Author Archives: laurn larson

Claret to Bordeaux

5 November 2024 By in History, Red Wine, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Claret is an English term for Bordeaux wines that traces its origins back to 16th century. The name derives from the French word “clairet,” which described a lighter, more rosé-like style from the Bordeaux region.

Originally, the grapes used to make this wine were Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, similar to today’s right-bank Bordeaux. The left bank added Malbec, Petit Verdot, and Carménère to the mix.

By the 17th and 18th centuries, clarets evolved, through better maceration, aging, and blending techniques, into a darker, full-bodied wine we would recognize today as a Bordeaux. It became a major export to England and the world.

Trivia: Charles Dickens in ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’, ‘The Pickwick Papers’, and ‘Great Expectations’; Wilkie Collins in ‘The Moonstone’; Anthony Trollope in ‘The Belton Estate’; William Thackeray in ‘Vanity Fair’; and George Eliot in ‘Middlemarch’ all mention the drinking of claret, usually at their dinners.

In these novels the claret was diluted with water to reduce the alcohol content, making it more palatable and easier to drink over long meals or gatherings and to stretch the supply.

Source: Wine Spectator. Decanter. Graphic: Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881. Public Domain.

You Still Got Me

4 November 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Beth Hart’s 11th solo studio album, the October 2024 release of ‘You Still Got Me’, follows up her 2022 Led Zeppelin tribute album with 11 original songs spanning the genres of blues, rock, pop, ballads, a touch of jazz, and a delightful tongue-in-cheek country nod to Johnny Cash. All songs are written by her, with a little help from Rune Westberg and Glen Burtnik.

While this may not be her best work—those honors go to her collaborations with the incomparable guitarist Joe Bonamassa—listening to the bluesy evolution of her throaty voice is a joy to be cherished and treasured; an album that captures the pure magic that is Beth Hart.

Source: AllMusic. Rock & Roll Muse with Martine Ehrenclou. Graphic: Album Cover and ‘Wanna Be Big Bad Johnny Cash, Provogue, Mascot, October 2024.

Love and Happiness

3 November 2024 By in Novel, Philosophy Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

The opening line to Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” is frequently misunderstood to mean that all unhappy families are sadly similar in that negative dynamics are always present.

What Tolstoy and the original French proverb convey is that unhappy families suffer from unique dysfunctions, such as violence, substance abuse, or incest, while happy families have avoided these destructive traits.

In statistics, this concept is known as the ‘Anna Karenina Principle‘. It states that for an endeavor to be successful, every possible deficiency must be avoided, whereas for it to be unsuccessful, only one negative factor needs to be present.

A similar proverb from 16th or 17th-century Europe, “One bad apple spoils the whole barrel,” began as practical advice to apple farmers and evolved to describe how one negative influence can affect an entire group or family.

Russian authors like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky tend not to write about happy families because, in their view, there is no story, no moral, and no psychological depth without pain and suffering.

English author W. Somerset Maugham brought this idea back into the limelight with a twist when he wrote: “They say that happy people have no history, and certainly a happy love has none. They did nothing all day long and yet the days seemed all too short.”

There is no shame in happiness; life does not need drama or conflict to be meaningful.

Source: Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. Rain and Other South Sea Stories by W. S. Maugham. Graphic: Apple by Tembhekar. Public Domain.

Journalism—CNN’s Sycophants for Saddam Hussein 2003

2 November 2024 By in History, Journalism Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

CNN’s news chief in 2003, Eason Jordan, admitted that the network ignored and suppressed Saddam Hussein’s mass killings of his citizens and other crimes against humanity, to keep their access to the Iraqi thug. Jordan said that telling the truth likely would have meant closing their Baghdad bureau. Franklin Foer of the New Republic wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “CNN could have abandoned Baghdad. Not only would they have stopped recycling lies, they could have focused more intently on obtaining the truth about Saddam.”

CNN lied; Iraqis died.

Human Rights Watch has estimated that 250,000 to 290,000 Iraqis were presumed killed under Saddam.

Eason Jordan resigned from CNN in 2005. It wasn’t possible to discover why he wasn’t fired in 2003 for his efforts to aid Saddam Hussein.

Source: The Washington Post. HRW 2003. Franklin Foer, Wall Street Journal 2003.   Graphic: Iraqi Victims Found in a Mass Grave killed under Saddam’s Rule, GWB Whitehouse Archives, 2003.

Seeking God

31 October 2024 By in Philosophy, Physics, Space Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

95% of the universe is a mystery. About 68% is dark energy, which is believed to drive the accelerated expansion of the universe, though its exact nature is unknown. 27% is dark matter, which holds galaxies together and is believed to consist of one or more massive, yet unknown, particles.

Science Daily reports that researchers at the University of Michigan and five other institutions “have strengthened the case that matter becomes dark energy when massive stars collapse and become black holes.” This suggests that the universe’s expansion may be partly explained by the expansion of black holes through cosmological coupling. It also implies that black holes can gain mass without consuming matter, directly challenging the Standard Model of particle physics.

This either leads to the Big Freeze—infinite expansion through not quite infinite time—or the Big Crunch, where gravity eventually says ‘Enough!’ and collapses everything back into an infinitesimal point.

To sum up, we may or may not understand 5% of the universe, while the remaining 95% aligns with Socrates’ axiom from 6th century Greece—we essentially know nothing.

Source: University of Michigan. “Evidence Mounts for Dark Energy from Black Holes.” Science Daily. 2024. Graphic: Black Hole.

A Twisted and Twisty Tale:

30 October 2024 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Strange Darling: A film portraying a one-night stand of innocent fun and desire in the same bloody vein as craving a joyride in a van full of Stephen King clowns. Misdirection, mayhem, and murder—oh my.

The movie’s story unravels in a non-linear manner, much the same as Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’, creating mystery and suspense by concealing the true nature of the characters and the plot until later in the film.

It has been noted that the Coen’s ‘No Country for Old Men’ came the closest to featuring the personality of a true psychopath: the irredeemable Anton Chigurh as played by Javier Badem. The antagonist in ‘Strange Darling’ easily moves Chigurh to a distant second place.

Trivia: The opening credits and Mollner hint, during interviews, that the movie may be based on actual events but there are no known serial killer incidents to support this. Mollner also comments that “…to me, it’s all real—inside my head and inside my heart.” Yikes.

Trivia II: The song ‘Love Hurts’ by Bryant and Bryant, is prominently played in the movie and was also featured in Rob Zombie’s remake of ‘Halloween’ and ‘Halloween II’.

Genre: Horror—Mystery–Suspense–Thriller

Directed by: JT Mollner

Screenplay by: JT Mollner

Music by: Craig DeLeon

Cast: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner

Film Locations: Oregon, USA

ElsBob: 7.0/10

IMDb: 7.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 95%

Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter: 85%

Metacritic Metascore: 80%

Metacritic User Score: 6.9/10

Theaters: 23 August 2024

Runtime: 96 minutes  

Budget: $4-10 million

Box Office: $3.8 million

Source: Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Metacritic. Graphic: ‘Strange Darling’ Poster and Trailer, Miramax

Francis Ford Coppola Diamond Collection Claret 2021

29 October 2024 By in Red Wine Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon 83%, Other Red 17%, from California, USA

Purchase Price: $12.99

Vivino 90, ElsBob 90

ABV: 14.5%

Aromas of black and purple fruits, mainly plums, spice, and chocolate. Full-bodied, smooth, and light in tannins. Will pair very well with lamb.

An excellent wine at an unbelievable price. Stock up if you can find it for less than $15.

Trivia: Charles Dickens often referenced Claret wines in his novels such as Great Expectations.

Journalism–Paid to Promote 2005-2024

26 October 2024 By in Journalism, Politics Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

USA Today, in a 2005 story, revealed that the younger Bush White House had paid columnists to promote the president’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy, that he signed into law in 2002.

The Bush’s Education Department paid Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher, and Michael McManus thousands of dollars to give favorable coverage in print, radio, and television. Williams was paid the most, $241,000 to write positive NCLB articles for his syndicated column at the Tribune Co., and speak glowingly about it on his TV and radio programs. The Tribune Co., his syndicator, dropped his column after the pay-to-print arrangement was discovered. The media in 2005 considered the pay-to-promote practice insidious, abhorrent, and unethical.

It has been reported that the Biden administration, through a political action committee, has paid at least 1 million dollars to approximately 150 social media influencers to promote its policies. These include Harry Sisson, Vivian Tu, and Awa Sanneh among others, all active on TikTok, X, and Instagram. While these payments and influencers were disclosed, the process has been less than transparent and generally, the influencers do not state upfront what posts are paid for by the Biden administration or the PACs controlled by its administration.

What was considered unethical behavior 20 years ago is standard operating procedure today.

Source: The Top 12 Journalism Scandals by Tony Rogers, ThoughtCo., 2023. The Conversation, 2024. Graphic: Influencers, Morgan MacNaughton/Palette Management.

Runaway Black Hole

25 October 2024 By in Space Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Brandon Specktor with LiveScience reports that ‘in 2023 astronomers reported the detection of something never seen before: a “runaway” black hole…’

The observed black hole with a mass of 20 million suns, is not gravitationally locked to any galaxy. It was spotted streaking darkly through space at more than 3 million miles per hour, or approximately 0.5% the speed of light, dragging a 200,000 light year long string of stars behind it like Christmas lights tied behind Santa’s sleigh.

Possible scenarios that may have sent the black hole on its merry way include various interactions with other massive objects, such as galactic collisions or gravitational recoil of merging black holes.

Source: 5 Space Discoveries that Scientists are Struggling to Explain by Brandon Specktor, LiveScience, 2024.  Graphic: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScl)

Epistemic Humility

24 October 2024 By in History, Movies, Philosophy, Philosophy Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Donald Rumsfeld, expanding on Socrates’ statement, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing,” pedantically states in the year 2002 that, “There are known knowns—things we know that we know. There are known unknowns—things we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns—things we don’t know we don’t know.“

Which suggests that we all are pre-ordained to a life of study to shorten the list of unknowns and the embarrassment of being unprepared.

G.K. Chesterton anticipating that a lifetime, or something less than a lifetime of study has its dangers, warned in his 1908 collection of essays, “All Things Considered,” “Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.” Implying that a myopic education may allow for mastering a single subject but is ill-equipped to understand anything broader; unable to see the forest for the trees.

Which leads us to the 1973 “Magnum Force” with Clint Eastwood, wielding a Smith and Wesson Model 29 .44 magnum in a Dirty Harry hand, explaining to an unfortunate soul that “A man’s got to know his limitations,” highlighting the concept of epistemic humility: the recognition that one’s knowledge and understanding is always limited and to proceed accordingly.

Source: Socrates. G.K. Chesterton. Socratic-Method.com.  Graphic: Magnum Force poster, copyright Warner Bros.