A $100,000 History Book !

The Cundill History Prize

On October 30 the author of an historical work that exhibits "scholarship, originality, literary quality and broad appeal," will receive $75,000 (US) as a result of winning an award established by F. Peter Cundill. His intention is to encourage "informed public debate through the wider dissemination of history writing to new audiences around the world."

The three finalists are listed along with sample reviews. The Cundill Prize Long List for 2024 is provided at the bottom.

Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights by Dylan C. Penningroth (Liveright Publishing)

"Dylan Penningroth explodes conventional wisdom about African Americans and the law. He approaches his subject with the eye of a law professor, the tools of a social historian, and the sensibility of a skilled storyteller. The result is a remarkable book that stands civil rights history on its head and shows "how ordinary Black people used law in their everyday lives." The Register - Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 122, No.1, 2024.

Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass (Picador/Pan Macmillan)

"A detailed and sharply observed account of the 1946-1948 Tokyo trials – proceedings that were implicitly racist and hypocritical, and with a prosecution team that was led by a ‘blundering alcoholic’....Bass has written a massively long and detailed book, always lively and judgmental. He brings out not only the legal arguments, but the colour of the great tribunal itself: sharp sketches of the protagonists, of the stress on the multinational judges penned up month after month in the Imperial hotel, of Tojo Hideki among the seven shabby old men shuffling to the gallows in Sugamo prison." (Review by Neal Ascherson, The Guardian, Jan. 21, 2024.

Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal (Penguin Random House)

" prodigiously researched and enlightening study from University of North Carolina historian DuVal (Independence Lost) recenters the past 1,000 years of Native North American history around the political power exercised by Indigenous governments...Tracing numerous Native governments across the ensuing centuries--including the 19th century's Cherokee republic and alliance of Great Plains nations--DuVal provides a profoundly empowered history of Native America. This keen reframing will appeal to fans of David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything." Publisher's Weekly, Jan. 22, 2024.

Sources: See McGill's website for The Cundill History Prize.

  Back in 2017 on the 10th anniversary of The Cundill I posted this in MM -"Christmas Shopping for Historians." See also, "The Cundill History Prize" in 2019 and "F. Peter Cundill" in Oct. 2021.

The Bonus:

For prize winning historical works covering geographical areas from Asia to North and South America, see: American Historical Association Announces 2024 Prize Winners.

The Cundill History Prize 2024 (Long List)

Author	Title	Publisher / Imprint
Gary J. Bass	Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia	Pan Macmillan / Picador
Lauren Benton	They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence	Princeton University Press
Joya Chatterji	Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century	Penguin Random House / TheBodley Head and Yale University Press
Kathleen DuVal	Native Nations: A Millennium in North America	Penguin Random House
Amitav Ghosh	Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories	Hachette / John Murray
Catherine Hall	Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism	Cambridge University Press
Julian Jackson	France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain	Belknap Press
Patrick Joyce	Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World	Simon & Schuster / Scribner
Ruby Lal	Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan	Yale University Press
Andrew C. McKevitt	Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America	University of North Carolina Press
Dylan C. Penningroth	Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights	WW Norton / Liveright
Stuart A. Reid	The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination	Penguin Random House / Alfred A. Knopf
David Van Reybrouck	Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World	Penguin Random House / The Bodley Head and WW Norton

Cobble Beach and Elegance

 Plan Ahead

   Last year we drove up to Kemble for the Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance and even stopped in Owen Sound for the Concours d'Lemons. That trip can be revisited here: "Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance." We enjoyed it so much, we wanted to attend again this year, but could not. We hope to go next year and if you procrastinate as I do, then you might want to pay attention and think about booking now. The clock is ticking.

  That screen shot was grabbed from the Cobble website on October 23 and you have even less time now. Although September 2025 seems a long way off, it is not. If you think the Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance is just another classic car show, it is not. The bit of French should have alerted you to the fact that it is more about stylish objects than excessively chromed cars and engines. Plus, Cobble Beach is a pleasant destination. It is a golf resort and community of fine homes in Kemble on the Georgian Bay. 

  All you need to know is provided by Cobble Beach, with which I have no connection. These links will supply you with fine photos, videos and additional articles to read, even if you do not think you will be able to travel up to Kemble.

Cobble Beach: The Destination.

The Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance

See the various sections. The one for "Visitors" is the place to start. Then see all the photographs of elegance and the galleries featuring winners from the past. There are also useful links to press reports and articles. The picture above was taken from one of them: "Custom-bodied 1947 Bentley Wins Cobble Beach Best of Show," Alyn Edwards, Driving, Sept. 16, 2024.

As I mentioned, I have no connection with the folks at Cobble. Also, it is worth noting that the event raises money for charities. 

Falcons Flying

 On Planes 
   All sorts of birds have recently flown south and I just wrote about some that are flying in a wind tunnel up at Western. There are others, however, that arrive at their destinations by airplanes. 
   Recently I ran across an article in which passengers travelling from Miami to Doha complained about the squawking of a large flock of birds which were flying as cargo. In the Middle East where falconry is popular and oil money readily available, the birds can also be found flying as passengers in the cabin. A Saudi prince booked a flight and bought tickets for 80 of them. According to Qatar Airways, "You can carry one falcon in the Economy Class cabin of an aircraft, and a maximum of six falcons are permitted within the Economy Class cabin of any one aircraft." 

Sources: 

   "14 Hours Of Screaming Birds In Business Class—Unbelievable Qatar Airways Nightmare," Gary Leff, View From the Wing, Sept.8, 2024.
   You are skeptical, I'm sure and others are as well, so Snopes investigated the photo above and you can learn more here: 'Pic Shows Saudi Prince's 80 Falcons Riding a Plane?" Anna Rascouet-Paz, Snopes, Mar. 29, 2024.

The Bonus:

   There is a new book about the old art of falconry, published by the University of Chicago Press. For a review of, The Art of Medieval Falconry see: "Books: A Sovereign in the Sky," by Laura Jacobs, Wall Street Journal, Oct.12, 2024.
"Mr. Hadjinicolaou is an assistant professor of art history at the University of Bonn, and "The Art of Medieval Falconry" is his second book. Its title can be understood two ways. The first concerns falconry as it's been depicted in art of the Middle Ages -- in illustrated manuscripts, frescoes, paintings, sculptures, objects and tapestries, many of which have been handsomely reproduced here -- and what these representations, often iconographic, express. The second looks at the practice of falconry itself, an ingenious way to hunt food that eventually transcended, by way of passionate practitioners who tended to be kings, into an Arthurian art form -- one with the gravity of religion and the privilege of wings."

  

AFAR

 Advanced Facility For Avian Research
   I have been a bit under the weather, but overhead the skies have been clear and the fall weather fine. That combination resulted in a loss in the  production of posts for MM, but I can’t say there has been an increase in the number of complaints from readers. The few who appear to stumble upon something in MM, do so whether I am writing or not and the royalties continue to roll into my offshore accounts.

 

  While high in the clear sky the birds have continued their migration south, there are some birds in London flying continuously, but going nowhere. Their wings are flapping at the Advanced Facility for Avian Research up at Western University. I told you about that place four years ago in “For The Birds” and the information there is still useful. 
    More is provided, and AFAR noticed, in a recent article in the New York Times. It is good that we can read some local news, even if it comes from afar. Online you will find it under, “What Flying in a Wind Tunnel Reveals About Birds,” on Oct 11. It appears in print in the NYT on Oct. 15, with the title, “Some Birds Migrate Thousands of Miles Every Autumn: How Exactly Do They To They Manage It? Scientists Built a Flight Chamber to Find Out.” Emily Anthes is the author. Here is a portion that provides some of the questions for which answers are sought by those up at Western. 

  "It is understandably difficult to monitor the internal workings of a wild bird while it is soaring thousands of feet in the air. So Dr. Guglielmo sends his avian test subjects on simulated journeys. At the Advanced Facility for Avian Research, he and his colleagues use a hypobaric wind tunnel, which functions, in essence, as a treadmill for airborne birds....

   Scientists can send air through the main test chamber at varying speeds, up to about 40 miles per hour. Not all birds take to the tunnel — “about half of them will be good fliers,” Dr. Guglielmo said — but those that do can flap their wings for hours at a time while remaining, conveniently, in one place.

Researchers can adjust not only the wind speed inside the tunnel but also the temperature, humidity and air pressure to simulate different flying conditions and altitudes. They can study the physics of flight, mapping how air flows around the bodies of different birds, or focus on avian physiology: How does a bird’s breathing change at higher altitudes? How does diet affect flight performance?"
For additional information see: AFAR. 

Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory
   The hypobaric wind tunnel at Western is not the only wind tunnel at Western. Back in the mid-1960s, UWO was "considered the birthplace of the modern practice of wind engineering."  For more details see this digital heritage plaque.      

Post Script
   It used to be the case that no one knew where the birds went when the weather turned cold. A clue was finally provided by a stork.
See: "The University of the Unusual (2) - The Mystery of Avian Migration."

London Lost A Fortune

The Curious Case of Peter Birtwistle
   I have a reference to this gentleman for reasons I don't recall. He was a successful jeweler in London, Ontario in the early part of the last century. When I went searching for information about him, I found some, but nothing from local sources or newspapers. My search was limited to electronic resources that are available from my chair. 
   Perhaps someone associated with The London & Middlesex Historical Society might try firing up a microform machine and having a look through the local papers. One of the references I provide below (from a Florida newspaper), cites a London Free Press article from 1920(1).  A cursory search has not yielded any historical articles about him.
  Why should one bother with Mr. Birtwistle?
   One reason would be to try and figure out why this wealthy bachelor decided to leave all his money to Colne in Lancashire rather than London in Ontario.
  Here is what I have found from the sources provided below.
  Birtwistle emigrated (twice) from England. According to the brief history found on the Colne website, he partnered with a Joseph Pickles here in London. He became one of this city's most successful jewelers and was a well known diamond merchant. His business was at 113 Dundas Street, the ground floor of which was occupied by the Winslow Brothers shoe store. He later moved to 116 Dundas and lived above the shop(3d). If the current street numbers are similar, the location would be in the block where Kingsmill's used to be. Like most rich Canadians, he spent the winters in the south.
   What did the wealthy bachelor plan to do with his money when he died?
  There is one reference which indicates his niece was to be his beneficiary, but they quarrelled and she left for Australia (3d).
   The next suggestion is that the inheritor was to be the St. George's Society. It is found in the source mentioned just above, which also states that he was president of the London society from 1901 to 1907. Apparently he had a disagreement with the Society as well. When Birtwistle died in 1927, the Border Cities Star reported that: "According to the Trust and Guarantee Company, it had originally been Mr. Birtwistle's intention to leave this sum in trust for the benefit of the aged poor of London, Ontario, but certain disagreements which occurred later, notably what is known as the St. George's Society incident caused him to alter this determination(2).
   Although Birtwistle was a charitable chap, he must have been a bit touchy since there was also an incident with his next intended beneficiary, the city of London. In the 1935 Border Cities Star article it says that "the city of London was reported to be named the sole beneficiary in his will, but following disagreement with the city officials his home town was named to receive the estate."
   In 1941, when officials from his hometown of Colne showed up to attempt to get the money, the headline of a related article refers to the dispute with someone representing the city of London: "London Estate Is Sought Now For Colne, Eng.: Late Jeweler's Fortune Lost to Adopted City Because of Old Slight," Globe and Mail, Mar. 11, 1941.It begins with this sentence: "A real or fancied offense of certain citizens of London, Ont. in 1907, cost that city's aged and needy poor a sum of over $600,000 , which may now be turned over to a town in England..." It is further noted that, "The nature of the "offense" is not known. Some claim that it was a disagreement between a wealthy bachelor jeweller and city officials over city audits." 
   Colne was the heir chosen as you will see by looking at the related websites.           Apart from his alleged argument with the city, or the "incident" with the St. George's Society, perhaps he just wanted to leave the money to a place in his homeland, since an affection for it is suggested by his membership in the Society. It appears that the local branch still exists and if their records do as well, maybe more can be learned from them.
    Birtwistle had the money placed in trust for 21 years which explains the rationale for some of the articles provided which are listed in chronological order. There are four articles from 1935 because officials from Colne came asking that the money be released because of the depression. In 1941 they came again because the money was needed because of the damages caused by the war.
   The Supreme Court judgment from 1938 concerns the tax issues related to the Birtwistle Trust and a link to it is provided.
   It may be that an historian (or a historian, if you prefer American usage) has studied this issue and was overlooked by me. If not, and you decide to do a little investigating, make sure you search for "Birtwistle" since it can easily be replaced in searches by "BirDwHistle."

Current Colne Websites

The Peter Birtwistle Trust is a Registered Charity and Registered Social Housing Provider (RSH no 5086) based in Colne, Lancashire. 
Peter Birtwistle Retirement Housing Site.

Sources:

1. 1920 
"Lakeland Visitor Gives Old Folks of His Town a Tea Each Year," The Lakeland Evening Telegram, Feb. 23, 1920. Here is a screen shot and it indicates that the Free Press is the source.

2. 1927
"Million Left to Poor Folk: Former London Man Wills Estate to Native Town," Border Cities' Star, April 27, 1927. [ The Border Cities Star was a Windsor, Ontario newspaper. An apostrophe sometimes appears in the title - Cities' .]

3. 1935
a) “Colne Dignitaries Here Today Seeking Bequest For Town," Toronto Star, May 30, 1935.
b) “$1,000,000 Bequest For English Town: London, Ont. Jeweler Left Money To Accumulate Interest,” The Globe, May 31, 1935.
c) “Mayor of Colne in Canada,” The Manchester Guardian, June 1, 1935.
d) "Seek Estate of Londoner: Thousands Bequeathed to Lancashire Town by P. Birtwistle - Payment Deferred: Delegation Asks Money In Advance Because of Depression," Border Cities' Star, May 31, 1935.

4. 1938

Supreme Court Judgments: "Peter Birtwistle Trust v. Minister of National Revenue."

5. 1941

“London Estate is Sought Now for Colne, Eng.: Late Jeweler’s Fortune Lost to Adopted City Because of Old Slight,” The Globe & Mail, Mar. 11, 1941

6. 2018

Millionaire's Legacy Lives on With 12 New Bungalows in Colne," Nic Marko, Lancashire Telegraph, March 18, 2018.

"Pendle Enterprise And Regeneration Ltd (PEARL) has completed the construction of the £1.4million housing development at Carry Lane for the Peter Birtwistle Trust.

The Trust was founded by Peter Birtwistle who emigrated from the UK to Canada but left his entire fortune to provide housing for people in his home town of Colne when he died in 1927."

Post Script
   In Mulcahy's Miscellany I have provided a few historical posts about London, none of which would constitute much of a threat to the real historians of this city. Two of them relate to London during the period when Birtwistle resided here (at least during the summer.) This, slightly frivolous one, at least illustrates how one can find out about London by searching papers from places far away - those places where more resources from the past have been digitized - "Lonely in London c.1920." Another is about the KKK - "Verminous Missionaries."
   I mentioned Kingsmill's above and was pleased to see that the picture of the inside of that store, buried in one of my posts, still exists. If you click on the image in "Detour", you will see an example of the elegance that once existed on Dundas Street. 

In Love With Norma Loquendi

 Quoth the Maven

   I do not  write much because I keep discovering things about which I would like to write and then never have time to do so. I start poking around to learn more about the new things, while the older ones gather dust. It is a disease of the dilettante, I suppose, to be so easily diverted.
    That attempt at constructing an alliterative phrase is made in deference to a major manufacturer of them, William Safire, the subject of this post. The new thing distracting me this week is that I learned that it was during the last week of September that Safire died 15 years ago. Examples of such diversions which keep me from creating my magnum opus are easily found. I noted, for example, the anniversary of the death of another columnist and even his birthday. (That columnist is Russell Baker: see "Russell Baker (August 14, 1925 - Jan, 21, 2019," and "Russell Baker's Birthday." (Like Safire, Baker was both clever and funny.)
   If you spent the majority of your years in the last century you will recognize the name "William Safire" and remember him as a conservative hanging around the Nixon White House, both of which are true. Safire was also responsible for these Spiro Agnew utterances: "pusillanimous pussyfooters" and "vicars of vacillation" (Democrats) and those "nattering nabobs of negativism." Another one, which could be used in Canada these days: "The hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history." Pulitzer Winner He won a Pulitzer for his "distinguished commentary" about the Bert Lance affair and here are his distinct titles: "Carter's Broken Lance," "Boiling the Lance," "The Lance Cover-up," "Lancegate," "The Skunk at the Garden Party" and "Beyond Lance." We could use him now.

Enough politics. Safire became a prose pundit and his New York Time's columns were under the title, "On Language." They were fun to read and have aged well. Many of them are collected in the books listed below. There is enough reading to get you through winter. What About Love and Norma and the Maven? They are found in titles of two of his books and you were probably more curious about them then you would have been about any title I could have come up with. Here they are with some information about each book.

In Love With Norma Loquendi "Safire charms yet again with his lively interest in our language. ``Norma Loquendi,'' that fickle lass whose name the author translates as ``the everyday voice of the native speaker,'' is the title character of this ninth book to come from Safire's ``On Language'' column in the New York Times Magazine....Those who believe language is a delight as well as a necessity will happily while away the hours meandering through these pages." from Kirkus Book Review.

Quoth the Maven
"There are connoisseurs. There are virtuosos. And then there are mavens. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer William Safire is the maven's maven....Safire - using alliteration, puns, and other tricks of the writer's trade - offers a cornucopia of words, phrases, slang, and grammatical oddities, proving once again why Time calls him "the country's best practitioner of the art of columny."" "Safire probes the surprising origins of such expressions as "kiss and tell," "people of color," "stab in the back," "bonfire of the vanities," and the whole nine yards. He attempts to explain what a White House press secretary meant when he announced, "We can't winkle-picker this anymore.... "Knowledgeable, witty, and impeccably grammatical, William Safire's essays on language are an important and entertaining reference for mavens everywhere." from the Book Jacket.

Books By Safire
  Listed here are just his nonfiction works; he also wrote a few novels. The London Public Library has a couple of them and the Western Libraries have lots. They are easily found for purchase and you can read all of In Love with Norma Loquendi on the Internet Archive.

Nonfiction

Before the Fall (1975)

On Language (1980)

What’s the Good Word? (1982)

I Stand Corrected (1984)

Good Advice (1985) LPL

Take My Word for It (1986)

You Could Look It Up (1988)

Words of Wisdom (1990)

Leadership (1990)

The First Dissident (1992) LPL

Lend Me Your Ears (1993)

Quoth the Maven (1993)

Safire’s New Political Dictionary (1993)

Watching My Language (1997)

Spread the Word (1999)

Let a Simile Be Your Umbrella (2001)

Fumblerules (2002)

No Uncertain Terms (2003)

The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time (2004)

How Not to Write (2005)

Safire’s Political Dictionary (2008)

In Love with Norma Loquendi (2011)

Language Maven Strikes Again (2011)

Coming To Terms (2012)

Post Script:

  I have a copy of the very thick Safire's Political Dictionary and pulled it from the shelf for this exercise. A few pages were noted, for reasons I don’t recall, but here is what was on one of them. It provides a good example of what can be learned by poking around in a Safire book. Note his last sentence. I hope members of the NRA don’t happen upon this post.

“Your Home Is Your Castle”

--A slogan appealing to whites opposed to residential integration.

   George Mahoney, perennial candidate for statewide office in Maryland, used this slogan in his 1966 campaign. It was picked up by Louise Day Hicks, candidate for mayor of Boston in 1967; both campaigns lost.

   “Your Home Is Your Castle – Protect It” was regarded as a Code Word phrase by most analysts, playing on the prejudices of voters concerned with property values in their neighborhoods if blacks moved in.

   The phrase “a man’s home is his castle” is taken from a proverb and was codified in English law by Sir Edwin Coke in 1604:

“For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium…Resolved: The house of every man is his castle, and if thieves come to a man’s house to rob or murder, and the owner or his servants kill any of the thieves in defence of himself and his house, it is no felony and he lose nothing…”

   In recent usage, the proverb has been more the property of opponents of desegregation than of the “gun lobby.”

Safire’s Political Dictionary….1978. p.806.

On Memorials

 It's Not Bronte It's Brontë

   Many public memorials and statues have been destroyed or removed in the past few years, if it was felt that the subject displayed should be "cancelled." In Mulcahy's Miscellany such destruction has been opposed. See, for example, the post about "Brock's Monument", or the one about the Vietnam War Memorial, in "Speaking of Statues", and especially the one that suggests a British solution to the problem, which is "Retain and Explain", found in "Simple Solutions." 
  Such a simple solution has been applied to the stone plaque found in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey which was installed about 85 years ago. Apparently those involved may have been in a bit of a rush since in 1939 there were other things to worry about. Diaereses have now been placed over the "e" and readers will know that they are the Bront-tay sisters not the Bronts.

Source:

  I know about such things because I read this morning this article: "Westminster Abbey’s Brontë Plaque Had a Typo for 85 Years. It’s Fixed Now. Punctuation delayed, but not denied: A memorial to Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë at Poets’ Corner in the celebrated London church finally gets its accent marks," Lynsey Chutel, New York Times, Sept. 27, 2024.

Post Script:

  The reason they are the Brontës and not the Bruntys is an interesting one.
   "But the accent mark was actually the result of some poetic license by the writers’ father, Patrick Brontë. Originally Patrick Brunty, he made the change upon arriving at Cambridge University as a student, in an effort to indicate a higher social standing and eschew prejudice against his Irish roots, said Sandie Byrne, a professor of English at the University of Oxford."

    Problems with statues and memorials continue to be a vexing issue for those easily vexed. A new, very plain one erected in Belfast displaying the late Queen Elizabeth, has been criticized because Her Majesty looks too much like a "Polish Washerwoman" or "the lady behind the counter at a "Fish and Chips Shop." 

Time Out For Trump

 "The Dangers of Donald Trump, From Those Who Know Him"
  If you are like me, you may be disillusioned and reading less and less about the American election. No matter the outcome, there will be a massive amount of regret about the enormous amount of time everyone wasted on a man like Trump. Still, it is worth taking a look at what follows.
  The quotation above is the title of an "Opinion" piece by the Editorial Board of the New York Times (Sept. 26, 2024.) Do not discount it for that reason if you are a Trump supporter since they present the opinions of those who know and worked with Trump and who also have a low opinion of him.
   Ninety-one of them are provided and the quotations are arranged in five categories.  A half-dozen are offered here and they were not chosen because they contain the worst things said about him. Look at the paper itself, if you can, since an array of such awfulness is very impressive. 

1.  Administration Leaders 

BILL BARR

BETSY DEVOS

2. The Trumps & Trump INC.

FRED TRUMP

3. Republican Politicians

LINDSAY GRAHAM

4. Conservative Voices

GEORGE WILL

5. World Leaders (even some CANCON)

JUSTIN TRUDEAU

Olde Posts Addenda (3)

     More "Breaking News" to add to the older news items already provided in Mulcahy's Miscellany. 

New Dead Fish
  Back in June 2023, I offered you many "Dead Fish Headlines" (too many) which I suggested were, "More Signs of the Times." I will offer only one more now, but it is a big one:
"Iowa Fertilizer Spill Kills Nearly All Fish Across 60-Mile Stretch of Rivers: Officials in Iowa and Missouri estimated that nearly 800,000 fish had died in waters that flow into the Missouri River," By Mitch Smith and Catrin Einhorn, NYT, March 29, 2024.
   “I refer to this one as ‘the big one,’” said the official, Matt Combes, an ecological health unit science supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation. He added: “Calling something a near-total fish kill for 60 miles of a river is astounding and disheartening.” The latest die-off started, Iowa officials said, when a valve was left open over a weekend on a storage tank at NEW Cooperative, an agricultural business in Red Oak, in southwestern Iowa. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which learned of the spill on March 11, said this week that 265,000 gallons of liquid nitrogen fertilizer spilled into a drainage ditch and into the East Nishnabotna River, which flows into the Nishnabotna River and then the Missouri River."

What Were the Odds?
   That a lot of people would lose a lot of money when gambling was legalized, wagering made easy over the Internet and actively promoted on your TV. People here in Ontario seem more worried about the selling of six-packs in the 7-Eleven which bothers me not at all. I think, however, that rather than betting you start investing in gambling treatment centres.
  In MM, this subject was discussed in "On Betting" and raised again under the heading "Don't Bet On It" in "Beyond the Palewall (8). Now, in support of my suspicion that things are not going to go well see: "Sport's Betting is Bad for America's Financial Health: New Data Shows It",(sic), By the Editorial Board, The Washington Post, Sept. 14, 2024. Here is the first paragraph:

"The new National Football League season will see plenty of records set on the field — and it’s expected to hit new heights off the field, too: specifically, the American Gaming Association projects that legal wagers on games will reach $35 billion, a 30 percent increase over last season. Most of that betting will involve online betting apps. In part, the growth reflects the fact that three new states — Maine, North Carolina and Vermont — have legalized legal sports betting, raising the total to 38 states and the District. And partly the projected growth reflects new incentives sportsbooks are offering gamblers: in-app live-streaming of games, platform upgrades to allow faster in-play betting, digital wallets and the ability to make multiple bets simultaneously. X is awash with sites offering tips and techniques for increasing the odds."
Here's more:
"In short, legal sports gambling is creating a pathway to financial distress for vulnerable individuals. States that legalized sports betting were often instructed by their legislatures to set aside some funding from the tax receipts to deal with problem gambling and addiction. But reporting and research show a huge disparity between how much states tax the betting industry....
Legal sports gamblers have had their fun for half a decade now — and some have paid a high price. Congress should draw on that experience, and the new data, to design guardrails."

Censorship On Campuses 70 Years Ago
   I gather that if I was to wander up to the campus close by, that I would have to be careful about what I might say, unless it sounded very much like what everybody else is saying. In a post about "Academic Freedom & Free Speech" I indicated I was in favour of both.
   On another occasion, I wrote about an episode at the University of Western Ontario way back in 1953 when the students heckled and interrupted a speech by (are you ready), the Very Reverend, Dr. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury. Back then the students didn't like the "progressive" views of the "Red Dean." (See, "Free Speech & Ontario Universities.")
    I thought of this because I just read about a Republican defending free speech during that same year in the United States. Things have changed. Now, both the conservatives and the progressives want to restrict the expression of ideas with which they do not agree.

"In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower — a Republican — told graduating students at Dartmouth College, “Don’t join the book burners.” 

Referring to Americans drawn to communism, Eisenhower added, “Even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, their right to say them, their right to record them, and their right to have them at places where they are accessible to others is unquestioned, or it isn’t America.”

   The above was written in relation to "Banned Books Week" in the United States which is about the promotion of banned books rather than the burning of them. It was found here: 

"Banned Books Week Begins on Sunday,  With draconian laws jackbooting across the country to suppress books, intimidate librarians and muzzle teachers, this annual commemoration of our freedom to read has never felt more vital. (A Florida school district banned a book about banned books.)"
From: "The Book Club Newsletter," Ron Charles, The Washington Post, Sept. 20, 2024.
For more olde posts that are related to free speech:

"Cowards in Coventry"
"S.W.I.N.E."  "Students Wildly Indignant About Nearly Everything"

"Dawkins Not Talking"

Beyond the Palewall (13)

 That Sinking Feeling
   If you are heading to the capital of Indonesia, don't go to Jakarta which is rapidly sinking. The new capital is Nusantara which is located in the jungle on another island. There are around 30 million people in the Jakarta metropolitan area, so it is pretty heavy. Although the Dutch left in the last century, they will likely be blamed."Why Indonesia Moved Its Capital to a Jungle Hundreds of Miles Away: The New City Nusantara, Comes as Jakarta Continues to Sink at a Record Pace," Bryan Pietsch, Washington Post, Aug. 17, 2024.
  It is not the only city that is sinking and if you plan to move to Miami, pick one of the higher floors in the condo.
"Venice is Sinking. So are Rotterdam, Bangkok and New York: But no place compares to Jakarta, the fastest-sinking megacity on the planet. Over the past 25 years, the hardest-hit areas of Indonesia’s capital have subsided more than 16 feet. The city has until 2030 to figure out a solution, experts say, or it will be too late to hold back the Java Sea."
 "The World’s Fastest-Sinking Megacity Has One Last Chance to Save Itself: Parts of Jakarta are subsiding at unprecedented speed,"  By Sheryl Tian Tong Lee and Grace Sihombing, Bloomberg.com. Dec. 6, 2023.

These stories just arrived: Last week, another house just collapsed in Rodanthe in the Outer Banks, "See the Latest House in This Outer Banks Town to Fall Into the Ocean," The Washington Post, Sept. 20, 2024.
People are still buying condos on the Texas coast, but, "since 2010, Galveston has experienced a burst of sea level rise, which has added a staggering 8 inches to the ocean's height here, according to federal data analyzed by The Post," The Washington Post, Sept. 23, 2024.

The Rich Are Different From Me
   The rich are buying some items that would not be very valuable to me. Apparently others agree since in this article it is mentioned that "there was zero rationality to the valuations" for "celebrity-adjacent objects." Freddie Mercury's mustache comb went for almost $200,000 at Sotheby's, no less, and “In 2015, the cardigan that Kurt [Cobain] wore during Nirvana’s appearance on “MTV Unplugged” sold for $137,000; four years later it went for more than twice than that” (even though it “had a small amount of something brown and crusty, possibly dried vomit, in a pocket.)”
See: "The Place to Buy Kurt Cobain’s Sweater and Truman Capote’s Ashes: As the art market cools, Julien’s Auctions earns millions selling celebrity ephemera—and used its connections to help Kim Kardashian borrow Marilyn Monroe’s J.F.K.-birthday dress," Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, March 18, 2024.

Current Fiction and "The Piety Problem"
   I don't read much current fiction, but from the reviews of some of the novels, one gathers that there is considerable pedagogy buried in the prose and that the category in which the author falls is as important as the fiction written. The following is from this interesting piece in the NYT: "An Acerbic Young Writer Takes Aim at the Identity Era: Tony Tulathimutte is a Master Comedian Whose Original and Highly Disturbing New Book Skewers Liberal Pieties," Giles Harvey, Sept. 13, 2024.
   “The years since Donald Trump announced his first presidential bid have hardly been a heyday for American fiction. “Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty,” Lionel Trilling wrote in “The Liberal Imagination” (1950), but 75 years later, amid the rise of a homegrown authoritarianism, these qualities can start to look expendable, like mere literary trinkets. At least that’s the sense you get from a recent tranche of worthy social novels, books that may as well come with colorful stickers proclaiming, In these pages we believe Black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal and so on. Such commitments, however well-intentioned, can sometimes come at the expense of a nuanced moral vision and tend to lead to writing that’s effective neither as politics nor art. “There is definitely a piety problem,” Tulathimutte told me, summing up the state of today's publishing business.”
[If now you are interested, Tulathimutte's new book is Rejection.]

DETECTIVE FICTION - CANCON

   We often learn about Canadian things from American sources. I learned recently, for example, that a new TV mystery series is soon to launch on an American network. It is based on the work done by Laurali Wright who was born in Saskatchewan and lived and died (2001) in B.C. where the settings often involve the "Sunshine Coast." Canadian lovers of the mystery genre may wish to tune-in and they will likely already know about Ms. Wright and the "Alberg & Cassandra" mystery series. I did not, but found from these sources that more needs to be known about Laurali Wright and it is better to learn from them than me.

Sources:
   Start with the official web site of L.R. Wright. You will find there a trailer for the new series, "Murder in a Small Town which starts on Sept. 24.
   The Wikipedia entry is interesting and provides other sources: L.R.Wright
   The Canadian Press did write about the series at the end of last year. See: "Fox Picks Up B.C.-shot Crime Drama: "Murder in a Small Town, For Upcoming Fall Lineup," CBC News, Dec.14, 2023.
   I read about Ms. Wright here:
“Murder in a Small Town” debuts Sept. 24 on Fox (trailer). The mystery series is based on “The Suspect,” an Edgar Award-winning novel by the late Canadian writer Laurali Wright (1939-2001). Rossif Sutherland plays police chief Karl Alberg, and Kristin Kreuk is Cassandra, the town librarian who becomes an integral part of his investigation. If the show catches on, it could run for years; Wright published nine Alberg & Cassandra mysteries." From: "The Book Club Newsletter," Ron Charles, The Washington Post, Sept. 20, 2024.
   The images of the books above are all from Felony & Mayhem, which was started by a woman and deserves a post of its own. 

Post Script:
   If you wish to borrow rather than buy the books by Ms. Wright, I don't think you will have any luck at the London Public Libraries since I didn't find any, using various search strategies. 
  Oddly enough, the libraries up at Western do have some Wright books, but they are either in storage or in ARCC where they seem to have been acquired as part of the "William French Collection of Canadian Literature."
  I don't think I can be accused of shameless self promotion, since this is buried at the bottom of this post and I have rarely mentioned it before, but a couple of years ago I wrote a book about another Canadian mystery writer who is generally unknown in Canada. Like Ms. Wright, Hulbert Footner, wrote more than detective fiction and should be better known. For about a buck you can read the ebook and for about ten of them you can have the book printed near you and delivered in a few days. Or if you just click on this link, you can read a good summary for free.
Hulbert Footner: Author of Adventure Novels, Detective Novels and Historical Nonfiction...  Or you could borrow a copy from either the London Public Libraries or Western.
Or you could stop by and see me and I will give you one.