window, not windows

My current reading includes a novel where the central character is a British pilot during World War II.

Although the story is fictional, the book includes many elements that were real. One of these is something called Window.

In a sentence, Window was something like confetti made from aluminum foil that was shot out of a bomber, effectively rendering the German radar as worthless.

Window definitely saved British airman's lives because it meant fewer were shot down. That in turn made bombing runs much more deadly because more bombs were dropped, killing more civilians.

Some might say that it was morally irresponsible, therefore, to use Window. I would argue that it wasn't, because by the Allies defeating Germany, countless lives were saved that otherwise would have been lost, far more lives than those lost because of Window.

politically very incorrect

I must admit that when I saw this very cute puppy loop on Imgur, the first thing that popped into my head was "I wonder if it's named Justin Trudeau." Does that make me a bad person?

IMHO, that's the sort of thing someone like Chris Rock might say. But if I say it, as a white woman, does that make me a bigot? I hope not. The joke is at the expense of Trudeau, not meant to condone blackface, which I think is wrong.

The above aside, the puppy is adorable. It reminds me why mutts are great. Purebreds are all about conformity, but with mixed-breed dogs, you often end up with a pup that's unique or at least very unusual.

siege

The husband recently read a crime thriller titled Siege by British writer Simon Kernick and recommend it to me. I'd never read the writer before, but started the book based on hubby's verdict.

I have to admit until about halfway through the book, I liked it but did not love it. The writing was very tight and competent, but the story seemed like Die Hard in a luxury hotel.

And then halfway through came an amazing plot twist out of nowhere that lifted it way above Die Hard-type material. The twist was set up early in the book, so it was very artfully done yet at the same time completely unexpected.

The author is also very skilled at cranking up the jeopardy for his major characters. As soon as one problem is solved, new ones crop up out of that solution, making for excellent twists and turns.

My only complaint about the book is that I thought one important character's story line was left unresolved at the end of the book. That might be deliberate, given it appears the author uses some of his characters in more than one book.

So if you're a thriller reader and looking for a fast-paced, page-turning novel, check out Siege. I'm definitely going to read more by Kernick in the near future.

babushka man

Vanity Fair's Best Dressed List used to be a much vaunted barometer of style and class. But now it's a clown show of popularity and crassness. Yes, there are still some stylish people who are included, but far too many harlequins are now making the list, too.

Consider the getup seen below on designer Marc Jacobs (enlargement). The babushka and glasses makes him look like somebody's grandmother. How anyone could consider this the epitome of style is a complete mystery to me. Do you know any man who would dress like this?

glitzy vegas snail

I was reading something offline that mentioned the leucochloridium, a parasitic worm that infects certain snails and turns them into zombies with brightly blinking eyestalks like a Vegas signboard. This makes them attractive to birds, who then eat the snail and shit out the parasite's eggs, ready to be scarfed up by more hapless snails.

When I read about highly complex natural things like this, it makes me wonder if evolution is entirely random and whether some kind of supreme entity has a hand in things. At the same time, the sail's infestation is so cruel that the supreme entity seems like a nasty bastard.

Maybe reincarnation is real and bad people are being reincarnated as snails for a million lifetimes or something. That would at least be a more harmonious explanation.

dozens of buicks

I happened to read offline about a man from Massachusetts who collects 1966 Buick Skylark GS cars and now has more than two dozen of them. I rummaged around online and found another article with more pictures where he admits his collecting is a "disease."

There has to be a point where collecting becomes hoarding, where someone spends all of their surplus time and money trying to get more and more and more of something, where the acquisition overwhelms enjoyment. Looking at the pictures about Skylark man, he has row upon row of cars packed in together to such a degree that he'd have to move a dozen or more cars to get any particular one out of his garage. And he's even got at least one on stilts so he can park another underneath.

My husband collects vintage motorcycles, but he never has more than about a half dozen at one time. He'll buy one, restore it, and then either sell it or keep it as an upgrade and sell another one he already has which isn't as nice. So he enjoys his collection without it becoming overwhelming.

Skylark man should have the right to buy as many of the things as he wants. But just because he can do something doesn't mean it's the best thing for his well being.

harry and the exorcists

An item in the New York Times made me roll my eyes. The pastor at a Tennessee parochial school has ordered removal of all Harry Potter books from the school libraries.

"These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception," he wrote to parents in an email. "The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text. I have consulted several exorcists, both in the United States and in Rome, and they have recommended removing the books from circulation."

Quick, find that priest an inquisition in need of his services. What century is he living in? The fourteenth? Somebody sounds like he's watched The Exorcist one too many times.

I'm reminded of the people who refuse to allow their children to participate in Halloween out of fear of paganism or whatever it is that has their panties in a wad.

I'm a little too old to have gotten into Harry Potter — the book was first published in the US when I was twelve — and my children are still too young for it. But if they want to read it, they have my blessing.

the joy of darning

I wrote on this blog at one point how I don't mind ironing and actually enjoy it much of the time. I find it very calming and therapeutic. It's a fairly simple task and it's fun to do a perfect job.

I caught up on some darning over the weekend and I realized that I feel the same way about that as I do ironing. It's not a difficult task, but it's calming and a simple pleasure to try and do a perfect job.

With two very active boys, a very active husband, a growing and increasingly active baby, and me, there's always something in need of darning. And given we mostly wear T-shirts and polos and jeans made from 100 percent cotton, it's not long before something else needs darning.

Like many Navy men, my husband is a great darner, too, but he's the sort who doesn't rush to do it if something needs doing. So I usually end up fixing his clothes before he does.

Darning is a great way to teach sewing skills for a beginning student. Which makes me think it's time to teach my oldest son basic darning and things like how to sew on a button. Just because he's a boy doesn't mean he shouldn't learn these kinds of tasks.

the chain

Last night I finished reading The Chain by Adrian McKinty. Published two months ago, the book has been on bestseller lists both in the US and other English-speaking countries.

McKinty became well known about a year ago when he nearly gave up his writing career. He had written sixteen well received crime novels that hadn't sold much and was making ends meet by driving a Uber car. He was ready to throw in the towel and give up writing.

But then his agent sold The Chain manuscript with an enormous advance plus a huge movie deal. Not surprisingly, the publisher did a massive media rollout and the book ended up selling well.

My bottom line is that I liked but did not love the book. I thought the first two-thirds were fairly strong but the last third was something of a mess.

The premise is winning: a single mother learns one day her daughter has been kidnapped. She must pay a ransom that will just about bankrupt her but also she must kidnap some other parent's child to get her own daughter back.

Only when her victim's parents in turn abduct yet another child will the single mother's child be freed. Hence, the chain continues on and on, self-perpetuating, as victims also become perpetrators, not unlike chain emails.

I've never read any of McKinty's books, but based on what his fans are saying on various book webpages, he dumbed down his writing for this book, resorting to stock characters and cliched dialog and situations. And it feels that way at times, a book deliberately designed to be a bestseller and not a really enriching read. Now I want to read some of his books where he wasn't trying to be so deliberately commercial.

So if you read a lot of books, particularly thrillers, you might want to check out The Chain. But you're not a heavy reader and/or not a big thriller fan, I'd recommend finding something better.

tubal cauterization scheduled

This week I scheduled my tubal cauterization for a date in November. This is like a vasectomy for ladies so I can't get pregnant again.

I love my children and cherish them at all ages, but I think three is enough and the husband agrees. You can't love your children more by having more and more of them. And we don't want to be geriatric when our youngest children reach adulthood, which would happen if we kept popping them out.

Still, I felt a little wistful about scheduling the procedure. We worried before I became pregnant the first time about how long it would take and whether I could even become pregnant — it seemed an awfully long time back then (but really wasn't). And now I'm making it impossible to get pregnant.

But then again I get wistful about all sorts of silly things. My husband wants to sell one of our cars because it's become a maintenance moneypit, but I feel sentimental about letting it go, like we'd be selling a member of the family.

felicity's sentence

Last week, Hollywood actress Felicity Huffman was sentenced to 14 days in jail, a $30,000 fine, and 250 hours of community service for her involvement in the recently exposed nationwide college admissions scandal. Her sentence reflected the fact that she pleaded guilty two months after she was charged.

I've been thinking about this on and off over the past week and reading some about the case as well. My first reaction was "too light of a sentence," but then I started to go the other way, wondering if it would be better to stick someone like her with a much higher fine and skip incarceration altogether.

Arguably the most substantial part of her sentence is yet to come and won't be issued by a court. Almost certainly her acting career will suffer significantly for years.

Winona Ryder is a good example in comparison. She was convicted of several charges but not imprisoned and had a much smaller fine. Yet she got absolutely no work for four years after her legal scandal and, arguably, her career now is only a pale shadow of what it once was.

So while some might think Huffman "got a slap on the wrist," ultimately she may pay a much higher price than a non-celebrity. Other parents are involved in the scandal and have pleaded guilty but they have yet to be sentenced.

They, too, may not get a lot of jail time, if at all. And, chances are, the professional blowback won't be anywhere near as significant as for a public figure.

So they in turn may be the ones who get the proverbial slaps on the wrist.

a fool and his money

Richard Keedwell lives in Britain, where he recently spent £30,000 to fight a £100 speeding fine. He blew through most of his savings doing so, depleting his sons' inheritance.

I don't know if this technically qualifies as "pennywise and pound foolish" because frugality wasn't part of his strategy. The linked article doesn't specifically say so, but this clearly appears to be a situation where he fought the ticket "out of principal."

But when you're impoverishing yourself doing so, then you've become a slave to ethics and ignoring common sense in the process. As well, it demonstrates a certain degree of narcissism in failing to admit that he might possibly have erred and was going a bit faster than he realized.

I have a feeling this is a dogmatic, rigid, "my way or the highway" sort of man. If so, then I pity his family. Living with him probably is extremely unpleasant at times.

cokie roberts RIP

I was sorry to read that veteran journalist Cokie Roberts died on Tuesday. I had no idea she was in her seventies and in poor health.

I knew of her primarily because of her books but also would occasionally see her on ABC and hear her on NPR when I lived in the States. She always struck me as someone with an effortless poise not often seen in public figures. And, she seemed to like everyone and love reporting.

Her easygoing nature on the air notwithstanding, reading her obituary linked above made it sound like she was never timid about getting what she wanted from sources. She was class without being crass.

The two books of hers that I enjoyed the most were Founding Mothers and Capital Dames, which profiled women behind the scenes in eighteenth and nineteenth century American government. They're both immensely readable and enjoyable and highly recommended.

#@*%! windows

I have my laptop set so it will not do Windows updates when I don't want it to. I do things like change my active hours twice a day so I should always be considered "active." I also regularly reschedule the update by extending it to the latest possible day.

For some reason, Windows will eventually ignore these instructions and just update when it feels like it, which is very frustrating. I went to turn on my laptop yesterday and found that it already was on and installing a major update.

I had intended to use the computer then for some important online bank and tax things I had to get done. But, no, I had to wait for the damn update to finish, which took several hours.

When it was finally done and I investigated what the update included, I found that much of it involved functions I have never used, like "virtual meeting helper," whatever the hell that is.

I hate when software manufacturers assume that they have the right to override a customer's wishes. I want to install the updates on my own damn schedule, thank you, and not when you think I should.

hazmat chic

The outfit pictured below (enlargement) is part of Gucci's Fall 2019 "look" that's being advertised in various women's magazines.

The dress is almost $3,000 American and the boots are another $1,250. I couldn't find a price for the lacy top but found similar tights at $200.

IMHO, this looks like some kind of hazmat suit. The shapeless dress is not unlike something seen in medical offices or worn by cleaning persons.

I guess this is some kind of dystopian statement from Gucci, but I found it strikingly unflattering. The clunky boots and face mask make the whole thing look worse.

Gucci once was such a classy house. Now their stuff looks mostly clownish and silly, and this is no exception.

freedom fighter drone

A political leader in Russia who opposes Vladimir Putin managed to keep his hard drives away from the police when they raided his flat by flying them out the window with his drone. They flew away to an unknown location where they were rescued by a friend.

The man, named Sergey Boyko, was one of hundreds of dissident political activists whose homes were raided in recent days and many were taken into custody. This is all part of Putin's plan to intimidate and silence his political opponents.

One has to wonder if this was planned in advance or a spontaneous idea. If it was the latter, it's all the more impressive.

The world will be a much better place when Putin is finally removed from office.

a 727 house

Here's something you don't see every day: a man in Oregon has converted a Boeing 727 commercial aircraft into his private home.

I really like the concept but I think the execution could definitely use some improvement. He says it's a work-in-progress, so maybe I'm too hasty to judge.

The living area, for instance, currently has two rows of seats and a clothes dryer for decor. He also appears to have a great deal of hoarded crap in the jet/house, so parts of it resemble a cluttered attic or garage.

There is something wonderfully dystopian about the whole thing. It's like something you'd see if social order collapsed and the population imploded, so a lone survivor lives in an old jet deep in the forest as protection against the weather and various predators.

made me want to hurl

Someone's photographic drone busted a man sunbathing on a massive drone's turbine platform. Based on some fast Google research, this appears to be a large industrial turbine, so he'd be about 220 feet up in the air.

You can see there's no kind of netting or significant railing. There's some kind of protective bar about three inches high, but that would do nothing to stop you from plunging to your death if you lost your balance.

Looking at something like this gives me vertigo without even being up there. Whoever the man is, he obviously is not plagued by a fear of heights. He seems entirely to be lacking any fear at all.

With today being Friday the 13th, do be careful. Especially if you're sunbathing hundreds of feet in the air without a net.

I'll cry if I want to...

Today is my thirty-fourth birthday (eek!). It's also the eleventh anniversary of this blog (yay!), where I have published an entry for literally every day of those eleven years.

When I was growing up, my brother regularly would write and sing silly parody lyrics to popular songs and classics. One of them was "It's My Birthday and I'll Cry if I Want to," which modified the lyrics for "It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want to."

I actually did not know the real song was about a party and not a birthday until years later. But every time my birthday rolls around, I think of him singing his version.

Here is Lesley Gore singing the original song in 1964 after it had reached number-one on pop charts. She was sixteen and in high school at the time. Check out those curls!

a hooker and a lawyer

Katherine Sears is a lawyer, wife, and mom in Iowa. She and her husband have their own criminal defense practice.

She also travels regularly to Nevada, where she works as a prostitute in a legal brothel.

Her husband doesn't care. She says she does it because she likes sex, she loves the money, and she's painfully shy and prostitution a way to overcome that.

She also takes prostitution cases pro bono. I'm guessing she and her husband have a very open marriage, where he's free to pursue his own interests, too.

I agree with her that paid sex should be decriminalized. I have to wonder, however, how she can represent someone effectively when she's painfully shy? Does she hesitate to speak up in court or in dealing with judges and prosecutors? Maybe her idea of painfully shy is different than mine.

All this aside, I'll bet she's getting more legal work in Iowa as a result of this revelation.

stop kissing chickens

The Centers for Disease Control issued a warning not to "kiss backyard poultry or snuggle them and then touch your face or mouth."

This is not a joke. The danger is not some poultry STD but instead salmonella, which can make you very sick and can even kill you.

The CDC is also warning not to let poultry into the house, which is something commonly done by people who later became salmonella patients, according to the linked article.

When I was a little girl, I loved feeding and holding the tame chickens in my grandfather's backyard coop. But I was never tempted to kiss them. I remember distinctly you had to keep them away from your face because they tend to peck any thing that moves and could go for your eye.

I also remember that they pretty much shit anywhere and everywhere. So I cannot fathom why anyone would want to take them in the house, considering they're too stupid to housetrain. And chicken shit is pretty nasty, just like birdshit you'd find on your car only much larger.

I'm guessing anyone who lets chickens in their home is either a really bad housekeeper or a really busy one.

life after life

I've written here before about how much I like the writing of Kate Atkinson. Although she's been writing for fifteen years, I first discovered her less than a year ago and have not-too-slowly been reading all of her books.

Until last week, I had read all but two of them, and as of this minute, I only have one left until she writes more. That's because last night I finished Life After Life.

Quite simply, it's a masterpiece. I loved her other books but this is head and shoulders above them. It's so beautifully written and so imaginatively unique.

The book follows the life of Ursula Todd who was born in 1910. She dies moments after being born, but then she doesn't. The author quickly begins to lay out parallel lives for Todd, so she's born again several times and each time she lives.

With time, we come to suspect Todd is being reincarnated to live the same life but in a different way each time, learning from her mistakes life after life. She doesn't know this is actually happening but has a strong sense of deja vu and often reacts surprisingly because she has a premonition something bad will happen.

In one life her beloved brother contracts influenza. So in the next life, she shoves a household servant down the steps so the latter cannot contract the flu and thus infect her brother.

And this is all told with simply gorgeous prose. When she dies while being born, for instance, Atkinson writes of her hero: "Little lungs, like dragonfly wings failing to inflate in the foreign atmosphere. No wind in the strangled pipe. The buzzing of a thousand bees in the tiny curled pearl of an ear."

I hated for the book to end and am looking forward to reading it again soon. But the best news of all might be that the one book I haven't read of Atkinson is said to be every bit as strong as Life After Life and deals with many of the same characters.

I can't wait to read it and will start on it as soon as I'm done reading a Don Winslow novel I have going now. I just hope I'm not over-anticipating. I will be sure to write here about my reactions.

an ancient "visitor"

One of the rooms I rented when I lived in Manhattan was in a very nice condo called Zeckendorf Towers. I rented a furnished room from a lady lawyer who owned a three-bedroom unit.

One of the other residents on our floor was an absolutely ancient woman named Ruth who was in her late nineties. Ruth was very sharp mentally but, like many people her age, somewhat on the frail side.

A classic grande dame sort, she did her grocery shopping and errands in a tailored suit with pearls and a mink coat, a site not uncommon in Manhattan's better neighborhoods. She also had a little folding cart of sorts that is popular worldwide among older folks.

Sometimes I would see Ruth coming and going with her little cart and would help her. A few times she invited me into her apartment which was elegantly furnished and had a large, fat male cat.

I haven't thought about Ruth for more than a few years but suddenly I had a dream about her last night. She came to visit me in Australia when I was home with just the baby. She admired the baby, had some tea, and is often the case in dreams, just sort of evaporated at some point.

I can't think that, in the real world, Ruth is still alive, because she'd be somewhere around 110 if she was. That leaves me to wonder, as I always do when I have unexpected and often dead visitors in dreams, was that a close encounter with a ghost?

I'm sure superstitious people would insist this was some kind of paranormal event. I know certain traditional cultures would believe spirits were talking to me.

There's no way to ever know, but I like to think little visit dreams like this are kindly spirits stopping by from the hereafter for a little chat.

And, yes, Ruth was wearing her mink coat here in Australia during her "visit," which was actually rather practical because we've been having windy early sprint weather. But she had lost her little cart somewhere.

the spy and the traitor

Last night I finished reading The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre, a hugely readable nonfiction book by the British writer Ben Macintyre that was published last year. It tells the story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB colonel who, in the 1970s and 1980s, secretly spied for Britain's MI6, the UK's equivalent of the CIA.

Macintyre primarily specializes in popular histories about espionage in the World War II and Cold War era, so it's no surprise he would tackle a book like this.

Although it might sound odd to say I enjoyed the book, given the serious topic, it nonetheless reads almost like a page-turner novel in many parts. Macintyre expertly draws the writer in and makes you want more.

I thought the highlight of the book was the nail-biting passages about Gordievsky's attempt to flee the Soviet Union so he could defect to the West. Macintyre is a very filmic writer, so it would not be surprising if a studio in Britain or the US picked this up for development.

The book gets what is arguably its strongest recommendation to date, from legendary espionage author John Le Carre: "The best true spy story I have ever read."

So if you're looking for a fun, fast read of a very well written book, I recommend this (and any other of Macintyre's previous espionage works).

new shoe stupidity

I caught an excellent shoe sale over the weekend and picked up two new pairs. Normally when I buy new shoes, it's only one pair at a time and I break them in very gradually.

I might wear them a half day once a week for weeks until my feet and the shoes make peace with each other. But this time I did something that I deeply regretted by Wednesday — I wore one new pair all day on Monday and the other new pair all day Tuesday.

My feet were angry and protesting on Wednesday and demanded they wear my most comfortable old shoes. And now, two days later, my feet are still sore and barely speaking to me.

Never, never again. I strongly suspected when I put the shoes on Tuesday morning that I would regret doing so, but the temptation demon got the better of me.

Listen to your feet. They know better than you.

These are not the actual shoes (but they felt like it). They're what popped up in Google's image search when I typed the phrase "demon shoes."

zen rebuttal

A maxim of Zen Buddhism holds that a bad thing happens to prevent a worse thing happening.

Let's test that against some real-world examples. A baby is born with a malformed heart. Surgery is not possible. He only lives a few hours. His parents are devastated.

That clearly is a bad thing. But what possible worse thing could it prevent? That if the child had a healthy heart, he would grow up to be a serial killer? But why kill off the baby when he was only hours old and not, say, on his eighteenth birthday?

Hitler caused the deaths of tens of millions. Same for Stalin. Same for Mao. Such genocide certainly was very bad. So what possible worse thing did Hitler's genocide prevent? Same for Stalin. Same for Mao.

Okay, I'm not buying this maxim. It's a sympathy card sentiment dressed up as philosophy.

Now here's another maxim of Zen Buddhism: never regret the decisions you made in life because you never know how things might have turned out had you made different decisions.

Now that I buy. This is simple logic. You assume that, had you only chosen X instead of Y, things would have turned out for the better. You don't know that. You could have chosen X and then, crossing the street the next day because of that decision, been mowed down by a runaway bus and paralyzed with severe brain damage.

What a cheery person I am today.

porn tit regrets

Some women who appear in porn and who have had breast implants are now regretting that decision because of serious health problems, per a new article written by former porn queen Aurora Snow.

When I read things like this, I'm so so so glad I never got implants when I was an exotic dancer. While health issues were a concern for me, the biggest factor for me is that I was a baby about pain.

I'd never had surgery and no children at that point, so being carved up just for bigger tits scared me. And I also thought I'd probably want the things removed once I left dancing, so that would be a second round of surgery.

And the whole idea of having artificial rubbery things left inside my body just sort of disgusted me. I'd constantly be worrying if the things would pop and ooze toxicity inside of me.

I also just dislike the look of fake tits. Yes, I could have earned a lot more money with plastic boobs, but I was willing to forgo that. It's now a decision I do not regret for one second.

Beside, if I had a big rack, I wonder if my husband would have been attracted to me when we first met. He doesn't like fake tits, either, and prefers smaller boobed women, which is what he got with me.

FYI, the woman appearing below not only has fake tits, she's also fake black. She's a blonde German who has become a "tanning addict."

stay-at-home parenting

In honor of Labor Day in the United States yesterday, the Washington Post published an article that's a tribute of sorts to unpaid stay-at-home parents.

As a stay-at-home parent, I disagree that it's "unpaid" work. The money saved by not having to pay for daycare is a remunerations. Also, stay-at-home parenting can be very rewarding but just not in a way that can be added to a balance sheet.

I also found it curious that the article's writer presumes stay-at-home parents are responsible for cooking, cleaning, and other household chores. I'm a stay-at-home parent but I'm certainly not the only spouse who cleans or cooks or does the laundry.

In the end, the article just sort of runs out of steam, not reaching any sort of conclusion. If the writer was trying to say something profound about stay-at-home parenting, I think he substantially missed his goal.

good man/bad man

I was reading a magazine article offline about Winston Churchill. I think it's safe to say that, without him as Prime Minister, Great Britain probably would have done much worse than it did during World War II.

There were more than a few individuals in Parliament who probably would have signed some sort of appeasing cease fire with Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. Who knows -- that may have eventually led to German occupation of the British Isles.

So for that reason, Winston Churchill was a good man.

But later during World War II, Churchill let Joseph Stalin roll over him when the latter demanded significant concessions in Eastern Europe that lead to the Iron Curtain satellites of the Soviet Union. Churchill just let tens of millions of Eastern Europeans twist in the wind.

So for that reason, Winston Churchill was a bad man.

And then there were the allegations of racism. Churchill said some pretty awful things about people from Asia and Africa, and some of his policies toward them were not much better.

And so for that reason, Winston Churchill was a bad man.

IMHO, the bad things about a historical character should not be papered over. But at the same time, I don't think it's honest to try them in absentia after they're dead using the benefit of hindsight as evidence.

Many great people did bad things. Abraham Lincoln could be terribly racist at times toward African-Americans. Thomas Jefferson did some terribly racist things like continue to own slaves even after he said it was wrong to do so. And then there was Andrew Jackson.

Such people should be celebrated for the good they did but, at the same time, history needs to be honest about their glaring faults. It's dishonest and fraudulent to ignore that.

they were her property

Vox is currently running a really interesting interview about how, before the American Civil War, while women were barred from many things open to men, they owned, bought, and sold slaves.

The interview subject has a new book that sounds very interesting but I'll probably have a bear of a time borrowing from the library here in Australia. Still, I'll give it a whirl on interlibrary loan.

I remember reading somewhere that slaves saw white women as basically two different types with not a lot of gray in between -- either they were kinder than white men or, more often, they were nastier. One can imagine such women took out their frustrations on powerless, defenseless slaves.

One thing about my family about which I am proud: absolutely none of my forefathers were from the south and thus owned no slaves. Yes, some northerners owned slaves in the eighteenth century, but none of them were my ancestors, who were poor Irish immigrants.