Friday Odds & Sods is Riding the Blinds

Hello, All!  This weeks post comes to you from the wilderness of southern Virginia through the miracle of government-standard WiFi and courtesy of the decaying remains of America's once-great passenger rail system.  All people have their particular hobbyhorses, and one of mine happens to be a fondness for trains.  Even though air travel might offer to get me to my destination in a mere two hours, I prefer to take a more leisurely journey down the East Coast, even with all the attendant bumps and jerks as we roll down the line.  There is something to be said, I think, for turning travel not just into a rush from one point to another, one that would ideally obliterate all notions of space, into a part of travel just as worthy as departure and arrival.  At the very least, having a few hours on the rails is an excellent opportunity to catch up with all the tasks left undone before one embarks on a vacation!

• History, to wax etymologically for a moment, is simply an inquiry, and as Herodotus knew, is just at home in the farmer's hut as in the palace of the King of Kings.  In that spirit, the recently-uncovered writings of three schoolboys of the 1890s.  
• NPR offers a helpful new service in addition to providing Carl Kasell's voice on your home answering machine: A new website that will tell you how likely a machine is to make you completely economically redundant.
• On a more serious note, it was recently announced that a prominent study about the effect of personal narratives on people's opinions about gay marriage was a near complete fabrication.  As someone with many connections both personal and professional to the world of academia, and especially to the social sciences, I find this a particularly disturbing development.  Certainly it does not take the most keen-eyed of observers to note that there is a problem with dishonesty in many studies in both the so-called hard and soft sciences.  Yet given the perverse system that we have created in higher education, combining the worst features of the kill or be killed free market and the stingy resources of federal funding, where one's entire career can hang on getting the right grant or being published in the right journal, is it any wonder that such scandals are a regular occurrence?  This before even considering how many of these falsehoods go unsuspected and undetected.  The Academy at its best expands the frontier of human knowledge in all areas, and certainly men being what they are will never be free of the malicious or the craven who are in the main responsible for these disasters.  But I think it should be apparent that our current university system is deeply flawed, with false reporting being one of the most obvious symptoms, and is in desperate need of top to bottom house cleaning.  

Friday Odds & Sods Flies To Close To The Sun

The sad truth about man is that he is a creature designed to seek satisfaction but never obtain it.  No sooner has one metaphorical itch been scratched then doubtless you will fine taht the poor animal has developed three more to replace it.  When the weather is cold, he wishes for warmth, and when it due time it becomes warm, he wishes for cold again.  And so it goes.  It is sometimes hard to escape the conclusion that life is just a long series of gripes culminating in death.  Yet it is also true that from time to time we are capable of seeing beyond just the immediate surroundings of our irks and peeves and catch a glimpse, however fleeting, of something that convinces us to soldier on and try a new path.  It is on this theme that I would like to dedicate this week's Odds & Sods

• First off, a story about a young boy in Nepal, the miracle that occurred (or didn't), and a Westerner's attempt to understand the nature of faith.  
• This year marks the 750th anniversary of Dante's birth, a man who knew something about taking a journey into the darkest places and coming out into the light of the stars
• Finally, a humorous look at what happens when people cede too much control over their life's travels to their technology

Friday Odds & Sods is Ridin' With the King

I only had the pleasure of seeing B.B. King perform once, at a concert near Asheville.  It must have been around the summer of 2010 or so, right after I had graduated from college. At the time my vantage point and now my memory prevent the relating of too many distinct observations from that evening.  One thing that does stand out in my mind even today is this: Here was a man who both had the fortune to do what he loved near every day and also have his art be recognized as touched by genius.  I can think of no better life to lead, and certainly if there was a man who deserved it be B.B. King.

• Sometimes it may seem as though the activities of the Thiels, DeGrasse Tysons, and other of our public intellectuals are just as concerned with policing and disparaging the Humanities as they are with the promotion of the Sciences.  In particular, philosophy has been dismissed as pie-in-the-sky speculation with no relevance to the thinking person today.  A nice rebuttal to this point of view from the pages of Scientific American.
• Two quick articles on the hilarious and heartbreaking human obsession with real estate: Fixing the Lewis Carroll-esque India-Bangaledesh border and the honest if horrible thoughts of a Brooklyn real estate agent.  
• While oftentimes the internet is simply grand experiment in inculcating solipsism on a generational scale, this website from the BBC offers a useful corrective, showing exactly how much the world has gone about its business during your life without any influence from you at all.
• The King is dead.  Long live the King.

Friday Odds & Sods Has Lost its Deposit

Does it not seem, amici mei, that it was only an inconsequentially short time ago that the northern inhabitants of Her Majesty's Britannic realm narrowly voted against the dissolution of the same?  And yet now does it not appear that last night's election results show that, while the Gaels may for the moment languish under the heels of Downing Street, a separation is in fact accomplished, de facto if not de jure?  While the injunctions of logic may command not to multiply entities, politics has its reasons that reason does not know, and your humble correspondent would not be surprised that the passing of a few short years does not bring Scotland into full-fledged membership of the community of nations.  Given the sclerotic and generally disastrous course of politics this side of the Atlantic, it is with a certain sense of schadenfreude that we observe the tumult in the Mother Country.  Yet never fear, though the ravens may abandon the Tower of London, Friday Odds & Sods will remain a fixed point in a changing world

• Among the other momentous results of last night's election, the youngest candidate since the 1600s was elected to the Commons at the ripe old age of 20.  Yet this is nothing to the current record holder, the Earl of Albermarle, who answered his country's call at the age of 13.    
• Doubtless at the point the Cleggs, Farages, and Milibands of the world are in need of a stiff drink.  If there tipple of choice happens to include Bourbon, they would be wise to heed this article pointing out the false claims and empty marketing of many current brands.    
• While every election has its heroes and villains, I would struggle to name a modern politician who has reached such distinctly Shakespearean heights of criminality and madness as Richard Nixon.  To appropriately count our blessings that he has permanently decamped to warmer haunts, four articles on his rise, decline, and fall.
• Finally a song for winners and losers both, whether in elections or in life

Friday Odds & Sods Will Never Try to Change You, Baby

Once again we are met, Dearest Friends, in that Friday rendezvous which I hope has brought you some pleasure on your pre-weekend afternoons.  Life, as the man remarked, is very short, and the fact that you have chosen to spend even a few seconds with my writing is enough to make me profoundly grateful.  But enough mawkishness!  Outside days are getting longer and skirts shorter, so let us get to the main events of this weeks Odds & Sods.

• An unearthed Baltic shipwreck allowed the sampling of some 170-year-old champagne. As soon as I find out where to get a sip, I will let the rest of you know
• Two stories about fame, and the curious afterlife of merchandising that deceased stars have, in the lives of Kurt Cobain and Johnny Cash.
• Additional Notes on the Way We Live Now: How a failed Kickstarter campaign never ends, either for backers or owners
• Finally, a musical selection from the often-imitated-but-never-duplicated bluesman, B.B. King