If you’re less than 50 years old, your entire life has taken place in the time since a human being walked on the moon. This to me is a scandal. It is our nature to explore and from new places explore further, not to touch a new place then scurry home. It isn’t entirely unprecedented — probably the most famous example is when the Vikings sailed to Newfoundland, discovered that their watches were off by half an hour, and retreated. It should be noted that there aren’t any Vikings now, though it is believed that their origin, Norway, still exists.
Have you ever encountered law enforcement — local police, state trooper, whatever — at night? If you have, and you’ve been in a locale where both red and blue flashing lights are involved in police activities, you might have noticed that blue light seems brighter and is not friendly to your eyes.
Whoo-ee did it blow! The weather has been abnormally, almost alarmingly warm around here the last week or two. There were a few days earlier when it got down to the teens at night, but it hasn’t hit freezing here since before Thanksgiving.
If you’re at all like me, every so often you’ve watched coverage at the time or a documentary later about some great disaster, one that has taken many lives in horrific circumstances. You might have wondered — I have, anyway — about how or whether families and friends ever found out what happened to some of the victims. If you think of Hiroshima, or the tsunami of March 11, 2011, or even the events of September 11, 2001, you suspect — no, know — that there are people who died whose fates will be forever unknown to anyone this side of the Pearly Gates.
The one important takeaway from yesterday’s election is that it’s unlikely that the current investigations into Donald Trump’s misdeeds will result in his indictment. Why would Democrat-controlled attorneys general go after their party’s most potent weapon?
Thirteen years ago, before it was deliberately changed to “Doctor Who Cares?” there was a special one-shot episode of “Doctor Who,” entitled “Planet of the Dead.” It was good, as any show with David Tennant in the lead role tends to be. Michelle Ryan was excellent as Lady Christina de Souza, and I think I was not alone in hoping she was destined to become the Doctor’s companion.
We’ve all just about had it with hearing of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the organism that produces the disease called COVID-19. But, sadly, we’re not done with it yet, nor it with us, nor are we likely to be anytime soon.
The train ride was from whatever station is near Hamilton to Boston and back. I was in eastern Massachusetts for a horse show, but was taking a day off to do some work, namely visit the new digs of Miguel deIcaza and Nat Friedman, two of the brighter stars in the Linux firmament, and to interview them.
They were great to talk with, and the steampunk décor at their new company, Ximian, was bracing. I’d probably remember it pretty clearly even if that were the only thing that day which was out of the ordinary. But it wasn’t.
It was an unexpected and chilling moment. As is my wont, as I made supper Monday night I had on in the background the Japanese international television station, NHK. The program was about learning the Japanese language by reading the news.