Sunday, 8 June 2025
Wednesday, 4 June 2025
"Murder Insurance"
Tort Boards
I will get to the subject of "Murder Insurance" in a few sentences, so if you are in a hurry, jump to the next sub-title.
Back in the last century (and not that far back in it), it was seen as both undignified and unprofessional for lawyers to pitch their wares. That is now not the case. On a recent car trip to the United States, bulletin boards for personal injury lawyers blotted the brief spots of landscape, not already obscured by tattoo shops and weed and dollar stores. (As an aside; given that travel to that country is now discouraged I will offer as an excuse the fact that it was an "oblication" - an obligation to which we tacked on a brief vacation.) On our next trip, if the political situation allows one, there are likely to be more bulletin boards by lawyers offering "Murder Insurance", which is no longer just a niche market.
Finally - "Murder Insurance"
The word "murder" was assigned to this new insurance product by the critics of it, who may have considered, the words "homicide' or "manslaughter". Those selling it prefer "self-defense insurance" and, if it existed up here, it would be called "self-defence insurance", but it is unlikely to be on sale in Canada because our lawyers are less enterprising and we have far fewer guns.
I learned all of this from the following article, the title of which reveals two reasons why the market for self-defense insurance has grown to over two million customers:
"Did You Shoot Somebody in Self-Defense? There's An Insurance Policy For That: Insurers Cover Self-Defense Shooters - Rise in Gun Ownership and Stand-Your-Ground Laws Drives a Lucrative New Market," Mark Maremont and Tawnell D. Hobbs, The Wall Street Journal, May 11, 2025.
The major purveyors of this new product are listed below, along with additional information should you have concerns about protecting your own castle. Like, State Farm, I suppose, call and they will be there like a good neighbor, to provide such things as defense assistance, civil litigation support and money to cover the costs for cleaning up the mess that usually results when someone is stopped dead. They may be busy since it has been noticed that, "the industry’s expansion coincides with the growth of permitless concealed carry laws, stand-your-ground statutes, and increased firearm purchases, particularly during periods of social unrest..." It is also the case, as the critics of "Murder Insurance" suggest, that the existence of such a product may incentivize the use of force in even trivial or accidental acts of trespass.
Loyal readers of MM will appreciate the irony (there is usually some around) if they recall my post of last May when I noted that homeowners in many states were having difficulty getting insurance for protection against natural disasters. See, Your CASTLE.
Some Self-Defense Insurers:
U.S. Concealed Carry Association - "Keep Your Family Safe"
Armed Citizens' Legal Defense Network, Inc. "Can You Survive the Legal Aftermath of Self Defense?"
U.S. Law Shield. The website is there, but you will likely be blocked as a Canadian and have to contact them.
Post Script:
I went looking for the origin of the term, "Murder Insurance" and found usage of the words together, but they generally related to people being murdered for insurance or those who had received insurance payments when someone was murdered. Teachers got murder insurance back in 2001 and parents in New York city bought murder insurance for their kids back in the early 1990s. Some municipalities also sought murder insurance to help with the costs associated with bringing murderers to trial.
The first occurrence, I found, of "Murder Insurance" used as it has been in this post, was back in 2017. The NRA was selling it.
" 'Murder Insurance' or Protection in Self-Defence Cases?" Lisa Marie Pane, AP. Oct. 19, 2017.
"ATLANTA — The National Rifle Association is offering insurance for people who shoot someone, stirring criticism from gun-control advocates who say it could foster more violence and give gun owners a false sense of security to shoot first and ask questions later.
Some are calling it “murder insurance,” and say that rather than promoting personal responsibility and protection, it encourages gun owners to take action and not worry about the consequences. And, they say, it’s being marketed in a way that feeds on the nation’s racial divisions.
Guns Down, a gun-control group formed last year, is running an ad campaign to criticize the NRA’s new insurance. It’s just the latest group to take aim at the NRA’s offering.
“The reason I call it murder insurance is because if you look at the way this is marketed, it’s really sold in the context of ‘There’s a threat around every corner, dear mostly-white NRA member,’ and that threat is either a black man or a brown man or some other kind of person of colour,” said Guns Down director Igor Volsky.
“So when you inevitably have to use your gun to defend yourself from this threat around every corner, you have insurance to protect you.”
Carry Guard insurance was launched this past spring by the NRA. Rates range from $13.95 a month for up to $250,000 in civil protection and $50,000 in criminal defence to a “gold plus” policy that costs $49.95 a month and provides up to $1.5 million in civil protection and $250,000 in criminal defence. The coverage kicks in if a court finds the person lawfully shot someone in self-defence or the case is dropped.
The NRA isn’t the only gun lobbying group offering such insurance. The United States Concealed Carry Association has been in the business much longer and provides up to $2 million in civil costs and $250,000 for criminal defence. But the NRA is the most prominent gun-rights group in the country and it offered similar insurance previously. And Carry Guard is more comprehensive and being marketed more aggressively than it has been previously. It’s drawing attention to a type of policy that was relatively obscure until now."
Post Script:
The very clever term, "Tort Boards", was constructed by me to describe the bulletin boards constructed for lawyers. Those who use the expression "tort boards" without acknowledging MM, will be charged with first-degree plagiarism and a tort board will be used to track down a lawyer who will sue you on my behalf.
Sunday, 25 May 2025
Ernie Pyle (Remembered Again)
Tomorrow is Memorial Day in the United States and for that reason a column by George Will is dedicated to the war correspondent, Ernie Pyle. Over five years ago I did a long piece about Pyle on the 75th anniversary of D-Day. For that reason I will not say more about him here, but simply display some of the material from Will's article. There is more to be found in my post and, more importantly, there are in it some links to Indiana University where Pyle's letters and columns are stored. You can read many of them and you can actually hear them as well. For example, the portion from "The Death of Captain Waskow", that Will provides, can be listened to be clicking here. The post in MM is linked here.
Will's title: "Ernie Pyle, Capt. Waskow and the Common Soldiers Who Died for America: This Memorial Day, Spare a Thought for the Nation’s Fallen in Overseas Military Cemeteries," Washington Post, May 23, 2025.
"Most journalism is, at most, the “first rough draft of history.” Occasionally, however, there is some journalism — even of the most perishable kind: a column — that attains an immortality because of its simple sufficiency. It leaves nothing to be said, the words having perfectly suited a moment. One such was the most famous piece by a columnist who soared from obscurity to a place in the nation’s consciousness unmatched before or since. On this Memorial Day, take a moment for Ernie Pyle’s “The Death of Captain Waskow,” a man in his mid-20s from Belton, Texas. The dispatch was datelined “AT THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, January 10, 1944.”....
“I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Capt. Waskow’s body down. The moon was nearly full at the time, and you could see far up the trail, and even part way across the valley below. Soldiers made shadows in the moonlight as they walked.“Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules. They came lying belly-down across the wooden pack-saddles, their heads hanging down on the left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking out awkwardly from the other side, bobbing up and down as the mule walked.”
Here is a bit more from Will:
"Pyle’s language was spare. His sentences were almost without cadences, like tired men not marching, just walking. You could call his style Hemingwayesque. Except Ernest Hemingway, also in the European theater, cultivated a watch-me-transform-literature antistyle: ostentatious simplicity.
Pyle would have scoffed at the notion that he had a style. His granular reporting, replete with the names and street addresses of the GIs he talked to, appeared in 400 daily newspapers and another 300 weekly publications. He appeared on the cover of Time magazine. He avoided the insult of fancy writing about the gray, grim everydayness of the infantryman’s war."
Pyle died in action on an island in the Pacific in 1945, “It all happened so quickly. … An indiscriminate fragment of shell, red hot and sharp as a scalpel, had sliced a hole in his chest, killing him instantly.” Considering the hundreds of young Americans killed fighting for this unremembered spot, “the death of one ordinary man on a lonely mountainside was, for Ernie, an example of war on a miniature, intimate scale.”
Sources:
That last quotation from the Will article is from this book: The Soldier’s Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II, by David Chrisinger (unfortunately a copy is not available in the libraries in London.)
The photograph is from a picture I took of the picture in, An Ernie Pyle Album, by Lee G. Miller, p.151. I have a copy if you would like to borrow it.
If you are more interested in peace than war, have a look at the columns Pyle wrote about traveling across America (including Canada) before the war.
More information about them is found in Ernie Pyle.
Saturday, 24 May 2025
People Worth Remembering
Aaron Feuerstein Is One of Them
Although MM is not read by many, occasionally someone notices something in it and has a look. I can see what people have clicked on, and noticed the other day more activity than usual, so I also took a look to see what had attracted a bit of attention. One post related to the late Mr. Feuerstein, for whom a tribute was held at the Public Library of Brookline. This is the title that someone stumbled upon and he is worth more of our attention: The Mensch of Malden Mills. 
Nathaniel P. Reed Is Another
Mr. Reed died in Quebec while on a fishing trip, which is not a bad way to go. I noticed his passing about seven years ago and he may attract the attention he deserves when August rolls around. My post is titled: Nathaniel P. Reed - Environmentalist. Buried in it is a link to website about him and I am glad to see it still exists even if he does not: Nathaniel P. Reed.
Books To Keep Us Going
Like most airline flights, spring has been delayed and, as I suggested in my last post, it is better to stay at home. If you are interested more in reading about an adventure than going on one (which is a much safer option), then read closely the excerpt below. Before doing so, if you are of the type easily injured by words, you should perhaps look away since it contains one that might hurt you. It is doubtful, by the way, that this man's boyhood dreams are being dreamt by children now.
"As I looked round the clearing at the ranks of squatting warriors and the small isolated group of my own men, I knew that this moonlight meeting in unknown Africa with a savage potentate who hated Europeans was the realization of boyhood dreams. I had come here in search of adventure: the mapping, the collecting of animals and birds were all incidental. The knowledge that somewhere in this neighbourhood three previous expeditions had been exterminated, that we were far beyond any hope of assistance, that even our whereabouts were unknown, I found wholly satisfying." Wilfred Thesiger, The Life of My Choice, p.146.
Those of you offended by the word "savage" should know that those so-labelled were much admired by Thesiger who chose to live among them, dress like them and suffer along with them. To those of you who can be labelled "anti-colonialists" and think this is yet another older book by a Brit who was somewhere he shouldn't have been, I will say simply that it is not incorrect to suggest that he also was an anti-colonialist.
The Life of My Choice can be read for free on the Internet Archive or you can pay for it on Amazon. There are books by and about him found in the Western Libraries if you have access. There are even duplicates of some titles in the Western Libraries, which exist for reasons that will not be offered. This biography is recommended by most reviewers: Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer, by Alexander Maitland. To determine if The Life of My Choice is your cup of tea, read this review from Publishers Weekly where a couple of other books by him are mentioned:
"Perhaps the last of the great romantic gentleman-explorers, Thesiger, author of Arabian Sands and The Marsh Arabs, here looks back on an extraordinary life. He was born in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) to British diplomatic parents who were friends of Emperor Haile Selassie. Thesiger remembers Addis Ababa, the capital, as a village with grass huts, no roads and colorful ceremonies. He attended Eton and Oxford, then returned to Africa for the first of many journeys, exploring the Awash River (home to the dreaded Danakil, whose warriors killed randomly to prove their manhood and collected their victims' genitals for trophies). As a district officer in the Sudan Political Service, Thesiger had further opportunities to travel in desert lands and meet nomadic tribes. During World War II, he served with Orde Wingate's troops, liberating Abyssinia from the Italians; later, he fought behind the lines in the Western Desert. In addition to superb adventure, Thesiger gives a fine portrait of the waning days of the British Empire in the Sudan and of the last revolution in Ethiopia. Photos."
The Bonus:
For those who would rather look at photos than read see:
Wilfred Thesiger: A Life in Pictures by Alexander Maitland. If you poke around even a little bit you will find enough good reading to keep you busy until the summer arrives, whenever that may be.
If you would rather watch than read or look, there are videos that captured Thesiger before he died in 2003. Here is one and others are found on YouTube.
Wilfred Thesiger's Arabian Sands (in his own words with subtitles- 8 min.)
Thursday, 22 May 2025
No Place Like Home
This is a short note that is meant to cheer you up. The last few days have been rather grim and you may wish you were somewhere warmer. Pause for a minute, however, and remember how horrible travelling now is. As well, the intended destination may not be at all as desirable as it once was. If you are thinking about going to the Pacific, like Robert Louis Stevenson or Gauguin, recall my recent post about all the plastic now floating there.
More to the point, think more positively about "home." I buried this bit in a post back in the spring of 2019 and you may have missed it. It may help:
“Martin Martin, the traveller and writer who in the 1690s set sail to explore the Scottish coastline, knew that one does not need to displace oneself vastly in space in order to find difference. “It is a piece of weakness and folly merely to value things because of their distance from the place in which we were born,’ he wrote in 1697, ‘thus men have travelled far enough in the search of foreign plants and animals, and yet continue strangers to those produced in their own natural climate.” So did Roger Deakin: “Why would anyone want to go live abroad when they can live in several countries at once just by being in England?’ [Canada]. Likewise, Henry David Thoreau: An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the dominions of the King of Dahomey.’
Source:
The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Robert Macfarlane, Penguin Books, pp.78-79 & p.381.
A Branch Library For Good Books
Or, A Branch Library of Good Books
The simple point, I will attempt to make, has been hinted at in both the title and sub-title of this post. I am suggesting that there should be, in a city of this size, one library built to acquire and keep good books. (The making of a simple point should not begin with a parenthetical remark, but for those of you who think the local university library might be the answer, let me know and I will provide another piece on that subject.)
A silly subject, you are thinking because of the word "good", but I will avoid that issue by supplying this definition of that word from the OED.
Good is the most general and most frequently used adjective of commendation in English, and one of the most common non-possessive adjectives in all periods from Old English to the present day. Almost all uses convey the sense of being of a high (or at least satisfactory) quality, useful for some purpose (specified, implied, or generally understood), and worthy of approval.
That's it.
Although it is likely that the London Public Libraries (LPL) buy the occasional good book and already contain a few, there are some problems that should be acknowledged. One of them is that budgets are limited and the librarians have to purchase books which patrons want and many of those are not good. Pick a very popular recent book and look it up in the LPL catalogue and you may see a message indicating that 50 copies are on order and 25 of them have already been requested. I will not attempt to pick on a title of a book that is not good, but I will suggest there are many of them and many copies of each of them have to be purchased. By the way, that such books may be on the NYT Best Sellers List" does not mean they are good. The list is compiled by the Times and the books are popular ones and those, particularly in the fiction category, are generally not considered good enough to show up in a review in the actual NYT. Literary snobbery is not the issue here. Just think of the number of copies of each book that the libraries have to buy from say, James Patterson, who produces many of them on a regular basis. Just think, as well, about the large number of books that now have to be purchased because of the identity of the author, not the quality of the book. Just think, as well, and again of the number of activities and things that librarians and libraries are supposed to do beyond buying and housing books and magazines.
A new library could be built to house the good books that should be bought and kept. Or, perhaps a more popular option would be to build a new building to do all of the things that "libraries" were not established to do and the project could be given a more popular name as well. Now that I think about it there is already an empty library in London that has been vacant for years.
Another problem to address is the one related to the space required for storage since good books should be kept. Storage spaces are far less attractive today than "maker-spaces". To a degree, the space problems have been mitigated somewhat by current LPL policies which, I am fairly certain, cause a great deal of "shrinkage". Those policies will have to be re-examined. I think two things could be considered: 1) There should be penalties if one does not promptly return the good books and 2) books should have to be signed out, especially good ones. (My concern about these issues was raised long ago in a very long post - "The Mystery of the Missing Books."
Careful Curation
The Acquisition of Older Books
Maybe this portion will be of more interest. I was prompted to think about all of this because of the recent "war" that was declared on us by our southern neighbour. Many lamented over the loss of a friend and I thought of the book, Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism. The LPL does not appear to have a copy, not even one of the 40th anniversary edition from which the following is taken and, I think you will agree, might be interesting to read or re-read under current conditions:
Canadians have relatively few binding national myths, but one of the most pervasive and enduring is the conviction that the country is doomed. In 1965 George Grant passionately defended Canadian identity by asking fundamental questions about the meaning and future of Canada's political existence. In Lament for a Nation he argued that Canada - immense and underpopulated, defined in part by the border, history, and culture it shares with the United States, and torn by conflicting loyalties to Britain, Quebec, and America - had ceased to exist as a sovereign state. Lament for a Nation became the seminal work in Canadian political thought and Grant became known as the father of Canadian nationalism. This edition includes a major introduction by Andrew Potter that explores Grant's arguments in the context of changes in ethnic diversity, free trade, globalization, post-modernism, and 9/11. Potter discusses the shifting uses of the terms "liberal" and "conservative" and closes with a look at the current state of Canadian nationalism.
The Purchase of New Ones
The person employed to purchase new books has a difficult task, since there are many of them, produced from many different places and publishers and even by the authors themselves. Here are some suggestions from just one author, not named James Patterson. Although the author is a white male associated with the state of Texas, he was the Dean of Law at the University of Texas, which is in Austin and should not really be associated with the state of Texas. I knew nothing about the author, but stumbled upon these books, most of which are not even available at the local university. The librarian should have a good look at the reviews, but they certainly look like good books to purchase for our times. Pictures are provided since they are more appreciated these days than words.
Post Script:
While I am at it: Librarians are often criticized for the "progressive" books they are getting for libraries. Overlooked, however, are the "regressive" books they may not be considering. For an example of a book about Canada, published in Canada about Canadian history by credentialed Canadians see the example provided in the post linked below. There are no copies nearby in any libraries. (Now they I have looked this over, I see the books I have suggested may be considered "regressive" because they are about "Classical English" and good writing and proper speaking; rather "Tory" indeed.) Censorship By Other Means.
Tuesday, 20 May 2025
"YELLOW-BELLIED"
Sapsucker, Woodpecker, Flycatcher and Other Assorted Critters...
They are the names you may have thought of when you saw the title, "Yellow-Bellied." Long ago in England, the words are first found (1674) in a description of the belly of an eal (eel) and, in later years, in relation to various reptiles and some of the birds mentioned above.
In the United States, however, the words in the 19th century are attached to those who were determined to be "contemptible, low or mean." By the early 20th one, cowardice was implied and it is to those with no backbone that we now turn our attention.
"Yellow-bellied" As A Taunt
When I recently saw the words, I thought of taunts rather than birds. "Yellow-belly" is what you were called if you were afraid to jump off the bridge or the barn roof, way back when "bullying" was expected and children not so easily traumatized. You may be surprised to learn that the words "yellow-bellied" were used last week in The New York Times in an article about large law firms lacking backbones, not one about birds. Some of them are pictured below, the ones that were bullied and which now are described as "yellow-bellied." Bullying may be generally frowned upon, but it apparently works well when done by a President. The current one has gone after the firms that went after him, or worked for the Dems, and many have agreed to do pro-bono work for the President if they want to get any work from the government.
Sources:
The OED is where the definitions of "yellow-bellied" are found.
There are many recent articles about Trump's bullying of law firms and other entities and there will be more articles about the "yellow-bellied" and most of those won't be about birds.
The impetus for this post is: "The Website Where Lawyers Mock ‘Yellow-Bellied’ Firms Bowing to Trump: Above the Law, a Legal Industry Website With a Long History of Skewering the Nation’s Most Elite Firms, Has Found a Moment and Plenty of Inside Tipsters," Elizabeth Williamson, NYT, May 18, 2025.
For more mocking and skewering of law firms see, ABOVE THE LAW "which takes a behind-the-scenes look at the world of law. The site provides news and insights about the profession’s most colorful personalities and powerful institutions, as well as original commentary on breaking legal developments."
"Fueled by a stream of inside-the-conference-room exclusives, Above the Law delivers a daily public spanking to what it calls “The Yellow-Bellied Nine.” Those are the elite firms who pledged a collective $1 billion in free legal work to Mr. Trump after he signed executive orders threatening to bar their lawyers from federal buildings, suspend their security clearances and cancel their government contracts. In the words of Above the Law, the firms “folded like a damp cocktail napkin” to the president’s demands for “pro bono payola.”...“I’ve always wondered,” he said, “when pressed, would rich liberal lawyers choose to stay rich or liberal? Now we know.”
Monday, 19 May 2025
Victory Gardens
Bill 5 (again)
At the beginning of this month you will find this post in MM which is linked here: "Line 5 (again) and Bill 5." Line 5 has to do with the potential for the loss of a great deal of fresh water from the Great Lakes and Bill 5, many believe, will lead to the loss of farmland here in Ontario. That post has some useful links and I will add more below.
After the recent U.S. presidential election and the tariff announcement(sss) there was a brief moment of Canadian camaraderie, as well as come concern that perhaps we got too much stuff, including food, from sources that might no longer be available. Some began thinking that we should be more careful with the land down here since it is better than land above here where it is also colder.
At least a few people continue to worry about the loss of farms and you may have received an email from some of them containing this sentence: "Every day we lose 319 acres of farmland in Ontario – that’s the equivalent of nine family farms." If you did not receive such a message that may mean that you are not concerned and, as well, believe it might be just more "fake news." Some additional sources related to these issues are provided, but you only have to circumnavigate London (not an easy thing to do) to see the good land receding like water at low tide.
What About the Victory Gardens?
Such gardens were typically planted during the war and you don't have to be a "prepper" worried about an apocalypse to think about growing your own food or to at least start thinking about where it comes from and how to get some.
Sources:
Read Bill 5 and decide for yourself. It supposedly will "Protect Ontario By Unleashing Our Economy."
For agricultural land loss in Ontario:
319 Acres: What Does It Mean?
A Waterloo example: "70% of Wilmot Farmland Secured for Future Industrial Site, Region Says," CBC News, May 14, 2025
For a grow-your-own Victory Garden:
The Wikipedia entry is a good place to start and then see, "Victory Gardens" in The Canadian Encyclopedia.
There are many more including: "How Can Your Start Your Own 'Victory Garden," CBC News, April 11, 2023 and from the good Old Farmer's Almanac, "Planning a Victory Garden", Robin Sweetser, May 15, 2025.
Sunday, 18 May 2025
Olde Posts Addenda (5)
Since all of the news is "breaking" these days, here are some more stories which have broken and are related to older news items in MM.
War Is Also Bad For Animals
Back in the spring of 2019 in MM I called to your attention the "Factlet" that in the fall of 1939 the pet-loving Brits chose to "put down" around 400,000 of them. The grim details are found in: Factlet (2) - The Brits and Their Pets. Such an astonishing figure will need verification and it is found in a book mentioned in that post: The Great Cat and Dog Massacre: The Real Story of World War Two’s Unknown Tragedy by Hilda Kean.
To the library of books about awful things that have happened to animals, another can be added: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Age, John M. Kinder. It is published by the University of Chicago Press where this description is found:
A new and heartbreaking history of World War II as told through the shocking experiences of zoos across the globe. As Europe lurched into war in 1939, zookeepers started killing their animals. On September 1, as German forces invaded Poland, Warsaw began with its reptiles. Two days later, workers at the London Zoo launched a similar spree, dispatching six alligators, seven iguanas, sixteen southern anacondas, six Indian fruit bats, a fishing cat, a binturong, a Siberian tiger, five magpies, an Alexandrine parakeet, two bullfrogs, three lion cubs, a cheetah, four wolves, and a manatee over the next few months. Zoos worldwide did the same. The reasons were many, but the pattern was clear: The war that was about to kill so many people started by killing so many animals. Why? And how did zoos, nevertheless, not just survive the war but play a key role in how people did, too?"
The author of the book was asked five questions which are also available and answered in the related U of C blog.
For a review of the book see: "With World War II on the horizon, animal keepers in cities around the world had to face one question: What would happen to their charges?" By Sophy Roberts, Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2025.
War Is Certainly Bad For Humans
Although the Vietnam war ended fifty years ago, even those of you born in this century will certainly have seen at least one of the two photos provided in: "Napalm Girl" and "Napalm Girl" (Again). "Napalm Girl" is still alive and is living in Ontario. The photos mentioned can be seen in the posts above and will not be shown again here. In the second post, it is noted that questions have been raised about the "authorship" of the "Napalm Girl" photo. Since it was written, the questions have been addressed and the 97 page report is linked in this article:
"The Associated Press Won’t Change ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo Credit: A documentary called “The Stringer” called into question whether Nick Ut actually took the famous photograph in Vietnam. The AP’s year-long probe couldn’t prove otherwise," Scott Nover & Jada Yuan, The Washington Post, May 6, 2025.
The End of the Crickets
Like Buddy Holly They Are No More
De Bono, one of the last of the local reporters, has been dutiful in his reporting on the demise of Aspire, the London cricket factory. I also have been devoted to this subject and a future historian will find in this post all they need to know about the failed aspirations of this London enterprise. I will offer first, the latest and surely the last cricket story which is provided by Mr. De Bono. Then follow the MM posts which are largely based on his reporting. I did contribute a bit about Kricket Krap, a by-product the Aspire folks may have overlooked. And, if you are still not interested I should mention that the company was seen to be part of a conspiracy.
Mr. De Bono is a professional and his titles are clearer and first sentences better than mIne:
"Cricket Producer in Receivership: City Plant Still Going as Aspire, Reportedly $41.5M in Debt, Seeks Buyer or Financing," Norman De Bono, The London Free Press, May 14, 2025.
"By Jiminy, London's cricket dreams have run into a financial roadblock as menacing as, well, a massive can of Raid."
Now, here is one of my titles and you will likely spot the difference:
Mr. De Bono is a professional and his titles are clearer and first sentences better than mIne:
"Cricket Producer in Receivership: City Plant Still Going as Aspire, Reportedly $41.5M in Debt, Seeks Buyer or Financing," Norman De Bono, The London Free Press, May 14, 2025.
"By Jiminy, London's cricket dreams have run into a financial roadblock as menacing as, well, a massive can of Raid."
Now, here is one of my titles and you will likely spot the difference:
"ENTOMOPHAGY"
I will skip my first sentence and go to the second paragraph by the professional:
"Norman De Bono (the reporter) revealed that, London will become home to the world’s largest indoor cricket farm with Aspire Food Group opening a 100,000-square-foot plant here that will act as a launch pad to bring bugs, as food, to the North American market....At the plant, crickets will be hatched and grown on-site and will become a tasteless, odourless protein powder that will be sold as a food additive, and will also be used to make protein bars.
That post is the one that mentions Kricket Krap which is sold by a company in Georgia so you shouldn't buy any right now.
Here is the post which reveals that this cricket business is just part of a scheme by Davos-types who want to force us to eat insects in communist Canada. Crickets and Conspiracies.
Trashy News
I will skip my first sentence and go to the second paragraph by the professional:
"Norman De Bono (the reporter) revealed that, London will become home to the world’s largest indoor cricket farm with Aspire Food Group opening a 100,000-square-foot plant here that will act as a launch pad to bring bugs, as food, to the North American market....At the plant, crickets will be hatched and grown on-site and will become a tasteless, odourless protein powder that will be sold as a food additive, and will also be used to make protein bars.
That post is the one that mentions Kricket Krap which is sold by a company in Georgia so you shouldn't buy any right now.
Here is the post which reveals that this cricket business is just part of a scheme by Davos-types who want to force us to eat insects in communist Canada. Crickets and Conspiracies.
Trashy News
That is a more attractive title than "News About Trash", about which I have provided many posts since there is plenty of trash. The new title about trash is all you need and I will spare you the details which are hardly needed: "On a Remote Australian Island, the Birds Are So Full of Plastic They Crunch: Seabirds Have Been Fishing Plastic From the Ocean and Feeding it to Their Chicks, Researchers Say. One Bird Was Found to Have Ingested 800 Pieces," Victoria Craw, The Washington Post, May 16, 2025.
For more proof that the plastic is piling up and that there is now something called "sea snot", see below:
Flotsam and Jetsam
More Flotsam
More Trash
Marine Mucilage in the Sea of Marmara
Polluted RIvers
The Bonus:
I couldn't help but notice that one of the authors in the articles cited above provides an example of an inaptronym (Kinder in the article about killing) and another an aptronym (Craw in the last article about birds ingesting plastic.) About that subject see: Aptronyms.
Amen
I couldn't help but notice that one of the authors in the articles cited above provides an example of an inaptronym (Kinder in the article about killing) and another an aptronym (Craw in the last article about birds ingesting plastic.) About that subject see: Aptronyms.
Amen
The Most Glamorous Sport?
You Be the Judge
Sports are not well covered in MM, so I will offer something short since you may be tired of reading about the Stanley Cup. The following headline was encountered the other day and I wonder what you might think the sport would be that is referred to: "The Straight-Laced Control Freak Who Conquered the World’s Most Glamorous Sport". A hint: it is not the one being played for the Stanley Cup. This particular headline was in the Wall Street Journal and it refers to FI - Formula One. Another headline raises the question about the "most glamorous sport" and suggests it is E1 which is electric boat racing: "The F1 of the Seas Returns! Prince Albert of Monaco Presents the Trophy to the Winners of the E1 World Championship (so is this the most glamorous sport in Europe?)" Although the latter headline appears in the Tattler, not the WSJ, I think the photo it presents favours E1 as the winner.
If you would rather google on about this subject, than watch hockey, other suggestions for most glamorous sports are horse racing, figure skating, polo and even snow polo - "Where else would you see horses galloping on ice at altitude, while wealthy spectators glug Krug champagne?" Personally, based on the photo above, I will vote for Tom and the Prince who do look rather glamorous, don't you think?
The Bonus:
F1 may be glamorous, but it is also popular: "The average television audience for a Formula I race is around seventy million people – four times that of the typical N.F.L. game." That quotation is from, Sports News From Elsewhere in MM, where you will also find this one: “American Money Has Discovered Indian Cricket: Billion-dollar investment funds and N.F.L. ownership groups are among those angling for a foothold in the Indian Premier League."
Wednesday, 14 May 2025
Biggest Mystery Ever - Solved!
Well, technically speaking, it may not have been the biggest one since the beginning of time, but for me it was the most mystifying mystery I have ever read about. In a county close by, someone snuck up on 30,000 chickens and then came back later and stole 15,000 more. You can read about the original chicken caper in The Great Huron County Chicken Heist(s). Apparently (and, of course always allegedly) it was an inside job as you will learn from the sources below and we are all eager to know where exactly the chickens were kept inside.
Large Larcenies Continue to be a Problem
A litany of them was offered in Large Larcenies. Lest you think that you can rest easy, even in a rural area, that is not the case. Rustlers have returned to Colorado as this headline indicates: "Nearly 200 Cows Disappeared: The Case Remains Cold," Karin Brulliard, The Washington Post, April 9, 2025.
Even sheep aren't safe, even in England where there are also rustlers: "Hundreds of Sheep Stolen as Livestock Rustlers Target, UK Farms," Aleksandra Cupriak, Farmers Guide, March 6, 2024. Like cars in Toronto, farming equipment is also being nicked: "The Landscape is Centuries Old. The Crime is More Modern," Stephen Castle, NYT, April 22, 2025.
'In rural England, increasingly sophisticated farming equipment has become a target for thieves, adding to pressure on farming communities....Farms can be lucrative targets for thieves, because of the value of their vehicles and equipment. Thefts are “ever more sophisticated with examples of criminal gangs using technology such as drones” to pinpoint expensive machinery or accessories, according to Jim McLaren, chairman of NFU Mutual, an insurance company specializing in rural areas. Some equipment, the police say, is stolen to order and moved abroad...Andy Lemon, a police inspector who works on rural crime at Wiltshire Police, says that in some instances, high-value equipment has left Britain within 48 hours and ended up in Eastern Europe."
Sources:
"Farmer Who Reported Theft of 45,000 chicks Charged With Fraud, Mischief: OPP: A Huron County farmer who reported the theft of 45,000 chicks in April 2023 has been charged with fraud and public mischief, Huron OPP said,” Beatriz Baleeiro
London Free Press, May 07, 2025
"More than two years after a reported theft of 45,000 chicks from a Huron County farm, OPP have laid charges – against the farmer who reported the theft.
Huron OPP said Wednesday a 41-year-old South Huron man is charged with fraud over $5,000 and public mischief in a case one farmer described as “mind-boggling” when it was reported in April 2023....Huron OPP received a report on April 20, 2023, that 30,000 15-day-old chicks were stolen overnight on April 19. The alleged theft caused a stir in farming circles and stumped police.
“It’s absolutely mind-boggling,” Ethan Wallace, a farmer and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture director for Huron and Perth counties, said in a Free Press story on May 16, 2023.
“Anybody that’s chased a bird or anything knows how they scatter. To undertake rounding up 30,000 of them is, yeah, absolutely mind-boggling.” In the same story, an OPP spokesperson said investigators were puzzled.“We’re really lacking physical evidence to support the report of the theft, but it still doesn’t explain where are the chicks and how are they in the barn one day and gone the next?” Const. Craig Soldan said. “It’s still a mystery.”
On Blogging
Why Couldn't It Have Been Called Something Else?
Posts on MM beginning with "ON" usually mean the reader is in for a bit of pontification, about which we have had rather enough during the last few weeks. But, it is not the case that I will offer another bloated, preachy essay. I simply will type a few words about the word 'blog' as I consider whether or not to resume blogging.
My output has declined, partially because I was away and the weather has been good. Now it is raining and I am inside, but I would be more excited about resuming blogging if it was called something else.
Let's face it, 'blog' is a homely word, like 'booger' or 'blob' and even 'blobbing' sounds a little better. Blog, like 'fart', 'turd', 'chunk' or 'thud' are words that would not be characterized as mellifluous and one would likely not be particularly proud to be referred to as a 'chunker' or 'thudder' any more than one wants to be known as a 'farter.'
Apparently the word 'blog' originated just before the turn of this century from 'weblog.' By the time I started blogging in 2016, the activity was already passé, but when friends my age asked what I was up to, saying 'blogging' sounded just as bad as some of those other words mentioned. Perhaps it would have sounded better if someone like Proust had been a blogger.
Blogs are now like emails in that no one reads them. Texts are favoured since they are short and are completed for you and come with emojis. Blogs have been replaced by Substacks, but I wouldn't say that 'substack' is a particularly attractive term either, but one does get paid for producing them. Reddit is not much better and reminds me of the sounds of frogs. For now I think I will keep on blogging, at least on rainy days.
Post Script:
If money was the object, I suppose I could start a substack, even though saying "I have my own substack" has less appeal than saying, for example, "I am a surgeon". In any case, talent is required in both cases. Writing a blog does not require any and one avoids getting replies like this from an editor.
Sunday, 11 May 2025
A Tribute to Telnaes
[Before I move back to the past, where I belong and where we all now wish to be, excuse me again for writing about the present and the THING many of us wish to avoid. But, as newspapers cease publishing and good journalists disappear to subterranean places like Substack, it is worth taking some time to tell you about Telnaes who now resides there.]
Democracy Dies in Darkness and Irony
The Washington Post just won a couple of Pulitzers. Credit for one of them should go to Ann Telnaes who is no longer with The Post. She also won a Pulitzer in 2001 for editorial cartooning and this one is for "Illustrated Reporting and Commentary." The Pulitzer people say it was "For delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity – and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years."
While The Post still gets the credit for the Pulitzer which is based on her work, it should be noted that she felt it necessary to leave that paper after another of her editorial cartoons was 'spiked.' It "showed a group of media executives bowing before then President-elect Donald Trump while offering him bags of money, including Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos." She has indicated that it was not published because of what it portrayed. Her editor, David Shipley, said that it was not published because it was somewhat redundant, in that there had already been too many illustrating similar themes. Redundancy in Washington is hard to avoid these days.
Mr. Shipley himself later resigned after Mr. Bezos indicated that subjects in the "Opinion Section" needed to be restricted in favour of those emphasizing free markets and personal liberties.
Ruth Marcus left after "she said the newspaper’s management decided not to run her commentary critical of Bezos’ policy." Others left after Mr. Bezos would not allow the Post to endorse Kamala Harris. Perhaps the Post's slogan, "Democracy Dies in Darkness" needs to be re-evaluated by the marketing folks at that publication.
I have kept my subscription because the Washington Post still produces good pieces and writers like Ron Charles need to be supported.
So do the people who have left. The work of Ann Telnaes, along with an archive of her cartoons is found at "Open Windows"(https://anntelnaes.com/") which offers "A view into an uncertain time of isolation and frustrations, but also one of the resiliency of the human spirit."
Among the writings on her Substack one finds an article which illustrates that cartoons are important and that one can be even more severely punished for publishing them. Remember Charlie Hebdo? She published a story about that atrocity in the Washington Post and she deserves the credit for it, not the Post. Here is a portion from, "Charlie Hebdo, One Year Later," Jan. 7, 2016:
"One year ago today two masked gunman entered the Paris offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and gunned down twelve people, including five cartoonists. The murderers claimed they were avenging the prophet Muhammed and by the end of two days of terror, five more people were dead.
In the days immediately after the attack I did hold on to one hope. Surely now that people had been brutally murdered the world would finally and unequivocally support the universal right to freedom of expression, including cartoonists. But it didn’t happen. Support and solidarity quickly turned to questioning the motives of the attacked cartoonists....
So attacks continued on cartoonists and bloggers who dare to criticize governments, challenge institutions and traditional thinking. It seems like the quantified support for Charlie Hebdo has only allowed for repressive governments and humorless dictators to establish their own list of offensive images, mainly any criticism which ridicules them and threatens their power....
The only protection these brave cartoonists have is for the world to speak loudly for their right to freely express themselves....
Banning offensive images either officially or through intimidation will only end up allowing intolerant individuals and institutions to change drawing a red line for cartoonists into drawing an enclosure for them."
That the cartoonists were criticized more than the killers was surprising as I noted in this post: The Delicate Subject of Cartoons.
Sources:
The Post can be given a little credit for reporting this story about a journalist who chose to leave the paper after being censored. See:
" Ann Telnaes, Who Quit Washington Post in Protest, Wins Pulitzer for 'fearlessness' in Commentary: A longtime editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post who quit in protest after editors killed her sketch of the newspaper’s owner and other media executives bowing before President Donald Trump, has won the Pulitzer Prize for illustrated reporting and commentary," Lisa Baumann, May 5, 2025.
"A longtime editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post who quit in protest early this year after editors killed her sketch criticizing the Post owner and other media chief executives working to curry favor with Trump has won the Pulitzer Prize for illustrated reporting and commentary."
Sunday, 4 May 2025
"What Hath God Wrought?"
This should surely be a short post. One subject in it I am completely ignorant of and the other I have promised not to think or talk about. To display my ignorance and break my promises here is something brief about CRYPTO and TRUMP. This is the prompt for this post and I hope it does not ruin your day as it has mine.
"Trump's 100 days of Profit: Crypto Coin Rakes in Millions, Raises Ethics Alarms: Trump returned to the White House days after launching a cryptocurrency meme coin that analysts say is now worth a fortune," Josh Meyer, USA Today, May 4, 2025.
WASHINGTON – On his second day in office, President Donald Trump was asked if he would continue selling products that benefited him personally, after sales of a new Trump "meme coin" had soared to as much as $20 billion in value.
“I don't know much about it, other than I launched it. I heard it was very successful,” Trump replied. “I haven't checked it. Where is it today?”
“You made a lot of money, sir,” a reporter replied. “Several billion dollars, it seems like, in the last several days.”
“Several billion? That's peanuts for these guys,” Trump said gesturing toward a group of tech billionaires at the White House event."
The Side Bets
Friday, 2 May 2025
Line 5 (again) and Bill 5
It is highly likely that lately you have been rather distracted. As a way to get back to work, I will make a short public service announcement about two issues to which we should be paying more attention.
Hot Water
Line 5 is a big pipeline carrying lots of oil under the top of the Great Lakes. MM has already covered this issue and if you look at the links below you will even find a map. One of the reasons for your inattention to some important current issues probably has to do with President Trump. Unfortunately he is even involved with this one, but you might have missed it.
You can start here: "US Army Engineers Decide to Fast-track Great Lakes Tunnel Permits Under Trump Energy Emergency Order," Todd Richmond, AP, April 16, 2025.
"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has decided to fast-track permits for building a protective tunnel around an aging Enbridge oil pipeline that runs beneath a channel connecting two Great Lakes, stoking environmentalists’ fears that the project will escape scrutiny, damage the sensitive region and perpetuate fossil fuel use. The move comes after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January declaring that the U.S. has become too dependent on foreign energy sources. The order mandates that federal agencies identify energy infrastructure projects for expedited emergency permitting from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency."
The few Canadian newspapers have only provided a few stories about what could be a major problem and they are also distracted. For example, a quick search of the G&M yielded first a few articles about 'lines' and 'fives' in hockey games, but at least they did report on the report above: U.S. Army Corps Fast-tracks Permitting Process for Contentious Enbridge Pipeline in Michigan," Patrick White, April 16, 2025.
BILL 5
This relates to potential legislative action here in Ontario, so surely you missed it because of the hockey games. Here is the official source for information, the title of which is rather different from the next ones provided.
Bill 5, Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025
Lecce, Hon. Stephen Minister of Energy and Mines.
Bill 5 Would End Endangered Species Protections and Attack Clean Energy: Ontario is Scaling Back Species at Risk Protections, Worrying Advocates and Inviting Federal Intervention: New rules narrow habitat definition, remove protections for some species, no longer require recovery plans, Inayat Singh, CBC, April 30, 2025.
You be the judge.
The Bonus:
We should be paying more attention to WATER. Here is a question about it that was recently asked: "Will We Have to Pump the Great Lakes to California to Feed the Nation?". Jay Famiglietti, NYT, Aug. 5, 2024. You will have to find the answer yourself.
And, some pure CANCON: "This Region Nearly Ran Out of Water. Locals and Experts Say Other Canadian Towns Should Pay Attention: B.C.’s Sunshine Coast Declared a State of Emergency Due to Drought in 2022." Elizabeth Hoath, CBC Radio, April 27, 2025.
Sources:
About Line 5 in MM:
Line 5.
Oddments (1)
Line 5 Again
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