Twopenn'orth

It occurred to me after I put the previous post up that the idea of 'putting your two cents in' might be one of those informal Americanisms or regionalisms that people elsewhere might not understand. So I went to The Penguin English Dictionary, 2nd Edition (ISBN: 014051533X), which covers English around the globe and is careful to mark regionalisms as such.

I haven't found that particular phrase in it. But now I do know that there's an equivalent phrase. I quote:

* add/put in one's twopenn'orth informal to have one's say; to make one's contribution to a discussion, etc. [contraction of twopenny worth]

Hmmm. So did the Brits get their saying from us, or did we get our saying from them, I wonder?

Time flies: Or, Welcome to Year Two

A year ago I sat down, took a deep breath, and published the first posts on this blog, more or less just to see if I could figure out how to do it. You know, in case I ever really had anything to say, it would be nice to have the system figured out...

I've tried to write a substantial, reflective post in honor of making it to the one year mark, but so far most of my attempts have sounded like the very worst sort of Academy Award acceptance speech, and the others didn't strike me as better.

So I'll content myself, for now, with this post, with saying Thank You to my readers. Thank you for your links, your comments, your help when I needed it.

And thank you Google, for opening up a whole new world for me, and giving us little guys a chance to put our two cents in.

Fighting cybercons

Today, my husband got what would have been a fairly garden variety Nigerian scam email -- except for the twist that the writer claimed to be an English barrister representing the estate of a wealthy American who was killed along with his wife and their only child in the London bomb blasts of July 7, 2005. And (our correspondent explains in his own way) a nasty old UK bank is threatening to confiscate the money in the estate if he, the well-meaning barrister, doesn't find the next of kin, and he can't find them, and would we consent to stepping forward as next of kin for 40 percent of the fortune of 18 million pounds? So the money can be repatriated? With proper legal safeguards provided for our considerate selves, of course. It's a "Risk free business relationship." All the deadline-challenged barrister needs is our "honest co-operation." (And a host of personal information...)

As scams go, this one is particularly clunky. The English stinks. The proposal stinks worse. I'm an Anglophile of sorts, so I take this affront against the UK semi-personally. And even if I weren't fond of England I like to think I know the indecency of using terrorist attacks for fun and profit.

Luckily for us -- and I hope unluckily for the underhanded, shameless criminal who cooked up this scheme -- we know where to report stuff like this.

Cafe Hayek: Flat or Rising or Both

The bloggers at Cafe Hayek are adding a new category, called Less Than Meets the Eye:

These posts will look at inaccurate or misleading charts, graphs or pictures.

For instance, Russell Roberts points out that the chart with a Washington Post first page story on energy conservation efforts in Japan claims to show that "Japan's oil consumption has remained steady since 1975, while U.S. consumption has risen steadily." The problem is that the figures show that Japanese oil consumption rose 21 percent between 1975 and 2004, while U.S. consumption rose 26 percent. (Hardly flat versus steady rising.)

History snippets with your seeds

This is the first year in a long, long time that I'm living in a house with a yard and places to put flowers. I might even go crazy and try for a vegetable garden. (Around here, the operative word is try. We have a lot of mule deer in town. 'Nuf said.)

At any rate, I'm having fun reading in the Seed Savers 2006 Catalog, which features the old-timey flowers I favor, and an astonishing array of vegetables (not to mention books and gifts).

Sometimes, you get a bit of lore with your sales pitch. For instance, in the write-up for Nigra Hollyhock:

Alcea rosea Grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, but mentioned even earlier by John Parkinson in 1629, who described this single hollyhock as being "of a darke red like blackblood." Appears black on overcast days, but will have a hint of red in the bright sun. Plant next to a white fence for a spectacular contrast. Self-seeding biennial, 5-6' tall.

Or, for Outhouse Hollyhock:

Alcea rosea This classic variety has graced outbuildings on Iowa farmsteads for over a century. A favorite at Heritage Farm. Single blooms of white, light pink, pinkish-red, magenta and burgundy. Years ago, refined ladies just looked for the hollyhocks and didn't have to ask where the outhouse was. Blooms the second year in the North of first year in more moderate, long-seasoned climates. Self-seeding biennial, 6-9' tall....

German court shoots down shoot-down law

After the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Germany passed a law authorizing its military to shoot down civilian aircraft suspected of being hijacked for terror attacks. The law went into effect a little over a year ago. That law has now been ruled against by Germany's highest court.

Strangely enough, in this report from Deutsche Welle it's the court's finding that the law didn't protect human dignity enough that seems to have emphasis. I'd have stressed the lives of the civilians on the planes above their dignity. But what do I know?

The article says the law prompted heated debate over whether the government ever has the right to kill citizens to save the lives of other citizens. Well, yes, you don't want the government treating innocent civilian lives like weights and measures if you can help it. I do see that.

The pilots' union also fought the law, on the grounds that people not on the plane couldn't know what the situation was on that plane, and therefore people on the ground might make a tragic mistake. I rarely agree with unions, but I concede they probably have a point here.

That I have a relative who is an airline pilot might possibly have a wee bit of influence on my thinking, but, hey, now that passengers and crew of airlines know that they can and should fight back, and now that there are changes making it harder for bad guys to actually gain control of a plane -- or retain control once they've grabbed it -- shouldn't we take that into consideration? And, yes, I know that now that commercial flights are better protected, the next attack might more likely be made with a private plane instead of an airliner. That's trickier, certainly, because a private pilot hasn't the same resources for fighting back. And it is perhaps more likely that no innocents might be on the plane at all; that it might be flown by a thief instead of a hijacker...

All in all, I'm not sure we ought to take the option off the table entirely. If you've got a stolen plane with one person aboard where it ought not be, and you can shoot it down over a field instead of a city, it might make sense. For that matter, if there's more than one person aboard, but they seem to be together...

Yikes, I hate the idea. But we have the example of field crashes versus building crashes, and we know which we see as better.

Plus, if terrorists know their chance of actually making it to their target is close to nil, I like to think they'd be inclined to explore other options.

I also have to hope that private pilots these days understand that there's a huge risk to flying planes where other people tell you to, so are taking precautions on the ground to prevent personally becoming an easy target for hijackers. (After all, it's rare in history where society has been so civilized that a person could get away with not being wary, and ready to fight for his life at the drop of a hat. We might have become spoiled, but I'm sure it's not bred out of us entirely already.)

Then again, I don't want to fall into that old 'the ends justify the means' thinking.

Sigh.

I guess this falls more or less under "gee, I'm glad the final decision isn't up to me." I'm not feeling up to the task. It feels like 'darned if you do, and darned if you don't' to me.

Certainly, I have mixed feelings about the court's ruling. However they meant it, I'm afraid it will reinforce the idea that seems to be in some minds that 'the West' rests too much on formality, and is ripe for destruction.

I'd rather that people who hate everybody but themselves realized, without much doubt, that fighting the civilized world is way more trouble than it's worth and they're just throwing resources away if they try.

Self-serving plug...

May I invite you to check out my other blog, if you haven't done so in a while?

Mom 2 Mom Connection: Carnival of Beauty: Comfort Food

More food blogging, family-friendly style.

Mere Comments: Opening the Mind

Anthony Esolen has a thoughtful blog post on what he wished he'd said to a young lady who called him up to ask him to donate to an endowment for Princeton. He declined to donate, but wanted her to know why:

...and wishing to get off the phone, because it was suppertime, of course: "You have a man who advocates infanticide occupying an endowed chair of bioethics -- and you invited him to assume that chair precisely because of those opinions."

The reply, not at all defensive, was priceless. With a smug lilt in the voice, and the deep ineducability that comes from being told, for years, that you are better and smarter than silly people who think, for example, that killing your month-old child is a reversion to barbarism, "Princeton likes to encourage the airing of all opinions."

I answered immediately that that simply was not true. If I were a young untenured professor at Princeton, and I spoke as frankly as I do in class at Providence College, they would boot me out the door -- though more probably the Bible-believing Roman Catholic doesn't get in the door in the first place. Back in the days when I attended (when Princeton did not have Touchstone's own redoubtable Robert George), diversity of opinion was merely forty shades of red. With that, the conversation was over.

But when I thought about it later I saw that I hadn't given the best answer. Princetonians do not have open minds about embezzlement, wife-beating, child abuse, or treason (well, not about the first three, anyway), nor should they. If you have an open mind about cruelty, that is a sign of your moral corruption. That Peter Singer has an open mind about killing your "defective" child after a few weeks' trial run -- after you've decided that, alas, the yoke of care is heavier than you had supposed, so that you just have no choice but to let little Tim go, probably with a lot of nice flowers and a word of consolation from a minister of the First United Church of Moloch, may he bless us every one -- says little about infanticide and a lot about Singer, and about Princeton.

Yet even that is not the best answer. The purpose of an open mind, says Chesterton, is to shut it on something true...

[...snip...]

...It is in the quest for knowledge as it is in matters of love: just as no one can wholly love another who keeps an escape hatch open, who considers it possible that not-loving might be a better option, so the relativist or the indifferentist keeps all doors open by neglecting to enter any of them. He prides himself on a radical opennness which is really refusal and timidity...

Full post.

BreakPoint | Fountain of Life

BreakPoint has a sizable excerpt from Ellen Vaughn's book Radical Gratitude. (As an aside, I just checked The Penguin English Dictionary, 2nd Edition , and it reassures me that sizable can be spelled either sizable or sizeable without apology.)


Radical Gratitude: Discovering Joy Through Everyday Thankfulness

Note: This isn't the only book in print right now with the title Radical Gratitude, so if you're ordering a copy from somewhere (through the link here would be nice, of course, but we're still friends if you buy elsewhere), be sure to make sure you have the one you want. For that matter, since titles are generally not protected by copyright, it's always a good idea to doublecheck that you have the right author, on any order, because some titles get used many times over, both accidentally and on purpose.

Wired 14.02: The Teardown Artists

And now for something totally different -- from Carl Hoffman writing at Wired, here's a look at one way car manufacturers learn from their competitors. I guess you could call it the nuts and bolts of serious competition ;-).

(Closed circuit for Matthew. This might be fun for your engineering club. My understanding it that you guys probably call it reverse engineering...)

hat tip: Totem to Temple

Father Jonathan sends both Intelligent Design and Neo-Darwinism "down the hall"

Father Jonathan Morris provides commentary for Fox News and also writes a blog at their website. In his latest post, he takes a look at whether Intelligent Design theory should be taught as science, using the Kitzmiller vs. Dover School District ruling in Pennsylvania as a starting point.

A money passage or two, necessarily long for context:

But they missed the point, and this guy in a collar who you’re reading is the proof of their folly. How’s that? Because regardless of Judge John Jones’ inadequate rationale as expressed in his judicial decision, I actually agree with him that ID should not be taught as modern science.

Before you throw the Good Book at me, let’s agree on what we mean by modern science and what we mean by intelligent design. Unlike thinkers of ages past, who intertwined gracefully some elements of philosophy with the natural sciences, today we prefer — for reasons of method — to separate one from the other. In these categories, the competence of modern science accepts only what we can observe and measure (empirical evidence). Questions like, “What’s the essence of it?” and “What’s it for?” are sent down the hall to the philosophy department. And that’s fair.

Intelligent design theory asks just that type of “down the hall” question. Its proponents claim that a good scientist can’t look at the complexity of the human eye without asking himself, “How did that happen?,” and responding with the answer, “I don’t know, but I do know that it didn’t just happen; there must be intelligence behind that design.” The affirmation is quite logical, but the evidence would be philosophical, not empirical, and for that reason it belongs down the hall.

You would think this reasonable principle would be valid for everyone. Not so. Judge Jones wrote that ID was “a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory.” An alternative to what? Ask your children or grandchildren what they are taught in their public school about the origin of human beings. They may say “evolution,” but it’s more than that. They are being taught a very unscientific theory called Neo-Darwinism, the belief that there is NO purpose or intelligence behind life forms, that it’s all random. Where’s the empirical evidence for that? As a matter of fact, it’s impossible to prove, either scientifically or otherwise. It too should go down the hall.

"Father, are you saying that evolution is not true?" Nope. I’m saying that mainstream, atheistic, Neo-Darwinism is bad science because it isn’t science. No reasonable person denies that life forms can evolve, but it’s quite different to say that through purely random natural selection one species evolves into another to the point of reaching human intelligence.

[...snip...]

I don’t want to end without clarifying that I do believe in intelligent design when it’s taught in the right place and in the right way. In fact, teaching it to our children as a philosophical (not just religious) theory is a sign of common sense and open-mindedness. Isn’t the whole of reality a little bigger than science? The problem is that in most public schools the “philosophy department down the hall” doesn’t really exist.

Given the state of things, maybe that’s all right. After all, who do you want to teach your kids about something as important as their origin and purpose? That’s your job. Thanks for allowing me to help.

Did I help? Let me know.

For his full post and e-mail address go here.

Bald eagle comeback recognized

As Rick Weiss reports in the Washington Post in Ready to Test Their Wings?, there has been a steady increase in the number of breeding pairs of bald eagles recorded in the lower 48 states, and so bald eagles might be coming off the list of threatened species.

I lift my cup of tea, and make a toast, "Well done!." I love watching eagles, all types, but baldies especially. I'm glad they're doing so well.

On a side note, I have a wee bit of trouble with the way threatened and endangered species are counted. Since wildlife has a tendency to elude wildlife watchers, you can only get an estimate. Indeed, the government only lists its figures as estimates. But surely I'm not the only one who found the 1963 "estimate" of 417 pairs in the lower 48 states suspiciously low (especially since it seemed like there were quite a few folks with a huge stake in getting the public to think that the birds were doomed without drastic government action, including raids on property rights). And surely I'm not the only one who reads this in the Weiss article...

Today the number of breeding pairs is estimated at 7,066, with the birds thriving in 49 states including Alaska, the one state in which they were never listed as threatened. (Bald eagles are not indigenous to Hawaii.)

...and finds an "estimate" of 7,066 worth a shake of the head.

And does anybody really think that there is any way whatsoever to even guess with any hope of accuracy how many bald eagles there were in this part of the world "[w]hen the first Europeans arrived in North America"? Really? One hundred thousand breeding pairs, you say? I suppose the natives, all tribes everywhere, sent bird tally teams out, and put the numbers down in logbooks? Don't get me wrong, I feel people are free to guess all they want to. I just hate for policy to be built on their guesses, which are built on necessarily shaky foundations, that's all.

Well, no matter. At least enough authorized modern birdwatchers have found enough birds to reassure the folks who prefer to fear the worst, and, finally, maybe, just maybe, the eagles will be moved off the threatened list. There will still be safeguards in place, mind you. As Weiss reports, they're still covered under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, for instance, not to mention more general laws, and to appease environmental groups the feds are working on clearing up their defintions of what constitutes "disturbing" eagles.

As strictly anecdotal evidence, some winters we see more bald eagles than others, but the local trend has been upward. Around here it's not all that unusual to see more than twenty of them on one drive between here and the next town over. I don't know if our population gets included in that surprisingly precise estimate of 7,066 breeding pairs (for that matter, not all of ours appear to be paired off yet), but I'm sure we're doing our bit in preserving the species. I haven't wanted to mention that before this, for fear of bringing headaches and government inspectors down on the heads of people who have been quietly providing good habitat.

I hope I'm not jumping the gun too much mentioning it now. It would be just my luck that this rash of articles today (several news sites have articles on this) is an underhanded attempt to flush out folks like me. (Stage setting: melodrama. Characters: gleamy-eyed men in black capes and with handlebar mustaches which they twirl for dramatic effect. Heh -- the government bureaucrat says -- another spot that people have been harboring unknown birds! Hand me that book of regulations and let us be off!)

And, yes, I'm joking. Kind of.

New -- The Carnival of Blue Stars

Beth at Blue Star Chronicles has launched a carnival for:

...wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, friends of our service men and women. If you care about our Soldiers, you are qualified to submit an entry to the Carnival of Blue Stars.

The first one was Sunday, February 12.

Here in the Bonny Glen presents the First Carnival of Children's Literature

Melissa Wiley had a very, very good response to her call for entries for a Carnival of Children's Literature. You know where I'll be in my spare time for the next day or two or three :-). Here, following these links!

Notes in the Key of Life: Reading Mary Stewart

Cindy Swanson is wondering if there are any other Mary Stewart fans out there? If you're a fan, why don't you hop on over there and say hello?


Airs above the Ground

Open letter to NBC Sports

Dear NBC Sports,

It was bad enough that certain members of the United States squad of Olympic athletes chose to behave like jerks during the parade of nations in the opening ceremonies. Did you really need to encourage them by keeping your cameras on them, not to mention rewarding them with air time?

Just asking.

With disappointment,

Kathryn Judson

Market Watch: Historical romances by Mary Ann Gibbs

I've had a few market price surprises lately with less-lengthy romances, such as some Harlequin romances from the 1960s and '70s (back in the days of fresh-faced, smiling girls on the covers and, inside, exotic adventure and/or mystery along the honorable woman's way to the altar). If you're used to thinking of romances like that as a dime a dozen, you should know that a few of these titles are now selling in the four to nine dollar range for copies in good condition. Who would have guessed?

Then I ran across a copy of The Moon in a Bucket by Mary Ann Gibbs, a Victorian romance published by Beagle. Beagle books are somewhat more likely than Harlequin to go up in price over the years (from relative scarcity, among other things) -- but between the time I started checking prices at various sites and then headed back to the main site I use to determine pricing, a $14 copy of this title had sold at that first site. That was the least expensive copy going. This is above the usual price range for this type of book, even from Beagle. And somebody bought the book, so the prices apparently aren't just wishful thinking on the part of the sellers.

This, mind you, is a 182-page genre romance novel, in mass market paperback.

The back cover copy includes this (ellipsis in original):

To love Vincent meant exchanging her luxurious world for a life which horrified her family and her suitor, Roger Herrington. Could she do it -- and would they let her...?

Deborah is all of eighteen. Vincent is an actor. Oh, my. But, anyway, you get the picture of what sort of book this is. And, spoiler alert!, never fear, for dear, self-sacrificing Roger comes through gallantly in the end and the noble-in-his-own-way actor rides away over the horizon, proud of himself for not dragging the dear child down to his level. (I know that because I just cheated and peeked at the last pages). Hooray, it doesn't appear to be an 'idiotic girl tosses her life away for a ruffian who will make a lousy husband if he even bothers to stick around' book, in other words. (I'm rather tired of those, aren't you?)

So I go looking for more books by Mary Ann Gibbs, and find that some are plentiful and inexpensive -- but some of her historical romances are running ten to twenty bucks and up for starting prices. Hello.

And, no, I don't want to think how many of these I've sold in the last few years for a buck or a buck and a half or two bucks each.

(You have to learn to laugh at yourself in the used book business. And you get a lot of practice at it, believe me.)

Elephants in Academia: How do I love having John Bolton as President of the Security Council?

The blogger AcademicElephant has had several posts pointing out (sometimes with undisguised glee) what Ambassador John Bolton has done at (and to) the United Nations. The latest.

Detective story send-up disguised as a children's book

I just ran across a copy of Piggins by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Jane Dyer, and it looking like a fun, quick read, I took a break and read it. And found it a fun, quick read. But...

This is a send-up of classic detective fiction, front to finish. Poe, Conan Doyle, Christie, etc. -- nobody gets a pass, as far as I can see. Conventions are skewered, stereotypes are trotted out for a giggle.

So, I've read a fair number of mystery stories, and I watched Upstairs, Downstairs on television. I understand what this book is poking fun at, or at least some of what this book is poking fun at. (I concede I might have missed an inside joke or two.) But I have to wonder what a kid would think of the book? There's plenty of room to read it with a great deal of drama, so I think it could be a fun read-aloud book. And there is a puzzle -- a crime -- to be solved, told in such a way that even a moderately young child stands a chance of seeing the ending coming. But I can't shake the idea that this book might be more fun for the grown-up detective fiction fan doing the reading than for the child hearing it. (Boy: Why are you laughing, Mommy? Mother: You'll understand after you read about five Sherlock Holmes books, my son, and two or three with Hercule Poirot...)

At any rate, I don't know what I expected, but what I found was a fairly cute send-up of detective fiction. For what it's worth.

My copy has a 1987 copyright. I see that the edition for sale new at Barnes & Noble has a 1992 publication date. The cover looks the same, so I'm guessing it's just a later press run.


Piggins