It’s so nice to have a dog around the house.
Three years ago today, Terry and I rescued Lexy from a shelter in Parsons, Kansas.
She’s ready for her closeup now:
She’s a little greyer on her muzzle, but she still bullies Porthos (who outweights her by almost 20 pounds) and keeps him in line.
We’re so happy she’s still with us and had a clean bill of health from the vet just last week.
Under the headline “Whatever Happened to Religious Freedom?” Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute opined, “When cake bakers and others are fined for adhering to their beliefs about same-sex marriage, a new kind of discrimination is upon us.”
The problem partly is that no one seems to practice tolerance any more. Old-fashioned tolerance was a “live and let live” thing. New tolerance is “you must endorse my opinion/life style” thing.
We may soon see cases making that of the Oregon bakers fined for discrimination to look mild. Some in the LGBT movement are already pressing for churches to lose their tax-exempt status if they do not perform same-sex marriages. On the other hand, some wish to deny now-mandatory government services (issuance of marriage licenses) based on the personal belief of whichever clerk happens to be at the window. Clearly, both are wrong.
Don’t look for help from the Supreme Court. They can tell us what’s legal, not what’s fair or equitable. It’s best if we work out what’s right in an open, un-coerced market place for ideas. Something America used to excel at.
No one likes being discriminated against, but also no one like being forced to abandon deeply held religious beliefs. If we cannot find an agreeable middle ground, we will soon have a situation no one likes.
Book Review: Rules of Murder by Julianna Deering
A pleasant period piece of an English murder mystery set in the 1930s. Deering, a pen name for Deanna Julie Dodson, turns many classic mystery conventions on their head as her idle, rich protagonist is drawn into investigating the mysterious deaths of several people near and dear and a few almost strangers. In the process he finds romance and a spiritual anchor in the American niece of his step-father.
Mysteries are not my cup of tea, so I can’t be expected to understand all Deering did to craft this mystery, but I can appreciate her intricate plot and attempts at setting the scene eighty years ago.
That said, the tone was slightly off; it sounds like England as experienced by PBS mini-series. For example, the colloquialisms sound forced. English, especially English men, seldom refer to their car as a 1923 Rolls Royce. Model, presumably Sliver Ghost, rather than year of manufacture is the typical referent. Too many modified adverbs: perfectly, unselfconsciously, and unsuitably.
Nice cover art.
A worthy effort.
Book Review: The Red Thumb Mark by R. Austin Freeman
Sherlock Holmes meets Perry Mason meets SCI. Interesting rip off of the Sherlock Holmes genre. Since Freeman wrote the Thorndyke mysteries while Arthur Conan Doyle still churned out Holmes mysteries, the derivative nature of his stories would have been that much more obvious to readers.
Unlike Holmes, Thorndyke is presented as a medical doctor and scientific mind, but many of the trappings of the tale parallel Holmes stories including the dense biographer. This particular volume is additionally burdened with a soporific court scene.
That said, the scientific background for this 1907 story, including its critique of the uncorroborated use of figure prints, will entertain modern readers.
An interesting read.
I liked the classical music in the score. And Maleficent’s minions. And I got sooo anger at the three stupid fairy godmothers who messed everything up. I’m over it now, but … .
An excellent analysis of one of my favorite Disney classics, Sleeping Beauty, posted at Tor.com and authored by Mari Ness.
Some interesting tidbits:
Book Review: The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories by Connie Willis
Connie Willis is something of a one-trick pony. She does her trick very well, but the shallowness of her style shouts when a dozen of her short stories are lumped together, as here. Especially when some are poor enough that they’d probably never see publication except in such an anthology. 700 pages of it.
As her readers know, Willis is fascinated with London during the Blitz. That is represented here, but she ranges far across the globe to present the usual suspects—late, lazy, lost or looney—fighting their own attention deficit and (usually) an impersonal bureaucracy or just the dead hand of the past to fulfill some (usually) mundane, but existentially significant to them, task. And driving themselves (and the reader) crazy in the process.
Few of these stories involve time travel: the staple of many of her books.
A better example of Willis’ style and single trick is Doomsday Book. That book has a soul which many of these stories lack. If you’ve never read Willis before, start with Doomsday Book.
Skip this collection.
For those paying attention, which few Americans are, the nuclear talks with Iran are following the typical “rug buying” format I discussed earlier.
At each juncture, the Iranians demand (and get) new concessions to achieve what we naively think is the final deal. No, it’s just the starting point for the next round of negotiations, at which they will seek more concessions.
They’re very good at it—been practicing for thousands of years. They do not see it as bad faith; that’s just how bargaining is done in the Middle East.
We, on the other hand, are fools.
An older F-16 would beat an F-35 in a dogfight? Ignoring for the moment that no modern aircraft should ever get into a dogfight, that’s pretty poor.
This is also the aircraft which does poorer close air support than the A-10, which it is also to replace.
See the trend? When you try to get one plane to do it all—oh, and take off vertically—you end up with an Edsel. Please excuse the antiquated reference, but Ford knew the Edsel was a loser before they offered them and offered them anyway.
What’s DoD’s excuse? Politics? What happened to principles? What happened to serving country, not career?
Several somebodies ought to be fired, instead they’ll be awarded, promoted and given bigger programs to screw up.
(Lest you think the author a crank, he’s a retired Air Force colonel who performed and co-wrote the maintenance portion of the initial operational test and evaluation of the F-15 Eagle in 1976. And he’s a crank. He thinks the DoD should focus more on defending the country and less on politics.)
Book Review: To Stand or Fall by John Scalzi.
Disappointing. Oh, it’s good and I liked it, but I expected better. It’s all so predictable. In fact, even the writing has a dashed-off feel. Not the sly wit and plot twists one expects of John Scalzi. No battles, no conflict (really), just lots of talking.
This novella concludes Scalzi’s great work: The End of All Things. He told us in advance that he’d grown tired of the Old Man’s War universe and would write no more in it after this. This volume lowers readers’ expectations enough that he doesn’t need to worry about popular demand. A more effective way to kill a series than Arthur Conan Doyle’s approach.
Still, it’s a good read, if a bit of a yawner.
As a Matter of Fancy 