Personal Musings category archive

A. Because it serfs their purpose.

Ruth Lee Johnson explores the fascinating background of “adverse possession,” the legal doctrine by which a squatter can become a property owner simply by squatting.

I wish Johnson had delved more deeping into the history of adverse possession. I do know from an intensive study of Midsomer Murders that there exists in English common law a very old tradition that a landowner, for example, may not close an existing public land usage, such as a right-of-way. I would not be surprised to find that adverse possession somehow relates back to that, but I’m too lazy to find out.

I just checked my stats plugin. The numbers were higher than I had expected.

To all of you who did not abandon me when this blog was having its difficulties earlier this year, I proffer my deepest gratitude. To anyone new, welcome.

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I just reinstalled a statistics plugin.

I removed it when I was trying to troubleshoot the issues I was having back in February, issues which, with the help of my most excellent hosting provider, seem to have been resolved for several months now. At the time, I was getting about 600-700 unique visitors a day (not too bad for a small blog in the backwaters of the inner webs, AFAIC).

I was talking with my friend today about completing the day’s blogging (since I mostly do what I call “drive-by” posts–Hey! this looks interesting–I shoot for eight or nine posts a day) and she wondered how many persons visit this site. I told her that, right now, for the above-mentioned reason, I don’t really know, but feeding the blog helps me keep sane during this time of danger to our polity.

As I said, I don’t know right now how many visitors I have, but I do care, because I hope that some persons find my ramblings useful, interesting, or, at least, diverting.

The Iliad and the Odyssey, translated by Samuel Butler.

I have tried to read translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey a number of times and have not been able to get through them. I found the celebrated Rouse translations boring to the point of impenetrability.

I stumbled over a copy of Samuel Butler’s translation at AFK Books and recommend it highly. He makes the correct compromises between faithfulness to the original Greek and English idiom.

There will still be elements of the translation that the contemporary reader might find difficult, because of the cultural divide. The catalog of ships, for example, might have had great significance for the Ancient Greeks, whereas the contemporary American reader could care less (sort of like the “begats” in the Bible spoke to ancient Hebrews, but not to contemporary readers of the Christian Bible).

Nevertheless, if you want a readable version of the Homeric classics, Butler’s translation is a good place to start. And it’s worth the effort.

I trained as an historian and, through that training and a lifetime of reading history and sociology, I am convinced that the past illuminates the present. Accordingly, I recommend A History of China by William Eberhard, as China is important and most Americans, including me, are woefully ignorant about its history and culture–well, not just ignorant, more like farcically misinformed and bigoted.

I do not claim that it answers every question nor that it is without bias (I don’t know enough about Chinese history to make that claim), but the author’s credentials are impeccable and the book is readable and accessible, having been written for the general reader; it can give perspective to why China is what it is now.

You can get it from Project Gutenberg (easily the most noble of internet projects) and read it with the free FBreader.

Maps of China through its history from Chinahighlights.com illuminate the narrative.

To get a sense in English of day-to-day life in ancient China, you probably can’t do better than Robert van Gulik’s Judge Dee mysteries, which I first encountered in a marvelous little bookshop on 33rd Street across from Madison Round Garden (it’s not at Madison Square any more and it is round) in New York City when I was involved in an extensive training project there in the early ’80s. I’m rereading them now.

When I checked into the ER Wednesday afternoon, the nurse asked, “Do you suffer from depression?”

I said, “Only since the last election.”

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I received a call on my cellphone the other day.

Thankfully, it was not from the Health Care Enrollment Center, the phishing scam that calls me pretending that they have “received my inquiry” when I have made no inquiry. (I keep blocking their numbers and they keep calling with new, likely spoofed numbers.)

It was from a legit polling outfit calling about Tuesday’s election. I answered frankly about my political predilections.

One of the questions was, “What made you choose between Ralph Northam and Ed Gillespie.”

I said, “One is a good and decent human being; the other is not.”

At which point the pollster lost it.

As I have mentioned here from time to time, I do not follow incoming returns the night of the election. Why, I ask myself, should I waste hours looking at the television when I can read the results in 15 minutes tomorrow morning?

Tonight, though, my friend dropped in on the returns and shared some happy news.

I must confess, I am looking forward to tomorrow morning. But, for now, it’s time for another session with Nero Wolfe.

In the silence between the third and fourth movements of the first piece, as the conductor raised his baton, the cell phone rang from somewhere in the back of the concert hall. The conductor stood, motionless, as he and the musicians waited in silence for quiet to return.

Fortunately, I had remembered to mute my phone, so it wasn’t me.

Afterthought:

Later, as I returned from intermission, I remarked to the usher, who was quietly ushering in the hallway, “I’m glad I muted my cell phone.”

He was still laughing as I reentered the auditorium.

Rex Stout was a damned fine writer.

I have enjoyed his Nero Wolfe mysteries from the first time that I read Some Buried Casar in the back seat of my parents’ car on the way to visit my grandmother.

Now that I am rereading them from the perspective of having made my living with my pen for a lifetime, I realize that the man was not “just a mystery writer” (Mickey Spillane was “just a mystery writer”), he was a wordsmith. Like Kerry Greenwood, he made words dance.

When I was a corporate trainer, we fought gobbledygook all the time. It was quite a challenge to get trainees to internalize a growing awareness of this verity.

It has become a back alley from a Law and Order episode, filled with with debris, overflowing dumpsters, lurking muggers and con artists, and the occasional dead body.