London's Bicentennial (Snippet 12)

    It is a chilly morning out here in Courtenay, B.C., so I will attempt to post a short post about an astronaut who was born in London and is now safely back on earth.

JEREMY HANSEN
  There has been plenty of local news about Hansen, but here is an article about him from an American source.  And to add even more CANCON, the piece is written by Mike Neufeld, an Albertan.

“Jeremy R. Hansen: First Canadian In Deep Space."
  From a blog post "Smithsonian Voices” linked in the Smithsonian Magazine, March 31, 2026.
   "Born in 1976 in London, Ontario, Jeremy Hansen cannot remember a time when he did not dream of being an astronaut. And now, as member of the crew of Artemis 2, he will see the far side of the Moon as they loop around it.
   During Hansen’s youth, it became increasingly possible to imagine a Canadian doing such a thing. Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space in 1984, when he flew on STS-41G as a payload specialist. NASA had made that seat available because the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) provided the Canadarm Remote Manipulator System for the Space Shuttle. Garneau flew two more missions as a mission specialist after NASA allowed non-Americans to join new astronaut classes. Other Canadians served on Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) crews, most memorably when Chris Hadfield commanded the station in 2013. For that program, CSA contributed Canadarm2, a more advanced, double-ended remote manipulator system with a mobile base.
   Hansen followed a classic path to the astronaut corps—he became a fighter pilot.  Growing up on a farm near the mid-size city of London, Ontario, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Cadets at age 12. He earned his glider wings at age 16 and his pilot license at 17, which set his path to becoming an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force (he is now a colonel). His eyes still set on space exploration, he graduated in 1999 from the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, Canada’s primary service academy, with a bachelor of science in space science. He added an master of science in physics there in 2000, with a thesis on satellite tracking. After completing jet training on the CF-18 (a Canadian version of the McDonnell-Douglas F-18 Hornet), Hansen served from 2004-2009 in squadrons in Cold Lake, Alberta, that were part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)....
   When NASA asked CSA to nominate someone for the Canadian seat, Jeremy Hansen was the obvious and logical candidate. (Jenni Gibbons, from my hometown of Calgary, is his backup.) He will be not only the first Canadian to fly into deep space, but he will also be the first from any nation other than the United States. No human has left low Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. If all goes well, he will enjoy a spectacular view and help pioneer the human return to the Moon. It’s a fitting assignment for someone who has dreamed of going there since he was a small boy."

   The author of the piece above is also worth noting. There is a Wikipedia entry about him, from which the following was borrowed. 
   "Neufeld was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1951. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Calgary, and a Master of Arts from the University of British Columbia in 1976 with his thesis "He who will not work, neither shall he eat": German social democratic attitudes to labor, 1890-1914. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1984 with the dissertation "From artisans to workers: the transformation of the skilled metalworkers of Nuremberg, 1835-1905....."
Since the 1990s, Neufeld has written several works about Wernher von Braun.
  For the rationale for these London snippets see the first one: 
London's Bicentennial (1826-2026)

The Bonus:
  Here are some remarks from the astronauts after they returned: 

  Ms. Koch talked about what the word “crew” meant to her now — “a group that is in it all the time, no matter what” — and about how, when she looked at Earth from the neighborhood of the moon, it “was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe.”

She concluded, “There’s one new thing I know, and that is: Planet Earth, you are a crew.”

Mr. Hansen said that, if people liked how the Artemis II astronauts worked together, that joy was something everyone could share.

   “I would suggest to you that, when you look up here, you’re not looking at us,” he said. “We are a mirror reflecting you. And if you like what you see, then just look a little deeper.”

from:

"Artemis II Crew Reunites With Families and Fellow NASA Astronauts: The four astronauts made an emotional return to Houston a day after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at the end of their 10-day lunar journey," Kenneth Chang, April 11, 2026, New York Times. 

London Bicentennial (Snippet 11)

   I am currently travelling and don't have time for one of my thoughtful and deep philosophical posts. So, as a substitute, another snippet is provided about London, which is 200 this year.

The Oldest Baseball Park
   Is not in the United States. It is Labatt Memorial Park in London, Ontario. The colonizers started playing baseball here in 1877, just a little over fifty years after the trees were cut down and the ground broken along the Thames River.  Since I live in London and know one of the people responsible for the authentication of this historical fact, and since the people here in London know and brag about this 'first', I will simply supply the sources you need for validation.
  You can begin with the Wikipedia entry, "Labatt Park."  The park pictured above has its own website: "Labatt Memorial Park."
   The photo provided above is from Aimee Grace and it is found in an article by Thomas Vesey which is in the Mar. 27, 2026 issue of the Western Gazette. (The Gazette is a student publication at Western University in London.) Here's more:
"Inside the World's Oldest Baseball Grounds".
   "It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball, especially at Labatt Memorial Park, the oldest continually used ballpark in the world, which first opened in 1877...."
   "The London Tecumsehs, a former men’s professional baseball team, first built the field, then known as Tecumseh Park. The Tecumsehs were one of the oldest professional baseball teams in Canada and helped bring organized baseball to Ontario. 
   Robert Barney is a sports historian specializing in the Olympics and 19th-century baseball. He has studied Labatt Park and has helped prove the authenticity of its history during his time at Western University.
   “Labatt Park is the oldest baseball grounds in history. No other baseball grounds in the world are older than Labatt Park, and so the authentication of that has been my biggest episode because it had a challenger,” says Barney. 
   The challenger Barney references is Fuller Field in Clinton, Massachusetts. Fuller Field was built and began operations in 1878, one year after Labatt Park....
   The London Majors — who play in the Canadian Baseball League — and Western Mustangs baseball teams have called the park home since 1925 and 2006, respectively.  
   Now, nearly 150 years after its first games were played, Labatt Memorial Park continues to serve as it did in 1877, bringing people together through community and baseball."

   It is fitting that "Labatt" is a brewer, which began in London in 1847. It does not appear that the hot dog was invented here, however, and I am not sure when one was first served in Labatt Park. 
   I just thought to check the ultimate arbiter these days and when asked, "Where is the oldest baseball field?" AI responded, "Labattt Memorial Park in London, Ontario, Canada".

London Bicentennial (Snippet 10)

 Jack Johnson Jailed in London - 1909

That article is from the Daily Alaskan, Skagway, Aug. 7,1909.

   The story also appeared in the New York Times on Aug. 7, 1909: "Jack" Johnson Fined: Was Charged With Running Down Automobile With His Machine."

   LONDON, Ontario, Aug. 6.-Jack Johnson, the negro pugilist, was arrested here this morning on the strength of a telegram from the Chief of Police at Woodstock, Ontario.

   Johnson is alleged to have gone through Woodstock at an excessive rate of speed in his automobile and to have run down another autoist, smashing his machine.

  He took his arrest quietly and wanted to pay his fine, whatever it might be. It was arranged by telephone that Police Magistrate Love of London should try the case. Johnson was fined $55 and continued on his way to Chicago."

   The car may have been this one:

  The "Galveston Giant" was often in trouble with the law, particularly when he was with white women, three of whom were his wives. There is plenty written about him and there is a Ken Burn's documentary. The Wikipedia entry will keep you busy for the rest of the day. 
   Johnson was in the news more recently. President Trump pardoned him during his first term. Here is what was said in the Oval Office: "Remarks by President Trump at Pardoning of John Arthur “Jack” Johnson" May 24, 2018.

Periodical Ramblings (18) (And Much More)

    This is one in a series about serials and I have likely written a similar sentence in one of the other seventeen posts related to magazines. The periodicals covered range from Arizona Highways to the Village Voice, and include lesser known literary publications like The Sewanee Review and Prairie Schooner. The last one was about The Farmers' Almanac, which ceased publication and The Old Farmer's Almanac which is still going strong.

WIRED
    If you are vaguely aware of Wired and are thinking that, a magazine covering technology started over 30 years ago, back in the last century, is one you are not much interested in, you might want to have another look. Like The Old Farmer's Almanac, it is doing well and lately it has been doing much better.
    One reason it is doing much better is that it now covers much more than technology and it appears that Wired has gone off-topic largely because of a new energetic editor. She  is a Canadian, who travelled from Calgary to a bigger stage and has nimbly moved through some rather tough publications as a writer and executive. Along the way, she probably had to fetch a few coffees for the guys, but she was well prepared. She credits her stint at Tim Hortons when she was in high school: "It taught 16-year-old me that I like chaos, I like a fast pace, and I like to do something demanding." She has tattoos.
   

   I will not write much about Wired. Go to Wired.com and have a look for yourself. I just did, which is unfortunate since I really can't subscribe to another magazine, even though you will know that I just cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post. The illustration next to this, is one iteration of the cover of Wired, which was also pasted on various billboards in some major cities in the U.S..

Katie Drummond: A Real Golden Gael
   The newish editor at Wired is Katie Drummond, who continued her education after Tim Hortons and went to Queen's. (As someone who went to and worked at a rival institution, I will say only that Queen's is ranked higher than Tims. Those associated with Queen's are known as the "Golden Gaels".) I know much of this because I still have a subscription to the New York Times. In it, there was recently a good article about Ms. Drummond and Wired and I will supply for free, some of the information it contains, since you are likely to trust more, the information for which I have paid. 

   As the title implies, Ms. Drummond can be direct. When asked if Wired "has strayed too far from its techno-optimism roots with its hard-hitting coverage of the Trump administration and skeptical eye on billionaire tech bros?," her reply: “If you still don’t understand why Wired covers politics,” she said in an interview, “you are either willfully ignorant or a complete idiot.”
   Ms. Drummond was hired as editorial director in August 2023 and "she immediately focused on getting scoops and speeding up the pace of publishing. On her second day, she decided she needed a politics team. She rehired a former executive editor, Brian Barrett, to run day-to-day operations and built up a social video team to increase the number of vertical videos shared on social media. She shook up the staff and made hires; revamped newsletters, launching five new ones for paying subscribers; and started podcasts that placed a greater spotlight on Wired’s journalists and their work...."
   “She’s gone after stories the publication has normally avoided and avoided ones the publication has normally gone for. Wired is never boring to read.”

    "But Ms. Drummond’s approach appears to be working. Condé Nast does not disclose profits or losses for its publications, but Ms. Drummond said Wired had added more than 200,000 new paying subscribers in the past year, and subscription revenue increased 24 percent last year in the United States. Wired currently has more than 500,000 paid subscribers. It has a newsroom of around 80 people with plans to hire up to a dozen more this year, and was recently named a finalist for general excellence in the National Magazine Awards."

   At a time when many periodicals are struggling, it is good to see that Wired is doing well. Ms. Drummond is also apparently doing well and can be spotted running in Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband and daughter. If she needs advice, she should run over to Greenwich Village and chat with another Canadian expat who had great success at Condé Nast - Graydon Carter. 

Sources:
  The New York Times article is by Katie Robertson and appears in the March 17, 2026 issue. 
   That Ms. Drummond valued her time at Tim Hortons is reported by Jeff Pappone, in Queen's Alumni Review, Feb. 2, 2025.
   "After Exiting Vice, Katie Drummond Joins Wired as Top Editor,"Todd Spangler, Variety, Aug. 10, 2023.

   "Drummond’s background in online media spans hard news, technology and lifestyle coverage. At Vice, as SVP of global news and entertainment, she led the expansion of Vice News across Latin America, Europe and Asia, and oversaw all Vice digital brands including Noisey, Munchies, Rec Room, Motherboard and Waypoint. She also led efforts to create opportunities for the editorial brands across Vice TV and Vice Studios.

   Prior to Vice, Drummond was deputy editor at Medium, where she oversaw editorial content across politics, wellness, science and technology, and ran the audience development team for Medium’s subscription program. Drummond began her career as a reporter, writing for outlets including the New Republic, New York Magazine, Popular Science, Marie Claire and Wired, where she covered military research and medicine for Wired’s Danger Room blog. She then served in a managing editor role at the Verge and as a deputy editor for Bloomberg News, before taking on executive editor appointments at The Outline and Gizmodo Media Group, where she was editor in chief of Gizmodo."

   "Katie Drummond: ‘Democracy in the US is Under Threat. And That Threat is Facilitated by Technology and the Makers of that Technology’," Ana Vidal Egea, El Pais, July 5, 2025.

    "Since 2023, this Canadian philosophy graduate has directed the most influential publication in the field of tech. She was a pioneer in understanding what is now obvious: the inseparable connection between technology and power. Since Donald Trump won the elections, ‘Wired’ has also been covering US political news, and subscriptions have skyrocketed." 

The Bonus:
  For an enjoyable read about the career of the other Canadian at Condé Nast who went to Carleton see: When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines, by Graydon Carter. 

 

London's Bicentennial (Snippet 9)

 A Train Wreck - 1902

   Someone made a mistake near Wanstead, which was close to Watford, which is not too far from here. The piece above is from the Akron Daily Democrat, Dec. 27,1902
   A search revealed more: "Wanstead began in 1858 with a hotel, post office a few businesses and a sawmill. In 1887 a fire destroyed the entire town. The people here rebuilt it and were instrumental in helping the survivors of a horrific train crash December 26, 1902 here until help came. The 'Chicago Flyer' slammed into the rear of a frieght train in the middle of the night during a violent blizzard. Thirty-eight died [other reports 31 died 35 injured] as the frieght train didn't reach the siding tracks in time to get out of the way. Wanstead was named after suburban village of London, England and dates back to the time of the Saxons and mean's "Woden's Place." Wanstead, Ontario Train Collision, Dec 27 1902. 

The Happiness Rankings

 Not Happy
  Folks up here were really unhappy recently when Canada lost both the Olympic Men's and Women's Hockey matches against the U.S. teams and then lost again to the U.S. in the Paralympic gold medal match. The boasting about the "Gold Medal Hat Trick" could be heard far beyond the border. 
   Searching for something about which we could gloat, I remembered that the World Happiness Report has just been released. Surely the citizens south of here have to be sadder than we are. Thinking that we must beat the Yanks at something, I went looking for the rankings.

We Lost Again
   The Americans are higher in the rankings than we are.


   I thought that maybe they are happier because they are warmer. That does not appear to be the reason since Finland, Iceland and Denmark are 1-2 and 3. 

     I hoped that maybe the rankings are American and rigged. But, the World Happiness Report is published by the University of Oxford, in the country where our King lives.

   It helps a little that we used to outrank the Americans and were happier. 

  Now, even the Israelis are much happier than we are. At least we beat Botswana and Zimbabwe, so the American President cannot call us a "shithole country."

   Two of the six names appearing in the Executive Summary are even Canadian, John F. Helliwell at UBC and Lara B. Aknin at Simon Fraser. Perhaps they did not fight hard enough for our team, since they are out in B.C., and may be sadder than the rest of us since they are worried about their property rights.

For a look at the report and rankings see: World Happiness Report. 

The Washington Post

 Bezos Begging

    At the end of February I cancelled my subscription to WaPo and Bezosbub probably didn't notice.  The remaining people who work at the Post did and for them I feel sorry. Here are the two latest offers I have received via email. For American readers, the CA$2 is about US$1.45.

Early Offer:

Later Offer:

A Solution: 
  In a Post "Post Mortem" a former employee notes:
"When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 and promised to find inventive ways to make journalism profitable in the digital age, he seemed like a godsend. He wasn’t...."

   The Post is again in the market for a new publisher, but saving this splendid national treasure requires more than that. The real need now is for a new owner, or a big endowment that would allow it to carry on as a nonprofit public service. Do we know anyone who could spare a billion or two to fund such a noble cause and assure his or her place in American history?"
  
   I do! While Bezos has been boating, his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott has been giving. She has been generous with gifts and grants to a variety of institutions, but has only given away $26 billion of her $40 billion fortune. Giving well could be the best revenge if she gave a portion of her wealth to support the paper Bezos abandoned. 
(The quote is from "Post Mortem" by Robert G. Kaiser, NYRB, March 26, 2026.)
(Analogy alert: One definition of "Beelzebub" - "a fallen angel in Milton's Paradise Lost ranking next to Satan".)

London's Bicentennial (Snippet 8)

Transitory Frenzy - 1888

I don't have time to check and see if "transitory frenzy" is defined in the most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders. It probably is, just under a different name. Keep it in mind if you need a defence attorney. I also don't know if this fellow made it back to London or stayed in Winnemucca, Nevada. This article is from The Silver State on Feb. 27, 1888 which was in Winnemucca.

Book Promotion

 Advertising and Books

   Promoting a book is harder than publishing, or even writing one. According to Publishers Weekly, about four million of them were produced in 2025, which means that being an author is somewhat easier than becoming an astronaut. The hard part is getting a reader to choose your book from a pile of 4,000,000 of them.

   I thought of this while reading the March 2026 issue of The Atlantic, which I am pleased to promote. The articles in this issue are first-rate. Even the advertisements are good and are our subject for today. Some of them were full page promotions for books. 

One of These Ads Is Not Like the Others

   You may have been watching Sesame Street, rather than reading a book, and remember the song containing the words above. Your task is to look at the four book ads below and identify which one is different.

1.

2.

3.   

4. 

And The Answer Is?
   The most obvious answer is #3 since the ad is for six books rather than just one. The less obvious answer and the one I prefer is #4. 

   The book about Lincoln is published by W.W. Norton & Company. The Deserving is published by Bloomsbury. The six books in #3 are published by Princeton University Press.  It is usually the case that full page advertisements for books are paid for by publishing companies or university presses.

   The ad for Isabel, Anacaona & Columbus’s Demise: 1498–1502 Retold, by Andrew Rowen was likely paid for by Andrew Rowen. All Persons Press appears to be a publisher solely for Andrew Rowen publications. There is nothing wrong with this at all and I am glad to assist author Rowen by promoting the prequels to the work above: Encounters Unforeseen:1492 Retold and Columbus and Caonabó: 1493–1498 Retold.
   One of the reasons self-promotion is resorted to is, as I mentioned when I wrote about the Washington Post, that there are now few book reviewers around to go through the four million produced. I found very few reviews for the books of Mr. Rowen and know about them only because I read the full page advertisement in The Atlantic. 
   You now may be curious about the cost of a full page ad in a national magazine. That is difficult to determine and the rate provided for a person is likely less than the one quoted for a publisher. I will say, however, that the number is a big one.
   Mr. Rowen is apparently a Harvard Law graduate and a retiree from a New York city law firm. He seems to have had the means to spend a lot of time in the Caribbean doing research for his books and enough left over to promote them. He should not be blamed for that and I do hope he recovers his costs and carries on. 

Nature Dies In Darkness

    Events are being cancelled, some news is censored and other sensitive subjects are not broached. There is more silence than there was. People disappear and some things disappear, never having been seen. One of those things is The National Nature Assessment. 
   The assessment was announced on Earth Day in 2022. President Biden issued and executive order to undertake a thorough examination of the state of nature. The evaluation of the environment was to be done by a large number of experts and scientists, who were mostly volunteers. Research was undertaken and hundreds of pages written. A draft of the report was about to be submitted, but, The National Nature Assessment was cancelled by the Trump administration.

   The National Nature Assessment disappeared, but The Nature Record exists. The authors of the Assessment thought their work needed to be evaluated and made public. They did not want the data to disappear. 
   The 800+ pages of the draft is available for public comments and scientific review. "For a chapter-by-chapter journey through the state of nature in America," here is The Nature Record.  It can be read online or downloaded. If you fear that nature is not in good shape and don't want to read about it, skip to Chapter 4: "Bright Spots in Nature."

Samizdat:
   I usually write "Sources", but perhaps that word is now appropriate. For more background see:
   Catrin Einhorn produced two good reports for the New York Times:
1) "Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway: The first full draft of the assessment, on the state of America’s land, water and wildlife, was weeks from completion. The project leader called the study “too important to die.” NYT, Feb. 10, 2026.
  "The draft was almost ready for submission, due in less than a month. More than 150 scientists and other experts had collectively spent thousands of hours working on the report, a first-of-its-kind assessment of nature across the United States.
   But President Trump ended the effort, started under the Biden administration, by executive order. So, on Jan. 30, the project’s director, an environmental scientist named Phil Levin, sent an email telling members of his team that their work had been discontinued.
   But it wasn’t the only email he sent that day.
   “This work is too important to die,” Dr. Levin wrote in a separate email to the report’s authors, this one from his personal account. “The country needs what we are producing.”

2) "Nature Report, Killed by Trump, Is Released Independently: A draft assessment of the health of nature in the United States is grim but shot through with bright spots and possibility."
Catrin Einhorn, NYT - March 5, 2026
   "The report’s name has changed from the National Nature Assessment to the Nature Record, to reflect that it is a new, independent effort, but it builds off work that was already underway and most of the authors remain the same. Its scientific review will be conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the same organization that would have reviewed the report had it remained under the auspices of the federal government.    
   The first two chapters that will summarize the sprawling endeavor are not yet written, because the authors are waiting until after this round of feedback. But 13 other chapters are in place.
   The report explores not only actions that harm nature, but also how people are affected by nature and its loss, with chapters on human health, the economy and national security. And throughout, the report highlights solutions and nature’s ability to recover when given the chance."
  For an example of reports on various substacks see:
"Why the Trump Administration Couldn’t Kill the Nature Record: Science has a way of refusing to stay buried", Jeff Nesbit, The Contrarian, March 16, 2026.  

Autonomous Automobiles

 And VERY BIG Rigs

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
  The juxtaposition of the titles of the two articles on the left above, next to the picture of a driverless truck on a major highway is interesting. Among the problems noticed now with driverless taxis is the one mentioned in the top article. If you are alone in a car without a driver, a pedestrian can essentially keep the vehicle from moving. More from that article:
   "In January, Doug Fulop was riding home from a night out in San Francisco when a man crossed the street in front of his car, doubled back and began screaming at him. The man punched the car’s windows and tried lifting up the vehicle. He then yelled that he wanted to kill Mr. Fulop and the other two passengers for giving money to a robot.
   A taxi driver would have simply driven away. But Mr. Fulop’s vehicle had no driver — it was a self-driving Waymo. “We felt helpless,” said Mr. Fulop, 37, who works in the tech industry.
   Self-driving cars are designed to stop moving if a person is nearby. People can take advantage of that function to harass and threaten their passengers. In 2024, a San Francisco man tried covering the sensors of a self-driving car that had stopped, effectively disabling it, while passengers were inside. Another video from that year showed three women screaming as a group of vandals tagged their autonomous taxi with spray paint.
   Handing the keys to a robot has added bizarre and, at times, worrisome new quirks to car travel. Passengers have shared videos of their autonomous cars getting stuck driving in circles or becoming lost in a parking garage. Last week, a video showed a Waymo in Austin, Texas, that had stopped under a railroad crossing gate just short of the tracks before a train sped past. There were no riders in the car, Waymo said."

    One wonders what "worrisome new quirks" will be found when more big semis are moving very fast on our freeways. One already noticed is "phantom braking -- the problem of autonomous systems, particularly those driven solely by cameras, “seeing” nonexistent obstacles, leading them to stop abruptly and potentially cause an accident. And given the size and the weight of the trucks, the impact of such collisions could be quite severe."
   You are likely thinking this a problem you do not have to worry about, but in the "progressive" state of Texas, the future has arrived. 
   "The operator, Aurora Innovation, said it was the first fully autonomous commercial trucking operation of its kind on U.S. highways. The company’s runs between Dallas and Houston on the I-45 corridor quickly racked up 1,200 miles on the road for customers including FedEx and Uber Freight.

There’s no question that finally putting driverless semi trucks into regular interstate runs will be a turning point for the industry....

   A consensus is emerging that fully autonomous Class 8 trucking on major highways will arrive in 2027, with multiple companies prepared to roll out fleets, mostly in Texas, beginning later this year. (Trucks are classified from 1 to 8 and 8 is the biggest.)"
   It's coming because it is cheaper. Drivers cost money and are limited in the number of hours and miles they can drive without stopping. A truck without a driver can keep on barreling through.

  Over in Sweden, driverless trucks are being used in mining operations and in remote places without much traffic. A company there, Einride, has created a cabless rig that is already being used to move cargo around in Tennessee.

Sources: 
  The titles of both articles are provided above and both were in the NYT on March 17, 2026. Erin Griffin authored the first and Jim Motavalli, the one about the trucks. 

   

   

London's Bicentennial (Snippet 7)

 Wine of Cardui - Probably the Only Wine in London in 1902
   Straight from Chattanooga, this elixir was used to treat "women's diseases".

This ad. is found in The Madison Daily Leader (South Dakota), on June 28, 1902. I am not sure if Miss Markell existed, but you can find plenty about the Wine of Cardui. And, there are empty bottles for sale on Amazon and ebay..

Another School Denaming

 The Return of DWEM Days
   A few years ago the winds of sanctimony blew in, mainly from the south. Statues were toppled and names disappeared from schools. My sons had attended Ryerson Public School which could not withstand the sanctimonious blast. Committees met, meetings were held and after considerable deliberation this captivating moniker was delivered: Old North Public School.
  There was an American casualty as well. The F.D. Roosevelt Public School became Forest City Public School because of “F.D. Roosevelt’s historical connection to racism and controversial approach to Jewish refugees during the Holocaust, which are inconsistent with the school board’s values and commitments to human rights and equity,” the school board said in a statement."
   More committees undoubtedly were needed to update the school signage, change the logos, toss the stationary and put down the mascots. Self-righteousness can be costly. 

A School Bell No Longer Peals for Pepys
  Although things have been relatively quiet here, over in England where the other London is located, a school has decided to take Pepys' name off of one of the houses on their campus. The image above came with this telling headline: "Cambridgeshire School Which Dropped Historic Sex Offender Samuel Pepys' Name Reveals Replacement Figurehead," Gemma Gad, Peterborough Telegraph, Mar.11, 2026. 
   "A Peterborough area school which dropped the name ‘Samuel Pepys’ after learning of the historic figure’s sex offences – has now chosen a replacement. Staff and students at Hinchingbrooke School, in Huntingdon, have voted Olivia Bernard Sparrow as the new figurehead for one of its pastoral houses."

  It is astonishing to learn that they just learned that Pepys could be problematic. It is also interesting that the students participated in the name change selection, a precedent which it would be prudent to not adopt. One hopes that Ms. Sparrow did not keep a diary. 
   Readers of MM will know that I cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post. Before doing so, I grabbed the following piece and will provide portions of it, since the author and I are in agreement about denaming:
  "Another Ludicrous Canceling of a Name From the Past: Shaming the Dead is an Asinine Culture Warriors' Pastime: Now Its the Great Diarist Samuel Pepys's Turn," Andrew Doyle, Feb. 9, 2026.
   "Samuel Pepys was, famously, an extraordinary diarist, offering a vivid first-hand account of life in Restoration England from 1660 to 1669....This squeamishness over the diaries has never gone away. Recently, Hinchingbrooke School in Cambridgeshire — where Pepys was an alumnus — decided that one of its pastoral houses should no longer bear his name. This is just the latest example of an institution rewriting or minimizing aspects of its own history to fulfill the moral expectations of the present day.....The shaming of the dead is one of the most asinine pastimes of today’s culture warriors."

   One of the uses for AI at WaPo, was for summarizing the comments made about the articles written. I found it useful, some readers did not. Here is what AI concluded from the over 1,150 comments about the Pepys' piece. 
   "The conversation explores the decision by Hinchingbrooke School to remove Samuel Pepys's name from one of its pastoral houses, with participants expressing a range of opinions on the broader implications of renaming buildings and the concept of "cancel culture." Some commenters argue that renaming is a necessary step to align with modern values and to stop honoring historical figures whose actions are now considered reprehensible. Others see it as an overreaction or a distraction from more pressing issues, suggesting that it is part of a broader trend of erasing history. The discussion also touches on comparisons with other historical figures, such as Woodrow Wilson, and the actions of the Trump administration in altering historical narratives. Overall, the comments reflect a debate on how society should handle the legacies of historical figures and the criteria for honoring them in public spaces."

Oh-oh or Uh-oh: Denaming on a Massive Scale
  In the province of Quebec there is an attempt to enforce laicity, an action with which I am mostly sympathetic. Sometimes, however, the scale of sanctimonious actions can be considerable. To wit: this article was in the paper yesterday:

"Remove Religious Names from 'Secular' Schools," Raphaël Melançon

London Free Press, March 17, 2026:

"Guaranteeing a truly religion-free school environment."...

But is it really a "religion-free environment" when your school, despite prohibiting its employees from displaying their faith, still bears the name of a Catholic saint?

  In the village where I grew up, near Joliette, the local elementary school is still called Sacré-Coeur-de-Jésus, carved into the stone facade of the building. Every morning, when children walk into their school, they see reminders of the profoundly religious past of their community.

   And it is far from an isolated case. According to a list I compiled from various sources, out of nearly 2,000 public elementary schools in Quebec, more than 500 are named after a religious - most often Christian figure. That means more than one in four public elementary schools in this province bears the name of a saint, biblical figure or former prominent member of the clergy.....

"Secularism in our public institutions and schools is a non-negotiable principle," Drainville said to justify his government's recent decisions....

   But if the Education Ministry wants to be consistent with that same principle, it should start by examining how public schools across the province are named.

   And by doing so, it could get rid of relics of a long bygone religious past to bring the names of hundreds of our public schools into the 21st century."

  I will leave the conclusion to Twain:

   "We despise all reverences and all objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us."

 The Bonus: 
  Those of you who are naughty and now curious about Pepys, can click on this link to his diary. What comes up is the diary entry for the day from about 365 years ago.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Daily Entries Form the 17th Century London Diary

London's Bicentennial (Snippet 6)

 London Police Blotter - 1908

Source: University Missourian, Oct. 26, 1908. (United Press)
  This newspaper started in 1908 when the U. of Missouri School of Journalism opened. They probably used the UP item as filler. Located in Columbia, the paper reportedly closed in 1916.

London Bicentennial (Snippet 5)

 Another Building Collapse in London - 1907

Source: "Building Collapses at London, Ontario,"  Daily Kennebec Journal, July 17, 1907.(Maine) The following is found on the website of the London Fire Department Historical Society. 

Dyslexia and Decorum

  A lack of the latter was again displayed in what passes for public discourse these days. On a book tour, California Governor Gavin Newsom has mentioned his dyslexia which is covered in his book. President Trump took notice and, with his usual empathy remarked that Newson “said, in a speech, he was dumb, had low Boards, can’t read, has dyslexia, and has a mental disorder — A Cognitive Mess!”
  I should note that Newsom’s response was also a little less than decorous: “Newsom fired back at Trump on the social platform X, saying, “I spoke about my dyslexia.” “I know that’s hard for a brain-dead moron who bombs children and protects pedophiles to understand,” he added.”

This is not the first time the Trump administration has demonstrated a lack of concern for those with dyslexia, among, it must be admitted, a very large number of other groups for which little concern is shown.

Font Fights

    In the Great Reaction and backlash to the somewhat excessive efforts of the DEI folks, there was one you likely missed. It came at the tail-end of last year and involved typeface, which was just typed in a different way and you may not have noticed. For people with various visual disabilities, like dyslexia, the types of typefaces can make a difference.
  Way back in 2023 during the Biden Administration, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken issued a directive that the State Department drop the typeface, Times New Roman and adopt Calibri. Calibri is more accessible it was argued and Blinken said “that Times New Roman “can introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers.”

  On Dec. 9, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a new directive. Marco’s memo has, as its subject heading: “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” Rubio called Calibri “informal” and said it “clashes” with State letterhead. He also criticized it as a “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiative.” The reaction was immediate.

  On Dec. 10, this response to the Times New Roman directive appeared in The New York Times. Since it is likely you chose not to read this typeface article, given all the other Trump news, much of it is reproduced below, where the issues and arguments are displayed in Arial.

“A Typeface Falls Victim In the Push Against D.E.I.: Secretary of State Marco Rubio Called the Biden-era Move to the Sans Serif Typeface ''wasteful,'' Casting the Return to Times New Roman as Part of a Push to Stamp out Diversity Efforts,” 

 by Mike Crowley and Hamed Aleaziz.
    Secretary of State Marco Rubio waded into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces on Tuesday with an order halting the State Department's official use of Calibri, reversing a 2023 Biden-era directive that Mr. Rubio called a ''wasteful'' sop to diversity.
  While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation, Mr. Rubio's directive to all diplomatic posts around the world blamed ''radical'' diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork.

   In an ''Action Request'' memo obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said that switching back to the use of Times New Roman would ''restore decorum and professionalism to the department's written work.'' Calibri is ''informal'' when compared to serif typefaces like Times New Roman, the order said, and ''clashes'' with the department's official letterhead….
  Mr. Rubio's directive, under the subject line ''Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,'' served as the latest attempt by the Trump administration to stamp out remnants of diversity initiatives across the federal government.

   Then-Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken ordered the 2023 typeface shift on the recommendation of the State Department's office of diversity and inclusion, which Mr. Rubio has since abolished. The change was meant to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers.

   Calibri, sometimes described as soft and modern, is typically considered more accessible for people with reading challenges thanks to its simpler shapes and wider spacing, which make its letters easier to distinguish. Mr. Blinken's move was applauded by accessibility advocates.

   But Mr. Rubio's order rejected the grounds for the switch. The change, he allowed, ''was not among the department's most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of D.E.I.A.,'' the acronym for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. But Mr. Rubio called it a failure by its own standards, saying that ''accessibility-based document remediation cases'' at the department had not declined.

  ''Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department's official correspondence,'' Mr. Rubio said. He noted that Times New Roman had been the department's official typeface for nearly 20 years until the 2023 change. (Before 2004, the State Department used Courier New.)

  Echoing President Trump's call for classical style in federal architecture, Mr. Rubio's order cited the origins of serif typefaces in Roman antiquity. Those typefaces, which are used by The New York Times, include small strokes at the edges of many characters.

   Admirers say those flourishes make letters look more elegant and make them easier to distinguish from one another, even though they can also create a sense of clutter.

  Serif typefaces are ''generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony,'' Mr. Rubio's order said, adding that they were used by the White House, Supreme Court and other state and federal government entities, as well as in the script on the side of Air Force One.

   Many diplomats are unhappy with changes Mr. Rubio has made to the department's structure and leadership, and have reported badly damaged morale within their ranks. But the Biden administration's move to Calibri prompted some grumbling from some traditionalists who preferred Times New Roman. Mr. Blinken also changed the standard font size, from 14-point to 15-point, requiring extra keystrokes that some diplomats found annoying.”

   
  A few days later there was this follow-up piece in the Times: “Is Times New Roman Better Than Calibri for the State Department?” by Jonatha Corum, Dec.13. Perhaps this is the most important point in it: “I wonder if it’s all a bit of a distraction from what the State Department is actually doing, rather than the font they’re doing it in,” said Tobias Frere-Jones, a type designer known for Gotham, Interstate and other ubiquitous typefaces. “But it is an opportunity to talk about what makes things legible.” Perhaps the larger question is not which typeface is best, or the rationale for the change, but whether the clever people in the Trump administration deliberately chose Times New Roman to sabotage Newsom's run for the presidency. One would not want to elect a president who could not read the State Department memos. Or, the hugest question might be, to use a word of the kind often employed by the current President, do you think President Trump has ever read a State Department memo?

Sources: I have provided enough for this typeface topic and you can easily find some on your own. I could offer more, but will just give you the one with the best title: "A New Serif in Town: Trump's Font Culture War" by Will Barker in The Week:UK. CANCON Up here in the north things tend to move at a glacial pace, which has been quickening. DEI mantras arrived here fairly fast, but the Great Reaction is just now beginning and only the most extreme DEI demands have started to melt. On the language front, things seem fairly calm. The Government of Canada has enough problems in sending out memos in the two official languages so font issues are probably on the back burners. It is the case, however, that several new languages, which are very old, have been added and typeface traumas may be in the offing. Fonts for some of the Indigenous languages are being developed, particularly in British Columbia, but there are sure to be complaints from settlers who will not be able to find the characters on their keyboards, which sometimes are now required in official documents. There are many examples. The first one below is an "Acknowledgement" and the second a sign.

“This place is the unceded and ancestral territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and has been stewarded by them since time immemorial.”