I spoke too soon

I penned an entry a few days ago about the engagement of Henry Windsor, better known as Prince Harry, and American actress Meghan Markle.

Near the end, I wrote: "Hopefully, Meghan will not be pressured to give up her career. She finds fulfillment through work, but abandoning that could leave her as unhappy and unfulfilled as Grace Kelly was widely reported to be."

Well I spoke too soon.

I saw an article in People magazine after I posted that where it said Markle is leaving the hit show Suits after seven years on the program. She also is retiring from acting.

I hope this was 100 percent her decision and she was not pressured in any way by the palace to do this. The royal family has a shitty record about forcing spouses to conform with certain standards.

The Queen reportedly had no problem that Markle was not British, was divorced, was of mixed race, and has a Jewish father. But did she have a problem with her profession?

Acting was long been considered "improper" and even "immoral" by "the best people." Do they still feel that way? Was that the reason?

The spouse to Eddie Windsor, better known as Prince Edward, was not forced to give up her career in public relations. Eddie himself has worked in the entertainment business, most recently as a producer.

So this might suggest that Markle was not pressured and accepted without limitations. If so, then perhaps she'll be happiest performing the royal functions for which she is giving up acting.

the genetics of love

I took the children to the park yesterday, which we do regularly. On the way back to the car, we passed a woman with a small mixed-breed dog that went absolutely nuts when it saw us, like we were long lost and loved friends, notwithstanding we had never seen the pooch before.

The woman explained the dog was that way with everyone. This was not surprising to me. I've been around dogs my entire life and have always loved them back so I know how they behave.

The park dog reminded me of a recent heated and bitter internet forum dispute I witnessed not too long ago. Someone had posted a link to an article, I think it was this one, about how dogs are hardwired genetically to love people. Your dog loves you because its species has evolved with human love as a dominant trait.

In sum, your dog can't help but loving you because that love is genetic. Your dog might love everybody else, too, because of that genetic modification over time.

One faction of dog lovers was outraged at this idea. "My dog's love for me is special and unique. There's nothing artificial about that. Sparky loves me."

But this view misses the whole point. Yes, your dog loves you, but it can't help loving you. That's why mistreated dogs usually still love their owners no matter what, because they can't help it.

The love is genuine. But it wouldn't be unique to you. If someone else had adopted your dog instead of you, it would have loved that person just as much. That's because the dog has to love and is incapable of not loving.

All of this makes sense. Dogs originally evolved out of wild canines that congregated close to humans, either to eat people's leavings or because early men and women threw them scraps of food.

With time, humans probably realized that dogs in the vicinity were helpful because they sounded the alarm about intruders and even tried to chase them away. So they were more generous with food. With time, the dogs that were more prone to hang around with humans bred with other dogs more likely to associate with people.

Many generations later, that association turned into love. The more loving a dog, the better its chance of survival with a human companion, so "the love gene" became dominant. Your dog loves you the same way its parents adored their humans and so on.

So let your dog kiss you and be happy for it. But, really, it isn't because you're you. Your dog just can't help it.

when harry met meghan

So Henry Windsor, better known as Prince Harry, is engaged to marry American actress Meghan Markle. They both seem like nice people, but in all honesty, what does this really matter?

He is currently fifth and will soon be sixth in line to inherit the British throne. Thus, the chances of him becoming king are extremely slim at best. He is essentially, a figurehead understudy in waiting.

Meghan is successful and famous because of her talent and persistence. He is wealthy and famous simply by accident of birth.

Harry seems like a nice person, but what does he actually do beside grace tourist tchotchkes hawked in London? I've been reading recently about King Charles I, arguably one of Britain's worst monarchs, but at least he caused change. But Harry?

I wonder if he and his cousins are ever bored by their lives. They live a pampered existence, but they have no real reason to get up in the morning, like any of the idle rich.

Hopefully, Meghan will not be pressured to give up her career. She finds fulfillment through work, but abandoning that could leave her as unhappy and unfulfilled as Grace Kelly was widely reported to be.

I wish them well, but at the same time, I'm glad I'm not them.

stepford sex

This teaser piece caught my eye about a forthcoming UK TV documentary on the rise of the sex robot industry and one man who "adopted" four of them -- they actually sell for more than $10,000 American apiece. I also found a trailer for the documentary on YouTube.

While the dolls might look more realistic than what was sold in the recent past, I think they still look fake as hell. A mannequin may resemble a human, but it won't fool you that it's real.

I think it would be hard to suspend disbelief that a sex doll was real. A small child might be fooled, but then he or she wouldn't want a sex doll.

I could see this marketed successfully if a living celebrity or famous porn actress licensed herself to makers of sex dolls. But then would a famous person like Emma Watson want creepy guys humping her robotic clone?

Is it that difficult for men to meet women that they would turn to this kind of expensive substitute. Considering the world population of women slightly outnumbers that of men, it's not like the female sex is a scarcity.

Nevertheless, I'm curious to see this documentary. We don't have cable so I have no idea if Channel 4 even has a feed down here, but I'm sure copies can be found somewhere.

the drunken veep

I was listening to a history podcast last night after the children were in bed and I was doing some cooking. I learned something that had never been taught to me in school: Andrew Johnson was outrageously drunk when he was sworn into office as Abraham Lincoln's second Vice President on March 4, 1865.

The night before the big event, Johnson got drunk on whiskey. Hung over the next morning, he had three more big glasses of whiskey shortly before being sworn in. These last drinks were provided by Hannibal Hamlin, who had been Lincoln's first Vice President but not picked for the second term.

Johnson's speech was slurred, rambling, and belligerent. He loudly trashed every cabinet secretary by name except one. He could not remember the Secretary of the Navy's name, so he whispered loudly to people behind him, asking for some help.

One Senator wrote home to his wife (quoted verbatim with style inconsistencies): "The inauguration went off very well except that the Vice President Elect was too drunk to perform his duties & disgraced himself & the Senate by making a drunken foolish speech. I was never so mortified in my life, had I been able to find a hole I would have dropped through it out of sight."

Had this kind of thing been taught in history class, I may have paid more attention. It wasn't just historical trivia. Johnson was the first President to be impeached, and his horrible speech won him no friends in a Congress that would soon turn against him with a hostile fury.

Johnson's public disgrace was not the big talking point of the day, however. An hour later, in one of the most memorable speeches in American history, Lincoln gave his second inaugural address. This is the one I do remember from class, which concludes with the immortal "with malice toward none" line.

Seen below is an actual photograph of Lincoln's second inaugural address in progress (enlargement). Where Johnson is in that crowd is anyone's guess. Look for somebody vomiting into his hat.

a brilliant idea

I think this is a brilliant idea that already has bipartisan support: Congress is considering a measure that would mandate releasing information about any members who settle out of court in sexual harassment actions and the amounts paid.

Right now, taxpayers foot the bill for sexual harassment actions against members of Congress, yet we have no idea how much is being paid and who it's for. The fact that this sort of system wasn't already in place for Congress is an outrage.

Corporations with shareholders already have to release this sort of information in SEC filings, at least to a certain degree. There's no reason elected officials should not be held to the same if not higher standard.

Any Senator or House member who does not vote for this measure should be hounded out of office should he or she try to run again. I can't see any valid reason to oppose this.

a holy burst of scared geometry

The people who compile the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award have announced some of the final nominees for far as more nominations continue to role in.

The goal is to recognize "an author who has produced an outstandingly bad scene of sexual description in an otherwise good novel." So writers can't get too bent out of shape by this award because it's not like their whole book is being trashed.

Some selected lines from different shortlisted books:

"Her nipples were a delicate shade of coral pink and they were standing up for him as proudly as little guardsmen on parade."

"Our fucking was a pulsing wave, a holy burst of scared geometry, a congress of wonder."

"Her face and vagina are competing for my attention, so I glance down at the billiard rack of my penis and testicles."

"Bianca grabs Simon’s dick, which is hot and hard as if it’s just come out of a steel forge, and connects it to her mouth-machine."

I like when a sex scene in fiction is steamy and sends me into a little fantasy. But a bad sex scene is like listening to someone sing loudly, badly, and horribly off key.

So writers, better to err on the side of caution and remove a sex scene than to allow a shitty one to see the light of day. Please.

happy thanksgiving!

This will be just an ordinary day for us here down under in Australia. Some years we have gone to a Thanksgiving celebration for ex-pats but not this year for a variety of reasons.

It seems like Thanksgiving season in Los Angeles or Las Vegas to me here. The weather has been lovely and in the seventies. More weather for the beach than basting.

I don't like cold weather, except on traditional holidays. If it's not freeze-your-ass-off cold and windy with a hint of snow in the air, then it doesn't feel like Turkey Day.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! And remember: save the giblets.

the lying game

Last night I finished The Lying Game, the third and most recent mystery/thriller by British novelist Ruth Ware. I've written before about her two previous books.

In short, I think this third novel had many of the same strengths as her first two books but some of the same types of storytelling problems as her second book. The quality of her writing, however, continues to improve with each new novel.

After reading this third book, I finally figured out why I didn't think the second one quite worked, and the most recent one had the same problem: at a certain point, about three-quarters of the way though the story, the character jeopardy stopped escalating. The jeopardy doesn't go away, but it stops building.

The best written mystery/thrillers have escalating jeopardy right up to the climax. That's what makes them so compelling. What was urgent half-way through the book is nothing compared to the urgency as you approach the climax, where the stakes are so much higher for the central character.

Nonetheless, Ware is a very talented writer, and I look forward to more of her work. The earliest novels for many writers are often not their career best, and I suspect she'll be of them, too.

charles manson

You probably heard Charles Manson died over the weekend. His murderous reign was long before my time, but like many members of my generation, I was introduced to him and his crimes through pop culture.

When I was in middle school, I went through a period of reading true-crime books I checked out of our local library. One of the first of these was the famous Helter Skelter about Manson, his "family," and the notorious murders.

I suspect my crime fascination began because my father's first shrink gig had been on staff at a state facility for the criminally insane. On occasion, he could be coaxed into telling stories about some of the patients there, and that may have started my fascination with abhorrent criminality.

For me, the most interesting part of the whole story was not as much Manson himself as how people followed him like a messiah. The fact that a very fucked up individual like Manson can inspire a cult is something that still fascinates me today.

eat and run

The first time I shared a meal with my then-future husband, I had to pace myself to dine slowly. That's because I've always eaten very quickly.

We weren't too far into dinner when I noticed he both ate a great deal and ate quickly. I thought he might be nervous, although he didn't appear to be, and that would explain why he was eating so fast.

The next time we ate together, I noticed again he hate quickly. So I stopped worrying about my hasty eating habits.

As long as I can remember, I've been this way -- my normal pace is just a lot faster than most people, and the same for my husband. My brother is a rapid gobbler, too, but no one else in my family. Is this a genetic trait?

Notwithstanding that he's the child of two speed eaters, Joey seems to gnosh at a fairly normal, careful pace, but he's still young and not always the complete master of silverware. Tombo is old enough to feed himself but too young to really gage his speed, although he often tries to take abnormally large mouthfuls.

When the husband and I are eating out or with friends, we have to force ourselves to eat slower. On these occasions, I make sure to set my fork or spoon down after every mouthful and not to touch it again until I've completely swallowed.

Maybe in our former lives, my husband and I were underfed dogs, always scrounging for something to eat, so we learned very early to eat as fast as possible.

self-defacement

I have a photograph queued up for my Tumblr featuring the woman seen below (enlargement). She appears in porn using variations on the names Leigh Raven Suicide and Amanda Woods.

Her horrible haircut can grow out, so that's just a bad decision that won't haunt her a lifetime. I've seen pictures of her with long hair and she could be quite striking with a flattering hairstyle.

The body graffiti is here to stay forever. The person who did the faces clearly has artistic skill and the execution is quite professionally done.

The choice of subjects is where rational thinking swerved into the ditch. Who the hell are those three people? One man has a crown. The other has cigarettes sticking out of his nose.

This last one is arguably the biggest mistake. Unless she wears short sleeves, it will be quite visible until the day she dies.

I truly do not understand why people deface themselves like this. Yes, they should have the freedom to do so. But freedom to do stupid things is no excuse.

the $450 million painting

Christie's auction house sold a painting this past week for $450 million that is widely, but not universally, believed to be by Leonardo da Vinci. All agree the painting has been significantly damaged and extensively restored.

I guess if you have nearly a half billion to spend on a work of art, you can afford to be less than 100 percent certain it's authentic. The linked article quotes several experts who believe it's real, and one expert who does not. Leonardo paintings are so incredibly rare that, presumably, the gamble is worth it.

I am certainly no art expert, but I have seen real Leonardo paintings and drawings in person at various museums in Europe. To my untrained eye, some aspects of the painting have a "real Leonardo" look, but others do seem a little shakey.

That, however, could be the result of restorations. The rarest old masters often have a lot of necessary restoration because of time and environment which damaged them.

For me, the most fascinating part of this story is the fact that the painting was bought twelve years ago for under $10,000 by a group of three people. They sold it for $80 million.

That buyer flipped it quickly and sold it shortly thereafter for $127.5 million. And then this second buyer consigned it to Christies, and last week made a profit of more than $300 million. The auction house may not have charged a commission because the sale was so prestigious.

On a final note, in reading the coverage about this sale, I noted that some media outlets committed something that is one of my pet peeves: they referred to the artist as "da Vinci."

That was not his surname. He is correctly referred to either as simply "Leonardo" or "Leonardo da Vinci." Like many men of his era, particularly those like Leonardo who were not born to married parents, he had no surname. Vinci was the Tuscan town where he was born.

tweeting the cosmos?

I heard about this fascinating discovery on the radio here in Sydney. An Australian archaeologist and his team have found hundreds of ancient stone circles in the Arabian desert.

The origins and purpose are unknown. The circles and related geometric structures are believed to be between 2,000 and 9,000 years old.

From the ground, they don't look like much -- low stone walls or just piles of stones. From the air, they're stunning and can be seen on Google Earth.

Interestingly, they're not the only ancient artwork meant to be viewed from the heavens. The huge Nazca Lines in South America, for instance, are complex and best seen from high up in the atmosphere or even outster space.

While early humans lived in a flat world, some clearly had a sense something was "out there." But from where and how did this idea originate?

marriage equality in australia

In a non-binding official government survey whose results were announced Tuesday, Australians said by 61.6 a percent majority that same-sex marriages should be legalized throughout the country.

About 12.7 percent of Australians participated -- slightly less than 80 percent of eligible voters.

The survey was not a referendum, but there's every sign that the Australian Parliament will quickly pass just such a law in line with public sentiment.

My husband completed the survey and said "yes" as did everyone his family who said anything about it. His attitude is the same as mine -- there's no valid reason same-sex couples shouldn't marry if they want to.

I've never understood why people get their panties in a twist over same-sex marriage. If you don't want to marry someone of your gender, you're not forced to. If someone else does, it does not affect you.

So many heterosexual marriages end in divorce, so trying to make some kind of argument about the "sanctity of marriage" is laughable. Two men or two women marrying will not demean any "traditional" marriage the same way someone else's divorce will not.

otto titsling

Joey was helping me with the laundry yesterday. This consisted of him picking his own clothes out of the clean basket and then his brother's.

He was a little stumped when he came upon one of my bras wrapped around one of his shirts, his face wrinkled in confusion, as if he'd found a fanbelt for the car in there. "What is this doing here?"

I explained it was my bra and what it was used for. It's not the first time he's seen one my bras, but apparently it didn't register before. I don't wear a bra on many days because I'm small chested, so it's not like there are typically many in the wash,

My explanation was G-rated so I didn't get into too many specifics. I thought of some of the humorous ways I could describe a bra, like "tit sling" and "over the shoulder boulder holder" but passed on those for now.

That made me think later about Bette Midler's unforgettable song "Otto Titsling" in the otherwise forgettable movie Beaches. I believe she wrote the lyrics, which are really quite clever.

In the event you've never heard it, the clip below is directly taken from the movie. Seeing it out of context like this, the usually talented Barbara Hershey's performance seems rather on the nose to me.

the idiots protest

Fans of the Sean Hannity television program are outraged that coffeemaker company Keurig pulled their ads off the show because of the host's controversial comments. So they are destroying their Keurig machines in protest.

That'll teach them! Destroying your own property for which you spent your own money is somehow supposed to outrage the Keurig maker?

Quick -- how much money will Keurig lose if you do this? How much money will you lose?

I priced their machines online -- they run $75 American to $225 American. Not exactly inexpensive.

I should add in an aside that Hannity supports a particular individual currently residing in the White House, thus many of the latter's supporters watch the program. So this speaks volumes about you-know-who's supporters and their intelligence.

I suspect some of these people are in the gene pool for the Darwin Awards.

what would grandpa say?

The picture seen below made me laugh (enlargement). A cheesecake model is posed leaning on a public park bench showing off her assets.

If you look closely, you'll also see a little commemorative plaque on the bench paying tribute to an elderly man who has passed away, noting his name with the addition of "dad, grandpa, great grandpa -- remembered with love and laughter."

Chances are his family will never see this photo. I know if this was my family, some would be deeply offended grandpa's bench was used but others would find it hysterical. And I know if this was my paternal grandfather being remembered with this bench, he would roar with laughter and think it was the greatest tribute ever.

coloring lucy

Today I learned that American broadcast networks have been showing holiday specials of sorts that are nothing more than colorized episodes of TV classics like I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Is nothing sacred any more?

What's wrong with showing them in their original form? Is black-and-white so alien to people now? Didn't these people watch the classic black-and-white shows in syndicated reruns like we all did?

I don't care how "well" it's done, colorizing looks fake because we know the monochrome originals and love their innocent charm. Colorized Lucy is like "updating" the Mona Lisa with a pierced lip and cheek tattoo.

If you know your Lucy, you'll know this was arguably the most famous scene from the show, now defaced.

still good news

I have not written about my father-in-law since March. To recap, late last year he had a CAT scan of his head which revealed a lesion in his skull, and that immediately set off cancer warning bells.

The good news a few months later was that the lesion appeared to be benign and that he would have an MRI in another six months to see if it was unchanged. I drove him to his latest MRI appointment a few days ago, and the good news reported shortly thereafter was no change whatsoever was visible.

So the strategy is to continue to do nothing and to have an MRI annually to confirm all is well. You can't get much better news than that.

I've told both my husband and father-in-law a number of times that I'm now much closer to the latter than I think I ever was with my own father. Of course, I would never tell my own dad that, both because it would be unkind and because I so rarely am in contact with my own father.

I have to think, however, that he and my mother must assume I have gradually adopted my husband's family as my own. I've asked my brother if they ever talk about me in front of him, and his response was something like "virtually never."

That stings some, but I realize it's now a situation that will probably never change. A black sheep can't change its color and all that.

So I'm glad I have my father-in-law as a surrogate parent. And I'm glad that, knock wood, with this MRI news he'll probably be around for a good while longer.

Now this is a picture of an MRI machine stripped of its outer decorative skin (enlargement).

kevin spacey

I've been following the news about Kevin Spacey and sexual assault allegations with interest. In a nutshell, Spacey's career has pretty much imploded in the ten days since the headlines appeared about at least fourteen different people who levelled accusations against him about inappropriate sexual contacts.

Spacey was first suspended and then fired from House of Cards, now in production on its final season. Episodes that were already shot will be reworked to remove his character, and episodes not yet produced will be rewritten to excise him as well.

A completed biopic of Gore Vidal in which Spacey played the lead role will not be released and has been put on the shelf. And Spacey's role as J. Paul Getty in a completed Ridley Scott-directed feature film will be entirely excised and reshot with Christopher Plummer with only six weeks to go before release.

I have some competing thoughts about these various developments.

The movie and TV industry had no problem working with Spacey when his reputation of behavior was widely known behind the scenes, as was the reputation of others like him. They were happy to make a buck on him as long as his dark side was kept secret, but the moment it became public, they ran away and looked down their outraged noses.

Also, the industry now shuns Spacey yet openly embraces Roman Polanski, who was convicted of statutory rape and became a fugitive from justice. Spacey has not yet been charged with anything.

And how do we separate Spacey's alleged behavior from the fact that he's an absolutely brilliant actor? There's something vaguely Stalinistic about removing one actor from a finished movie and replacing him with another, considering Spacey has not yet been criminally charged and may never be.

Spacey should not be given a free pass for what he did, if he indeed is guilty. But at the same time, I find it more than a little hypocritical that the entertainment industry is racing to burn their bridges now, notwithstanding they gladly worked with him when his reputation was contained within the business.

They're not doing this out of a sense of moral outrage. They're doing it to protect their profits.

Spacey's career is likely ruined for good. But the entertainment industry will escape unharmed, despite the fact they may have aided and abetted him when he was profitable for them.

into the water

I've been on the library waiting list a long time for Paula Hawkins new novel Into the Water, which was published earlier this spring. Hawkins made a huge name for herself two years ago with The Girl on the Train, which became a massive best-seller and spawned a movie of the same name.

I finished the new book last night and, in a nutshell, I thought it had a very rough, disjointed, and confusing opening few chapters, but by sticking with it, I really started to enjoy it and found it a very compelling story about several suspicious deaths in a small British village. The author gave herself the extremely difficult task of telling a story from more than a dozen viewpoints, and she didn't make it any easier on readers by abruptly throwing us into a complex story at the very beginning.

Some small things might lead to bigger confusions that could easily have been fixed. Several characters go by more than one name, which never has any kind of payoff, so it's all the more confusing. Virtually all the characters have very common, one- or two-syllable given names and the same is true for their surnames, thus keeping them straight is not easy.

I kept thinking as I read the book that the author may have been rushed to publication out of fear -- hers or the publisher's -- that potential buyers would forget her name if too much time elapsed after The Girl on the Train first came out. And given the rather absentee status of editors these days, the writer may have had no firm hand to guide her through necessary rewrites.

So the bottom line is the book is not as good as Hawkins' last one and it takes some work to get into it, but it nonetheless is an intriguing, memorable novel if you're up for a challenge.

beauty (and handsome) tip

I have another home remedy of sorts today to share. It's not exactly a home remedy because it involves two inexpensive over-the counter products.

As a teenager, I was fortunate that I had no real issues with acne. Once in a while, however, I'd get a single zit, and I learned long ago that liquid salicylic was the best way to make it go away quickly.

As an adult, I still get zits every now and then, usually somewhere on my body, but these often involve an ingrown hair, too.

So I modified my salicylic remedy. When a zit appears, I still apply the salicylic four or five times a day. But at night, I smear the zit with antibiotic cream (never antibiotic ointment, because that's greasy).

Using this double whammy of salicylic and antibiotic, even the nastiest zit will all but disappear in a day and two nights.

My husband was not a zitty teenager, but he does have thick Irish hair and sometimes gets nasty ingrown bastards. He now swears by my salicylic and antibiotic treatment.

So if you, too, are plagued by a zit determined to be the next Krakatoa, I recommend you try this remedy.

what if lenin failed?

The New York Times is running a fascinating guest column by a highly respected historian who asks "What If the Russian Revolution Had Never Happened?" It's part of their ongoing look at communism during the anniversary year of the 1917 Russian revolutions.

Having recently read several books on the Russian revolutions and Soviet Union, I was particularly interested in the piece, written by Simon Sebag Montefiore, who has also authored a number of well reviewed nonfiction books about historical events and people, including three on Russia.

Montefiore's premise is straightforward. If Lenin had not succeeded at the second Russian Revolution, Hitler would have remained an obscure postcard painter. Mao would have been an unknown, too.

While in this piece the writer only briefly mentions Nicholas II, the last Russian tsar, based on what I've read, I think you could make the argument that the Russian revolutions would never had occured had the final monarch not been such a clueless dolt.

Nicholas II was an absolute monarch and absolutely incompetent. He was the perfect walking example of why monarchies are totally wrong for a modern world.

The last tsar met a violent end, as did his immediately family, thanks to his ineptitude, but countless millions of other people died because of him being the catalyst for later historical horrors.

I love "what if" pieces like this as well as alternative history fiction. The state of our modern world arguably rests on a house of cards, and if one of them is removed, the whole thing could come tumbling down into a new arrangement with far-reaching consequences.

digital hookups

The Guardian is running an interesting article about people who were long out of the dating scene and who suddenly find themselves back into the swim. One significant learning experience for them is navigating through sites like Tinder.

I read this and could understand how some of the people interviewed feel rather unmoored. I met my future husband more than nine years ago and we quickly became exclusive.

If I suddenly had to plunge back into the whole single world again, I could see how it would be overwhelming. I was 23 when I was last single. I'm now 32. That fact alone would make me less desirable to some men, notwithstanding I weigh virtually the same that I did nine years ago and otherwise look much the same.

I'm thankful I have a happy marriage, because if I suddenly found myself in the market looking for love, I'd surely feel disoriented, too. Chasing around for hookups was once a familiar part of my life but now seems so alien.

I guess I've completely transformed into a boring married broad.

catalonia

In 2011, before our first son was born, my husband and I traveled to Barcelona from Australia because he had an all-expenses-paid gig there, an experience I wrote about on this blog. The trip served as something of our honeymoon and we both had a fantastic, memorable time.

Because of this trip, I've been reading coverage about the recent efforts by Catalonia, where Barcelona is the regional capital, to declare its independence from Spain. This article provides a good overview of the issue.

Whatever the outcome, I certainly hope it's resolved peacefully. The world does not need another war. Europe certainly does not need another violent conflict. Spain already had a horrible civil war in the 1930s.

Barcelona is a beautiful city as is Catalonia, which surrounds it. If this crisis erupts into fighting and bloodshed, the result will be a tragic loss for all sides.

bowe bergdahl

You almost certainly know about Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was held prisoner by the Taliban for five years and, after his release, faced a court martial for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Bergdahl pleaded guilty and was sentenced yesterday to a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank, a $10,000 fine, but no prison time.

This seems like a wise and equitable verdict to me. Bergdahl's five years as a prisoner was grueling. He did something stupid when he walked off his post, but then paid a high price for it. Sentencing him to further prison time would be pointlessly vindictive.

The case became an enormous political football in the United States. Many armchair judges cast verdicts even though they knew little to nothing about the case. IMHO, someone who passes judgment before a matter is even tried is not interested in justice.

I asked my military husband what he thought of the verdict. Guaranteed, he served in the Australian military and not the American armed forces, but the ethical culture would be similar. He said he thought the verdict was "about right."

a legacy of spies

I was on the waiting list at the library for A Legacy of Spies, John Le Carre's latest novel just published in September, and it finally arrived. I have to say I was somewhat apprehensive because the author is now eighty-six years old. Would he still dazzle the reader?

The answer is yes. Le Carre has lost none of his powers. It's not his best book, and it's short, but it's still a great novel. Now that I've finished it -- although I plan a second read before the book is due back -- I can once again say I've read every book Le Carre has written, and I think all of them at least twice, save this last one.

If you're a George Smiley fan, it's an absolute must read. It's his first Smiley novel in more than a quarter century, so that fact alone has probably sold a lot of copies.

At the same time, if you've never read Le Carre before, it's not a good first novel of his to read. So much in this new book is grounded in the eight previous Smiley novels that the impact would be lost if you didn't know that world.

The book also leaves a lot of untied threads for some of the secondary characters in Smiley's world, so that makes me wonder if the author plans a tenth in the series. That could be a fantastic finish to the Smiley run, if true.

So A Legacy of Spies is highly recommended if you're a Le Carre fan, but wait until you read some of his other Smiley novels before tackling this one if you're a virgin.

morning glory clouds

My husband was showing me some old photos taken fifteen to twenty years ago during his naval career when he was on a ship passing Australia's north coast. I was amazed by several shots of the weirdest clouds I had ever seen, which looked like giant fat contrails except they were hugging the land.

And therein I learned about morning glory clouds, a rare formation that only forms one place in the world, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, which looks like a giant bitemark in Australia's north coast. This article does a pretty good idea explaining how they form.

I don't know why they were ever called morning glory clouds, because they don't look like the flower. If anything, they look like gigantic feather boas.

I hunted around online for the best picture of this phenomnena I could find, which is seen below (enlargement).

prehistoric porn

I was reading offline about the Ain Sakrhri lovers, a small erotic sculpture carved about 11,000 years ago (see photo below). It is widely believed by experts to be the oldest known example of erotic art.

The article I read discussed how earlier human thinking and brain capacity evolved. At about the time the Ain Sakrhri sculpture was carved, humans were developing the earliest cultivated agriculture, but it was about 5,000 years before humans developed the written language.

Erotic art proliferated in the immediate period after the Ain Sakrhri work, suggesting that humans were expanding their knowledge and experience in sexual relations and experimentation. In other words, sex was evolving.

This led me to wonder when humans first began experiencing orgasms. The scientific jury is still way out on whether or not other mammals have orgasms, so if they don't, it's no surprise that earlier humans may not have experienced them, either.

I looked online and found this article from 1992 that concluded there is no real way to determine when orgasms evolved. But it makes me wonder if orgasms were first evolving back when humans were making things like the Ain Sakrhri sculpture.

If so, that creates so much interesting backstory for the piece. Did an early human do it as an early masturbatory tool, much like modern-day porn, or was it a way to remember an absent lover?