Year Ends & Odds

    There has been enough ranting this year so I will usher it out by offering some short posts related to past ones. They are meant as rewards for my loyal readers, but those of you who are locked in and desperate for something to do are welcome to read along. 

Book Thieves Caught!

   First, some good news. A while back I posted about the big book heist at Heathrow, during which several rare and very valuable books were stolen in a 'Mission Impossible Raid' - see The Great British Book Burglary.  Using surveillance footage and the latest in DNA analysis it was finally determined that the culprits were not the usual suspects (cardigan wearing bibliophiles), but Romanian nationals. 300 officers in three countries searched 45 addresses and twelve men have been put away for almost 50 years. "Of around 240 books that were stolen, four were still missing, according to the Met police. One in three had suffered some kind of damage." See: "Tome Raiders: Solving the Great Book Heist," Mark Wilding, The Guardian, Dec. 13, 2020.

The History of Smell

   To help you through the pandemic I posted about The History of Everything, to which was attached "A History for Every Letter" (28pp).  For the letter "S" I included, Sleep, Salt, Seduction, Solitude and Snow, but nothing stinky. Studying the smells of the past is rather tricky, but now olfactory assistance is on the way since over $3 million has been awarded for a project, "on the collection and recreation of smells in 16th- to early 20th-century Europe that will marry historical and literary analysis with machine learning and chemistry." For all the details see: ODEUROPA.  Here are two books on the subject for those of you who can't wait:

Skin Books

 

Skin Books (not pornography)

   In my series "The University of the Unusual (4)", the subject of Anthropodermic Bibliopegy was covered. It will be of interest to those who want to know more about books that are bound with human skin. A new book on the subject is now available, but I think the binding is a normal one. See: Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin, by Megan Rosenbloom. ( I also mention in my post that heavily tattooed individuals can now leave behind their skin so their next of kin can continue to enjoy the art work.)

The Dreaded Name Problem

   During our delicate times there are many delicate people who are offended by the names of many of our ancestors, or towns, or buildings, etc. and I have offered many, related indelicate posts. I will not link to them, but instead point you to two solutions to the problem which come from unlikely places.

   The first is from the Baseball Hall of Fame which contains many now problematic names. Instead of removing them, patrons are reminded that the recipients of the awards were given them for their accomplishments in the game and that details about their dark side will be found elsewhere in the museum. The suggestion, by the way, is approved of by Jane Forbes Clark, the chairman of the HOF board of directors, who is likely a woman. For more details see: "The Hall of Fame Tries to Contextualize Baseball’s Racist Past Rather Than Remove the Plaques of its Most Problematic Inductees, the Baseball Hall of Fame is hoping to Explain Them,"Tyler Kepner, NYT, Dec. 21, 2020.

   The second solution is from Down Under. Down there they are way ahead of us in terms of digitizing the past. Millions of old newspapers, magazines, etc. are viewable for free on TROVE. Naturally most of those publications will contain material that is now not acceptable, particularly for the "First Australians" (Indigenous peoples) and some members of the professoriate. So, warnings are provided and "Cultural Advice" is given, to wit: 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that Trove contains images, voices or names of deceased persons in photographs, websites, film, audio recordings or printed material.

Some material contains terms that reflect authors’ views, or those of the period in which the item was written or recorded, but may not be considered appropriate today. These views are not necessarily the views of the National Library of Australia or Trove Partners. While the information may not reflect current understanding, it is provided in an historical context.

By selecting "Show cultural advice", please be advised that you will continue to receive subsequent cultural advice notices before viewing materials on Trove that may be considered culturally sensitive. You can opt out at any time.

Rather sensible, don't you think?

Downtown Dollars

   Near the beginning of the month I wrote about LETS - Local Currencies.  A few days later I noticed this letter in the London Free Press (Dec.11). It shows how they can be used:

I am a server at a downtown restaurant. Saturday night a customer paid his bill using downtown dollars. He told me that because of COVID his company was not having a Christmas party, instead giving all its employees downtown dollars to spend locally.

What a great idea.

New Initialisms You Should Know

   Continuing on the subject of nomenclature, here are some new abbreviations which will be handy in the new year:

BAME - Black Asian Minority Ethnic

AAPI - Asian-American and Pacific Islanders

IBPOC - Indigenous Black People of Color (colour may be too colonial)

   While people of color may be appropriate, women of color may not be. This is getting to be almost as complicated as gender. Here is a relevant article:

"We Are Black Women: Stop Calling Us Women of Color." Donna F. Edwards & Gwen McKinney, Washington Post, Sept. 14, 2020:

  Ironically, the WOC terminology was coined by Black women in the late 1970s as a rejection of the disparaging label “minority.” Similar to notions of “post-racial” and "colorblind," the term “WOC” negates racial identity in the service of racial unity. Over time, the contrast has become not one of multiethnicities but simply a White/non-White binary.

We are Black. The term is direct and invokes something visceral and difficult for those who are non-Black to embrace or understand. In our lifetime, the more comfortable identifiers have morphed from “Colored,” to “Negro,” to “Afro-American,” to “African American.” The explosion of multiculturalism created a “we are the world” rainbow. Through it all, we remained Black. Not a label or a color, Black is an experience; it is the glue of our unique legacy in this country.

WAP - This is an acronym you do not need to know since it does not apply to a person, only to a part of a person.

Another Major Hacking

   Back in the spring of 2018 I noted that even the Island of Prince Edward was not isolated enough to avoid a ransomware attack - see Cybercrime & Cyberwarfare.  Although most of the news about the recent major episode has come from the United States, Canada did not escape the latest internet attack since SolarWinds, the company whose code was hacked, has 18,000 customers, including the U.S. Treasury and the Department of Commerce. It gets worse: Canada Pension Plan Investment Board agreed to buy a stake in SolarWinds Corp. for U.S. $315 million just days before the company disclosed it was the target of a major global hacking campaign that has compromised multiple U.S. computer systems. "To say the timing is unfortunate is an understatement," CPPIB spokesman Michael Leduc said Friday." "CPPIB Agrees to Buy Stake in SolarWinds Days Before Firm Discloses Major Hack," David Milstead, G&M, Dec. 19, 2020.

BIG WATER

   I recently wrote about "Long Tail" (Lake Erie) and provided in that post links to the others I have done on the Great Lakes. The question now is "Can We Make These Lakes Great Again?"  particularly since we can't drive long distances to swim and fish in others. That question was addressed in the latest National Geographic and the cover story is "Saving the Great Lakes: The Irreplaceable Fragile Ecosystem Holds Six Quadrillion gallons of Freshwater That Our Planet Needs to Survive," -see, "So Great, So Fragile," by Tim Folger in the December issue. It is full of interesting statistics and photos. 

   Less Poop in the Pacific

 

      Thanks partially to POOP - People Opposed to Outflow Pollution - there is some good news from the West Coast. People living in the Victoria area have been crapping in the Strait of Juan de Fuca since the 19th century. Finally, a Wastewater Treatment Project has been completed and the sewage treated. See: "I Was Wondering Why the Water Looked So Clean [said the Governor of Washington State]: CRD's Sewage Treatment Plant Up and Running," Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist, Dec. 5, 2020.

Mr. Floatie, the man-sized turd, who used to show up to draw attention to the problem is pictured above.

   About the Gulf of Mexico - I'm Not So Sure

     The Deepwater Horizon Disaster was ten years ago, but I wouldn't rush to buy property in Louisiana when the border reopens. Back in 2004 Hurricane Ivan destroyed Taylor Energy's oil platform, but not much was said about it. More recently, two scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with and a Florida State University professor, found that up to 108 barrels of oil, or more than 4,500 gallons, is being released from the site off of the Louisiana coast every day. That is not something Taylor Energy really wanted to let the world know. The oil spill went undiscovered until about a decade ago when environmental watchdog groups found oil slicks while monitoring the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. "The Energy 202: The Truth Comes Out About the Longest Lasting Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico, Washington Post, June 25, 2019.

Bruce McCall

   I began the year with a post about Bruce McCall and also included him in an earlier one about Canadian Cartoonists.  I will end it by calling attention to his second memoir which is now available and which will give you something else to read in the new year. 

HOW DID I GET HERE? A Memoir, by Bruce McCall. (Blue Rider, $27.) The writer and illustrator looks back on a career that took him from advertising to comedy writing for National Lampoon and ''Saturday Night Live'' to his current work for The New Yorker and other magazines.

For a recent interview with him see: "New Yorker Writer and Artist Bruce McCall: 'I'm Proud to be Canadian, but I Don't Want to Live in Canada," Emily Donaldson, Globe & Mail, Dec. 17, 2020. For a brief review see: "How Did I Get Here: A Review, Marissa Moss, The New York Journal of Books. 

Post Script: 

   An excerpt from the book appears in The New Yorker and it has to do with McCall's fascination with automobiles and the drawing of them: "My Life in Cars: I Tucked Into the Romance of Driving at its Fervent Peak," (Dec. 12, 2020). Here is the first sentence:

Cars had gripped my imagination almost since I had one, as a boy growing up in Ontario. I loved to draw them as they appeared on the pages of magazines. First, in the immediate postwar era, the foggy reprints from British racing journals of prewar Grand Prix.

   And here are a few about his exit from Canada:

Canada jiggled in the rearview mirror, receded, and disappeared as I drove into the tunnel conveying me from Windsor to Detroit on a gray afternoon in December, 1962. By this time, the suspicion that I wasn’t cut out for a contented Canadian life had become a conviction. I was temperamentally too antsy for that conspiracy of calm, phlegmatism, and compulsive self-effacement. It increasingly irked me that Canada shunned all extremes, breeding what I saw as a wallflower mentality and a bland tolerance for mediocrity. With J.F.K. cheering up the White House, it felt like a propitious moment to immigrate to America. I exited the tunnel in the unglamorous Volvo I was driving then and found no welcoming committee, no Emma Lazarus scenario. A customs officer waved me through, and the most significant act of my life passed with all the drama of paying last month’s water bill.

All the best in 2021.

Books By The Meter

Colourful Books

    This is a short, year-end post that is intended to be more useful than most, and will be if you fall into either of these categories: 1) someone looking for a business opportunity; 2) someone who quickly wants to buy a bunch of books or 3) someone who Zooms a lot. 

   Like all of the other good ideas which you have found on this blog, this one is not mine. It does, however, issue from the state in which I was born - Maryland. Specifically it comes from Wonder Book which is a bookseller, but better known for the service which it provides - SELLING BOOKS BY THE FOOT. 

   All those of you in the entrepreneurial first group have to do is import the idea from "Books By The Foot" and change the name to "Books By The Meter". It is unlikely that this would be viewed as some kind of 'infringement', but if you are worried simply change the name to "Books By The Metre" and surely no one down there would figure out what you are up to. 

   If you are hunkered down in your jammies and just want books to read during the next dreary six months, but have carpal tunnel syndrome from all of your online ordering, simply go to this one website and type in “send me three feet of mystery books," or Harlequins, or "six feet of  books that are like 50 Shades of Gray." Soon you will receive them. 

   If you are in the last group and are working from home and not supposed to be reading, but wish to appear to be well-read for that Zoom call, simply order three shelves of distressed looking history books, or the same number of current looking political books, or whatever your particular audience might appreciate.  It will be impressive and they will not know you are wearing sweatpants and haven’t read a book since the Internet was invented.

Solid Colour Books

   Here is all you need to know and do. Go to the website for Books By The Foot. If you actually like books, just start looking through the 'products' where you will find some fine books, indeed; Carlyle's Works ($1,159.95), for example. There are also the usual subjects.

   If you are more interested in style than substance, this is where the service division of Wonder Book will come in handy. If you scroll down far enough at the website you will find over 125 Styles to help you "Achieve Your Vision." There are a variety of categories, but I will just choose color.

    You could start with Solid Colors such as "Basic Black", "We've Got the Blues" or go with "Burgundy Bindings": With luxurious burgundy bindings, these modern hardbacks range from dark raspberry to wine and are in very good to new condition. These books are perfect for interior decorating, model/vacation home furnishings, art materials, AND MORE! $49.99 per foot. Or you could choose the cheaper "Budget Colors" which are only $19.99 per foot. 

   If you want more colorful shelves look at: "Cozy Cabin", "Whispering Willows" or "Aran Island Knits": This cozy collection of books was inspired by a stylish selection of Aran sweaters. Combining contemporary taste with traditional style, this curated hardcover book collection is sure to warm any book shelf. Perfect for interior decorating, model/vacation home furnishings, AND MORE! $69.99 per foot. 

   You can also order from the "Vintage Tea Time" collection which is inspired by Victorian tea sets, these vintage cloth hardbacks are in good condition or better and and were published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These books are perfect for interior decorating, TV/movie/stage/photo props, decorative accents, AND MORE! $79.99  Or if your vision is a grander one look at the "Distressed Vintage Cloth" collection and inquire about the price: Antique books showing some of the ravages of time, these vintage cloth hardbacks are in fair condition or better and were published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These books are perfect for interior decorating, TV/movie/stage/photo props, decorative accents, AND MORE! Discounts available on purchases of 100 feet or more.

   It is no accident that Books by the Foot is located near the nation's capital and if you plan to start such an enterprise up here you might be wise to locate around Ottawa and, as well, start a French branch on the other side of the river. In such locations, large numbers of politicians come and go and the ones leaving typically get rid of their books, which the ones arriving can use for their own decorating.

  The pandemic has been good for business one would think.  If I was being Zoomed by Vassy Kapelos, I would want impressive and intimidating rows of books and I would throw in some memorabilia from Western University so she would go easy on me. As well one has to consider  Room Rater rankings which can be enhanced by the appropriate collection of books, with the proper colors and carefully placed flowers and plants.

The Prime Minister

The Bonus:

   Even if you are like me and do not use Twitter, you will be aware of Room Rater since highly rated or, more likely, very low rated images are often posted along with amusing comments. If you haven't seen them, you can find them easily. See, for example: "Room Rater Judges Zoom Backdrops in Hilarious Ways," on House Beautiful.com, where you will find a not very flattering picture of Barbra Streisand.

   What I did not know is that one of the creators of Room Rater is Jessie Bahrey who is the office manager at Muldoon Greenhouses in Port Coquitlam and lives in Port Moody.

   You can see her interviewed here: "Everybody Can Relate: Meet the B.C. Woman Rating the World's Skype Setups," Simon Little, Global News, May 3, 2020.

   Or you can read about her here: "Politicians, Pundits and Celebrities Better Watch Out For This Port Moody Woman," Mario Bartel, TriCity News, May 4, 20209

   A very good account of how it all happened is found in the very good Canadian publication, The Logic. See: "Letter From the Editor: The Love Story Behind Room Rater, the Social Media Hit of the Pandemic,"Dec. 19, 2020 by David Skok. 

Have a good new year and do have a look at Books by the Foot. 

Factlet (7)

Conundrum Along the Charles

   The last factlet for this year is this one: In order to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology you have to pass a swim test. After making it through the admission process and completing four years as a double-major in aerospace and planetary science, you still are required to plunge into the pool. The covid has created quite a conundrum since one can't go swimming. 

   Apparently mandatory swim tests were introduced because of the many drownings during World War II. While the test is no longer a requirement at many universities, one still has to pass it at some of the Ivies. Cornell, Dartmouth and Columbia decided to waive the tests because of covid.
   MIT didn't. Instead one has to take a "conceptual swim test." Some students found the class, which stretches around four hours in one session, grueling -- especially since swimming the actual test would normally take about 10 minutes.

   If you are an MIT freshman with a fear of the water you may be thinking about taking the aquatic Zoom class. But, the officials have ruled that only seniors can take the virtual version.

The Bonus: Nudity at the Ivies

   Years ago incoming freshmen (and women at some of the affiliated Seven Sisters colleges) were required to be photographed naked. This meant that a large number of photos of the nation's most elite members were found piled in stacks on campuses in New England. 

Sources:

   I am sure you are most interested in the nudity. All you need is this Wikipedia entry:  "Ivey League Nude Posture Photos." More details are found here: "The Naked Truth About Yale's Posture Problem."

The pictures ended up at the Smithsonian and were destroyed in 1995.

   About the swimming see: "At MIT, Swim Like Your Degree Depends on it - Covid Sends School's Famous Aquatics Requirement Online," Jem Bartholomew, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 30, 2020.

   For an example, see Cornell's swim test requirements. 

   I don't know what the swimming situation is like at Canadian universities, but I did find that if one wants to swim in the deep end and use the Tarzan rope in the Trent Athletics Centre, a test is required.

The First Factlet: What's A Gee-Gee. 

I am not sure if one has to swim at the 'Canadian Ivies'.

More Contrarian News For Old Codgers (OATS4)

      I would not ordinarily post another item in my series on Old Age ThemeS at this time of year since they are generally negative in tone. That is because my approach is an evidence-based one and the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that it is better to be younger. My intention here is positive, however, in that I simply want to wish you a Happy New Year and suggest that you Relax, Rest and Lighten-Up. The data suggest such an approach could be good for you, so perhaps you should have a drink and slow down on the puzzling and gaming. Those of you who know me are likely to question my judgement and ignore my advice, for many good reasons, so here are the studies you will not have read in those sunny CARP and AARP publications.

   The headline here should be enough: "Excessive Brain Activity Linked to a Shorter Life." That probably does not suffice and you are probably thinking I made it up or grabbed it from The Onion. I didn't. It is at the top of an article in The Washington Post that you will find in the Oct.16, 2019 issue. It was written by Carolyn Y. Johnson. That also is probably not good enough since it is just a newspaper article, so you will be saddened to learn that she is reporting on the results published in a respected journal. But, actually you should be happy since you don't have to exercise your brain so hard. Here is all you need to know:

One key to a longer life could be a quieter brain without too much neural activity, according to a new study that examined postmortem brain tissue from extremely long-lived people for clues about what made them different from people who died in their 60s and 70s.
“Use it or lose it” has dominated thinking on how to protect the aging brain, and extensive research shows there are many benefits to remaining physically and mentally active as people get older. But the study, published in the journal Nature, suggests more isn’t always better. Excessive activity — at least at the level of brain cells — could be harmful.
“The completely shocking and puzzling thing about this new paper is … [brain activity] is what you think of as keeping you cognitively normal. There’s the idea that you want to keep your brain active in later life,” said Michael McConnell, a neuroscientist at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, who was not involved in the study. “The thing that is super unexpected is … limiting neural activity is a good thing in healthy aging. It’s very counterintuitive.”

   If you bothered to read that you will know that the findings are found in Nature and if you want to see if I have doctored the findings, you can read "Regulation of Lifespan by Neural Excitation and REST," in Vol. 575 on p.359. The first sentence from the abstract may suffice: The mechanisms that extend lifespan in humans are poorly understood.

   I will offer additional evidence that suggests you can cut back on your puzzling and gaming. It comes from Western University which is close by.  I don't want to overwork my brain so I will just copy some of the points. Once again, the headline should suffice:

"Study: Brain Game Doesn’t Offer Brain Gain,"Debora Van Brenk, Western News, July 30, 2018.

A new Western-led study has debunked claims that getting better at a brain-training game can translate to improved performance in other games and tasks. The newest findings add fuel to previous research that showed brain-training doesn’t make a person smarter, but merely improves their abilities in those specific games.

The study, Targeted training: Converging evidence against the transferable benefits of online brain training on cognitive function, published in the journal Neuropsychologia, tested whether hours of training in one game could give someone an edge in a second game that exercises the same area of the brain.

There was also an earlier study:

In 2010, Western neuroscientist Adrian Owen and an international team of researchers conducted the largest trial to date of brain-training computer games. Their findings showed zero transfer effects from the training tasks to more general tests of cognition. A paper based on their findings, "Putting Brain Training to the Test,"was published in Nature in June 2010.

Those findings, yet again, found no significant improvement on any of the tests.

You are better off to just:

“Sleep better. Exercise regularly. Eat better. Education is great. That’s the sort of thing we should be focused on. If you’re looking to improve your cognitive self, instead of playing a video game or playing a brain-training test for an hour, go for a walk, go for a run, socialize with a friend. These are much better things for you.”

Sources: For additional gerontological wisdom from this series see:
Contrarian News for Old Codgers (OATS1)

More Contrarian News for Old Codgers (OATS2)

More Contrarian News for Old Codgers (OATS3)

Charcoal Fueled Automobiles

    

   This is Abandoned Project #737 and it does actually have to do with cars that use charcoal as fuel. I am really abandoning the subject in 2020 since it is highly unlikely that I will take it up in 2021, given where it resides in the queue of things which remain unfinished. You are likely to be interested in such an unusual topic and eager to learn more, but you are probably fatigued more than usual at this covid year end. So, I will make it easy for you.

   There is no specific Wikipedia entry, but there is a good article that will provide you with all you need, or probably want to know. It is found, appropriately enough, in Low-Tech Magazine - "Wood Gas Vehicles: Firewood in the Fuel Tank." One reason I am now abandoning what I thought was an unheard of subject is because quite a few people know about it. I am assuming that you are not among them.

   Although the link provided above has been around for many years, it may not be around in the years to come - it is, after all, found in a publication that is 'Low-Tech'. Where would that leave readers of this blog who happen to stumble over this post a few years from now? It is out of concern for them that I offer more. You are free to go. 

   They would likely want to know how I came upon such a subject. I found it mentioned in what is regarded as one of the greatest travel accounts of the last century: The Road to Oxiana, by Robert Byron (no relation.) If you weren't particularly interested in the workings of internal combustion engines, you now are likely to be more intrigued. I recently discovered some old notes of mine and it is them that I am about to abandon and toss out, to make room for more projects to be abandoned in my few remaining years.

   The first mention is found in the introduction: “From Beriut [sic] they were supposed to be conveyed to Persia by some young British friends making a publicity expedition in two Rolls-Royces burning charcoal instead of gasoline. When to no one’s great surprise these failed to appear, Byron and Sykes proceeded by themselves.... There is not really much information about the charcoal burners in the Road to Oxiana and that is what led me to start poking around.

   I do not recall what surprised me most, that,  a) cars could run on charcoal or b) anyone would trust a British-made vehicle for such a long journey. Perhaps they were better in the 1930s. The trip, by the way was not a short one - it was 6,000 miles, the approximate distance from England to Oxiana, which was a vague region somewhere in northern Afghanistan. The Rolls were of the 'Silver Ghost' type and one was driven by Colonel Noel, accompanied by Mrs. Noel. They were also described as 'open tourers' and here is the proposed route: 
"The route taken will be to Brindisi and thence by boat to Haifa. From there the cars will go to Damascus, Baghdad, and on to Teheran [sic]. If permission can be obtained Colonel Noel will go through Afghanistan.
   You will agree that it was surely an exciting adventure, the purpose of which was described in The Times on Oct. 19, 1933:
Colonel Noel stated that the objects of his 6,000 mile journey were to revive the charcoal industry in India and to keep in this country money now spent on imported petrol. Charcoal was able to do the work of petrol and it was cheaper. Twelve pounds of charcoal were equal in power to about one gallon of petrol.

   Future readers may be more interested than you in alternatives for petrol, since interest is inversely related to the availability of it. Right now there is a glut. While I have indicated that you can find plenty of pieces about charcoal burning cars, future readers will likely appreciate the kind of bespoke references I will offer below, which illustrate that interest was high when gasoline was scarce and that the charcoal powered vehicles were found around the globe. I will begin with Canada.

Sources;

Canada
   In 1943 one finds an article indicating that a Forestry Department boat was propelled by sawdust in Parry Sound and others indicating that newspaper publishers with plants in Canada were using charcoal to power engines at pulp mills. See: "Sawdust Drives Launch Nearly As Well as Gas," Globe & Mail, July 19, 1943. For a government study see: "Wood and Charcoal as Motor Fuel," Dept. of Mines and Resources, 1936. The pamphlet begins by indicating that there has been little interest in charcoal as a fuel in the U.S. and Canada because there was lots of gas and it was cheap. In B.C. various types of trees were analyzed with regards to their suitability as sources for charcoal and it was suggested that it could be used for fuel to run stationary engines in isolated areas in the far north.,

   The first reference I found was from 1902 in a New York Times article on Nov. 16 under "Automobile Topics of Interest."

    There are many articles from France including this one about Imbert, an early inventor: "USES CHARCOAL GAS TO DRIVE AUTOMOBILE: Alsatian Inventor Puts a Furnace on the Car and Uses the Ordinary Engine," NYT, Feb. 1, 1924 and "Big French Motor Magnate Talks on Gas," Drew Pearson, Boston Daily Globe, Dec. 14, 1924.

   "Gasoline Powered Cars May Become Oddity in Germany," The Hartford Courant, May 29, 1936.
    "25,000 French Cars, Trucks, Now Run on Charcoal," Chicago Tribune, April 3, 1941.
    "Most of Europe's Autos Driven by Ersatz Fuel," Christian Science Monitor, June 12, 1941. (The same newspaper later published a 'how-to' article: "Did You Even Wonder How an Automobile Can Run on Charcoal?", Oct. 6, 1941

   There was also interest in Italy:
"Gas-Driven Motor-Cars Fuel Derived From Charcoal," (News) FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT. The Times Wednesday, Nov 22, 1933; pg. 13; Issue 46608; col B
This is a report from Rome about a gasogene machine running on charcoal  derived from wood and fuel from “vegetable refuse or other normal waste materials.” It provides details about the cost, showing how much cheaper these fuels are.

"Charcoal Fuel For Cars Result Of Italian Experiment, 3,750 Miles For £3 (News) "FROM OUR ROME CORRESPONDENT. The Times Saturday, Sep 21, 1935; pg. 9; Issue 47175; col E
This is a good lengthy piece talking about how the Italians are trying to make themselves self-sufficient and to balance trade. An ‘open sports car’ was driven over 3000 miles around Europe and a breakdown is given of the costs – which were much less than for petrol. This is so successful that public transport is increasingly using charcoal and “that all vehicles used for passenger transport must be adapted for the consumption of charcoal fuel by December 31, 1937.”

   This from New Zealand: "Best Woods Are Sought to Make Car Charcoal", The Hartford Courant, Nov. 17, 1940. The same paper has an article about Japan: "Jap Cars to Burn More Charcoal, Less Gasoline." July 7, 1940.  In Australia it was announced that a charcoal powered car had made the 7000 mile trip from Perth to Sydney with the fuel costing $3.20 per 1000 miles. The Hartford Courant, Aug.12, 1942.

   In 1944, students at Lehigh University built one: "Ration Free Automobile Uses Charcoal as Fuel," Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 1944.

Post Script:
  Sadly, such sources led me to Project #738, which I will also now abandon to clear the decks for 2021. It was about - LOONEY GAS - an interesting subject I will leave it up to you to investigate. It is not, by the way, about gas that costs a loonie a litre, but rather about leaded gas that often caused people to go 'looney.' I should have covered it in my post about the history of Gasoline Stations. 

   Alas, as well, I am abandoning the subject of "bubble cars" which were the many tiny cars built in Europe because of fuel shortages during the war. A few year back, a collection of microcars were auctioned for over $8 million in an auction run by RM Auctions located close by in Chatham. Their story almost became another project. They have since partnered with Sotheby's to become RM Sotheby's.  See also: "Tiny Bubbles, Causing a Buzz," Robbie Brown, NYT, Feb. 22, 2013.

 

North of Long Tail

Lake Erie

  

   'Long Tail' is how Indigenous people described Lake Erie and "North of Long Tail" is the title of a special photography project by Colin Boyd Shafer done with the support of Environmental Defence Canada. It is about the people and places on our, north side of the lake. 

Beautiful Photographs

   I will not force you to read on. You can go directly to the photographs at North of Long Tail. Among the people profiled you will find Ms Notebomer from Stratford (pictured above) who, at 14, swam Lake Erie from Sturgeon Point, NY to Crystal Beach near Fort Erie. Closer to London, you will find good photos of Port Stanley in the profile of Todd, a firefighter, who lives there. There is also a YouTube video about the project (almost an hour long.) North of Long Tail; Behind the Lens.  A radio broadcast is still available on the CBC website: "Afternoon Drive," Chris dela Torre, "Documentary of North Long Tail," Nov.19, 2020.

Sources:

   All the sources you need are provided above. I have posted about the Great Lakes and hope to do more in the new year. Here are some of the old ones:

The American Lakes - Book Series.

Wayne State University Press 

Parks Along the Great Lakes  

University of Minnesota Press

Great Lakes Pollution

George R. Stewart (1895 - 1980)

Pandemic Reading Project

   It is highly likely that you are bored and have run out of reading material. My purpose here is to introduce you to one author who will provide all the books you need, whether you are a fan of fiction or non-fiction. As well, a large number of subjects are covered.

   You will be surprised to learn that the producer of all these books, on different topics and in different genres, was a professor of English. Don't let that discourage you. He was an interesting fellow and the English Department at Berkeley was clearly different back in his day. You can easily learn more about him in the sources I will offer.  For now, here are some of the subjects he wrote about and there will surely be one-or-two that will interest you. We will begin with the fiction.

The Pandemic

   Although you may be trying to avoid reading about the current Covid crisis, you can't. Nor can your friends and relatives and we are all reading and talking about the same things, which at this moment are vaccines. Introduce some variety into the conversation, by speculating about what would happen if the virus resulted in the loss of most of mankind (or theykind or whatever.) In the novel Earth Abides, a young man returns from the wilderness only to find that most of the population has disappeared - because of a virus. It is a well-crafted tale. The earth abides, the animals do well, but the humans do not.

The Weather

   Always a very popular subject and now we are experiencing it in extreme forms. The National Weather Service ran out of the usual names for storms this year and had to take some from the Greek alphabet. Although the Atlantic tropical storms have only been given names since 1953, Stewart named storms in his novel, Storm which was a Book of the Month Club selection back in 1941. 

   The weather was also partially responsible for the destruction of almost 10 million U.S. acres by fires. Stewart's novel Fire, "is the blazing story of Spitcat, a forest fire, and of the eleven days during which it was born, almost died, and raged across a green and gracious Sierra forest to leave only black desolation and a terrible silence. It is the story of a flaming disaster that took only a few days to happen, but would need a hundred years to mend. It is also the intensely human story of the men and women who risked their lives and pitted their strength and strategy against this red terror of the forest."

Now For Some Non-Fiction

   Not all of Stewart's work is going to be covered, but if you are growing impatient and want to read a book about possible cannibalism among pioneers in the Sierra Nevada mountains, read Ordeal by Hunger (or just read the almost book length account about the Donner Party in Wikipedia.)

Travel

   You are not supposed to be travelling, but you can read about doing so. I covered books about trails and wandering around and included Stewart's The California Trail, He also wrote about Route 40 and the roads heading north to Alaska and south to Costa Rica. He travelled a lot to gather research about the names of places. That is Stewart pictured above with his wife.

Names

   The problems we are having now with many names was covered in my post - Names on the Land, which is also the title of one of Stewart's books. There are others by him about other names. The New York Review of Books re-publishes 'classics' and Names on the Land is one of them. It is fascinating and I have a copy if you want to borrow it. 

University Politics

   You probably aren't eager to tackle this topic which has been much in the news. Stewart did write about the subject and Year of the Oath has some relevance. When university professors were forced to sign an oath indicating they were not members of the Communist Party, Stewart objected and noted that "Men and Women of Spirit object to having a knife put at their throats." It takes a spirited individual these days to stand up to those now wielding the knives.

   

Sources: 

   This is now far too long.  To quickly see if Stewart is likely to interest you read the Wikipedia entry for him. This source is not being updated, but it is very good: George R. Stewart. This one is continually updated and very good. Earth Abides (there is also a Wikipedia entry for this book.)

   

   There is a copy of Earth Abides in the London Public Library System and at Western. Other books by Stewart available in the Western Libraries are listed below.

Books by George R. Stewart

   The books in red are available in the libraries of Western University for those who live in the London area and have access to the collections (Search done in December 2020).

Novels:

      

East of the Giants, Holt, 1938.

Doctor's Oral, Random House, 1939.

Storm (Book of the Month Club selection), Random House, 1941.

Fire, Random House, 1948.

Earth Abides, Random House, 1949, 3rd edition, Hermes, 1974.

Sheep Rock, Random House, 1951.

The Years of the City, Houghton, 1955.

Nonfiction:

Bret Harte, Houghton, 1931, reprinted, AMS Press, 1977.

Ordeal by Hunger, Holt, 1936, reprinted, Houghton, 1960, with a supplement and three accounts by survivors, 1992.

Names on the Land, Random House, 1944.

Man: An Autobiography, Random House, 1945.

The Year of the Oath, Doubleday, 1950 , reprinted, Da Capo Press, 1971.

U.S. 40 , Houghton, 1953, reprinted, Greenwood Press, 1973.

American Ways of Life, Doubleday, 1954, reprinted, Russell, 1971.

N.A. 1 , Houghton, 1957.

Pickett's Charge, Houghton, 1960.

The California Trail, McGraw, 1963.

Committee of Vigilance: Revolution in San Francisco, Houghton, 1964.

Good Lives, Houghton, 1967.

Not So Rich as You Think, Houghton, 1968.

American Place-Names, Oxford University Press, 1970.

Names on the Globe, Oxford University Press, 1975.

American Given Names: Their Origin and History in the Context of the English Language, Oxford University Press, 1979.

Also author of Technique of English Verse, 1930, Bibliography of the Writings of Bret Harte, 1933, and John Phoenix Esquire, 1937. Juveniles: To California by Covered Wagon, Random House, 1954.

The picture at the top is from the Berkeley Historical Plaque Project.  For a recent article about Earth Abides see this article in the Berkeley alumni magazine: "A Killer-Type Virus Ends the World! Revisiting Earth Abides, the Novel That Inspired Stephen King and Jimi Hendrix," by Pat Joseph, Summer 2020. 

Post Script: Western University has also started a digital plaque project. See: Western University Names. 

Christopher Hitchens

  Christopher Hitchens passed away on December 15, 2011. This year marks the ninth anniversary of his death and since there will be many remembrances next year, I thought I would present mine now. Had he lived, he would be almost 72 and I am sure would have remained as pugnacious as he appears in the picture above.

Some of the reasons why I admire him are better expressed by Larry McMurtry who wrote this about him in Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen:

“The descendants of the great readers I have mentioned are too often merely fluent know-it-alls, of whom Christopher Hitchens might be considered the exemplar. There he is, every week or month, in the Nation, Vanity Fair, the London Review of Books, writing about history, politics, books, public figures, virtually anything that comes down the freeways of our global culture. I personally have seen Christopher Hitchens in public debate while so weary or drunk or both that he can hardly have known whether he was even facing his audience, or whether there was an audience --and yet not a detail of his argument was dropped and not any of his long and well-turned sentences were slurred. His speech, like his writing, is precise, often brilliant, sometimes spellbinding, rarely inelegant; and yet one feels--as with many of his high-journalistic peers--that all this knowledge (or at least all this information) is not really reading-derived, but has been acquired more or less by osmosis, by rubbing elbows with his journalistic peers in Washington, London, New York, Paris, Delhi, Tehran, or wherever. I might note that this fluency is something few Americans seem to possess; perhaps it stems from admirable European secondary education. I might note too that it is mainly those high journalists who seem to command the steadily released energies of their Victorian counterparts, Bagehot, Macaulay, Saintsbury.” (p.123)

To be able to argue well while drunk may not be a skill you admire, but as one who does not do such a good job, even when sober, it is one that appeals to me. I am, by the way, rather good at drinking and much prefer it over arguing.

The abilities he displayed while arguing typically where employed in support of notions I also support. He was not a fan of religion as you will gather from the hint provided in this title: God Is Not Great. If you need a bigger hint, it is found in the not so subtle sub-title: How Religion Poisons Everything.

After receiving the cancerous death notice, he was asked near the end if it was likely that he would seek solace in religion. Here is his answer: "Mr. Hitchens discussed the possibility of a deathbed conversion, insisting that the odds were slim that he would admit the existence of God."“The entity making such a remark might be a raving, terrified person whose cancer has spread to the brain,” he told The Atlantic in August 2010. “I can’t guarantee that such an entity wouldn’t make such a ridiculous remark, but no one recognizable as myself would ever make such a remark.”

  He was also a critic of what is termed "Islamofascism" and would have undoubtedly written (as I did) about the recent beheading of a French teacher and the murder of three churchgoers by Islamist terrorists. He defended Salman Rushdie who, you may remember, had to go into hiding and whose Japanese translator was murdered and his Norwegian publisher shot. This is what Hitchens wrote when asked about that fatwa:

When The Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine's Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship -- though I like to think my reaction would have been the same if I hadn't known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offence of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. (p.268.)

Post Script:

In the "About This Blog" section of this blog I state the one of its purposes is to serve as a memory aid for me. By reading up on subjects and then writing down thoughts, I assumed, for example, that a year-or-two from now I might have a vague recollection of who Christopher Hitchens was. It is not working.

A few paragraphs into this post I had the thought that I might have written about Hitchens before. I have. Not only that, I quoted the same bit from Larry McMurtry! Well, it is a good bit and if I have any readers, they may have forgotten it as well. The post was about Mother Teresa, about whom Hitchens wrote a book: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.

The Bonus:

Since I provided the McMurtry quote twice, here is a new one. It is from Michael Kinsley and it is found in a review of God Is Not Great, in the New York Times, May 13, 2007:

His enemies would like to believe he [Hitchens] is a fraud. But he isn’t, as the very existence of his many enemies tends to prove. He is self-styled, to be sure, but no more so than many others in Washington — or even in New York or London — who are not nearly as good at it. He is a principled dissolute, with the courage of his dissolution: he enjoys smoking and drinking, and not just the reputation for smoking and drinking — although he enjoys that too. And through it all he is productive to an extent that seems like cheating: 23 books, pamphlets, collections and collaborations so far; a long and often heavily researched column every month in Vanity Fair; frequent fusillades in Slate and elsewhere; and speeches, debates and other public spectacles whenever offered.

The quotation about Hitchens unlikely deathbed conversion is also from the New York Times:

"Christopher Hitchens, Polemicist Who Slashed All, Freely, Dies at 62," by William Grimes, Dec. 16, 2011.

You can see and hear Hitch in action in many YouTube videos; e.g. interviews with Jon Stewart and Sean Hannity and an almost seven hour compilation.