Author Archives: laurn larson

King Arthur’s World

18 August 2024 By in Books Nonfiction, Mythology Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Chivalry ‘framed an ideal of the heroic character, combining…strength and valor, justice, modesty, loyalty to superiors, courtesy to equals, compassion to weakness, and devotedness to [God],’ as defined by Bulfinch in his 1858 ‘The Age of Chivalry, or Legends of King Arthur’.

Chivalry in the Middle Ages was a lifestyle and a philosophy. A lifestyle that guided a knight’s actions and decisions backed-up by a philosophy that defined chivalrous principles and virtues.

Every year the Knights of the Round Table renew their oaths of chivalry as proclaimed by the King Arthur during the Christian holiday of Pentecost.

The time of Pentecost was likely chosen because it was a time of renewal and commitment for Christians.

Source: Bulfinch’s Mythology, 1991. Graphic: Knight Rescuing a Maiden, AI generated.

Journalism — Jonah Lehrer 2012

17 August 2024 By in Journalism Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Up until 2012, Jonah Lehrer was a wunderkind of everything he touched; Rhodes Scholar, degree in neuroscience, contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired, etc, and author of three books.

Then people started noticing alarming similarities in his writings. At first it was just self-plagiarism, borrowing text from his books to write newer articles. Some still argue that plagiarizing yourself is no crime but when you are getting paid for original work it probably should be, well, original.

Next up was grabbing material from press releases and pasting them into his articles without attribution. Then onto very slightly modified posts written by others without any attribution. Made up quotes followed.

After in-depth investigations into his work Jonah Lehrer was fired from The New Yorker and Wired plus two of his books were recalled.

Source: The Fall of Johah Lehrer by Jonathan Bailey, 2012, Plagiarism Today. Johnah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com by Charles Seife, 2012, Slate. Graphic: AI generated, 2024.

Nixon’s Price Controls

16 August 2024 By in History, Politics Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Nixon announced wage and price controls this week in 1971 to combat an inflationary problem caused by Johnson’s and Nixon’s excessive war and domestic government spending.

In a nationally televised address to the nation in August of 71, he ordered a 90-day freeze on all prices and wages. After the 90 day freeze any increases in wages or prices would have to be approved by the federal government.

By the summer of 1972 it was obvious that the controls weren’t providing any positive benefits and lots of negative ones, including empty store shelves.  Treasury Secretary George Shultz in 1973 told Nixon that at least we learned ‘that wage-price controls are not the answer’ for fighting inflation.

Milton Friedman predicted the program’s ‘utter failure’ and the re-ignition of inflation in the near future. After all the controls were removed in the spring of 1974 inflation shot up to 11 percent and stayed high until Paul Volcker created two recessions in 1980 and 1981-1982 to finally end the inflationary pressures from the late 60s through the early 80s.

Theodor Reik said in 1965, ‘history may not repeat itself, it merely rhymes’. In this case it will likely repeat itself.

Source: Nixon’s Price Controls by Gene Healy, 2011, Cato.org. Graphic: Orissapost.com, 2021.

Homelessness

15 August 2024 By in Mental Health Tags: Leave a comment

HUD estimated that there were 650,000 homeless in the U.S. as of Jan 2023. A 12% increase from 2022. By the end of 2023 homelessness has likely has hit the highest number ever recorded in the U.S.

Since the beginning of 2020 homelessness has been increasing by about 10% per year. If 2024 holds to the same increase, there will be an estimated 715,000 homeless living and sleeping in the parks, streets, and abandoned buildings of this country’s cities.

Kevin Adler suggests in his new book on homelessness that poverty is not the main reason for people living on the streets but rather it is due to the loss of family and friends willing to help. The loss of family support falls into the all too familiar buckets of substance abuse and mental health conflicts.

Source: GAO Report to Congress: Homelessness 2024. HUD-AHAR – 2023. People Become Homeless by Courtney Martin, 2024. Graphic: HUD 2023.

Miller’s Crossing

14 August 2024 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Tom Reagan (Byrne), indispensable man to prohibition crime boss Leo (Finney), is caught up in a no-win love affair, mounting gambling debts, and to add some juice, Irish and Italian mobs are competing for his unique talents. With everything to lose Reagan plays to keep his hat.

A suspenseful movie playing tribute to film noir/crime noir flicks of the 40s and 50s with inspiration from Dashiell Hammett’s ‘The Glass Key’ and ‘Red Harvest’. The plot is complicated that with a patty wagon full of characters it takes considerable effort, initially, to keep ‘em all straight.

This is Coens’ 3rd movie coming after ‘Blood Simple’ in 1984 and ‘Raising Arizona’ in 1987.

Genre:  Crime—Drama—Film Noir–Thriller

Directed by: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Screenplay by: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Music by:  Carter Burwell

Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, John Turturro

Film Locations:  New Orleans

Els:  8.5/10

IMDb:  7.7/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  93/100

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  90/100

Metacritic Metascore:  66/100

Metacritic User Score:  8.4/10

Theaters: 21 September 1990

Runtime: 115 minutes

Budget:  $10-14 Million

Worldwide Box Office:  $5 Million

Source: IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Wikipedia. Graphic: Movie Poster by 20th Century Fox.

Grace Town Old Vines Zinfandel 2018

13 August 2024 By in Red Wine Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Zinfandel from Lodi, California, USA

90% Zinfandel, 10% Petite Sirah

Purchase Price: $7.95

Vivino 90, Wine Enthusiast 85, ElsBob 86

ABV 14.5%

Ruby red in, oak with muted fruit aromas, medium body, dry, and acidic. Typically, medium-bodied zinfandels peak around 3-5 years in the bottle and this one does not appear to be an exception. I believe it’s past its prime.

This probably was a good wine several years ago. If you have it in your inventory drink it now but only after the alcohol has been flowing freely for an hour or two.

Six Market Blvd. – Shake it Down:

12 August 2024 By in Music Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Flash in time band 6MB’s 2nd and final album, ‘Shake it Down’ is a Texas country rock album delivering a spiced-up studio album honed in the dives and bars between the concrete of Fort Worth, the college hangouts of Tarleton State, onto the stock yard sights and smells of Abilene.

Clayton Landua, frontman for the band says in a Billboard interview, “Shake It Down” is a mixture of styles, from the Seeger / Dylan vibe of “Stand,” as well as the 70s sounds of “The Painter” and “Say It.”

The band with two well received albums under their belt, the big time seemed close by, when Landua decided to leave the group in 2014 to try something on his own. The remaining members thought about carrying on but not much of nothing went into that future.

If you give the album a listen, and you should, during the 13th track song, ‘Hey Mr. Indian Man’, Josh Serrato, lead guitarist, breaks into Deep Purple’s famous ‘Smoke on Water’ riff for reasons unknown and unstated but it did bring a smile to the lips quickly spreading over to the cheeks with a slow scratch to the head.

Source: Six Market Blvd. by Messick, Lone Star Music Mag., 2024. 6MB Takes Final Bow by Josh Harville, 2014 JTAC. 615 Spotlight by Chuck Dauphin, 2013, Billboard. Graphic Shake it Down Album Cover, Vision Entertainment copyright.

Monet and Water

11 August 2024 By in Art Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Monet loved water, the sea, lakes, rivers, mist, fog, it didn’t matter. He searched it out and painted it. Plants, people, buildings were extensions of his water.

His 1872 seascape, Impression: Sunrise, from which the style ‘Impressionism’ is derived, is a study of the morning light unsuccessfully trying to break through the mist of solitude surrounding the boaters. Water fills the painting from top to bottom.

Taillandier in his monograph, ‘Monet’ wrote, “His fascination with water was such that he painted leaves, grass, and meadows as he painted water, the brushstrokes like so many quivering waves in the air”.

Monet painted water. Houses were painted like so many waves. The sky rippled. Skin erupted with steam and stones dissolved into mist.

Source: Monet by Yvon Taillandier, 1987. Graphic: Impression: Sunrise by Monet, 1872, Public Domain.

Journalism — Dan Rather 2004

10 August 2024 By in Journalism Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In attempt to lower the odds of a sitting president’s re-election chances Dan Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes, aired a story on 60 Minutes Wednesday in 2004 critical of President George W. Bush’s National Guard service.

The documents used to support the story were quickly proven fabrications. The New York Times headline defending Rather’s reporting said ‘Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says’.

‘Fake but Accurate’ became the main defense of Rather/Mapes exposé leading to much critical derision and laughter.

The broadcast delved into whether the President had completed all his National Guard service requirements during the early 1970s. It was stated in the documents used to support the show’s story that Bush disobeyed a direct order to appear for a physical and that family friends squashed any investigation into his service.

The documents in question supposedly came from the files of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, one of Bush’s Guard commanders. Killian died in 1984 so was unable to collaborate the documents’ contents when the story aired 20 years later. Killian’s typist claims she did not type the documents but said the fake documents accurately stated the issues related to Bush’s service. How a National Guard typist would know this wasn’t volunteered in the story.

The documents were quickly discovered to be fakes because the font, character spacing, and other computer generate text did not exist on 1970s era typewriters. The documents also appeared to have been generated on a word processor using Microsoft software. Microsoft word processing software was first released in 1983. It was also reported that Rather and Mapes were discussing the story with John Kerry’s campaign staff before the story aired which ran counter to all journalistic standards.

Mary Mapes was fired from CBS in January of 2005 and Rather was allowed to retire in March of 2005.

On the question of motive, Mapes had been researching the Bush National Guard story for 5 years before it was aired in 2004.

Source: Rather Relieved | Power Line (powerlineblog.com) by Hinderaker, 2004. A Look Back At The Controversy – CBS News by Chris Hawke, 2005. Graphic: Dan Rather, Marty Lederhandler, 1993—Caption added by author.

The Bears Are Fine

9 August 2024 By in Climate, History, Politics Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Bjorn Lomborg in the WSJ comments that The Washington Post, Al Gore, World Wildlife Fund, and others predicted in the early 2000s that the end was near for the polar bears due to melting Arctic sea-ice. Starvation and extinction was imminent.

Present estimates peg polar bear populations somewhere between 22-32,000. This is up substantially from a 1960s population estimate of 12,000.

The increase in population numbers is almost totally due to the end of hunting of the species with the loss of Arctic sea-ice having little discernible effect of the bears numbers.

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is growing not shrinking. The Pacific atolls are also growing, not sinking into the ocean. And across the planet for every person that dies of heat 9 people die of cold.

Source: Polar Bears, Dead Coral and Other Climate Fictions – WSJ by Lomborg, 2024. Graphic: Photo of Polar Bears, Public Domain.