Bits and Pieces

Learn How to Read!

2016-01-31T22:39:00.000-08:00

Call the number on your TV.

USA Today article about teachers being taught outdated methods for teaching students how to read. These obsolete methods include memorizing and learning how a word or sentence relates to the context of the the whole text.

USA Today says that out of 75 colleges, "Monday's study finds that only 11 colleges currently teach teachers about all five so-called scientific components of reading, which dictate that students should learn reading through phonics, vocabulary and similar means. "

Phonics is wonderful for vocalizing parts of written text that correspond to common pronunciation patterns, but I'm not sure what exactly that has to do with learning what the written text is trying to state. My belief is that when learning a language it is best to treat the written part of the language as being separate from the spoken language. Of course, there are similarities, but often the two may not have much in common. Don't sweat the odd words that get mispronounced, what is more important is what it means.

A linguistic professor once showed how most people are unaware of how their spoken patterns differ from what they they write down. In fact many people get upset or mad when they find out how they pronounce or construct sentence has little bearing on how they write.

USATODAY.com - Teachers learn dated methods: "Teachers learn dated methods"

Arthur Lane 1916-2015

2015-11-12T23:29:00.001-08:00

Arthur Lane, 1916-2015. Fencing Teacher of the Highest Order

Only recently learned that Arthur died last July peacefully in his sleep at home in Berkeley, Ca. A graduate of UC Berkeley, US Army officer in WWII, and lifelong practitioner of the fencing arts, Arthur was a living institution and a link to a golden era of fencing. Arthur studied under Eric Funke in Berkeley and San Francisco, fenced competitions at Eduardo Visconti's club in North Beach, helped Han Halberstadt move into his salle, and sparred with Helene Mayer. After the war Arthur moved down to Los Angeles and studied under Aldo Nadi and Ralph Faulkner. (If you look closely, you can see Arthur as a stunt double in Scaramouche.) Back in the Bay Area, Arthur established his own fencing school, the Fencing Guild, in the 50s, coached at UC Berkeley, and turned out many notable students, including Ursula K. Le Guin and Tommy Angell. Arthur took time off from fencing to raise a family and worked as a researcher in an institute that studied on China. After retirement, he returned to teaching fencing at the Pacific Fencing Club, Oakland Daggers, and was a beloved coach at College Prepatory School in Oakland, where he retired nine years ago, making him the oldest PE teacher in California. Arthur stressed fencing excellence and versatility and was masterful in his patient guidance. He will be missed by all who knew him, and his family, son Bruce and daughter Maya, and seven nieces and nephews.

Distant Politicans

2015-05-09T11:11:00.002-07:00

A Facebook post pointed out that our political leaders were distant figures. The truth is politicians are surprisingly easy to meet since they need not only votes, but the volunteers and monetary contributions to get them. Many of the politicians are people persons, energized and delighted to be in crowds, and the more successful ones have no small sense of charisma and charm. The gateway to getting to know them are the civic groups and more mainstream activist leagues. I went to an Italian-American gala in San Jose and met a county leader, who was one of the sponsors. He and I were not Italian-American, and I did not live in Santa Clara county, but I still got postcards and invitations for years from both him and the group. I worked a phone bank for a state legislator, who later became Berkeley mayor, and I had some interesting conversations at receptions with other politicians, including the congressional representative and a superior court judge. These days, though, I am very careful not to leave my contact information at gatherings and caucuses.

Dannie Martin 1939-2013

2014-01-01T19:20:00.003-08:00

Obit for for former Chronicle columnist and bank robber Dannie "Red Hog" Martin at http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Dannie-Martin-dies-bank-robber-wrote-of-prison-5105636.php . Mr. Martin penned wry and emotionally honest descriptions about life in the federal prison system. His experience in federal facilities spanned the past era of relatively few, but violent prisoners, and the present reality of record breaking incarcerations, Mr. Martin observed that after an extended absence from the penitentiary that there had been three major changes:
1) Prisoners who would've gone to psychiatric hospital were now part of the general population.
2) There was more interaction between prisoners and custodial officers, unthinkable before.
3) Perhaps even the most shocking, Mr. Martin was dismayed to find that younger prisoners did not mind working in the prison. Mr. Martin firmly believed that the whole point of being a criminal was not to engage in honest labor.

In addition Mr. Martin was one of the earliest heroin addicts to have been prescribed buprenorphine and found the drug enabled him to kick opiates for good. A column about his experience with buprenorphine can be found at http://www.alternet.org/story/15998/buprenorphine_saved_my_health_and_maybe_a_few_banks . Mr. Martin believed that reducing bank robberies had to start by reducing the number of addicts.

Helene Mayer and Arthur "Art" Lane

2012-10-14T00:28:00.000-07:00

Future fencing master Arthur Lane and world champion fencer Helene Mayer taking a break from fencing to pose for a photo. This photo was taken in 1946 when Art Lane came back home from the war (note his army uniform pants and shoes), and stopped by Hans Halberstadt's club in the Marina District in San Francisco. Helene Mayer, like Halberstadt, was also from Offenbach am Main, and after Hitler had taken over Germany, had settled in the Bay Area and was a regular visitor to Halberstadt's place. Art maintains that Halberstadt, a WWI officer who survived four years of trench warfare, had passed on his fighting instincts and skills to the young Mayer. Incidentally, on the wall top center is some type of Wilhelminian portrait: Halberstadt felt that his fencing space was a vestige of Imperial Germany and was nostalgic for the nation that had awarded him the Iron Cross. In Halberstadt's mind, the old era of Bismarck and the Kaiser had nothing to do with the Germany that had tossed him into Dachau. For reasons never fully explained, Helene Mayer, who by the standards of the Nuremberg Laws was Jewish, fenced for the Nazis in the Berlin, 1936 Olympics and returned to the U.S. After the war, Mayer went back to Germany and died there in 1952. Halberstadt preferred to stay in San Francisco where died in 1965. Halberstadt taught fencing and ran a fencing supply business that evolved into American Fencers Supply. Although Halberstadt lived under considerably reduced, one could even say impoverished, circumstances compared to his pre-war life, Halberstadt decided that he could maintain his fencing lifestyle by staying single, living in his club, and making use of the plum tree in the back. Art Lane eventually retired from fencing in 2008 and lived in Berkeley until he died in 2015.

Fencing Vs. Beach Volleyball

2012-07-28T19:42:00.003-07:00

On Yahoo Sport, Christopher Beheler writes:

Misty-May Treaenor and Karri Walsh center. (Photo courtesy NY Daily News)

NBC and its associated networks will have limited coverage of fencing during the 2012 Olympics. MSNBC will cover women's fencing events on July 28 and Aug. 1.

To put it into perspective, fencing will have 2 1/2 hours of dedicated television time for the entirety of the Olympics. Meanwhile, beach volleyball will have four hours of dedicated programming on opening day alone.

In that 2 1/2 hours of coverage, NBC will not be focusing on a single men's event.

Team USA Epee-2012 World Champions (Photo: Nicole Jamantas)

NBC and its associated networks will have limited coverage of fencing during the 2012 Olympics. MSNBC will cover women's fencing events on July 28 and Aug. 1.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/2012-olympic-fencing-nbc-snubs-mens-fencing-195200621--oly.html

The Unsinkable Middle Class?

2012-01-03T23:56:00.000-08:00

Finally working my way down the magazine pile. The Atlantic's September, 2011, cover article painted a grim picture of the American middle class. Essentially, Don Peck writes that the lack of good paying manufacturing and other middle skilled jobs is pushing the non-college educated American middle class into the shark infested waters of the unskilled underclass. The article tries to offer a way out, but it's a hope vaguely pinned on waiting for the next big thing and more taxes for education. (When I hear this, my question is what should one study? The article correctly points out that tech manufacturing instead of gaining 150,000 jobs as predicted by the government in the 90s actually lost 500,000. While careers in the health care field seems like a sure thing, this is only if managed health care, with its subsequent consolidation of health providers, doesn't come back.)

However, what I found very disturbing was the ad on the back cover: it seems the mighty resources of Goldman-Sachs had built a college basketball venue in Louisville, which resulted in creating a job of a most decidedly non-middle class sort, that of a waitress, one dressed more like a construction worker than a celebrity chef. So the back cover's answer to the front cover's question, "Can the Middle Class be Saved?" seems to be no.

Tommy Revisited

2011-06-18T01:13:00.000-07:00

Recently saw the Tommy movie this evening, and I am reminded why I didn't like it:

Ken Russell represents everything that is bad about the 70s.
Tommy worked better in the abstract: the scenes where Tommy is tortured, drugged, and molested are horrifying.
The album was set post WW1, which gave it some distance from contemporary society, but still attached it to an era of disruptive change.
Ann Margaret, the mother, is about Roger Daltry's age: the beach scene is creepy.
Speaking of Ann Margaret, the Who performed Tommy at Woodstock with Hendrix and Janis, and Ann Margaret performed with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas: there's an insurmountable culture gap that leaves the movie looking for an audience.
One improvement over the album was having the mother's boyfriend kill the father.

A Plastron Ripper

2011-05-07T02:11:00.000-07:00

A novel from the Victorian era, which featured a lady fencer accomplished in the parries of quarte, tierce, and flirt. And how did the mid-19th century perceive the female foilist?

"Never had Muriel appeared more fascinating than in this attire which showed full perfection of a form straight supple tall and strong every rounded outline was elegance and whose free was harmonized in grace and beauty."
--From Harrington: A Story of True Love by William Douglas O'Conner, p.232

Senioritis

2011-04-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

One of the stranger effects of the recession has been decreased crime (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1963761,00.html), almost to the 1950s levels; supposedly crime follows poverty, and the U.S. poverty rate is at 14.3% about the 1994 level, and is actually lower than the early 80s, when crime was a national concern. (The present poverty rate is still much lower the 23% rate of 1959, a supposed golden era of harmony and low crime. Another bright spot is the that the poverty rate among seniors has decreased (http://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-10-2010/seniors_are_not_on_easy_street_expert_says.html).

The Wall Street Journal is worried that seniors may outlive their savings, especially if they have their funds in near 0 interest bearing CDs. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703410604576216830941163492.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop). The Journal even found a 91 year old retiree who personifies the IRS 97 year IRA payout schedule. With the interest rates low, seniors are having problems paying their $4,000 annual golf club memberships. Are things so bleak for seniors? I don't think so. With their considerable political clout, not to mention mediagenic looks, seniors, who on the whole have been largest beneficiary of the War on Poverty, should be able to weather this recession out.

Ion Drimba - Fencing Olympic Champion Mexico 1968

2011-03-22T00:38:00.000-07:00

A 15 second clip showing Ion Drimba's (1942 - 2006) winning form at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Drimba was once asked why he never parried. Drimba was astonished at the question and replied that parries were dangerous, suppose one missed? Drimba's first touch is scored with a rollicking attack and remise that leaves him on the floor. The second, and presumably winning touch, is an athletic rassemblement (go to the 7 second marker to see it unfold). In all fairness to Drimba, he later became a more subdued fencing teacher, and his students always displayed a beautiful, controlled fencing style.

Philip K. Dick at U.C. Berkeley

2011-03-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

One of the most enduring stories surrounding Philip K. Dick involves his time at U.C. Berkeley. Most versions center on Dick as a German or philosophy major who was forced to take ROTC training, and when Dick found ROTC objectionable, he then dropped out of school as a form of protest. For example, Tessa Dick, Dick's fifth ex-wife, said in an interview, "Phil studied philosophy for one semester, and then he dropped out because, at the time, they had mandatory ROTC since Korea was going on."

Anne Dick, the third ex-wife, takes a more measured approach, and states in her memoir that Dick's claustrophobia kept him out of the classroom, and he also disliked ROTC ("The Search for Phillip K. Dick," p. 244).

So which ex-wife is correct? A quick view of Dick's timeline would not support Tessa Dick's version. By looking at Dick's transcript, one can see that he was enrolled in U.C. Berkeley from September until November 11, 1949. The Korean War started June 25, 1950.

So what does Dick's university transcript reveal? Not much: Dick did not have a declared major and briefly took classes in military science, history, philosophy, and zoology. There is no recorded grade, a consequence, no doubt, of his abrupt withdrawal. His transcript, publicly available since his death, also shows the college prep courses he took at Berkeley High School, which included three units of German and one unit of Latin. U.C. Berkeley required fifteen high school entrance units, and Dick had seventeen and a half, with two units of math and one and a half in science.

Dick graduated high school at 18 and enrolled at U.C. Berkeley when he was 20, was that unusual at the time? Dick would not have been alone, because of the veterans using their G.I. Bill benefits. Still, the question remains unanswered as to Dick's exact reason for delaying his college enrollment.
Since the draft had been reinstated in 1948, could Dick have been looking at a student deferment? It is possible, though, given Dick's mental and physical health, it is doubtful the military would have wanted him. Eventually, Dick was deferred because of his high blood pressure.

Perhaps a previous health problem flared back up. According to Anne, Dick had suffered a nervous breakdown causing him to drop out in his senior year in high school and undergo therapy sessions at a psychiatric institute. Anne states that Dick did not even take his entrance exam until 1949.

Could Dick have been lacking the money to pay for school? In the public universities and college in California tuition was practically non-existent until the 1960s, so Dick's reason for delaying his enrollment was probably not related to financial issues.

The transcript raises other questions, one being why his father, J. Edgar, is listed as his guardian? Dick's parents had divorced around 1933, and Dick had lived with his mother, Dorothy. Also, the transcript shows Dick living in El Cerrito and not Berkeley, so who was Dick living with? These questions cannot be answered from the transcript, and truth to tell, neither can the central question surrounding Dick's all too brief stay at U.C. Berkeley: did he really drop out to protest ROTC? Or could Dick have been suffering from one of his anxiety attacks?

At the same time period, Dick was capable of holding a job at University Radio, and his claustrophobia and other psychological problems did not exert enough power to prevent him from losing his virginity to Jeannette Marlin in the store's basement storage area. Dick married Marlin when he was 19 and divorced six months later. His marriage perhaps provided a distraction to his goal of pursuing higher education.

In a time when about half of Americans did not graduate from high school, Dick had received a very good education. As to why it took him so long to enroll in university, perhaps Dick had simply decided to savor Berkeley's golden era of the 1940s, and while he tried higher studies, perhaps he found it not as interesting or fun as the exciting intellectual life off campus. Dick also enjoyed the additional benefits of socializing with Berkeley students without having to attend classes: he dated a graduate student and eventually married an undergraduate, Kleo Apostolides.

In the end, Dick's ROTC story became part of his personal myth, one by most accounts he enjoyed repeating, and the truth is that his ROTC protest story is how Dick chose to define himself.

William Gedney

2010-10-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

Duke University has the photographer William Gedney in their digital collection. While obscure today, Gedney taught at Pratt and practiced socially immersive photography. He may have been drawn to the same places as Margaret bourke, Diane Arbus or Gary Winograd, but his style was to draw us into the life as his subjects lived it. His photographs of a Kentucky family in 1964 and 1971 could've turned into a Time-Life Grapes of Wrath exercise, but instead the images are warm, personable, and even allow us into their occasional fun.

http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/gedney/browse/kentucky/?q=duke.collection:gedney+AND+duke.category:kentucky&rows=32&start=32

http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/images/gedney/KY/KY03/KY0368/KY0368-lrg.jpeg

Cookies

2010-10-03T01:44:00.000-07:00

In the basement of the Takashiyama department stores in Japan are wonderful foods and treats. One of the best is the Premier Saint-Germain bakery. It's not cheap and breakfast pastries and rolls are available for more modest sums at another nearby bakery in the food court. What Premier Saint-Germain offers are wonderful packaged cookies that come to about five dollars for a box of four. Hadn;t looked at the price, but I figured I was in too deep to back out. Seems excessive, but storing your larger size luggage in a coin locker can cost more. The kicker is that the shop clerk performs an origami wrapping exercise in front of you. Simply choose the wrapping paper, and she will set the box at an offset angle within the paper and start folding, till in about a minute there is a perfectly wrapped box. The cookies were wonderful in a way that only communion wafers should be in your mouth.

Thoughts from the 2010 Emerald City Comicon

2010-03-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

Attended my first comics convention this weekend 3/13/10 - 3/14/10. I had a hunch Saturday would be an ordeal, but I was determined. First bad sign: I showed after 1 PM and the brochures and floor maps were all gone. I wandered into the exhibit hall on the 4th floor and was overwhelmed by the humanity, a good number in costume. No recession in this convention. Most of the afternoon involved standing in line for a chance to have my taken picture taken with the media guests. A chance for an autograph with Stan Lee went bust: I missed my window to have stood in line to get a pass to stand in the autograph line. I wandered around the booths, took a wrong turn and was in the gaming maze. I found my way out, wandered by the Star Wars photo booth, and booths and booths of comics. One booth was for sale for $100K. Later I milled around in a mob to pick up my pictures, but the printer had broken, so the best chance was for Sunday. By then the line for Nimoy had slowed to a bare trickle, and I simply walked up, shelled out the bucks, and had a picture signed.

Sunday was more interesting. I only went to pick up photos, but after looking at the schedule decided to check out two of the panel discussions. Here's what I learned: the comics industry is being buffeted by the same Internet storm shaking down the music and media business models. One of the panel members even admitted that he hadn't handled a DVD in his house for a long time and is satisfied with streaming his movies through a PS3. He posed the question that tactile media may be dead. The discussion that followed was on the topic of breaking into comics and featured Marvel editors, writers, and artist: Colleen Coover, Jeff Parker, and Christina Strain. Moderating was the Talent Scout CB Cebulski. It seems that breaking into comics was akin to breaking out of jail in so much as the path is closed up afterwards. The moderator was quick to point out that it has never been easier to break into comics: Marvel alone hires three writers a week. On the other hand it had never been harder to get paid. The Internet is the medium where the audience expects free as the normal price.

Best advice for writers was do not submit scripts, because nobody reads them. Instead find an artist, and hire (Jeff -or marry the artist) and produce a short 10 page story. Forget the spec! No one will read it. Yes, writers should expect to lay out cash: this is what entrepreneurs do. Web sites are good place for the aspiring comic writer or artist: cheap and provides visibility.

Common theme from the panelists on how they broke into the business: "I worked my ass off!" For nothing, at that. Day jobs: coffee shops can be hard on the hands, but no ice cream jobs. Networking is essential: this what the conventions are for and where publishers, artists and writers connect. What are the characteristics of the comics professional: likeable, talented, and fast - 2 out of 3 is enough. Being morose and negative is a sure bounce.

Blogs, Facebook, and Twitter ("I met my best friends on Twitter.") glue the comic community together. After talking with an editor at a convention send a short e-mail, with no attachments. Fine line between persistent and pestering. (By the way, pencilers are in the best position to get a job.)"Computers can help you draw."Writers shouldn't dictate to the artist.

Marvel and DC are not proving grounds and can be loathe to hire new talent. Can a new person make a deadline or even finish the story? Left unstated was that Marvel and DC are in the best position for a comics publisher to survive and prosper in the Internet era. Marvel is owned by Disney, and DC by Time Warner.

Mystery in San Francisco

2009-11-12T23:43:00.000-08:00

Multiple stab wounds to the back? No knife found? San Francisco inspectors decided it was a suicide: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/12/BAKL1AJM3B.DTL&tsp=1

Forrest Ackerman Transcends This Dimension

2008-12-05T20:48:00.000-08:00

I was saddened to read in the L.A. Times today of Forrest "Forry" J. Ackerman's death .
The world of science fiction and popular culture has lost one its truest and dearest friends. Forry was one the earliest science fiction fans, became editor of fanzines, and then the "Famous Monster of Filmland." He was also a science fiction writer in his own right and creator of Vampirella. I read that he had also been an author of lesbian romance stories for the magazine "Vice Versa": my respect for him is now near boundless. One of my regrets is that I never toured his mansion to see his collection of horror and science fiction memorabilia. The tour was free, and part of his collection is now now displayed, not for free, in Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum within the Experience Museum Project. (I hold no regrets for never visiting Allen's Science Fiction Museum.) Forry is the prototype for every fanboy today, and what we all remember about him is that in his magazine, it was always about the monsters.

Captain America Lives

2008-04-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

Rather, Joe Simon, the co-creator of Captain America lives and will address the New York Comics Con this weekend (see the NY Times).

I used to love Jack Kirby's color drenched art work because Captain America almost seemed to jump out of the pulp pages. The modern version of Captain America/Steve Rogers was too psychologically self involved for my my pre-teen sensibilities. What I really enjoyed were the stories that had Captain American back in Word War II fighting the Nazis. Notice the cover of the first Captain America: the date is March. March, 1940, and not 1942. In fact, the comic was on sale a year before Pearl Harbor. A case of premature anti-fascism, as the FBI might have put it, but certainly indicative of how pop culture would eventually triumph.

(Image copyright held by Marvel Comics.)

The Cross of Gold

2008-03-23T02:22:00.001-07:00

On Good Friday my mind wandered down a trail of word associations. Eventually I found myself thinking about William Jennings Bryan, once a widely respected political figure, who in his three unsuccessful attempts to become president invented the modern presidential campaign. His great tragedy was that he wasn't nominated by the Democrats in 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt transformed himself into an independent progressive and split the Republican party. Woodrow Wilson appointed Bryan Secretary of State, but Bryan later resigned as a means to protest Wilson placing the country on a path to war. Finally Bryan's career and life ended in ignominy in 1925 after he prosecuted John Scopes for teaching evolution. Thanks to the play and movie, "Inherit the Wind," Bryan is remembered, if he is at all, as the archetype of the hide-bound, Bible waving fundamentalist. Such a view is simplistic and does not take into account Bryan's populism, his opposition to war and imperialism, and his undeniable appeal to a mass political party.

I found Bryan's recording of his famous "Cross of Gold" speech, and I can't help but wonder what Bryan would've done with Podcasts and Youtube. I'm sure Bryan would've taken advantage of the new media, but the contents of his speech could well baffle a modern audience accustomed to pop culture references.

The "Cross of Gold" speech rouses the listener to defend the Free Silver Democrats and their bi-metallic monetary system. Essentially Bryan advocated an expansion of the money supply without a national bank through the introduction of more silver. The resulting inflation, as he and the audience full well knew, would favor the farmers holding mortgages. Bryan sang praises to the laborers in factories and farm, and he also expected his listener to know who the players of the French Revolution were and the importance of the Catiline conspiracy. Bryan even defended the income tax. It would be strange today to have a presidential candidate speak in favor of inflation and taxes while assuming his audience had a firm grasp of classical and early-modern history. Bryan framed his speech in Marxist rhetoric and Christian symbolism and concluded it by saying:

"Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

Though undeniably powerful in its emotional eloquence, I still have no idea what in the world Bryan meant, because the supply of silver was still going to be pegged to the supply of gold.

Cause and Effect

2008-03-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

NY Times editorial March 10, 2008: "Criminal behavior partly explains the size of the prison population, but incarceration rates have continued to rise while crime rates have fallen. " ("Prison Nation") So if incarceration rates get lower, would crime rates rise?

Here is an item from the West Seattle Blog that would suggest such a likelihood:

"NOT JUST STOLEN - STOLEN FROM POLICE: Just after 8 o’clock last
night, at 10th SW and Trenton, an officer ran a routine check on the license
plate of an SUV. It came back as stolen from the Port of Seattle Police
Department. Needless to say, the officer promptly pulled over the SUV. The
29-year-old driver wouldn’t give his name, but two other officers recognized him
— because they had arrested him within the past two weeks … for auto theft. His
two passengers were allowed to go, but he was taken to the King County Jail. The
jail register shows he’s still there, and it’s his fifth time there in the past
seven months."

Dr. Theodore Dalrymple, a retired prison doctor, has this to say

"I have never understood the liberal assumption that if there
were justice in the world, there would be fewer rather than more prisoners."
("Policeman in
Wonderland")

National Review of Science Fiction

2008-02-29T00:24:00.000-08:00

The many obits on William F. Buckley, Jr. fail to mention what his greatest accomplishment might have been: his magazine, the "National Review" had a real column devoted to reviewing recent works of science fiction. The reviewer was no less than Ted Sturgeon. Back then this was amazing and astounding, almost a fantasy fulfillment, almost as if I was transported to a fantastic world of tomorrow.

Science fiction was now acknowledged in the magazine of William F. Buckley, the erudite man of letters and rapier witted host of "Firing Line." I used to search for new copies of the "National Review" every time I visited the school or base library. One thing I noticed: the other articles seemed dull and lifeless in comparison to Sturgeon's column, and the merciless fortnight deadline meant that the "National Review" often resembled a political zine rather than a polished journal (still NR never was never as bad as the "New Republic" in the 1980s). The "National Review" has the proud disintinction of having discovered Philip K. Dick years ahead of the "Rolling Stone."

Thanks to a progressive English teacher, I had been reading Marshall McLuhan, and I understood enough to realize that Buckley's true medium was television. Television captured his wit and patrician graciousness. Only television could capture Buckley's prep tell: he always and unconsciously unfastened his lower coat button when he sat down and immediately re-fastened it when he stood up.

For those who lament that we lost sophisticated discourse and civility on television in the era of Limbaugh and Colbert, I would suggest viewing the debate between Buckley and Gore at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Then as now, there were insulting comparisions to the Third Reich and sexually oriented insults:

Taking No for an Answer

2008-02-11T23:53:00.000-08:00

I read Carpe Diem: Put a Little Latin in Your Life by Harry Mount over the weekend and found it fascinating and enjoyable. Especially so since I skipped the declension and conjugation tables, which the author encouraged. Mount, a journalist who majored in classics at Oxford, explains Rome and the Latin language in a breezy and fun manner and confirms suspicions long held about some of the prep-school Latin masters.

Mount and others have said that learning a language is akin to peeking inside a culture's inner thoughts. This may well be true. I was especially struck by how questions in Latin are constructed in two different ways. A question prefaced by "nunc" is asked when the anticipated answer is yes; when prefaced by "num," the answer would be in the negative. Romans, it seems, were adverse to being surprised.

The Van Gods Live Again!

2008-02-04T00:23:00.000-08:00

Van art has all but disappeared, but once it was impossible to avoid barbarians and their princesses and Aztecs warriors and their princesses. Perhaps this for the better. It never occurred to me to take pictures of vans in the 1970s. This would've been risky on the free, and I wish there had been some record of the Airborne Infantry tribute panel van I saw in San Jose. Sad to say, this form of pop art went into the crusher two decades ago, but for 30 seconds it comes alive again in, of all things, a Honda Odyssey commercial:

Gus Arriola Passes Away

2008-02-02T23:46:00.000-08:00

The cartoonist Gus Arriola died in Carmel: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/02/BACTUR8VU.DTL

Not well known or appreciated today, Gus Arriola's strip "Gordo," always promised eye catching Mexican themed colors and designs. When I was a child, every Sunday I would grab the comics and be fascinated by how Gordo could talk with his animals (a dog, cat, pig, chicken, and owl); I was very amused by how Gordo's animal friends insisted on taking their siesta on top of him. There were was an insufferably cute kitten named Bete Noire, an eternally shedding cat named Poosy Gato, and even a poetry spouting beatnik spider named Bug Rogers who also used spider webs as his art medium. The strips were not all aimed at children, and at the time, I didn't understood the interplay between Gordo and the attractive female tourists riding in his taxi, Halley's Comet, an antique, tequila fueled bus. Still, "Gordo" was considered acceptable reading material even by the nuns in the predominantly Hispanic school I attended in a Texas border town.

A review of Richard Harvey's work "Accidental Ambassador Gordo: The Comic Strip Art of Gus Arriola" provides a samples of his work: http://www.rcharvey.com/gordo.html

Healthy Skepticism

2007-12-19T00:40:00.000-08:00

Just finished "Clean: a History of Personal Hygiene and Purity" by Virgina Smith, which traces the cultural history of cleanliness, hygiene, and purity back to the neolithic era. The book examines the role of purification, cosmetics, and adornment with no small sense of wonder and examines what clean has meant in different places and times. This is far reaching work of social history (the modern earth goddess cult might be surprised to learn on page 58 that the fertility goddess fulfilled the same role to the ancients as porn stars do today), and Virgina Smith stresses that ideas about cleanliness, health, and beauty follow repeatable cycles.

The holistic and alternative medicine practices have a long history of being enshrined and intertwined with a transcendent spirituality and have a habit of reappearing and adapting itself to an era's dominant ideology. For example, the ascendant English Puritans embraced cleanliness and wove it into their view of God and the superiority of an intellectual life. I think this meant more cold baths.

What exists today as holistic medicine consists of the rag tag remnants of a multi-thousand year tradition that was unprepared for the discovery in the 19th century of pathogenic microbes. Suddenly seeking balance, purity, and beauty in life became less important than avoiding indifferent but deadly germ. Clean water supplies, sewers, vaccinations, and clean hands were now the key to a long and healthy life. Science was to become the determiner of health, not personal rituals.

This is not to say that we don't have a fascination with beauty. If anything, the cosmetics of the upper classes are now available for the first time for everyone. For my part, I am happy that cold baths and running around nude in the snow are now no longer mandatory.