May is the Procession of the Species. A parade for anyone who comes dressed as an animal or plant. Three rules: No engines, no words (written or spoken), and no live animals. I believe that last rule was violated, or there were some VERY convincing dog costumes.

Photo of my friend Doug as raven by brettbigb

30,000 guilt free miles

2010-05-02T14:12:00.001-07:00

Waterloo Bikes Pano 1
Originally uploaded by negscratch

When I started working at the university I bought a parking pass. This was a hunting license allowing me to look for a space in a gravel lot that was a twelve minute walk from my office.

A year later, when it came time to renew the permit, I said the heck with that, and bought a bike. It turns out that for what it would cost to park a car I can buy a nice bike every few years and throw in the university-subsidized bus pass for those days when the weather or my health make a bike look two wheels too few.

Recently I calculated that I have commuted to work a whopping 30,000 miles since I switched to the bike. According to the EPA’s Household Emission Calculator that's about 408,420 pounds of CO2 I didn't produce.

Besides being good for the planet my bike commute is great for my health and easy on the wallet - it has extended the life of my car by, most likely, two years.

This is worth celebrating, and it happens that Friday, May 21, is Bike To Work And School Day. Oddly enough I will not bike to work that day. Instead I will help to staff one of the many Celebration Stations around town. If you bike or bus or walk to your job that day, drop by one of the stations for all kinds of treats - coffee, fruit, donuts, candy, and chances for prizes.

Don't worry about the calories. You can pedal them off.

photo by negscratch

Get your groceries at the library

2010-04-30T09:52:00.001-07:00

Food in the book
Originally uploaded by novnov4253

This NPR story tells of an idea so brilliant it staggers me. In neighborhoods of Baltimore where there are no grocery stores nearby ("food deserts") the city library is filling the gap. Patrons can order their food in the branch library and a supermarket delivers it to the branch the next day. Each order means a family member visits the library twice - often with kids - and I'll bet they become dedicated fans. Talk about thinking outside the box!

The project is paid for by a $60,000 stimulus grant.

Photo by novnov4253 which shows a picture of food. The picture is in the book, not the food. Very clever.

Soda Machine

2010-04-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

I was listening to Fred Eaglesmith's album Drive-In Movie today and decided to see if there were any videos on Youtube. I'm not a big fan of country, and I guess that's what Eaglesmith does, but wow, what a great album.

You might say it's a theme album and the theme is: love and machines. No, not that kind of machine, wiseguy. The titles include "I Like Trains," "49 Tons (of Diesel Locomotive)," "Here's The Keys," etc. ONe of my favorites is "White Rose," which is about a gas station closing.

But the best song may be "Soda Machine."

In Praise of Gobbledygook

2010-04-16T09:15:00.001-07:00

I have been enjoying the Government Printing Office's new blog, Government Book Talk, which I wrote about here. The latest entry concerns the new edition of the GPO Style Manual.

That reminded me of my favorite federal book about language, Gobbledygook Has Gotta Go. It was written by John O'Hayre and published by the Bureau of Land Management in 1966.

It is thoroughly outdated, of course. It assumes all women are secretaries, and I don't mean Secretaries of State. But as a guide to clear language and an antidote to gov-speak, it is hard to beat. Here is one of my favorite passages.

"Here's a pompous memo that rankled F.D.R. so much that he rewrote it and shot it back to the man who pomped it up in the first place. The memo dealt with what Federal workers were to do in case of an air raid:

Such preparations will be made as will completely obscure all Federal buildings and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal Government during an air raid for any period of time from visibility by reasons of internal or external illumination. Such obscuration may be obtained either by black=out construction or by termination of illumination.

Here's how F.D.R. dignified the memo by giving it simplicity:

Tell them that in buildings where they have to keep the work going to put something over the windows; and, in buildings where they can let the work stop for a while, turn out the lights."

I'll bet the memo writer hated to lose obscuration. It seemed to be his motto.

Periodic Table of the Elephants

2010-04-15T07:07:00.001-07:00

What do you mean, why?

Ancient History

2010-04-12T18:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, this cracked me up, even though the main part of the story was tragic....

Most mornings, when I'm checking my email before work, I listen to WUMB, the Boston radio station that plays only folk music. Every morning Dave Palmater announces events from music history that happened on this date. Inevitably, most of them are about rock.

Today he made an announcement that went something like this: "On this day in 1966 Jan Berry of Jan and Dean was almost killed in a car accident near Dead Man's Curve."

There was a pause as he thought about what to say next. Then:

"I'm not going to explain it. If you're under fifty, don't worry about it. It's not important."

Little things amuse little minds.

Homeland Security Digital Library

2010-04-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

My university library is a federal depository, which means that the government sends us publications in various forms for us to make available to the public. But it means more than that.
For example, we have access, ONLY because we are a depository, to the Homeland Security Digital Library, which has more than 70,000 government publications on a much wider variety of topics than the name might suggest.

For example, a class is working on response to the earthquake in Haiti. I went to HSDL and searched for Haiti earthquake, limiting to publications where those words appeared in the title or summary. Here are some of the 49 responses, all full-text. Many of them have been updated numerous times.

Haiti Earthquake: Crisis and Response
2010 Haiti Earthquake and Caribbean Earthquake Risk
Guidance for Relief Workers and Others Traveling to Haiti for Earthquake Response
'Build Back Better' in Haiti: Lessons from the Indonesian Tsunami
Council Conclusions on the Earthquake in Haiti: Extraordinary Foreign Affairs Council Meeting
2010 Haiti Earthquake Pre-decision Brief: Leptospirosis

On Becoming Common Knowledge

2010-04-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I was listening to NPR and I heard Susan Jane Gilman review The Bridge, a biography of Barack Obama by David Remnick. I was listening along peacefully enough until she announced:

In a particularly sobering section, Remnick notes that 12 American presidents owned slaves, eight while in office…

Well, yes, I knew that. In fact, while Gilman got that news from Remnick, almost certainly Remnick had gotten it, directly or otherwise, from me.

The Anti-Jefferson

Back in 2001 I read an article by Andrew Levy in The American Scholar. “The Anti-Jefferson” was about Robert Carter III, a neighbor of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson who decided it was wrong to own people. Over time he freed about five hundred slaves, more than any other individual in U.S. history. (Levy later wrote a wonderful book about Carter, The First Emancipator.)

The article fascinated me and made we wonder how many presidents owned slaves. It wasn’t easy to find out. I tried paper and web sources and got conflicting and partial information. Part of the problem was confusion between how many owned slaves during their lifetimes versus how many owned them during the presidency.

Since I’m a librarian I knew what to do next. I spent a lot of lunch hours going through the history books and concluded, as you already guessed, that the numbers were twelve and eight.

Then I created a website: Which U.S. Presidents Owned Slaves? It includes 4 pages of bibliography to back up my views, and every relevant quotation I could find from our first eighteen presidents (number 18, Ulysses S. Grant, was the last who owned slaves in his lifetime).

Crossing The Bridge

So, I was excited to see if Remnick had cited me. It would be fun to appear in the endnotes of what sounded like might be a bestseller.

My website has been cited before. One author was kind enough to send me a copy of his book. It has also been noted in a doctorate dissertation, a newspaper article, and at least one scholarly paper.

And there is another sign that I have become, so to speak, the authority in the field. Search Google for which presidents owned slaves. My website comes up first. Of the other nine sites that come up on the first Google page, five link to mine. (And I am just malicious enough to note that at least one of the four sites that doesn’t link to mine got the number wrong.)

Of course, I knew Remnick’s book was a popular, rather than an academic volume, so it might not have endnotes at all. As it turns out, The Bridge does. Almost 600 endnotes, in fact, and a bibliography. But my name appears in neither place. The exact quotation, on page 562, says

Twelve Presidents owned slaves, eight of them while in office.

But there is no endnote explaining where Remnick got his information.

At first I was quite annoyed. Then it occurred to me: Maybe my declaration has become common knowledge.

Missing a sale

You don’t have to cite things everybody knows. Do you want to mention that Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter about slavery to his friend Joshua Speed in 1855? You had better cite your source. But if you want to say that Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president, hey, no endnote needed. Because everybody knows that.

And I suppose that would be Remnick’s take on it. The conclusion I dug out over so many lunch hours ten years ago is now something everybody knows.

You can’t copyright a fact, of course, only the expression of it. And it is kind of cool to have become a bearer of common knowledge, if that is what happened here. Still, if my name appeared in the book, Remnick’s sales would have increased by one.

Just another day in Bellingham, Washington

2010-04-04T10:37:00.001-07:00

WWU students at Bellingham Farmer's Market
Originally uploaded by wwu.admissions

Went to the Farmers Market downtown. Since it was the first Saturday in April I made sure to get there for the opening.

Later I ran into G., a friend who moved to town last year. "Were you here for the cabbage toss?" I asked.

"What cabbage toss?"

I explained that, to officially open the new market season, the mayor of Bellingham ceremonially throws out the first cabbage at 10 AM on the first day.

G. gave me a look that said "SURE he does."

Well, it's true. That's life in Bellingham.

Later I went over to Kulshan Cycles to pick up my bike which was in for a tune-up. The wheel wonders at Kulshan have set my vehicle up for another year on the trails and commuting routes.

I pedaled over to the Upfront Theatre. When Ryan Stiles (of The Drew Carey Show and Whose Line Is It Anyway?) moved to Whatcom County he founded the Upfront to indulge his love for improv comedy. This was the day of the annual Improvathon where a group of young actors do 27 hours of comedy, just for the hell of it. For ten bucks I watched two hours of it. The highlight, for me, was a lengthy story of a quest, which involved a knight having to defeat several monsters at Yahtzee.

After that I wheeled over to the Public Library where I ran into my friend E, who was looking for some new female novelists to try out. I recommended THE BAY AT MIDNIGHT, my favorite novel by Diane Chamberlain, who happens to be my sister. Keep it in the family.

After a hurried dinner I went over to the Mount Baker Theatre, our city's big house, built in the 1920s, and caught the national touring company production of Cabaret. I lost track of people saying "The plot of the movie was completely different." Yup, and much better. But the music is great.

Then it was home to bed. Just another day in the City of Subdued Excitement.

Photo by Layna Bennehoff, taken on a much warmer and sunnier Saturday than yesterday.

Talkin' Gov Docs

2010-03-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

The Government Printing Office wants to tell you about interesting government publications (not an oxymoron). They have started a blog called Government Book Talk with a monthly listing for some publication of interest. This month in honor of March Madness they are having a "National Park Playoff." Vote for your favorite park poster or handbook.

The site still has some teething pains (when I first pulled it up it wouldn't work on Internet Explorer, on Firefox some of the boxes were blank, and they are still working on getting an RSS feed.) But it is a step in the right direction.

Sha na na na... Get a Job

2010-03-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

I often make fun of illustrations in government publications, but this may be the best I have ever seen. If you can't get a good look, blow it up.

The Department of Labor publishes the Occupational Outlook Quarterly to help people decide what job might be right for them. In today's economy a lot of people are trying to think outside the box, and OOQ might give them some helpful ideas.

My favorite section is "You're a what?" which features such occupations as acupunturist, cobbler, and research chef.

Virtual Choir

2010-03-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

Have you seen this video? Sorry I can't figure out how to embed it. It is a music video like the Pacific Ocean is a wet place. 185 people singing the same piece in front of their computers, and the sound is beautiful, but just as brilliant is the visual production which lets you see each choir member individually.

A demonstration of what web interactivity can achieve. Amazing.

sour soup

2010-03-19T07:21:00.001-07:00

dr. mcdougall's ramen soup
Originally uploaded by heather marie.

I like Dr McDougall's instant soups, especially the Pilaf, but I don't like them as much as I did yesterday. I just looked at the Nutrition Facts that Doctor John McDougall put on the back and discovered that they are listed for a Serving, as you would expect. But you probably wouldn't expect that a Serving would be HALF a container. Who eats half an instant soup? What do they do with the other half?

I hope he doesn't play as tricky with his patients like he does his customers.

Photo by Heather Marie

spring haiku

2010-03-17T06:57:00.001-07:00

°°°
Originally uploaded by dasistdasende

Fetching the paper
I am surprised by darkness
Daylight Saving Time

ohoto by dasistdasende

Contempt

2010-03-10T07:12:00.000-08:00

So, a week before the official U.S. Decennial Census form goes into the mail one of our national political parties has sent out a fund-raising letter disguised as a push poll disguised as a survey disguised as a census form. Let's see if we can count the ways this is offensive.

* It shows contempt for the thousands of people who have been working for years (and spending millions of taxpayer dollars, by the way) to create the most accurate possible census.

* It shows comtempt for the U.S. Constitution which requires the census (Article 1, Section 2) as an important step in establishing Congressional districts.

* It shows comtempt for the party's own message, since it says in effect, "the best way to convince you we're right is to mislead you."

* It shows comtempt for the party's supporters, since it says, in effect, "We think you are too dumb to know the difference between a census form and an advertisement."

Apparently the party in question has been doing this sort of thing for years. That doesn't make it right, and doing it a week before the actual Census form goes out is disgraceful. To my mind, this is about two steps from claiming to be the Nigerian finance minister.

Shame on you, Republican National Committee.

The Gonzalez Contata

2010-03-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

This may be the most unusual music video I have ever put on this blog. Composer Melissa Dunphy has written an opera based on the Alberto Gonzales 2007 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing transcript. The opera is entitled: "The Gonzales Cantata."

Asir Weirdness

2010-03-01T08:33:00.000-08:00

I've been working in this library for more than 20 years and there is no government publication here I haven't handled at least once. And yet there are still surprises. Take the attached brochure for Asir National Park, dated 1986.

If you have been to any of our wonderful national parks you probably recognize the format of this brochure (the original is in color, by the way). The National Park Service has been using the same format for their publications for a long, long time. I remember reading an article in a design magazine praising their grid format for its flexibility, clarity, and consistency.

So, hooray, a government program that works. A little unusual, perhaps, but why would I say it's a surprise?

Weirdness Number 1. Asir National Park isn't in the United States. It's in Saudi Arabia. Notice the photo of the Red Sea.

Okay, that's a little more unusual. But not a great shock. Another government liked the style and copied it. U.S. federal documents aren't copyrighted, so no harm done. Flattery is the sincerest, etc. What's the big deal?

Weirdness Number 2. This brochure is in the federal documents collection as an official U.S. National Park Service publication. Sudoc number: I 29.6: As4.

Fair enough. Our National Park Service helping out a sibling agency. All in the best interest and tradition, etc. So?

Weirdness Number 3. Nowhere on the publication does it mention the U.S. National Park Service. It says the publisher is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Agriculture and Water.

So it is a federal document that dares not speak its name. The only similar examples I can think of are the street atlases of places like Beijing and Moscow that were put out by the Central Intelligence Agency. Apparently no one wanted to stroll through those cities with a book with CIA stamped on the cover. Go figure.

Guide to NonGovernmental Organizations

2010-02-26T11:16:00.001-08:00

Service members conduct joint logistic operations in Port-au-Prince.
Originally uploaded by Official U.S. Navy Gallery

The Defense Department just put out a nice book, intended for the military but of use to anyone interested in NGOs (NonGovernmental Organizations). Here is the official title:

Guide to Nongovernmental Organizations for the Military: A primer for the military about private, voluntary, and nongovernmental organizations operating in humanitarian emergencies globally.

If you think about it, the military runs into NGOs every time they are sent to earthquake zones, or similar disaster sites, so it makes sense to make sure the officers know how they work.

The best part is a 100-plus page directory of NGOs, giving phone numbers, budgets, e-mail, etc.
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Government: The Snapshot

2010-02-26T11:05:00.001-08:00

Nothing to say here, except that this photograph with caption reminds me of the Census Bureau's jokey ads about taking a snapshot of America. The illustration comes courtesy of the City of Witchita, Kansas.

Periods of War

2010-02-26T10:57:00.000-08:00

Occasionally we get questions about the dates the U.S. was officially at war with some other country. Here is a nice, authoritative source. The Congressional Research Service has published a list of official periods starting with the Indian Wars (January 1, 1817, through December 31, 1898) and continuing up to the wars that haven’t ended.

The main purpose is to help determine whether someone is eligible for veteran’s benefits, but students have asked for these dates as well.

If the good ol' days were like the good new days

2010-02-26T10:51:00.001-08:00

The Stacks
Originally uploaded by Apollo 11

You have probably heard the old joke that if software designers built cars they would cost $100, go 200 MPH - and blow up for no apparent reason.

This thread raises the same sort of question: What if getting full-text articles had been as complicated in the day of paper journals as it is now?

"Z awoke one day from uneasy lectures to find that journal publishing had been turned into a giant insect. And not one of your cute bumblebee ones..."

Photo by Apollo 13.

Power Failure

2010-02-22T19:31:00.000-08:00

Last month I put up a link to a Procol Harum video and said what I really wanted was a live performance of "Power Failure," preferably with original drummer B.J. Wilson in action. And here it is. Sorry about the psychedlia.

My part in history

2010-02-15T21:27:00.001-08:00

Park Avenue
Originally uploaded by DaCosta1

It's a strange thing to read about a historical movement or moment and realize that you, unwittingly, were part of it.

Years ago I read a piece by a fellow government information librarian about an older man coming into the library looking for tax forms. When he discovered he was in a depository for federal documents he asked if they had any publications about the Korean War. He had fought there and had always remembered one battle he and his comrades had marched to, fought at, and those who survived marched away from. Life went on, and no one ever told them the point of that fight or even who had won. He was thrilled to find a Defense Department book that told him what his part in the War had been about.

My tale is not so dramatic, fortunately.

I am working on a short story about the riots that hit Plainfield, NJ during the long hot summer of 1967. They effected my family in several ways. But in researching that event I came across an earlier one.

My first years of education were spent at Cedarbrook School, which was all White. In sixth grade I was moved to Washington School which was closer to home and had both Black and White students. The next year I moved to a junior high. I always thought it was weird that Plainfield had a special school for sixth graders, but never thought much more than that.

In one of the articles I read I learned that Plainfield fully integrated its schools in 1967 but two years earlier they had acquiesed to complaints by integrating Washington School, which had been all-Black even though it was close to some White eighborhoods.

It turned out I was part of the school integration movement. Nobody ever mentioned it to me - as far as I recall.

So what do I remember from Washington School? Two great teachers, Mr. Charloff and Mrs. Sonin. One new friend, Craig Sweet. And life went on...

Photo of Park Avenue in Plainfield by DaCosta1

North American Environmental Atlas

2010-02-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

This is incredibly cool. The Council for Environmental Cooperation
(i.e. the governments of U.S., Canada, and Mexico) have created a free, online atlas of the environment. You can add and subtract layers, remove political boundaries, etc. The pretty banners you see on this page are actually the lines of marine vessel emissions, which is to say pollution from ships.

Simple Sister

2010-01-27T15:19:00.000-08:00

If you have been following this blog at all you probably think I'm a complete folkie and never listen to rock. Well, not quite. Here is a number by my favorite band from the sixties/seventies, Procol Harum. Pay attention to the late B.J. Wilson. He seems so much the perfect nerd that it's easy to miss the fact that he was one of the greatest drummers in the business.

While Youtube is loaded with videos of Procol's big soft hits like A Whiter Shade Of Pale and A Salty Dog, a lot of the hard rockers are missing. I would love to see Power Failure (with BJ on drums), Drunk Again, and Nothing But The Truth. (There is a version of Nothing on Youtube, but Sir Gary Brooker screw up the lyrics somethng fierce.)

Oh, those wacky Census folks

2010-01-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

So on April 1 of this year the U.S. Census Bureau will attempt to count every person in the United States and find out some information about them. As a librarian I can assure that government agencies will be using these figures to place roads, schools, senior centers, etc. and that in fifty or a hundred years people will still be using them to find out how we lived way back when.

To promote the Census the Bureau called in Christopher Guest, director of mockumentaries like BEST IN SHOW and A MIGHTY WIND. The results are, well, weird.

Winter haiku

2010-01-13T21:42:00.001-08:00

Bicycle, shadow, light
Originally uploaded by mookio 阿默

Bicycle morning
Racing under a streetlight
My shadow passes.

photo by mookio

Rivers: an old thought about human geography

2010-01-10T16:16:00.001-08:00

Perfect !!
Originally uploaded by antifa

"Hard would it be for one mortal to tell all the names of these [rivers],
but everyone everywhere knows the river he happens to live by."
-Hesiod (ca 700 B.C.) , Theogony, lines 369-370

Photo by antifa

On The Ground

2009-12-20T15:54:00.001-08:00

8:36pm: reading
Originally uploaded by Laurel Fan

Photo by Laurel Fan.

Every year around this time some pleople make a list of the most overworked words and phrases. A few years ago one was "on the ground," especially "the situation on the ground" in Iraq or Afghanistan, but also "boots on the ground," "reporters on the ground," etc. Christopher Borrelli complained "what else would troops be doing, hovering?"

I sympathize, but today I remet an old friend, Mark Twain's Roughing It, published in 1872, and in his Preferatory I came across this phrase "no books were written by persons who were on the ground in person..." Clearly the same meaning.

I have since found the phrase (through the very wonderful twin websites, Making Of America) in an article that appeared in American Whig Review in 1845. It was clearly describing a military siuation.

So the phrase may be overused, but it is venerable, at least.

Awful Library Books

2009-12-07T09:51:00.001-08:00

Paper Only
Originally uploaded by Atwater Village Newbie

Weeding...Deacquisition.... No librarian likes to do it, but we have to. Books this marginal make it less painful.

Hallelujah redux

2009-11-23T21:05:00.000-08:00

I know I posted a recording of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah once before, but my gosh, how much beauty is too much? What I would love is to hear K.D. Lang sing with Rhiannon of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. A Beatles song. An Alka-seltzer commercial. Anything.

Digging the Middle East 2: Thieves of Baghdad

2009-11-21T21:47:00.001-08:00

As a youngster in New York City, Matthew Bogdanos expected to go into his family's restaurant business. Then, on a whim one day, he tried to enlist in the Marines. The recruiter took one look at his test scores and said: no. He was going to enroll in college and the Marines would then be happy to accept him to the Officer's program

So Bogdanos became the first in his family to attend college. One result was that when 9/11 happened he was a prosecuting attorney in New York, as well as an Marines Reserve officer. Off he went to Afghanistan, among other places.

When the U.S. troops took Iraq and the museum in Baghdad was infamously looted, Bogdanos convinced his superiors that he - a lawyer/warrior with extensive knowledge of classical art and literature - was the perfect man to lead the team to get the stolen art back. And that is the main story of Thieves of Baghdad.

Like everything else in the Middle East, the theft was more complicated than it looked. For example, Bogdanos learned that many of the items were not really stolen. Some were taken by museum staff and others to protect them from the invading Americans. So he had to add diplomat to his job description: convincing Iraqis that the U.S. forces didn't intend to steal the relics for American museums.

The book is fascinating. I just opened at random and found this discussion between Bogdanos and a Lieutenant Colonel he liked:

"Matthew, would you like to join an experimental multiagency counterterrorism unit General Harrell is forming?"
"What is it?" I replied.
"I can't tell you. It's focal point." (meaning a security clearance above top secret, and -- like 99.99 percent of the people -- I didn't have that clearance).
"What will it do?"
"I can't tell you that either."
"You can't tell me where it'll operate either, can you?"
"Nope."
"Sounds good. I'm in."

A commercial announcement

2009-11-21T08:05:00.000-08:00

David Malki does a wonderfully strange comic strip on the web called Wondermark. He repurposes Victorian graphic art with very strange captions. I wrote about it once before on my other blog.

However, Malki is now offering free copies of his new book, Clever Tricks To Stave Off Death to ten bloggers who write about Wondermark in November, so here is my shameless attempt to grub a book.

It took me a long time to find this cartoon, which is one of my favorites.

Relax your mind with a government source

2009-11-18T11:30:00.000-08:00

I know, when you are looking for a stress-buster, government information is not the first thing that comes to mind. But try this website. Unfortunately it only works during daylight hours on the East Coast.

Digging the Middle East 1: The Buried Book

2009-11-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

Not that you asked, but I’ve decided to tell you about my (roughly) five favorite books about Middle Eastern archaeology. I’m just a buff in the field, but I recently read a terrific book and decided to blurb/blog (blurg?) about it and four other faves. In no particular order…

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of our oldest literary masterpieces. With its themes of quests for immortality and concerns about the proper way to live as a king (or a person) it is still fascinating.

It is easy to forget that the Epic was lost to memory for millennium. David Damrosch has constructed his The Buried Book, as he notes, like an archaeological dig. It begins with the most recent layer, and moves farther back in time.

The first chapter is about George Smith, an Englishmen with a unique ability to translate ancient texts. A printer by trade, he used to visit the British Museum on his lunch hours, and contrary to the stereotype of Victorian England, the scholars recognized this lower class tradesman for the find he was. He was able to bring the ancient tale of Gilgamesh into modern language and, in 1872, discovered one of its most greatest attractions: a story of the world flood with unmistakeable parallels to the one in Genesis.

Next Damrosch tells the story of Hormuzd Rassam who discovered the texts but was cheated of some of his fame because of English prejudice against foreigners – surely he was no more than the hired digmaster, working for some proper British supervisor!

The book then covers what we know about the writing of the Epic, which is rather surprisingly much – even including the name of the scribe who is credited with putting the final version together. Even more amazingly, while we only have two thirds of the text of this final work, we have some of the Sumerian poems from which the Assyrian version was compiled – which is as if we had some of the early texts Homer had used to compose the Illiad.

Finally Damrosch shows us what can be glimpsed through the veils of time about the historic person Gilgamesh – or more properly Bilgamesh. Take this little tidbit. One ancient scribe compiled a list of all the kings who had ruled in Sumeria. His collection of the monarchs of the city of Uruk can be divided into recent historical figures (with reigns from 6 years to a few decades) and ancient mythical figures (who supposedly ruled for thousands of years each).

These two groups are neatly separated by a king who supposedly ruled for 126 years. I don’t think you need to be a scholar to speculate: “this one isn’t completely a myth. They knew something about him but he was so legendary that they had to credit him with a century of rule to account for everything he supposedly accomplished.” As you may have guessed, that king was Bilgamesh.

The Buried Book is great fun.

Dead Egyptian Blues

2009-11-09T21:15:00.000-08:00

I seem to be in an archaeological mood lately, so here is a video of the best archeologically-themed song in the history of the world being performed by its composer, Michael Peter Smith, with Anne Hills. If you aren't familiar with Smith, he is best known for writing "The Dutchman," which has been recorded by practically everybody.

And by the way, Smith wrote the second best archeologically-themed song, too.

Like Bob Bossin

2009-11-09T20:57:00.000-08:00

This fall I went to the Princeton Tradtional Music Festival in British Columbia and had a lovely time. One of the highlights was seeing the Canadian folksinger Bob Bossin for the first time in many years.

I've had my complaints about Bossin over the years. He butchered, IMHO, a song by two of my favorite songwriters the last time I saw him. But I got his latest album The Roses on Annie's Table, and it is pretty wonderful.

As a sometime songwriter what knocked me out most was his similes. Here are a few of my favorites:

"She's got love, like a Jehovah's Witness, bangin' on her door again." - "Shirley Ann"

"The years rolled by like empties." - "Gary Davis"

"Love bears down like an eighteen-wheeler. Try to argue with an eighteen-wheeler." - "Lily"

You can hear some samples here.

Old-fashioned Saturday night

2009-11-08T18:30:00.001-08:00

Mary Pickford
Originally uploaded by twm1340

Last night my wife and I went downtown to take in a movie. Then we walked over to the ice cream parlor for dessert.

And it occurred to me: my grandparents, either set, could have done that in Plainfield, NJ, eighty years ago. We even saw the film at the Pickford Cinema, an independent theatre named after Mary Pickford.

Of course, I don't think my grandparents would have appreciated a dark and hilarios film like A SERIOUS MAN, and I'll be their icre cream parlor didn't have huckleberry, white pepper, or cardamom flavors like Mallard does.

When They Severed Earth From Sky

2009-11-01T09:54:00.000-08:00

My wife bought this book by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber and I promise I will let her read it as soon as I am done with it. That's the generous kind of person I am. She may be tired of it by then, since I have been reading her big chunks of it as I go. It's that kind of a book.

When They Severed Earth From Sky is about myth seen thorugh the lens of cognitive psychology. In another words, mythology sticks in our heads because of the way our brains work.

Start with a couple of simple assumptions. A pre-literate society only knows what it's members can remember, so important information has to be passed on in memorable ways. A story is more memorable than a list of observations. A wild story is more memorable than an everyday one.

We all know that some myths are attempts to explain natural events. I remember at age 10 reading in D'aulaire's wonderful book of Greek myths that Hephaestus, the god of blacksmiths had a foundry under Mount Aetna. Nobody had to tell me that was an attempt to explain a volcano.

But what the Barbers emphasize is that these explanations are not silly. Humans are hardwired to try to understand their surroundings and, lacking scientific tools or theories, they worked with what they understood: Willfullness. If something happened, someOne caused it to happen.

In fact, mythology turns out to be embarassingly full of volcanos when you start looking for them. (One-eyed giants who throw mountaintops, monsters with snake-like hair that turn men to stone, etc.).

The Barbers offer about forty principles for examining myths (and repeat them in a convenient appendix). I pick one at random: "If certain events are not understood, according to already known ("natural") principles, they must be un-understandable - that is, "super-natural" - and there is no point in trying to understand them." They drily call this one the "UFO Corollary."

The Barbers' tools are powerful enough that they can make and test predictions. For example, they look at an old story related in Homer about many of the gods coming together for an event, and they conclude that it represents an unusual alignments of the planets who bear the names of those gods. Using planetarium software they went searching for that alignment and found it in February 1923 B.C. - one thousand years before Homer. Apparently myths can carry information for a long time.

As the above indicates the Barbers have a lot to say about myths and the stars. They argue that the flood stories found in many parts of the world are actually about the ocean above us and represent the precession - movement of the sun in the Zodiac over thousands of years, with each shift being the creation of a "new world." They don't mention that the Navahos, far from any ocean, nonetheless have a story of their ancesters moving to new worlds three times. A different mnemonic for the same observation?

In this book you will discover why Prometheus and Loki are both chained to rocks by the gods, why in Andean flood tales the fox gets his tail wet, and what dragons really look like. I highly recommend it.

Autumn haiku

2009-10-15T21:25:00.001-07:00

2008-06-24 Regent's Park, Crow Eating 03
Originally uploaded by that_james

I saw a robin
Screaming at a crow that ate
roadkill, the bird's mate.

People on the highway

2009-10-13T19:14:00.001-07:00

I bought a double CD called Light Flight: The Anthology, by Pentangle. They were a great British fock-rock (or folk-jazz) group. The album consists of songs from 5 LPs (one double) they made in the sixties and seventies. And it's pretty good.

But what amused me is that in the liner notes they casually mention that after leaving this record company they went on to make one more album, which is not included on this CD. That album was Solomon's Seal, and leaving it out is like saying "we decided not to include anything in this Beatles anthology after Sergeant Pepper." A little eccentric. Among the missing are: "Willy of Winsbury," "The Snows," "Sally Free and Easy," and don't forget this little number...

The Log Driver's Waltz

2009-07-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

This is cool. The National Film Board of Canada has just made hundreds of their films available for free on the web. Go to http://www.nfb.ca/

As an example, here is a cartoon based on the classic song written by Wade Hemsworth.

Madrona

2009-07-19T16:36:00.001-07:00

Madrona amidst the firs
Originally uploaded by wplynn

I recently spent a week in Port Townsend on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. It is a beautiful place but I find that one of the things I look forward to most are the Madrona trees. They shed their bark year round and the wood underneath is a shockingly bright red. Always grow near salt water and seem to prefer growing on stone.

In Canada and Britain the tree is called Arbutus. Paddy Graber has a wonderful song he learned in Ireland as a boy about a princess named Arbutus who is forced to remove her brown dress "but before its hem could touch the ground, she had turned into a tree." Gordon Bok does a gorgeous version of the song on his album Return To The Land.

photo by wplynn

Summer Haiku

2009-07-19T10:48:00.001-07:00

Sweet Juicy Peaches
Originally uploaded by Mustangaly911

Fruit in my garden
Growing strangely incomplete.
Where are the stickers?

photo by mustangaly911

I'm changing my name to Fannie Mae

2009-07-18T21:26:00.001-07:00

One of the weird things about being Tom Paxton is that after over 40 years of writing topical songs he doesn't need to write new songs, just dust off old ones and bring them up to date. A couple of years ago he changed "Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation" to "George W. Told The Nation." Now here's a new transformation.

After the "United Breaks Guitars" video went viral I was reminded of Ton's song on the same subject, "Thank You, Republic Airlines." I went looking for him on Youtube and found his remake of his own "I'm Changing My Name To Chrysler." Remarkably, the new lyrics are even more clever than the old.

Sing For The Song, Boy

2009-07-13T15:28:00.000-07:00

I thought of Bob Gibson yesterday for the first time in years. I had never heard of him until one day around 1980 when we went into Greenwich Village to see Tom Paxton. Out came the opening act: a plump, fifty-ish guy in a jacket and tie. He solemnly placed the jacket on a chair, picked up a guitar, and sang: "Yes, Mr. Rogers, I'm living in sin with your daughter..." and he owned the room.

Everybody in the folk movement borrowed from Gibson. With (Bob) Hamilton Camp he made some of the coolest albums in folk. He discovered Joan Baez (which he said was like trying to take credit for discovering the Grand Canyon...SOMEONE was going to notice it); he tried to talk Phil Ochs out of writing political stuff and Ochs took the tune he played as he talked and wrote "One More Parade." He was probably the best interpreter of Shel Silverstein songs (LIke Yes, Mr Rogers, and the Gibson-inspired "LIving Legend").

Can't find either of those on Youtube, so here he is with Gibson and Camp on what looks like a cable access show, doing a Silverstien classic. Great harmonies.

64 years on the job

2009-06-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

Virginia Saunders died in her sleep last night. She had recently completed her 64th year in federal service. Hired by the FBI as a clerk/typist in 1945, she moved to the Government Printing Office a year later. For the last forty years - I'll repeat that - forty years, she has been the person responsible for compiling the Congressional Serial Set. Take a look at this video the GPO put together. The best part is at 4 minutes, when they explain how she won an award for saving the taxpayers more than $600,000 with a single suggestion.

I Don't Get It

2009-06-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

The comic strip 9 Chickweed Lane is occasionally funny. It's mostly about relationships and cats. For the last weeks it has been about God telling a former nun that her unborn child is going to be a giant cockroach. Is somebody off their meds or have I lost my sense of humor? This arc reads like something from the alternative weekly.

Any little boy's grandfather can be president of the United States

2009-05-31T15:04:00.001-07:00

Harry S. Truman
Originally uploaded by alfromelkhorn

I have been reading the Spring 2009 issue of Prologue, the magazine of the National Archives. The issue is dedicated to Harry S Truman on his 125 birthday. One article is written by Clifton Truman Daniel and the title of this blog entry is what his mother Margaret told him when, at age 6, he finally discovered what his grandfather did before he retired. His folks were afraid he would get a swelled head, you see.

Mr. Daniel explains that when he and his brother were 4 and 2 years old they would try to avoid their grandfather in the morning because if he caught them on their way to watch TV he would read them Thucydides.

Fun article.

Taylor Dock

2009-05-27T20:08:00.001-07:00

Taylor Dock, Fairhaven - Bellingham Bay, WA Summer 2008
Originally uploaded by andorasredroom

My last entry found me riding my bike on Taylor Dock. Here is a photo of part of it. This wooden trail connects Boulevard Park near downtown Bellingham, with Fairhaven, Bellingham's southwest corner. It is a new addition to the Bay, and gets a lot of use. Last fall I saw a group of teenage boys riding their bikes down that incline you see, riding up onto an inclined board and somersaulting into the freezing water - with their bicycles.

I didn't join them.

Thanks to Andorasredroom for the photo.

Sunbow Warrior

2009-05-27T20:03:00.001-07:00

The sunbow ring!
Originally uploaded by British Mac

On Monday I was riding my bike along Taylor Dock (see next entry) and renewing my love of Bellingham, when I looked out over the Bay and saw a sunbow. I didn't have a camera but this photo by British Mac tells you pretty much what I saw.

As I rode along the Dock I said to each person I passed "See the Sunbow?" and pointed. Some ignored me. Some looked like I was trying to sell them a bridge. But some looked up and said "Where is it - ohm my gosh!" or words to that effect.

So there I went along the wooden road, a meteorological messenger. "Have you seen the sunbow? See the sunbow?"

Digester's Reader

2009-05-26T11:30:00.001-07:00

A Clockwork Orange edible book
Originally uploaded by Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

This is a new one on me. Some libraries have been having Edible Book contests. For example, this is A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by
Jeanne Mithen, from the 2007 contest atTopeka and Shawnee County Public Library.

I discovered this when I came across the 2009 contest at Staley Library of Millikin University. I can't copy their pictures here easily but go look at them, especially Eric McKinney's little masterpiece.

Three Men in a Boat

2009-05-03T12:53:00.001-07:00

Three Men in a Boat
Originally uploaded by think_ram

Ever read Jerome K. Jerome's masterpiece THREE MEN IN A BOAT? An utterly trivial comic novel about three young Englishmen traveling up the Thames. You have certainly heard one line from it: "Work fascinates me. I can sit and watch it for hours."

Back in 1975 it was made into a tv movie in Britain, starring Michael Pailn and Tim Curry, with a very faithful script by Tom Stoppard. As far as I know the thing has never been available on video or DVD in the US.

However, someone has just put chunks of it up on Youtube starting here. Unfortunately it won't let me embed it on my page so you will have to go there to see it.

Hallelujah

2009-04-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

One night last week I was sitting in front of my computer, too tired to do anything useful, so I went to Youtube and typed in "Hallelujah." Started checking out versions of Leonard Cohen's masterpiece. Jeff Buckley's is stunning. Rufus Wainwright's is beautiful, although he insists on losing the rhymes for the hook. I had never heard the John Cale recording before, and that was amazing (piano, fiddle, cello).

There's also a young woman named Alyssa Bernal who was a surprise. At a glance I assumed that she had acheived her popularity on her looks (sexist? I suppose, but listen/look at some of our other currently singers, make and female) . Turns out she has a great voice. On the other end of the scale we have Dylan's recording, which was not so impressive.

This all popped into my head because I happened to see a review of the movie Watchmen (which I haven't seen), by Marvin Olasky in a Christian magazine in which he complains that "It's pornographic in part, most obnoxiously in a sex scene that uses Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" as sacrilegious musical background."

My question is, does Olasky think Cohen's song is sacriligious, or is it just the use of it in a sex scene that he finds to be so? If the former, I'll grant him his opinon. If the latter, I think he's missing the point of the song, which seems to be about the spirituality of lust.

I may have missed one, but I don't think any recordings on Youtube included the last verse, which Cohen sang a live recording. It has the to-die-for line "I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch."

Watching the piano versions where Cale and Wainwright pour out endless sets of triplets I was thinking: Hmm, some Celtic band ought to record it as a jig. 6/8 time. Wouldn't that annoy people?

Here is Mr. Cale's version.

ceremonial cabbage

2009-04-27T20:30:00.001-07:00

cabbage
Originally uploaded by djflowerz

The first Saturday in April, the 4th, was cool but beautiful in Bellingham, Wa. We made sure to be downtown before 10 AM for the annual opening of the farmer's market in the City of Subdued Excitement. I was there with someone who recently moved to town so I made sure she had a good view as Mayor Dan Pike officially opened the year by throwing out the ceremonial First Cabbage to the young daughter of one of the vendors.

As people applauded I told the newcomer. "Well, that's it. The highlight of the year in Bellingham."

A woman nearby nodded her head solemnly. "Subdued excitement."

Stodghill

2009-02-16T11:24:00.001-08:00

World War II
Originally uploaded by Paperback_Writer

Dick Stodghill is a terrific mystery writer. His stories about depression-era Akron appear not often enough in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. I just read his blog entry about returning from World War II. It is sad, hilarious, and instructive.

He uttered the stock answer given by all government clerks: "That's your problem."

Treat yourself.

Earthquake Lessons

2008-12-23T10:10:00.001-08:00

Loma Preita earthquake,San Francisco 1989
Originally uploaded by km6xo

Photo by km6xo.

Stumbling down my hilly street after a snowstorm today I started thinking about earthquakes. Not that I am expecting one, but all emergencies have certain things in common.

Stewart Brand created the Whole Earth Catalog and Whole Earth Review - essentially creating an empire on the concept of "Access To Tools." When the Loma Prieta earthquake struck he was in the Marina district of San Francisco. He parked his car and ran off to help - leaving all of his valuable equipment in the trunk. So much for access to tools.

Afterwards, everyone rushed to congratulate and reward heroic rescuers like Brand but, he noticed, no one asked them what they had learned from the experience.

So he did ask and the results were the best article I ever read in Whole Earth Review. I am pleased but not surprised to see that it is available on the web.

If you don't have time to read the whole article, flip to the last page where the lessons are summarized. It could save your life, or help you save someone else's. As I suggested, some of them apply to any emergency. For example:

• Give people who are trapped all the information you’ve got, and enlist their help. Treat them not as helpless victims but as an exceptionally motivated part of the rescue team.
• Most action in a disaster is imitative. Most effective leadership is by example.
• Bystanders make the convenient assumption that everything is being taken care of by the people already helping. That’s seldom accurate.
• Collect tools!

Atlas of True Names

2008-12-05T09:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is brilliant and I need one immediately. If the names on the map above look a little odd it is because this is from the Atlas of True Names, an etymological guide to place names. For example, the name New York means New Wild Boar Village. As several people have commented, the names in Europe sound remarkably like they come from Middle Earth.

The two Atlases (World and Europe) haven't been published in the U.S. (United States of the Home Ruler) yet. I want 'em.

Thanks to the Map Room for pointing this out and Spiegel for the illustration.

All Birds Can dance

2008-11-16T11:29:00.001-08:00

Bird dance instructions
Originally uploaded by nature_photonutt

Photo by nature_photonutt

All Birds Can dance. Even falcons get hula instruction. Juvenile kiwis love mazurkas; night owls prefer quieter rhythms. Strutting turkeys use Vienna waltzes (xenophilious, yet zippy.)

Did she really say that?

2008-11-01T08:38:00.001-07:00

Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska
Originally uploaded by J Medkeff

Photo by J Medkeff

This is not a political blog. But please, somebody, tell me that Sarah Palin, a major party candidate for Vice President of the United States, does NOT think the First Amendment protects politicians from being criticized by reporters.

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

-Sarah Palin, October 31, 2008

The Deportees

2008-10-30T20:09:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by verbavolant

Photo by Verbavolent

Just finished a book by one of my favorite authors, Roddy Doyle. If you haven’t heard of him, you may have seen the film based on his first novel, The Commitments. His The Woman Who Walked Into Doors is a masterpiece and the sequel, Paula Spencer, ain't bad either.

This new book, The Deportees, is a collection of short stories about the wave of immigration that hit Ireland in the last ten years as the Celtic Tiger suddenly found itself in a bath of unexpected wealth. Doyle wrote the stories for a newspaper run by two Nigerian immigrants, so he set himself the additional challenge of creating them in 800 word chapters.

There are funny stories, and serious ones (and even a ghost story). The title story is a sequel of sorts to The Commitments in which Jimmy Rabbitte the manager starts another band, made up of only immigrants. “No white Irish need apply,” he writes in the ad, with no irony.

“Home to Harlem” is about a young Irish man with an African-American grandfather who gets disgusted with what he sees as his countrymen’s smugness about their culture and decides to prove that the great Celtic writers were influenced by the Harlem Renaissance.

And, if he couldn’t do it, he’d cheat; he’d make it up. Yeats had died clutching his copy of THE NEW NEGRO. Beckett never went to the jacks without THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLKS under his arm.

But my favorite story is “57% Irish,” about a young man with a half-baked scheme to measure how Irish a person is by measuring their physical reactions to a famous soccer goal. “He’d written his conclusions monhs ago; he was just rounding off the numbers now, picking his evidence.”

When the government hears about his work they hire him to adapt it for use in deciding which immigrants get citizenship – and they want to cook the results.
Our hero has a personal stake in immigration. His ex-girlfriend, Stalin, is Russian. “Stalin wasn’t his girlfriend’s real name, just her temperament.”

Doyle is often funny and sad at the same time. At one point this story made me laugh at loud. And then I took a look at the phrase in question: “the poor man’s suicide.” And that is not a metaphor, like “opium of the masses,” it refers to a character’s death, but it cracked me up. Amazing writer.

One note. The book is full of what an American character calls “The Irish and their famous profanity.” She is promptly given a verbal slapdown for stereotyping, but be aware that the language is rough.

Not Crying Over Sour Milk

2008-10-26T20:37:00.001-07:00

Yogourmet
Originally uploaded by pwenzel

Photo by Pwenzel

When we got married one of our wedding presents was a yogurt maker. It came with four heavy plastic cups. You poured in the milk and starter and after about six hours you had four cups of yogurt that tasted better than anything commercially available.

Nice stuff, but fussing with those cups was too much trouble. When the machine busted we didn't bother replacing it.

But lately I have had a craving for the real stuff, homemade yogurt. Somebody, I figured, must be making a machine that makes a quart or more at once.

A year of looking didn't come up with anything that looked practical. Then, about a month ago I found a Yogourmet model on the shelf at the Bellingham Community Food Coop. The box said it makes one or two quarts in about five hours.

And guess what? It works.

They want you to buy their starter, which is pretty expensive - about ten bucks to make six quarts. But after we got a good batch (our second try) we saved a cup in the fridge and used it to start the next batch. So far, that has been working fine. We also find that since we use low fat milk we have to add milk solids.

For many years my standard breakfast has been Rainforest Granola and Stonyfield Farms nonfat French vanilla yogurt (no longer available in Bellingham, alas). The homemade yogurt is so good I put it on the granola plain, no sweetener, no flavor needed.

Yogourmet. At my house, it's what's for breakfast.