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 BooksSkin 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.
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