Malcolm R. Campbell's Blog, page 23

How to ruin the plot of a TV series

Well, there are lots of ways, actually, but I’m thinking of “1883′ which ran initially in 2021 with great work by actors  Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Sam Elliott, and Isabel May. The series about a wagon train heading west was very gritty, but the dialogue and plot were exceptional. Okay, I’ll warn you that there are spoilers here.

The most interesting plot line was the development of the Isabel May character (Elsa) who was the exact opposite of most young women of the era. She could ride better than most of the men and learned to help move the cattle since there was a shortage of men to manage the herd. She had a love affair with a Comanche warrior (Sam)and planned to return to him when the wagons reached their destination.

This was the best character development I’d seen in a Western in a long time, and I’m sure most viewers anticipated her reunion with Sam. However, in episode eight of ten, she is shot during a battle with a Lakota band that thinks people from the wagon train attacked their camp while the men were gone. Her arrow wound is too bad to heal and she ends up dying in the last episode.

I was furious. The writers and producers spent the entire series developing this character (Elsa) and then they kill her off at the last minute. I cry foul. The series should have given us a legitimate ending rather than getting rid of the woman who became the main character.

–Malcolm

Saving Overcrowded National Parks

I just finished entering online comments into a Glacier National Park survey about how to do things better in managing the park. If you’ve visited Glacier recently, you know that all roads in the park are controlled by a reservation system that dictates when you can drive from one place to another. I can understand why the plan was tried, but I think it made everything worse.

I believe that the first duty of the National Park Service is to protect the land along with its flora and fauna. Overcrowded parks–such as Glacier–tell me that the NPS’ focus has gotten skewed to (1) providing unlimited access to everyone, (2) managing overcrowding rather than preventing it, and (3) Choosing recreation over the preservation of a pristine area.

I do not think the NPS should create chaos in overcrowded parks by instituting reservation systems about who can use which roads and when. This accentuates the overcrowding and ruins the visitors’ experience rather than improving it.

Since nothing else seems to work, I proposed banning private vehicles on park roads and using a shuttle service, raising prices on overcrowded parks and lowering them on underutilized parks, and not changing the roads/trails to accommodate the most invasive species (man) at the expense of the landforms and natural cycles of the area.

The first duty is protecting the land within the park. Allowing people into it is way down on the list of priorities.

–Malcolm

Those tricky map questions

I disliked my University’s mandatory ROTC requirement which, in reality helped very little since I ended up in the Navy.  But they had a map reading course which was very helpful when I hiked and climbed mountains in the West. What I realized over the years is that most Americans know very little about geography because everything’s so far away in the USA that they never see it.

So, it’s not surprising that most of us miss map-orientned questions, fairing quite poorly compared to the Europeans. Hell, if you live in Texas and start a road trip you’ll be a senior citizen before you get outside the state.

At any rate, how to do you expect people to answer the question “what is the northern-most, southern-most, eastern-most, and western-most that in the Union?

For southern-most, people will say Florida. Nope, it’s Hawai’i, specifically Ka Lae on the Big Island. People find that hard to see since Hawai’i is usually placed in a subsection of US maps, so its geographical relationship to the rest of the country isn’t clear.

If people remember Alaska, they’ll say it’s the northern-most state. If they forget Alaska, they’ll say “Maine.”

Asking about the western-most state gets you a lot of answers.  A lot of peole will blurt out “California” and then sheepishly say, “oh yeah, it’s Hawai’i.” Both answers are wrong. Alaska’s islands stretch out farther west than Hawai’i. If you compare the location of the Aleutian Islands on a map–better yet, a globe–you’ll see they’re farther west than Hawai’i. Once you see the map, it’s obvious that Alaska is farther west than Hawai’i.

When asked about the eastern-most state, most people will say “Maine.”  It’s not a bad answer other than the fact that it’s wrong. According to the sporcle blog: “Remember how we said Alaska was the westernmost state in the entire US? It is true. Cape Wrangell, Alaska, is 172 degrees 27 minutes east.

“Notice anything odd about those degrees? Remember, we said there are certain technicalities to account for when it comes to farthest directional points. Cape Wrangell is so far west, it actually crosses the 180th meridian into the Eastern Hemisphere. So technically, Alaska is also the easternmost point in the US.”

Alaska takes the prize. Who knew? If you win any money with these questions in bar bets, please send my share to me via Paypal.

—Malcolm

I’ll drink swill but I don’t want it messed up

I would like to drink the best red wines, but, dang, they’ll cost more than the rest of the meal. Of late, restaurants have started serving red wine chilled. That’s a sign of the end of times. When I restaurant brings me a glass of ice-cold red wine, I tell the waiter or waitress that the menu needs a warning label saying that the red wine’s coming out cold. The biggest argument I got into with a restaurant about chilled red wine happened when they told me the wine keeps longer if they store it in a refrigerator. Nope, that ruins it. They probably didn’t change their ways.

It’s gotten easier to order a dirty martini and have my un-messed-up wine when I get home.

“Swill,” by the way, is a magnum (1.5-liter) bottle of grocery store wine that sells for around ten bucks. I refuse to buy the so-called standard 750ml bottle because it’s a bad value in terms of price. Bring me a bottle of Pinot Noir and I’ll be happy. Sea Smoke Southing Pinot Noir will do nicely because it tastes great and is way outside my budget.

Switching gears, I have a strong aversion to restaurants that want to bring me Scotch whisky on ice. That is a GIANT sacrilege. And forget that one drop of water to “open up the taste.”  And the whole “splash of water” you can just not mention it.

My favorite Scotch is single malt Talisker, heavy on the peat and the smoke with a great slogan on their website:  “On the shores of the Isle of Skye, where rugged coastlines meet the raging sea, you find adventure in a bottle. Talisker single malt scotch whisky captures the elemental wildness and unadulterated beauty of its birthplace to give you a taste of Skye in every sip.” That’s heaven in a bottle of, say, Talisker Storm.

If you’ve been around a while, you might remember the days when bourbon was pretty much-considered rot gut. It’s improved over time, but I cannot drink it straight. I have to hide it in a cocktail. Or even dump it into a glass of Coke.

My wife once told me that I always head toward the expensive stuff. She’s right. I drink swill wine at home, but it’s far from the best of the best of the best. Needless to say, I seldom buy Talisker and will settle for Famous Grouse. It gets good reviews and doesn’t cost more than my house.

—Malcolm

That old pagan muddle of terminology

I was amused at the semantic chaos a character in a recent novel fell into while trying to explain the various pagan groups to an individual who (a) was a born-again Christian with Baptist-oriented beliefs, and (b) thought anything labelled “pagan” or “witchcraft” was pure and simple “devil worship.”

I blame both the Catholic Church and Hollywood for creating and sustaining the ignorant idea that pagans and/or witches and/or Wiccans and/or hoodoo practitioners all worship the devil. Many of those “charged” with worshipping the devil don’t believe in the devil. The devil is more or less a Christian notion.

I call my series of conjure novels “folk magic” which, in many ways, is like conventional witchcraft. The terms get  muddled because many Wiccans call themselves witches while others mix up Voodoo and hoodoo.

Wicca, like Voodoo, is a religion. Hoodoo and conventional witchcraft are practices usually with a strong link to nature and spells drawn on what is observed in the natural world. Those who practice hoodoo, with its origins in Africa, are often very strong Christians and see no conlflict between the two belief systems.

I find it easy to write stories about conventional witchcraft and hoodoo because they seem to me to be very natural to those who notice the ways and means of the seasons and the natural world. Both allow the practioner to worship the gods and goddesses of their choice, Christian or otherwise.

Creator of Wicca

The Wicca Academy website states that, “Wicca is a contemporary, nature-based, pagan religion. It refers to the entire system of practices and beliefs that comprise the modern pagan witchcraft spectrum. Although people often think that the terms Witchcraft and Wicca mean the same thing, that is not the case. All Wiccans are witches, but not all witches are Wiccans.”

The Green Man website states that “Drawing Witches into a cohesive identifiable group of any sort is truly like herding cats! And Traditional Witchcraft is no exception! So to cover my ass I think it best to state that all I can share is my own perspective based on my own practices, beliefs and understandings. These I have gleaned over more than 4 decades as a Traditional Witch and over two decades of leading a Coven and Tradition as well as teaching and presenting Trad Craft to the general public. All that said, there are many others with valid experiences and credentials who, coming from other Traditional foundations, would present Traditional Witchcraft in quite a different manner. As with all such explorations, look for multiple, diverse sources and find what speaks to you personally. That is in fact an approach that would be perfectly in accord with Traditional Witchcraft practices, as I present it. As Traditional Witchcraft is rooted in one’s personal senses or rather extra-sensory abilities, built upon one’s intuition, we call it “The Sight” aka “The Gifts”. Informed through direct communion with the many forms and expressions of Spirit, a Traditional Witch is then guided by their own sense of right and wrong employing what one might call one’s Ethical Compass. It is this personal and direct communion relationship a Traditional Witch has with Spirit that sets them as a Heretic: meaning outside of all forms of organized religion and circumventing any priesthood authority mediating Spirit or imposing a codified “One and True practice” or belief with regards all things related to Spirit. ”

In general, I like the practices better than the religions because I don’t really trust systems in which others tell me what  I can do or what I must believe. Truth, I think, comes in following what we believe rather than what a hierarchy of leaders and rules say we must believe.

My two cents as a solitary.

–Malcolm

‘Is Math Real?’ by Eugenia Cheng

While watching “A Beautiful Mind,” I wondered if all those equations on the blackboard could possibly be real. Yes and no. “Yes” because a consultant kept the film’s math on track and “no” because the plot plunged viewers into one of John Nash’s delusions at the beginning of the film.

And yet, is math real in “real life”?

An NPR story states that “From start to finish, Eugenia’s book explores the ways we do math outside the classroom — and how they upend the binary true/false we’re taught from an early age. From examples where 1+1 does not equal two, to the concept of infinity, Is Math Real? relieves us of that rigidity and encourages us to reevaluate our relationship to the abstract. She reminds us that math is driven by human curiosity and creativity—not by right and wrong answers.”

I also thought that the chalkboard filled with equations in films proved the math was fake. If the math were real, wouldn’t the mathematicisn use a computer? Not so, it turns out. First, that’s tradidional, and second, it make theorms easier to present to a class.

From the Publisher

“One of the world’s most creative mathematicians offers a new way to look at math—focusing on questions, not answers

“Where do we learn math: From rules in a textbook? From logic and deduction? Not really, according to mathematician Eugenia Cheng: we learn it from human curiosity—most importantly, from asking questions. This may come as a surprise to those who think that math is about finding the one right answer, or those who were told that the ‘dumb’ question they asked just proved they were bad at math. But Cheng shows why people who ask questions like “Why does 1 + 1 = 2?” are at the very heart of the search for mathematical truth.

“Is Math Real? is a much-needed repudiation of the rigid ways we’re taught to do math, and a celebration of the true, curious spirit of the discipline. Written with intelligence and passion, Is Math Real? brings us math as we’ve never seen it before, revealing how profound insights can emerge from seemingly unlikely sources. ”

From the Reviewers

“An invigorating philosophical take on the field…Cheng has a talent for making mathematical discussions accessible, and her wide-ranging analysis leads to some surprisingly weighty conclusions…It adds up to a stellar meditation on the nature of knowledge and math.”―Publishers Weekly (Starred)

“[Cheng] also succeeds in making the reader feel that not understanding something in mathematics isn’t the same as being bad at it: rather, it is a clue that you are onto something deeper, the pursuit of which could reap rewards.  The book is infused with personal ruminations that lighten the load and keep the tone conversational…Cheng wears her heart and politics on her sleeve, segueing seamlessly…from mathematics to social concerns…Nicely parried, while providing fodder for those who want to chew on this some more.”―New Scientist

You don’t need a chalkboard to understand this book.

–Malcolm

‘Devil Bones’ by Kathy Reichs

After my focus on Oppenheimer,  John Nash, the fires in Hawai’i, and quantum mechanics, it was a joy to go back to simpler books about chopped-up bodies, serial killers, and the other nefarious deeds Kathy Reichs (Bones) writes about in her crime/thriller series about a forensic anthropologist. This time I went back in time to an older novel from 2008, Devil Bones. It has a pentagramme on the cover that tells you whether or not this is your kind of book.

Here’s a real-life tip. If you’re working on an old house and discover a deep root cellar, don’t go down there. Since this is a wholesome family blog, I won’t tell you what’s down there in the novel even though the publisher’s description spills the beans about that.

From the Publisher

“In a house under renovation, a plumber uncovers a cellar no one knew about and makes a grisly discovery: a decapitated chicken, animal bones, and cauldrons containing beads, feathers, and other relics of religious ceremonies. In the center of the shrine rests the skull of a teenage girl. Meanwhile, on a nearby lakeshore, the headless body of a teenage boy is found by a man walking his dog.

“Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is called in to investigate, and a complex and gripping tale unfolds. Nothing is clear—neither when the deaths occurred, nor where. Was the skull brought to the cellar or was the girl murdered there? Why is the boy’s body remarkably well preserved? Led by a preacher turned politician, citizen vigilantes blame devil worshippers and Wiccans, and Temperance will need all of her expertise to get to the real culprit first.”

I smile when I read these kinds of descriptions because I don’t believe in the devil and wonder just what the hell those who believe they are devil worshippers think they’re doing.

—Malcolm

Na ‘Aikane o Maui Center Destroyed in Maui Fire

As I write this post, the death toll stands at 114 in Maui with a thousand people missing. The vultures (developers) watch closely because they want the land cheap. The loss of the Na ‘Aikane o Maui Center  on Front Street adds insult to injury.

ARTNews  writes,  “The center not only taught Native youth traditional art such as weaving and carving but also helped families fight for their rights to their ancestral lands. Hundreds of Native artifacts including 19th-century land deeds stamped in wax, traditional feathered capes, and old maps were lost in the blaze, along with legal documents that could have helped families in disputes against developers and others who laid claim to Native properties.”

The center kept Hawaiian culture alive and vital and it’s records supported their initiatives. They plan to rebuild, and with their philosophy  of “‘A’ohe hana nui ke alu ‘ia” which means “No task is too big when done together.”

I hope they succeed. You can donate here: https://naaikane.org/lahaina-wildfire-relief/

Meanwhile, we must kill the vultures who want to steal the land.

–Malcolm

‘A Beautiful Mind’

Was it a lapse in my education or a personality defect that brought me into the theater in 2001 to see the Ron Howard-directed film “A Beautiful Mind” with absolutely no idea who John Forbes Nash  (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015) was, much less the focus of his work? I suspect my lack of knowledge of Nash came out of the rather thin coverage of subject matter in my university’s general education courses. Since I’d never heard of Nash, I didn’t notice the publication of Sylvia Nasar’s 1998 biography A Beautiful Mind on which the feature film was based. The biography is well written and yet, I missed it until after the film came out

Had I known about Nash, I would have known his philosophy (though not his math) through such quotations as “Rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person’s concept of his relation to the cosmos.” I agree!

The movie made quite a splash and won many awards, at the Oscars and elsewhere. Some people didn’t like the way schizophrenia, from which Nash recovered. Others thought Nash’s wife Jennifer Connelly was miscast as Alicia Nash who, in reality, came from El Salvador and spoke with an accent. And then, as Wikipedia reports, “According to Nash, the film A Beautiful Mind inaccurately implied he was taking atypical antipsychotics. He attributed the depiction to the screenwriter who was worried about the film encouraging people with mental illness to stop taking their medication.”

Sad to say, I don’t think the film–as much as I liked it–left me with a strong sense of what Nash’s specialty was. Wikipedia states that “John Forbes Nash, Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015), known and published as John Nash, was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, real algebraic geometry, differential geometry, and partial differential equations. Nash and fellow game theorists John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten were awarded the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. In 2015, he and Louis Nirenberg were awarded the Abel Prize for their contributions to the field of partial differential equations.”

In the Oppenheimer biography American Prometheus, Oppenheimer is said to have a “forgiving instinct for the frailty of the human psyche, an awareness of the thin line between insanity and brilliance.” He worked with Nash and saw the issues behind the individual.

Of Nash, Britannica writes, “American mathematician who was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for Economics for his landmark work, first begun in the 1950s, on the mathematics of game theory. He shared the prize with John C. Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten. In 2015 Nash won (with Louis Nirenberg) the Abel Prize for his contributions to the study of partial differential equations.”

My thoughts: the book gives readers a better idea of Nash’s work than the movie. I suspect that most of those who watched and enjoyed the movie had no idea who Nash was before the film’s promotions began and probably forgot the little they learnt in the film within a few weeks of watching it.

—Malcolm

PEN AMERICA: REMOVING BLOCK BUTTON ON TWITTER/X PUTS ANOTHER NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF THE PLATFORM

PEN.ORG

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 18, 2023

(NEW YORK)—In response to a thread on Twitter (now known as “X”) from Elon Musk that suggests he may end the platform’s block button, PEN America’s Viktorya Vilk, director for Digital Safety and Free Expression, issued the comments below:

“Elon Musk seems determined to make X (formerly known as Twitter) the least safe and least equitable social media platform on the internet. Before Musk acquired the platform, PEN America worked closely for years with Twitter’s human rights experts and trust and safety specialists to reduce the harm of online abuse against women, people of color, LGBTQ+ folks, and others disproportionately targeted online for their identities and professions. Since acquiring the platform, Musk has undone it all – and then some. He’s fired all of the human rights experts and most of the trust and safety specialists. He’s shut down one safety feature after the next or put them behind a pay wall. Removing the block button–a critical tool that so many writers, journalists, artists, and other users need to protect themselves from attempts to silence them with hate and harassment— would just be adding insult to injury and putting yet another nail in the coffin of a platform that is no longer Twitter, either in name or in spirit.”

–

In its story “Elon Musk’s Idea to Actually Make Twitter a Hellsite,” Slate Magazine writes, “Elon Musk said on Friday that he plans to do away with the block feature on X, the website that most people still call Twitter. Musk’s publicly stated case is a vague one: that blocking “makes no sense.” But it’s reasonable to think his motivations are more specific. Musk seems to have become aware by the week of this year’s Super Bowl that he’s one of the most commonly blocked users of his own website.”

The New Republic writes,”Elon Musk on Friday declared he wants to remove the block feature on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter—despite frequently using the block button himself. There’s also one other big problem: Musk’s desire to limit this blocking feature could also cost X its spot in various app stores.”

Musk’s plan sounds like lose-lose for everyone, including himself.

–Malcolm