A speculative mind

  When we were kids, we used to talk about digging a hole all the way to China. In my teens the movie The China Syndrome came out. The title comes from a hyperbolic story that if a nuclear meltdown occurs, the reactor contents could melt through the Earth all the way to China. This is clearly a fanciful notion because even if it could melt all the way through the Earth, it would only fall down to the center. It would not start falling up to China. But China is the bigger problem. The point on the opposite side of the Earth from where you are standing is called the antipodes. The antipodal point for almost anywhere in North America would be in the Indian Ocean. And since North America is in the Northern hemisphere, our antipode would be in the southern hemisphere, somewhere between the southern tip of Africa and the southern tip of Australia, and there is a lot of open ocean between those two points. Since humans live on land, we tend to be prejudiced toward land. We tend to think...

  When we take a drink of water, we trust that the water service people are doing their job so we won’t get sick. When we push the button on an elevator, we trust that it has been well maintained so we won’t go crashing to the ground. When we call 911, we trust that the dispatchers and emergency responders will do their job and help is on the way. Some of these things we don’t even think about, we just unconsciously trust. We don’t ask if the air traffic controller is a Republican or a Democrat, a Buddhist or a Muslem, white or black. We don’t think about it. We just trust them to do their job. Without trust, there is no society, there is no civilization. We would all be huddled in our caves guarding what we have with clubs. But trust seems to be in some danger. For the past few years, the tides have been not so gently eroding away the bank of trust. Trust used to be harder to break. Before the internet, before social media, if you wanted to break down trust in an institution o...

  The Midnight Dolls by Zoe Partyka is a love letter to music. Set in the early 1970’s we have a young reporter following a band on tour and "The Midnight Dolls" is the name of the band. If it sounds like the plot of the movie Almost famous, it is true that it does have a similar basic premise. But the novel takes us down the rabbit hole of insecurity. We see rock stars who seem to have everything, but they cannot manage without crutches, be those crutches alcohol, pills or adoration. It is not just the band members who have issues. Our narrator the reporter is full of self-doubt and has his own crutches. Rock stars doing drugs. Heard it all before? Perhaps, but the reporter and we, the audience, begin to see the band members as real people in a way that their fans never can. There is a drive to perform for people. If you have experienced it, you know what I mean. I have performed on stage as an actor, not a musician, but I know a little bit about wanting to share your ar...

  I am one of those nameless, faceless bureaucrats. Yes, that is my job. Though I actually have a name; I even am rumored to have a face. Bureau is the French word for desk, so you could say bureaucrats are “desk people.” In short, I work for the government. I sometimes have to deliver unpleasant news to a taxpayer. I sometimes have to tell them that the deed they recorded won’t work and they will have to record another one with corrections. Or we can’t process their deed until they pay their taxes. I can understand why some of these things upset people. The thing is, we don’t decide these things. It is not the bureaucrats that make the laws. The legislature writes the laws. We are required to follow the law.   If you are going to get mad at someone, get mad at the legislature. Or maybe get mad at the voters who voted the legislature in (That’s you, by the way). The same thing happens when the voters vote in a new district, or vote for a bond, or a new operating levy for an ...

  E pluribus unum was the unofficial motto of the United States of America since its founding, and even before its founding. It was approved to be included on the Great Seal of the United States by Congress in 1782. Ever since it has appeared on many US coins. The Latin phrase e pluribus unum translates to: “out of many, one.” It is intended to put forth the ideal that even though we are many different kinds of people, we are one people. We are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and independents, but we are one people: e pluribus unum. We are White, Black, Native American, Asian, Hispanic, and many more, but we are one: e pluribus unum. We are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, and all the rest. But we are one: e pluribus unum. This is of course the ideal. In the modern world we are factioned and fractured. Sometimes it is hard to imagine that we could ever come together and agree on anything. Sadly, my country is not alone in this. Many countri...

  The Dutch House is a novel that is “not.” It is not a love story. It is not a mystery. It is not a thriller. It is not an allegory. It is not a cautionary tale. It is a story about a family. For all the things it is not, it is a story the gets you invested in the characters. It is mainly about the narrator, Danny, and his sister Maeve (they are of Irish descent, not Dutch).  A rich cast of characters and chaos revolve around these two, but they are the focus. Were these two siblings fortunate or unfortunate in their lives? No spoilers here. That may be up to the reader to decide. Good things happen to them as well as bad. They were born into wealth as evidenced by the grand Dutch house of the title, where they lived. The house in Pennsylvania, was built by a rich Dutch family who had eventually fallen on hard times. After the last of the Dutch family had died, Danny’s father was able to acquire the house at a ridiculously low price. He was proud of his acquisition, bu...

  Last week I reviewed Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It stirred up memories from my childhood when I, like the characters in the book, was hooked on horror movies. I may have mentioned this before, but I was a bit of a nerd as a kid. One of the ways this nerdom expressed itself was in the watching of old sci-fi or horror films. Not the newer ones with blood and gore splashed all over the screen, but we are talking about the films of the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and even some of the 60’s. Frankenstein , the Wolfman , The Mummy , Godzilla , the Hammer films, etal. Every Saturday night at 11:30, I would watch a broadcast from Portland called Sinister Cinema . There you would find such classic old movies, along with not-so-classic movies, some of which were so bad that they were good. The show was hosted by Victor Ives, with an assist from a character named Ravenscroft who never spoke but looked like some sort of Igor inspired thing. Also, there was a character called Head, who w...