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dsgood
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Below are the 25 most recent journal entries recorded in the "dsgood" journal:[<< Previous 25 entries]
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11:04 pm
[Link] | Monday November 16, 2009 "All this would have been enough to recognize the craft as a pirate-—but it displayed the universal device of pirates as well, that parody of the Yin-Yang: all Yang, declaring allegiance to imbalance. In a yellow circle, two round black dots stared like unblinking demonic eyes; beneath, a black semicircle leered with empty, ravenous bonhomie."
"Biographical Notes to 'A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes,' by Benjamin Rosenbaum" Benjamin Rosenbaum, _The Ant King and Other Stories_ Published: 2008 http://www.feedbooks.com
***To Pillsbury House for their Harvest Festival. (Basically, an early Thanksgiving dinner.)
In the lobby was a Health Fair; a conventional medicine/alternate healing hybrid. I learned that I was at high risk for heart problems unless I lost about 20 pounds.
Ate the dinner. Pillsbury House staff and volunteers gave better service than many restaurant workers provide.
After which I got a back and shoulders massage.
There was also an arts fair in the lobby, with live music.
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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01:06 pm
[Link] | Saturday October 31, 2009 Star Tribune article appropriate for Halloween: A psychologist had been encouraging a patient's delusions.
She was barred from accepting new patients, and given various other restrictions. Seems to me she should have been barred from having ANY patients, until she'd successfully undergone treatment herself.
***Mnstf Halloween Party at Sharon Kahn's and Richard Tatge's. Good party.
One attendee thought I might be a distant relative of hers. Same ethnicity, ancestors from Belarus (though her family migrated to Samarkand, and mine to near Kiev before coming to the US), I looked like some of her relatives....
***After leaving the meeting/party, I noticed a nearby storefront. One tattoo parlor was being replaced by another, with the modest name of Tattoo Genius.
Besides adding tattoos, Tattoo Genius will remove them. Reminds me of the John Collier story "The Chaser." (That's the one in which a love potion is extraodinarily cheap.)
In the window was a bottle of tattoo aftercare lotion. I hadn't known there were such products, but it makes sense.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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04:17 pm
[Link] | Wednesday October 28, 2009 Mail: Guide to health insurance plans for next year. My current plan will go up by -- urk! A bit over forty percent.
Time to switch to a lower-cost HealthPartners Plan.
***Wedge Coop annual meeting, at Co-Op Partners Warehouse in St. Paul (owned by the Wedge.)
[Twin Cities food coops were started in the 1970s by hippie anarchists, taken over for a while by Marxists, and ended up dominated by organic-food enthusiasts. This probably makes them different from older food coops in the US, and definitely makes them different from British food coops.]
Two school buses transported people from the Wedge store to the warehouse.
First, food. Main course: choice of beef lasagna (organic beef, of course), three cheese lasagna for vegetarians, polenta for vegans and those who needed gluten-free food. Gluten-free has been getting more emphasis in organically correct circles lately. (Low salt has not, to my annoyance.)
As usual, there wasn't a quorum. Required: five percent of members, which would be about 700 people. There were 299 attendees; up from 94 last year and probably the largest turnout ever, but not enough. So the minutes of last year's meeting couldn't be approved, and the only business which could be conducted was announcing the voting results.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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08:36 pm
[Link] | Tuesday October 27, 2009 Woke up feeling better than before whatever I'd been sick with.
***To the food shelf at Minnehaha United Methodist Church.
Food set out for the taking included Vietnamese fish sauce with eggplant, and fish sauce with visible pieces of fish. Decided I wasn't adventurous enough for either.
***Out again. At Midtown Farmers Market, I used the last of the farmers market checks.
Across Lake Street to Savers thrift store, which didn't have what I wanted.
Bought a few groceries at Target and Cub.
***Public Release: 27-Oct-2009
CyberPsychology & Behavior
Smokers who crushed computer-simulated cigarettes as part of a psychosocial treatment program in a virtual reality environment had significantly reduced nicotine dependence and higher rates of tobacco abstinence than smokers participating in the same program who grasped a computer-simulated ball, according to a study described in the current issue of CyberPsychology and Behavior, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
Contact: Vicki Cohn
vcohn@liebertpub.com
914-740-2156
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/mali-cci102709.php
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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02:17 pm
[Link] | Monday October 26, 2009 Canned apricots: Deseret brand. "Visit www.providentliving.org for information on self-reliance."
Via the Federal Government, the Mormons have provided me with tasty food.
***"Guten Tag,
"Mein Name ist WILLIAMS PATRICK aus Côte d'Ivoire. Ich bin der einzige Sohn von Herrn und Frau Patrick, ich möchten, dass Sie mir helfen investieren in Ihrem Land. Ich habe meine Mutter im Alter von 10, Mein Vater war vergiftet zu Tode während des Krieges hier in Côte d'Ivoire...."
And in English, a letter suggesting I apply for a hotel job in England. Applicants get free airfare to the interview, and other perks.
***Public Release: 26-Oct-2009
Geology
Researchers here have discovered the pivotal role that volcanoes played in a deadly ice age 450 million years ago. Perhaps ironically, these volcanoes first caused global warming -- by releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. When they stopped erupting, Earth's climate was thrown off balance, and the ice age began.
National Science Foundation ( Read more... )
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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12:03 pm
[Link] | Friday October 23, 2009 Mail: Songwriting payment.
In 1991 I came up with the chorus and a verse of what came to be titled "Gimme Those Old Child Ballads" and posted them on the Usenet group rec.music.filk. Other people added verses.
Margaret Middleton has now used it on a CD: Legends & Literature, M-Cubed Ventures; http://www.mcubedventures.com.
***Reading by Catherine Lundoff at DreamHaven Books. She read from two pieces. First, a lesbian werewolf novel in progress. Second, a Lovecraftian lesbian romance story.
The novel began as a shorter work for an anthology which fell through. The anthology is now on again and Ms. Lundoff will submit a shorter-than-novel version for it. The short story was originally for an anthology which fell through; it will appear in Tales of the Unanticipated.
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
Current Music: Gimme Those Old Child Ballads
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02:45 pm
[Link] | Review: Jude I. Parry, The Annoying Cases of Stepmother Gray
Unlike most Americans who call themselves Satanists, Stepmother Gray worships Satan. She founded the Church of Impure Evil, and leads its Minneapolis congregation.
In the tradition of Chesterton's Father Brown and other fictional clerics, she's an amateur detective. But unlike Father Brown, she doesn't want justice to be done. Her goal is to find the criminal, and then frame an innocent person for the crime.
Unfortunately, this never works out. In each story, the person she frames turns out to be guilty.
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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08:22 pm
[Link] | Thursday October 22, 2009 More science fiction becomes obsolete. Minnesota Public Radio had an NPR program on living in the panopticon age; the time when all of our past and present can be known to anyone who wants to make a search. Everything is now in electronic archives, which don't decay or get lost. [Yes, I know this isn't entirely true.]
One person inteviewed has two Facebook pages. The one under his own name has only innocuous material. The other has content which might get him in trouble if tied to him.
I see two problems with this solution. 1) There's software which looks for stylistic similarities in texts. It was developed to spot plagiarism; but it's also been used to find the authors of anonymous writing. 2) What's innocuous today might not be in five, ten, or twenty years.
The earliest science fiction story about this privacy problem I know of: T. L. Sherred's "E for Effort" (1947.) The technology there was a time viewer, and the problem was mostly Real History being revealed. Isaac Asimov's "The Dead Past"(1956), also about a time viewer, concentrated on the problem of individual privacy.
Roger Zelazny's stories collected in _My Name is Legion_ focused on the threat to individual privacy. The series protagonist had written himself out of data bases and set up false identities.
Would it work? I suspect not. My purchases and downloads are idiosyncratic enough that a false identity could probably be spotted (given availability to grocery, bookstore, and thrift store data, sufficient computing power, and a reason to give finding me priority.)
***"Your dog is probably a socialist." Ask Doctor Science.
( Read more... )
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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03:40 pm
[Link] | Tuesday October 20, 2009 To the food shelf at Minnehaha United Methodist.
Among notices on the church's bulletin board: Performance elsewhere of the play Animal Farm, adapted by Nelson Bond from George Orwell's novel. If this is the Nelson Bond who wrote sf, at least one bibliography is incomplete.
***From the BBC News website, Northern Ireland section: "The Guardian covers NI band Ash's decision to criss-cross Britain in alphabetical order, appearing everywhere from Ashford in Kent through Bradford, Carlisle to Ventor, and a bit of a cheat - Exmouth.
"They will end up in the tiny parish of Zennor in Cornwall, where a sell-out crowd of 75 will pack out the village hall."
***Public Release: 20-Oct-2009
Neuroscience 2009
Experimental treatments restore partial vision to blind people
Two experimental treatments, a retinal prosthesis and fetal tissue transplant, restored some vision to people with blinding eye diseases. The findings, presented at Neuroscience 2009, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news on brain science and health, may lead to new treatments for the blind. Researchers also reported that an engineered protein restored vision in an animal model and identified ways to improve stem cell treatments.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/sfn-etr102009.php
Public Release: 20-Oct-2009
PLoS ONE
Young men who voted for Republican John McCain or Libertarian candidate Robert Barr in the 2008 presidential election suffered an immediate drop in testosterone when the election results were announced, according to a study by researchers at Duke University and the University of Michigan.
"In contrast, men who voted for the winner, Democrat Barack Obama, had stable testosterone levels immediately after the outcome.
"Female study participants showed no significant change in their testosterone levels before and after the returns came in."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/du-peo102009.php
( Read more... )
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02:21 am
[Link] | Monday October 19, 2009 Public Release: 19-Oct-2009
PLoS ONE
Smart rat 'Hobbie-J' produced by over-expressing a gene that helps brain cells communicate
Over-expressing a gene that lets brain cells communicate just a fraction of a second longer makes a smarter rat, report researchers from the Medical College of Georgia and East China Normal University.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/mcog-sr101909.php
***"Taking advantage of data collected as part of a 60-year study of more than 2000 North American women in the Framingham Heart Study, the researchers analyzed a handful of traits important to human health. By measuring the effects of these traits on the number of children the women had over their lifetime, the researchers were able to estimate the strength of selection and make short-term predictions about how each trait might evolve in the future. After adjusting for factors such as education and smoking, their models predict that the descendents of these women will be slightly shorter and heavier, will have lower blood pressure and cholesterol, will have their first child at a younger age, and will reach menopause later in life."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/nesc-ahs101909.php
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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03:44 pm
[Link] | Wednesday October 14, 2009 Picked up NAPS food at Waite House. (Nutritional Assistance for Seniors; I suspect P stands for the ghost of "Program.")
***I now have a solid beginning for "Down Among the Sane Men."
***I dreamed passages from _Gone With the Wind_, a book I've never read. I'm not sure how much like the waking-world book this version was. I don't think Margaret Mitchell's male aristocrats had an elaborate whistle language.
If Confederate officers had had a whistle language, some American Civil War battles would probably have gone differently. Which ones, and how, I don't know enough to speculate about.
Thursday October 15, 2009 When Rainbow supermarkets were bought by Roundys (a Wisconsin company), one change was the abolition of Rainbow's rewards cards. A few months ago, Rainbow instituted something new -- rewards cards. At that time, the only reward to be earned was ten cents off on up to 12 gallons of gasoline at BP stations. (Note: American gallons are 4/5 the size of Imperial gallons.) I don't drive, and I'm unlikely to be near a BP station.
There were to be other rewards later, I was told. I got the card. ( Read more... )
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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02:09 pm
[Link] | Thursday October 8, 2009 "The Mopan Maya who settled San Antonio, a hilltop village west of San Pedro Columbia, fled military service and taxes in San Luis, about 30 miles to the west in Guatemala, at the end of the nineteenth century. At first, the crops they planted in forest clearings did poorly, and disease and sickness afflicted the migrants. Analyzing the situation clearly, the Indians marched back to San Luis, raided the church, and carried off the statues of their saints to their new village. Thereafter the people and crops prospered, though the authorities of San Luis pressed unsuccessfully for years for the return of the religious figures." Paul Glassman, _Belize Guide_, Passport Press, Champlain NY, 1989.
***Mostly over whatever I'd been sick with.
Went to ACA meeting.
***From Twitter: Poynter See how journalists are using Kickstarter, a crowdfunding site, to do side projects like documentaries and books. http://bit.ly/RYjHi
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Monday October 12, 2009 Columbus Day.
***Aah! The background I've been developing for future-set fiction jelled today, after I added one element: In this future, I would be able to become a grandmother. By the time I'm in my late 90s, there would be 1) sex change surgery so much advanced over today's that a male-to-female transgender person would be able to bear children and 2) life extension medicine which could keep me alive long enough to raise at least one child to an age where that child could become a parent. (Note that I don't want to get a sex change, or raise children.)
Strictly speaking, this background isn't a future history. The chronology is fuzzy, and will probably remain so.
==
Tuesday October 13, 2009 At Roosevelt Library, I discovered a rather specialized subgenre: Afro-American lesbian romance.
If I recall correctly, there weren't any subgenres in romance at least as late as the 1970s.
***"And speaking of bad for you, let's not forget pork desserts, like the pistachio-bacon ice cream served by my neighborhood ice creamery Humphry Slocombe. Which is right around the corner from the nearby hipster donut shop, Dynamo, whose most popular item is the Maple Glazed Bacon Apple donut, shown on the right."
http://languageoffood.blogspot.com/2009/10/dessert.html
***Thinking out a future version of human history:
Approximately 200,000 BC Earth's first world empire established. Ruled by the White Goddess (whose names include Durga and Ayn) and her consort Yaweh.
20th Century AD First empire overthrown during the Great War. Second empire, the League of Nations or United Nations, established.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
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07:33 pm
[Link] | Sunday October 11, 2009 http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/drugs.asp
Do the personalities of Disney's seven dwarfs represent the seven stages of cocaine addiction?
***Seen from the bus: a sign for the New Dignity Party. A new minor party isn't that unusual; but it's not a usual kind of party name.
On a bus bench, ad for "Alamo Driving School." Considering the battle of the Alamo is a famous defeat, that might not be the best name.
Downtown Minneapolis Hennepin Avenue near 4th St): several men on skates, propelling themselves with poles. (The ski-pole-like ones which some walkers use.)
On to Live The Solution Clutterers Anonymous. The group meets at the pavilion in Como Park, in St. Paul.
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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01:20 pm
[Link] | Thursday October 1, 2009 "The road to recovery may be long. You need shoes." Picture: a pair of shoes with high heels, and other features which make them impractical for long walks. (Ad for Mall of America.)
***From USA Today: "Janus of Santa Cruz, a non-profit agency in Santa Cruz, CA, is introducing a virtual-reality treatment program for drug addicts, the San Jose Mercury News (mercurynews.com) reported.
"People addicted to heroin and similar drugs will take part in virtual experiences, such as walking through a virtual party and turning down offers of drugs, Ivana Steigman, director of clinical design at InWorld Solutions, told the paper.
"Immersion in virtual experiences seems to draw out heartfelt emotions and reactions, Steigman told the Mercury News. 'It lowers emotional barriers somehow,' she said. A pilot program will include six patients in an eight-week program...."
Similar things were predicted in science fiction.
***From City Pages (Twin Cities weekly): Northcoast restaurant "...in the slower winter months, things start to get interesting when chef Ryan Aberie pulls out his chemistry set. Other local chefs have dabbled with so-called molecular gastronomy -- using lab-like equipment and additives to transform the chemical makeup of ingredients. But Aberie has remained among the most enthralled, and his $35 tasting menu -- a five-course spread including such delights as foie gras pop rocks, dehydrated French onion soup, or flash-frozen meringues -- is perhaps the area's most affordable introduction to this sort of avant-garde dining."
Not predicted in science fiction or futurology, to the best of my memory. And I don't think anyone predicted microwave cooking, either.
***Algae and pollen grains provide evidence of remarkably warm period in Antarctica's history
Palynomorphs from sediment core give proof to sudden warming in mid-Miocene era
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/lsu-aap092909.php
***From the LiveJournal Books Online feed, a word new to me: equitist.
http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001308585
Equitable Society and How to Create It (New York: Vanguard Press, The Equitist League, 1927), by W. E. Brokaw (page images at Hathi Trust)
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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02:51 pm
[Link] | Thursday September 24, 2009 A good day. That is, a day on which I felt good.
***In the window of the Records Collectors Co-op: a barf bag for the movie Mark of the Devil.
( Read more... )
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11:55 am
[Link] | Tuesday September 22, 2009 To Southwest Senior Center, to get on the Net.
***To Savers thrift store, which has a senior discount on Tuesdays. Found a pot which was the largest size I'm likely to need.
Got a few things at Cub Supermarket.
***Back home, did some thinking about a kosher cookbook for time travellers. Or, more realistically, a series of cookbooks. The general sections would be: Before humans, human history, after humans.
Corrections from persons more knowledgeable about kashruth and/or evolutionary biology welcome:
Before the evolution of fish with true scales, living off the land would have to mean a vegetarian diet. And pre-mammalian land life wouldn't be kosher. Possibly not early mammals, either.
Much of the human era would be without new problems. But some time in the future, there would be new questions. For example, can vat-grown meat be kosher?
Post-human: There would be new species of plants and animals to be classified.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
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10:06 am
[Link] | Saturday September 19, 2009 In a dream, someone mentioned "The night all the dragons vomited." It was a historical reference everyone was familiar with.
***To Pillsbury House at Chicago and 35th, where I picked up Fare For All food and paid for next month.
On to Hiawatha School at 42nd and 42nd, for their rummage sale. There were no fixed prices, and I wanted to see how that worked.
It worked reasonably well, and I found some things I wanted.
***Home again. And out a few hours later, to the Rainbow supermarket near Lake and Minnehaha.
***Thought: Fictional vampires and zombies used to be Evil. Now both are often good (and oh yes -- sexy.)
How long before someone does the same for zombies? Or has it already been done?
Current Location: Minneapolis, MN
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03:20 pm
[Link] | Tuesday September 15, 2009 No primary election in Minneapolis this year. For the first time, local elections will use what's often called the Australian Ballot. If no candidate gets a clear majority of votes, votes for the lowest-ranked candidate will be transferred to the voters' second choices. If there's still not a clear majority, etc.
In theory, Minneapolis local elections are nonpartisan. (Just as in theory, Chicago has a "weak mayor" system of government.) But political parties make endorsements.
Other complications: Some of the elections will be for independent boards. And in Minnesota, the Democratic Party doesn't quite exist. We have the DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor, though there's not much trace of the pre-merger Farmer-Labor Party.)
Meanwhile, in St. Paul's nonpartisan mayoral primary, the DFLer got the most votes and the Republican came in second. They will face off in the general election. The Republican is an Asian-American woman, which may thin out the perception of the GOP as a club for white males.
***To the food shelf at Minnehaha United Methodist.
"Trader Joe's Multigrain Pilaf A new twist on a classic American dish...." When did pilaf become classic American food?
When I was born, pizza hadn't become Americanized. What foods now considered foreign will be seen as American in a few decades?
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10:04 pm
[Link] | Monday September 14, 2009 Radio: interview with the new president of Minneapolis College of Art and Design. At least while I was listening, two of his assumptions weren't questioned by the interviewer or by people who called or emailed in.
First: Design is best taught under a system developed for teaching people who don't work with their hands -- or, in most cases, with their eyes.
Second: Designers are visual thinkers. It's one of those obvious things which might not be true. There are professional photographers who don't think visually.
***To Southwest Senior Center, to access Internet.
***In the evening, my neighborhood organization (SENA) had its annual meeting at Lake Hiawatha Park Rec Center.
On the way there, I stopped in at Sibley Park and picked up the South Central parks schedule.
I passed a former hardware store which is becoming Angry Catfish Bicycle and Coffee Bar. Offhand, I'd class that business name as "twee punk."
( Read more... )
Current Location: Minneapolis, Alta Iowa
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08:05 pm
[Link] | Sunday September 13, 2009 Minnesota Speculative Fiction Writers Meetup at the Uptown Lunds. Smaller than most MnSpec Meetups; the date had been chosen late and therefore announced late.
There were a couple of newcomers.
Agenda: readings by members. As usual, the problems writers were concerned about and the problems listeners saw didn't always coincide.
***Afterwards, I went to the Uptown Rainbow supermarket and picked up this week's flyers.
Took the #21 bus to East Lake Library. Took out Denis J. Hauptly, _Something Really New: Three simple steps to creating truly innovative products_. Worth reading just for the horrible examples. My favorite: a cell phone for the blind and low-sighted which included a camera.
Then to Cub Supermarket.
Leaving Cub, I found myself more aware of my surroundings than usual. Took me a few seconds to figure out why. There was a woman whose high heels clicked audibly, and I was "seeing" with echolocation.
Stopped in at Target to pick up their weekly flyer, and then home.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Baja Manitoba
Current Music: Mighty Nell, the Eskimo
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02:28 pm
[Link] | I was eighteen when I first realized I had synesthesia. (I didn't know the name for it, back then.) I was listening to a jazz record, and was asked if I could see music. I thought about it a moment, and realized that I could.
(There were a lot of things I didn't realize about myself, but that's another story.)
Several years later, someone asked if I saw music when I was high. (This was during the 1960s, when synesthesia was well-known -- but only as a drug effect.) I answered truthfully, "No, only when I'm not high." This weirded him out.
These days, my synesthetic experience of sound is texture rather than color. And it's more kinesthetic and tactile than visual. I'm much more in touch with my body than I used to be, and that's probably the reason for the change.
I've also learned to use kinesthetic/tactile diagrams in my thinking. I believe this started in the 1980s, when I learned to use macros on a CPT word processor.
I also have "ticker tape." When I hear speech, or when I think in words, I see the words written down. Not in front of me, but out of the corners of my eyes. I usually don't pay attention to it.
It's never in the same typeface twice. I was startled when I realized this.
Jump back to when I was around twelve. I saw blind kids walking around, and they were sensing obstacles. I asked one of them. He said that it was as if he felt the obstacles.
I tried it, and after a while I could do it. And it came across as touch.
Some time later, I found out how it works. It's called echolocation. Bats are much better at it than humans, but many humans can do it. Get a clicker toy (they cost 50¢ in the Twin Cities), and try it.
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12:21 pm
[Link] | 9/05/09-9/11/09
Saturday September 5, 2009 Mnstf at Marian Turner's. This is the most child-friendly home Mnstf meets in; it's a day care center. And this time, several people brought children.
***As I left, I began thinking about my chances of becoming a grandmother.
[Backing up a bit: the term "granny cart" is slightly derogatory. But I've decided that since I'm old enough to be a grandmother (though I don't meet some other requirements), I'm entitled to use the term.]
If there are certain medical advances within the next thirty years, it would become possible. I would be able to live at least a few decades longer, and have my body changed more thoroughly than is now possible with sex changes.
However, pregnancy and childbirth aren't on my list of things I want to try.( Read more... )
Current Location: Minneapolis
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12:51 pm
[Link] |
Definition: Proto-World
Proto-World is the hypothetical ancestor of all known spoken languages. Some linguists are certain they've reconstructed much of its vocabulary. (It's marvelous what can be done with computers and a theory.) Others consider it more illusionary than the Martian canals.
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02:06 pm
[Link] |
Definition: Garbageman Story
A science fiction writer learns that the percentage of garbage handlers in the American population is growing. By straight-line extrapolation, he comes up with a future in which all Americans fifteen and older are garbage handlers. Children between ages three and fourteen serve in press gangs which raid into Canada and Mexico.
The crisis: a diminishing supply of garbage puts the economy in danger.
The protagonist saves the day by inventing garbage-creating robots.
Too absurd to be published? In the 1950s, H. L. Gold bought a lot of these for Galaxy magazine. The only unlikely-to-see-print element here is the press gangs; 1950s American science fiction seldom acknowledged that the US wasn't the only North American country.
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01:41 pm
[Link] | Tuesday August 25, 2009 "Meyer, S/Jones, B Touched by a Vampire: Discovering the Hidden Messages in the Twilight Saga (Investigates the books' themes from a Christian perspective.)"
***To the food shelf at Minnehaha United Methodist Church.
***On the way back, I picked up a discarded Pioneer Press to see if it had anything interesting. It did: "The do-it-yourself method creates just enough meth for a few hits, allowing users to make their own doses instead of buying mass-produced drugs from a dealer."
And add another to the list of possibly-fatal things people do while driving.
***Near home, I saw someone riding a bike while walking two dogs.
***Mail: Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore/Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore newsletter for September-November. The list of recently received and forthcoming sf/fantasy includes books with strong mystery elements. The mystery list includes some with fantasy and science fiction elements.
At least one mystery novel has an ancient document which could shake the foundations of the Roman Catholic Church. And at least one has a Catholic organization involved in A Conspiracy. Where are the Protestant, Orthodox, etc. conspiracies and faith-shaking documents?
***To Southwest Senior Center, to get on the Internet. Encountered a delay: there was a very popular travel program, and the audience blocked access to the computer lab.
***Radio news: a court in Argentina had ruled that it's unconstitutional to punish people for using marijuana.
Next day I checked Google News, which gave me this from the New York Times:
Argentine Court Decriminalizes Private Marijuana Use
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: August 25, 2009
Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that it was unconstitutional to punish an adult for possessing and consuming marijuana if it did not endanger others. In a unanimous ruling, the court struck down criminal penalties for using drugs "in private." The court said public officials needed to fight illegal trafficking of narcotics while adopting methods to treat drug use as a health issue.
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