sesquizygotic twins

What I found most interesting about this article is how it disproves what we learned in sex ed -- two sperm can fertilize a single egg at one time. The result are twins that are halfway between identical and fraternal twins.

This very rare occurrence is certainly not something parents would want to happen with their own children because birth anomalies can occur. But it nicely shows how even the best experts can be stumped at times and may not quite know as much as they thought they did as new frontiers in medicine continue to be found.

a very, very bad year

According to this magazine article, the year 536 was a very, very bad year to be alive. Rampant disease, record cold, a fog that lasted for months were just some of the "highlights."

With that said, I would assert that a bad year can be very subjective and depend on where you lived. While the 530s may have been shitty, someone living during the Thirty Years War in Northern Germany or as a slave on a plantation in the 1700s or Ukraine in the 1920s or Poland during World War II might strongly disagree.

Or, take a woman suffering through a difficult childbirth, something I can identify with right now. That childbirth would be no safer and no less painful and no less dangerous in 1536 than it would be in 536.

All history, arguably, is relative. It depends on who you were and where you lived just as much as in which year you lived. Nevertheless, if you plan on any time travel in the near future, you might want to avoid the year 536.

dressing oscar

I did not watch the Oscars on Sunday, but I did watch a highlights show that included a look at what some of the celebrities were wearing. Cosmo is running a good picture feature with some of the best and worst outfits.

Here's where I disagree: IMHO, Billy Porter looked ridiculous. Men dressing as women is so last year. I thought Gemma Chan looked like she was wearing a bedspread. A big thumbs down from me.

Sarah Paulson's gown was terrible, and her severe hairstyle made matters worse. I thought Ashley Graham's gown was dated and made her ass look even bigger than it is.

And I agree Rachel Weisz looked terrible. All the fashion press I read agreed. What the hell was that cape about? It looked like something you'd wear at a hair salon while getting color highlights. Her Amish hairstyle didn't help, either. She's a pretty woman and has aged well (she's in her late forties), but Oscar night did her no justice.

I disagree about Olivia Colman. I think she looked fantastic. Everything about her gown worked, and it flattered her nicely. The color was also refreshingly different.

unconstitutional

A few weeks ago I wrote on this blog that I thought excluding women from a possible draft was wrong. And now a federal judge has ruled that a male-only draft is unconstitutional.

Now I can't take credit for a federal judge reading my blog and thus being persuaded to rule in this case, it's good to see I wasn't just talking through my hat.

While I believe this should be done for reasons of equality, as I previously noted, I think such a policy might make society less willing to rush into war if it's known women would be fighting and could end up injured or worse.

In partisan bands for at least the last century women voluntarily fought alongside men. That shows women have the right stuff and there's no longer a valid reason to exclude them from the draft pool.

Seen below (enlargement) are female French resistance fighters photographed shortly after liberation.

grass in your ear

A New Zealand teenager had a wicked earache so her mom took her to the doctor to see what could be done.

The answer was soon found -- she had a seedling growing in there, specifically a blade of grass. Needless to say, she had the thing promptly removed.

This is a wonderful cautionary tale for mothers telling little boys why they need to scrub thoroughly. It's a tale not likely to be believed at first because it sounds so far fetched, which makes it all the more powerful of a weapon.

ungentlemanly warfare

I'm nearly finished reading an absolutely cracking nonfiction book called Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Giles Milton. It tells about a cast of highly colorful characters who ran covert black ops for the British government in occupied Europe during World War II.

The author has an engaging, fast-paced writing style and doesn't get bogged down with arcane nitpicking like many historical writers. He almost writes more with a journalistic tightness. He also does a fantastic job of making the various players in the story feel like real people.

Some of the guerrilla operations detailed in the text are truly amazing, giving the book a pager-turner aspect usually only seen in fiction. This book would be a great source for a high-stakes, action-packed TV series.

So if you're a history reader or just want a book you can't put down, you can't go wrong with this one.

karl lagerfeld rip

The designer Karl Lagerfeld died earlier this week in Paris of undisclosed causes. He was 85.

I have to say I was never a big fan of his designing. I thought his work was affected and showy for showy's sake.

With that said, the man was a marketing genius. Arguably he was the person most responsible for mass marketing couture labels. People like Coco Chanel were mostly content to sell to the wealthy. Lagerfeld realized those of more modest means would crave and buy mass produced ready-to-wear designer fashions and would also follow the rag biz like they do Hollywood and sports.

Lagerfeld himself was a "character" meaning he was downright weird much of the time. His own fashion choices were a combination of butch and feminine. He wore things like biker jackets with lapel fabric of flowery damask.

He famously loved and pampered his pet cat Choupette. Fabulously wealthy, he said he left her a tidy sum in his will. The critter obviously won't actually receive assets herself but the funds will be used to pay for care.

In my opinion what he should have done was have one of his trusted assistants to find a family that would adopt kitty upon his demise. Pets arguably want people to love them, not paid retainers who view pet care as a job.

the four-year-old slave

I'm nearly finished reading the book about the underground railroad that I mentioned here the other day. I found one incident the author discussed to be deeply disturbing and I can't get it out of my mind.

A slave woman in the upper south was preparing to run away with her four-year-old son not long before the Civil War started. Before she could leave, however, her owner gave her small son away to his nephew as a gift.

Needless to say, both mother and child were completely distraught. The mother ultimately was able to escape to the north but never saw her small son again.

I can visualize how the small child reacted when taken from his mother. If you've ever seen a four-year-old in full meltdown mode, you can imagine how the child reacted.

This incident was a wake-up moment for the man who took the child from his mother. But did he even recognize that? Did his conscience trouble him at that moment or was the dehumanization of slaves so pervasive that the slave owning class didn't even give it a second thought?

How was the child treated once the "gift" was received? Was he pampered like a new pet for a period of time? Or was he put to work? After all, it was common for slave children as young as two to be put to work performing simple chores.

I'm not sorry I picked up this book. At the same time, maybe I shouldn't have read it when I was massively pregnant so I could work out my frustration about this incident with some grueling household chore.

authorial mendacity

I'm nearly finished reading a fascinating profile of writer Dan Mallory, better known under his pen name A. J. Finn, who penned the massively successful The Woman in the Window.

Mallory has significant problems with honesty, per the article, and easily shovels out lie after lie. He has had bipolar issues and, like many of those with mental illness, he sounds like he's a vivid fantasist.

But if you don't know him, is this really an issue? If he's not an elected official or your friend or your lover, what difference does it make? Novelists are, actually, professional liars, when you think about it. They are making up stories about imaginary characters. So take this one step further, and Mallory is just verbalizing a made-up story about a fictionalized version of himself.

Tennessee Williams was a shameless fantasist about himself as was Lillian Hellman. Does this fact lessen the impact of their work on an audience? If you were their friend, then it would matter. But the vast majority of us would be total strangers to the two writers, so at the end of the day, it arguably matters not at all.

anti-vaxx idiocy

I thought this tweet was very sad. I first saw this as a meme on Reddit, then chased down the original poster on Twitter and learned that he indeed posted it.

There's no indication whether the parents in question are anti-vaxxers or not, but that really doesn't matter now. Their child is dead. But this certainly could happen to anyone who refuses to vaccinate a child.

The decision is simple. The scientific evidence is overwhelming that vaccinations are safe and effective. The "evidence" that vaccines cause X or Y are garbage "science."

Not vaccinating your kid makes as much sense as hiring an ISIS sympathizer to babysit that child.

a four book week

Now a month from my due date, I'll be in the least active phase of my pregnancy until the end, based on previous experience. My reading volume also tells me that as well.

For the first time since my last pregnancy, I read four books last week. My husband picked up more library books for me yesterday, and I've already burned through one and a half of those.

I read three novels last week. The first was a re-reading of The Handmaid's Tale, which is a tad dated in parts but nonetheless a fantastic book. I also quite enjoyed Portobello by Ruth Rendell, which was labeled by the publisher as a mystery but it really wasn't. I also read a forgettable thriller/mystery by Harlan Coben with a rather convoluted plot. Some of his books are engaging but I didn't find this one to be.

For nonfiction I read The Plots Against Hitler by Danny Orbach, which was both very well written and exhaustively researched. I couldn't keep all the various Nazis straight in the text, but that was me and not the book.

So far this week, I've read Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke. It's very engaging and her writing style is lovely, but I did find the opening to be somewhat clumsy. For nonfiction I'm halfway through Gateway to Freedom -- The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad by Eric Foner. This is an interesting book but not what I thought it would be, given it focuses more on abolitionist organizations and less on the actual slave and escape experiences.

And I've started on Gale Force, a thriller by Owen Laukkanen. I've never read anything by him before, but I'm finding it quite well written so far. Will this be another four book week? Time will tell. Meanwhile, back to loafing and reading.

potty break oscars

Recently, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that in this year's Oscar telecast, four awards would handed out during the commercial breaks and then the acceptance speeches would be edited in later in the broadcast.

Movie people in Tinseltown had a meltdown so the Academy clarified how it wasn't a snub, how the potty break categories would rotate from year to year, and so on.

While Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese would not agree with me, I think it's an excellent idea. This change will result in less walking-to-the-stage tedium. And it could mean more people will actually see who won the award because they won't have taken a break when the less high profile awards are given away.

If anything, I think they should look to double the potty break awards. Don't just try to cut the award ceremony to under three hours. Try to bring it under two and a half. Or even two.

One way I think that would guarantee rising audience numbers would be to strictly limit how long people may give acceptance speeches. Make it for every category, including actors and best picture. And if you don't keep it to under ninety seconds, a trap door opens under the podium and you're slid offstage on a big comfy sliding board.

opportunity

So Opportunity, the robotic rover on Mars that was supposed to last about three months, has officially died after fifteen years in service. NASA announced this week it was unable to restart the device.

The rover had a great many of earthling friends and thus its passing triggered a lot of Twitter paroxysms. I suspect some people are reacting because the Mars rover bears more than a little resemblance to the movie character WALL-E. I imagine that resemblance was deliberate, given the Disney robot didn't appear until four years after Opportunity landed on the red planet.

I had to laugh at coverage in The Daily Express. Their headline read "NASA Opportunity last message: What were the final heartbreaking words of the Mars rover?"

Heartbreaking? Really? It's a machine. It isn't sentient. It's just a very expensive lawn tractor.

Of course, Opportunity could come back to life at some point in the future. If you've read Andy Weir's novel The Martian, you know how.

microchipping humans

My immediate reaction after reading this article -- about humans being microchipped so they don't have to carry keys or wallets -- was that it's an interesting technology but I'd never have it done on my body.

How hard is it to carry a small key fob or a slim wallet? I'd far rather do that than have something implanted in my skin like I was a dog whose owners feared I'd wander.

And what do you do if the chip starts to malfunction? Or if it's damaged somehow? And how can you be certain such a device has no long-term health impacts?

I see lots of good reasons to say "no" to this new technology and no good reason to say yes.

the wide open road

The husband and I have been talking about how, in maybe five years or so, we should take a family road trip and drive all the way to the west coast of Australia and back. This is a good southern route but, in the other direction, we'd want to go into the outback for at least part of the way.

When he was younger, James traveled several times into the Australian heartland and has fond memories of doing so. Given that Australia is nearly the size of the United States but has less than a tenth of the population, and given that nearly everyone lives in one of the coastal metropolitan areas, there are plenty of wide-open places here.

When I was a kid, several times my grandparents took my brother and me on long roadtrips cross-country. Once one of our sisters went with us, too. I have visions of recreating those kinds of experiences for our own children. As well, I've driven coast-to-coast across the US alone or with a friend on multiple occasions and always loved those rides, particularly in the remote patches.

I imagine being eight months pregnant is fueling some of my wanderlust. A trip from the couch to the loo will be my limit for the next month or so. And then a newborn will keep me housebound and all the more anxious for a long roadtrip.

an idiot with dirty hands

A few days ago, American television personality Pete Hegseth admitted on the air that he hasn't washed his hands in ten years. He asserted that "germs are not a real thing" because he couldn't see them.

After a public outcry about that, he later claimed he was joking. But was he?

Anyone who has ever used a communal public bathroom knows there are plenty of people who use the toilet and then swan out of the place without washing their hands. Apparently they think they're clean enough that they won't harm themselves with germs that are already living on or in them.

But here's the thing. When you're in public bathrooms, you touch places other people have touched. Who knows how clean they are or if they wash their hands.

If you're still in doubt, Google the phrase fecal streptococci. They're found all over public bathrooms. They came from other people's shit. And you may be putting some of theirs in your mouth if you don't thoroughly wash your hands after using a public loo. Or after shaking someone's hand. Or after touching any public surface.

democratizing porn

The New York Times is currently running a very interesting article about how the OnlyFans website has both democratized porn and changed the industry landscape.

I was amazed to learn that one woman from Australia earns $100,000 American a month by sharing her racy photos and videos and by providing customized content. Yes, she's the site's highest earner, but even pulling in a tenth of that, which other people on the site regularly earn, is nothing to sneeze at.

I did find it amusing that some of the people don't think they're doing porn. Hon, you're exploiting your body in a film medium. That makes it porn, hon. You may not be getting gangbanged on a dirty mattress for a fixed fee, but you're still doing a form of porn.

I like how the site has democratized content. This has happened with legit media as well through sites like YouTube and in print publishing platforms. In the future, maybe studios and publishers will primarily be passive outlet hosts and not control content.

I have to admit that reading the Times piece made me think that maybe I should jump on this ship after Baby Three is born. Then again, I'm sort of glad I put adult entertainment in the past when I left the United States. I'd have to have a long, hard think before I go there again, even if I would be controlling content.

booking reading time

I was at the library over the weekend with the boys. As I was checking out our selections -- three books for me and about a dozen for the kids -- the woman behind me waiting to check out said something like "I'm envious of you for having time to read." She was with her daughter checking out books but had no grownup book for herself.

So we got to chatting and I learned that she does not have a job and has only one child yet somehow does not find time to read. I told her my secret: booking time to read. I view reading as a daily task for self enrichment and growth, so every day I make sure to set aside at least thirty minutes at any time for reading.

Reading is like working out. You have to book time every day to do it. Otherwise, you won't. It's as simple as that. You can set regular times or you can fit it into your schedule when you plan your day. But you must make a specific time -- none of this "when I get everything else finished."

I might shine on chores -- those windows can wait another few days -- but I never shine on reading. In the last ten years, I think the only time I did not do any reading on a particular day was the day we got married and the two days that I was in labor and delivery.

she does have a good point

I've written here before about how I find new congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's apparent need for constant attention to be somewhat annoying. But I have to admit that her public takedown of big money donors to political candidates was brilliantly done.

Although she's clearly never met a television camera she didn't like, she nonetheless has an endearing way about her. She comes across as cute and a little shy and perhaps even a little passive but then she goes for the kill. I can see why younger males, in particular, are singing her praises.

If she focused on issues like election reform, as she does in the clip I've linked, as opposed to some of her loopy ideas that would never pass a divided Congress, she might achieve some real change.

insurrecto

Yesterday I finished reading Insurrecto, a new novel by Philippine-American writer Gina Apostol that tells the intersecting story of three women -- a filmmaker, a photographer, and a translator. I picked it up because it was garnering a lot of very positive reviews.

Needless to say, I was not a fan. I like novels that are told in an in media res structure -- meaning out of order -- when they make sense and unwind a story in a clever and intriguing way. I can't say the same for Apostol's book. It was just a confusing, contradictory jumble.

She deliberately numbers the chapters out of order and, worse, gives some of them the same number. In fact, there must be a dozen different ones marked "Chapter One." How the hell are you supposed to make sense out of that?

The greatest sin, however, was that her characters seemed shallow. The filmmaker and photographer -- both Americans -- are pale ciphers and underwritten. The narrator -- a Filipino translator -- comes across as sanctimonious and annoying.

Apostol can construct some very beautiful prose. Her storytelling abilities, however, are underdeveloped. Unless you're trapped somewhere and Insurrecto is the only book available, I recommend a pass.

blackface

White politicians of both parties in Virginia are currently mired in scandal and controversy over the fact that they appeared in blackface in their younger days. To date, the Democratic governor and attorney general and the Republican Senate majority leader have acknowledged their blackface past.

Maybe this is a Yankee versus southern thing, but as someone not from the south, it's a no-brainer to me that you would never go in blackface if you're white. It's just understood as a line you do not cross, like making holocaust jokes. It's just so insensitive and in such incredibly bad taste that you don't even think about going there.

Is it different in the south? How is it that three prominent state politicians from Virginia all have blackface scandals from their past?

Whenever a celebrity or some public figure has been exposed for a blackface transgression, it causes a huge media firestorm. So why do people still do it? Why do they insist on doing something that isn't even funny and is deeply disrespectful?

poop in the news

Volunteer researchers in New Zealand thawed out some leopard seal poop that's been in the freezer for a year to study the critter's diet. And then they had a shocking surprise -- a working USB stick was in the poop, having been eaten by the animal in question.

Per Wikipedia, leopard seals can sometimes be confrontational with humans. So maybe one of the creatures chased after a man or woman who somehow dropped the USB stick while fleeing.

I have a bunch of USB sticks I use that are plastic but with a metallic coating. To a myopic seal, perhaps USB sticks could look like little fish.

I've always called USB sticks thumb drives because I picked that up long ago, maybe from my brother. More accurately now, however, maybe they should be called turd drives.

valentino vampire

Pictured below is a print advertisement for Valentino (enlargement) that's currently running in major magazines like Vogue and Vanity Fair. A placement like that costs on average at least $100,000 per appearance.

IMHO, this is a complete waste of money. You can't see any detail on the tent-like garment she's wearing. Her makeup and hair are a fright. This certainly doesn't advance the Valentino image.

This certainly isn't the first time a designer has run an ad like this. They do it all the time, but their customers are really the ones who end up paying for this pointlessness.

drafting women

A retired major general wrote an op-ed for The Hill in favor of women being required to register with the Selective Service in the U.S. when they reach the age of eighteen.

I agree with his conclusion.

Women should have total equality. As part of that equality, the Pentagon now allows women into combat roles. It's only natural then, as part of total equality, that women be subjected to the draft just like men if the Selective Service progresses to that step.

IMHO, if you're in favor of equality, you can't pick and choose when that equality would apply. It's all or nothing.

I also think that if women were to be drafted alongside men, then the powers-that-be might be less likely to trigger the draft and send Americans into battle. I suspect some would be somewhat squeamish about sending women off to war so they would be more cautious.

Ultimately, this is an issue I imagine that the Supreme Court would ultimately decide. The male-only Selective Service was challenged in the 1970s and the Supreme Court ruled in 1981 that requiring only men to register did not violate the Constitution.

However, their rationale was wrapped around the idea that women could not serve in combat roles. Given that no longer applies, it's time for this issue to go back before the Supremes, in my opinion.

institutionalized racism

The current issue of the New Yorker has an interesting but sad essay about the U.S. Supreme Court case that established the racist "separate but equal" standard that prevailed for some six decades.

What I found most interesting was the fact that the high court totally ignored the fact that racially divided aspects of life were entirely unequal. "If the statute did not prescribe unequal conditions, then, legally, conditions were not unequal," the author writes. So in reality, white students had a nice clean school while black students were herded into a dingy, dirty shack.

One might be tempted to conclude Jim Crow laws were predominantly a southern phenomenon. In reality, the north could be just as segregated and sometimes to a greater degree. And curiously, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the Plessy v. Ferguson was a northerner while the sole dissenting opinion was by a southerner who had once owned slaves.

I can't imagine what it's like to be African-American in modern American society. But, sadly, the linked article gives you a very clear picture what it was like for blacks and other minorities of an earlier era who were legally oppressed with the Supreme Court's blessing.

the stalker from hell

I've written before about the crazy ex-boyfriend who stalked me when I was living in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. While celebrity stalking garners all the headlines, the vast majority of stalking cases involve ordinary non-famous people. These typically involve a couple who breaks up and the one former partner then terrorizes the other.

It's pretty uncommon where someone stalks another person after only one date, however. Police have charged a 33-year-old woman on multiple counts after she allegedly sent a man she dated once more than 159,000 texts and reportedly broke into then moved into his home while he was out of town. And, of course, she allegedly threatened to kill him or cause serious harm on multiple occasions.

If she was like this after only one date, one has to wonder how she would have reacted had the actually had a longer term relationship.

Having experienced the wrong end of a crazy stalker, I've always wondered how far back in history this sort of behavior can be found. Is it entirely of our era or were there crazy exes in the Middle Ages or Enlightenment Europe?

presidents of war

Yesterday, I finished reading historian Michael Beschloss's voluminous new book Presidents of War, which profiles the military activities of the eight White House occupants who led the nation during eight of the country's wars.

I'm not sorry I read the book, which is very engaging and readable. Extensive research just drips off the page. I learned a lot with this reading.

With that said, by focusing only on one aspect of eight President's terms of office and out of context, you don't really get a sense of how those wars fit in with the rest of their time in office. As well, certain warring activities of various Presidents are arbitrarily excluded, like the Persian Gulf War and the various Indian wars.

The end result feels like you've read parts of eight different presidential biographies that were stitched together into a book that doesn't quite fit together. And some important wartime events are given the scantest of mentions, like Truman's decision to drop two atomic bombs in 1945.

Nonetheless, I recommend the book for any history readers, particularly those interested in all things American. While the book is not without flaws, I'm not one to let very good be the enemy of perfect.

monet in london

I was reading offline in the newspaper about Claude Monet's London paintings, a few of which I've seen in person at various museums. IMHO they're some of his greatest paintings and add further diversity to his work, making him the greatest of all impressionists.

I saw the painting below (enlargement) at the National Gallery in London on a day that looked like a Monet painting. I had walked along the river earlier in the day and then felt the same mood when looking at his painting. It was an experience I don't think I'll ever forget.

Staring deep into this picture, you can see and feel the sights and sounds and smells of the riverfront. What did people think when they walked by and saw Monet painting these by the river? Did they even know who he was?

I could not find any information about whether one of his London paintings sold recently. Most of them are already in museums so availability would be extraordinarily limited. How much would one of his London scenes fetch? I'd guess tens of millions. His painting of a stack of grain sold for more than $80 million in late 2016.