9 March 12023

♃   9 March 12022 doesn’t seem to be anything in particular. It is National Heroes and Benefactors Day (Belize) and Teachers’ Day (Lebanon). It is most likely JD 2460013, 17 Adar 5783, 24 February (O.S.) or 9 March (N.S.) 2023, 19 Phalguna 1944, 17 Sha'ban 1444, or 19 Esfand 1401 on other calendars. Notable people born on this date include self-proclaimed champion of the people William Cobbett (11763), “Adagio for Strings” composer Samuel Barber (11910), American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell (11918), “Mike Hammer” creator Mickey Spillane (11918), Free Jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman (11930), first man in space Yuri Gagarin (11934), and enfant terrible Bobby Fischer (11943). The saint of the day is Catherine of Bologna, author of Seven Spiritual Weapons Necessary for Spiritual Warfare.

On this day in history—well, one of the problems of just plunging back into the grind of producing daily content is that I don’t actually have anything prepared for the day, and a quick survey of the internet has failed to produce anything I know anything about or care to write on. On this date in my personal history (11968) I first read Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and No Sign of the Dove, neither of which I could stand, apparently—at least I wrote negatively about each of them. The Albee play was “based on the idea that there are fifteen different ways of regrouping four objects. (x²-1) (1=0).” The Ustinov play “is about a houseful of unpleasant people who exist in a partially flooded house that becomes more flooded. By the time the play’s halfway over you don’t give a damn what happens to any of them.” And this from a fan of both writers. Maybe I was in a bad mood.

Consider this practice, I guess. I’m trying to write again, and I seem to have forgotten how. Or maybe I’m just figuring out that I never knew how in the first place. I mean, I’m going to keep on writing—that’s not in question. Whether it makes any sense is another matter altogether.

8 March 12023

☿  8 March 12023 is International Woman’s Day in much of the world from Armenia to Zanzibar, although the exact designation varies from place to place. It is also Holi (Hindus), Imam Mahdi’s birthday (Iran), Shushan Purim (Jews), Decoration Day (Liberia), and Revolution Day (Syria). On various calendars it is JD 2460012, 16 Adar 5783, 23 February (O.S.) or 8 March (N.S.) 2023, 18 Phalguna 1944, 16 Sha'ban 1444, or 18 Esfand 1401. For Mouseketeers it is Anything Can Happen Day. The saint of the day is Felix of Burgundy, who brought Christianity to East Anglia, if I’m not confusing him with somebody else. I don’t seem to have any birthdays listed for the date.

On this day in history (11782) Pennsylvania patriots martyred 96 Moravian Christians of the Lenape and Mohican peoples in an orgy of looting, rape, and murder, that was fully supported by white frontiersmen. The martyrs died praying for their murderers, none of whom ever faced justice for their crimes. Not all the Pennsylvania company took part in the crime against humanity, and their accounts provide some of the gruesome details of this event. This, by the way, is the crime Brian Fischer lied about, claiming that their murder was justified by their failure to embrace Christianity as ordered by George Washington. Well, maybe somebody will pray for him as well.

Twisted Semantics

One of my ongoing projects is to create various Books That Should Exist—but don’t. Collected works of writers who have never been properly collected, for example. Textually sound editions of works nobody has bothered to look at properly. (Murray Leinster’s The Other World is an example.)

Two of my favorite sf series are Henry Kuttner’s Gallegher stories (Joe the can-opener is an outstanding character in any book) and Robert Sheckley’s A A A Ace stories. The former were adequately anthologized in the Gnome Press book Robots Have No Tails and my copy somehow survived the disaster that wiped out most of my library a decade or so back, so I feel covered there. But all my Sheckley collection, including my complete file of Galaxy, is gone. So I started assembling my ideal Sheckley collection, without regard for what has actually been assembled. The magazine publication of Mindswap for example, which I consider superior to the padded book version. The great stories like “The Seventh Victim” and “Skulking Permit” and “Ticket to Tranai.” And of course the collected A A A Ace series.

My hypothetical edition would include a non-Sheckley story—the James Blish parody that appeared in F&SF. As I’ve lost my file of that magazine as well—almost my entire extensive sf collection is gone—I was slightly at a loss to find it. Even the ISFDB failed me—at first. After going through its list of magazine contents for what I thought was the right era I chanced on a title that rang a bell—a very faint one. This had already happened a couple of times without paying off, but this time—BINGO!

The piece was “With Malice To Come” and it appeared in the May 1955 issue. According to Anthony Boucher the piece was “an astute and hilarious triptych of parodies of three familiar (far too familiar!) types of science fiction”. The titles of each were “A Feast of Reason,” “The Billion-Year Binge,” and “A Matter of Energy.” The first was the Sheckley parody I was looking for, the second a takeoff on Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles stories, and the third—well, I remembered it, but I couldn’t figure out the target immediately.

And, with good reason, I will note. James Blish was an accomplished writer—“Surface Tension” is a story I personally enjoyed—but he was an abysmal parodist. Here’s a short passage from “A Matter of Energy”:

“Joe,” I asseverated, “I’ve given you the invincible weapon to take over the Romans: twisted semantics. It can’t fail, but if it does, try twisted dianetics. Do you understand what you’re to do?”

“Yes, Cliff,” he lipped thinly.

So, we’re looking for an author who like strained synonyms for “said” and who is probably a follower of General Semantics and/or Dianetics. The former suggests some of the writers from the Space Opera days, while the latter suggests someone like John W. Campbell or A. E. van Vogt. Do either of these features suggest Mark Clifton?

Not to me. But Mark Clifton is indeed the target, and the specific story is “What Have I Done?” which appeared in the May 1952 issue of Astounding. The ending plays directly with the title:

“What have you done?” I hissed grindingly.

“I did just like you said, Cliff,” he replied defensively. “Soon as I had to do some figuring, I holed up in my room and plugged THROBAC into the nearest socket. But—”

“Get to the point!” I ordered commandingly.

“But Cliff,” he wailed protestingly, “you overlooked something. THROBAC operates only on AC current! And the first AC generator wasn’t built until after the 1830’s—A.D.!”

I was crushed. That small oversight—no, it was an undersight, typical of me, underestimating the extent of my own massive knowledge—must have blown every fuse and circuit-breaker in Augustan Rome. I rushed to the nearest history book.

What had I undone?

Okay, okay, I get it. But contrast the actual language of the original:

“We have made a study of this planet and have decided to colonize it.” It was a flat statement, without any doubt behind it.

I flashed him a look of incredulity. “And you expect me to help you with that?”

He gave me a worldly wise look—almost an ancient look. “Why not?” he asked.

“There is the matter of loyalty to my own kind, for one thing,” I said. “Not too many generations away and we’ll be overpopulated also. There would hardly be room for both your people and ours on Earth.”

“Oh that’s all right,” he answered easily. “There’ll be plenty of room for us for quite some time. We multiply slowly.”

“We don’t,” I said shortly.

I mean, “answered easily” and “said shortly” are hardly “hissed grindingly” or “lipped thinly”. It’s not even an exaggeration—it’s just plain wrong. As a sort of Astounding composite it might work—there are bits of van Vogt and H. Beam Piper maybe floating around in it—but other than the Joe character that Cliff couldn’t read it’s not exactly Mark Clifton. On the other hand, the basic premise is funny as hell, and the ending line stuck with me for years, even if I couldn’t remember the name of the piece it came from. But fundamentally, it’s a miss.

The same is true for the Sheckley, though there are some good shots in it. The Bradbury has its points as well. Maybe I’ll look at them in some future episode.

Incoherence Meets Indecision

There are a thousand things I want to write about, but only nine hundred of them are coherent enough to put into the vorpal oven and bake until dry. And my ability to choose is paralyzed. Like the ass in the parable who starves because there is no basis for choosing between two equally desirable feasts, I write nothing because all the possibilities are so enticing. The grooves have worn deep in my brain.

I don’t remember how to write. My tenth grade English teacher taught us that the first paragraph should be an introduction that draws the reader in somehow. The thesis statement must be the first sentence of the second paragraph, no exceptions. (Once when I had enough points accumulated for the class to get an A that quarter no matter what else I did I deliberately wrote a paper in which the thesis statement did not appear until the final paragraph, which was also the conclusion. It didn’t seem to faze her—though of course she might not have read it at all, since it would make no difference to my grade.) But the mindscum principle really doesn’t work like that anyway. Where are we going? I’m not sure. How will we know when we get there? The text will come to a stop.

These may not be exactly rules, but they’re all I’ve got. Groping blindly into a pre-destined future (assuming the determinists are correct in their assumptions) is no guarantee of coherence, but neither is it assurance of failure. Whatever it is, it was baked into the framework of things since the universe first started unfolding. There’s reassurance there, along with fatalistic despair. If there’s no free will, how do we know we’re not all slaves?

I’m going to try to fight my way out of this paper bag, but the prospects look bad. What’s worse than bad? Abysmal, maybe. I’m going to post this as is, even though it never turned into anything, in the hopes that I will force myself into choice and coherence by displaying my incoherence and indecision for all to see. Maybe embarrassment will work when all else fails.

Rusty Mechanics Entry

It snowed today. It was too slippery to go outside. I tried to walk Rudy but he kept making me slip by pulling too hard on the leash.

This is not a real weblog entry. This is dummy content. I am having trouble writing, and not merely because half my right hand is numb. I can’t seem to focus.

Right now what I’m trying to do is post an entry. I seem to have forgotten the mechanics of posting. I’m hoping that I’m just rusty, and that things will loosen up a bit as I get back in the swing of things. I mean, I can still type. (Sort of.) I can still read. I can even limp along in French and Greek, though my Latin and Coptic have deserted me. I feel the darkness closing in. I am no longer immortal.

Coherence

Things suck in my world right now. Something has corrupted some of the links on the sidebar of my weblog and I am blocked from making any changes by some sort of glitch. I tried changing the theme of my blog as suggested by other users, but that’s only made things worse. I’ve sent feedback to Google, but I have no idea if that is going to accomplish anything or not. I am not the only person with this problem, apparently, but it is annoying me in ways that words cannot express.

I can’t focus, currently—my mind wanders and the words won’t come, even when the concepts I want to express are clear in my mind. This is not my usual writer’s block sort of thing—this is something different. Whatever I’m trying to say meanders off into random digressions and obscure byways and ends up running aground on the shoals of forays into semi-coherence and parentheses… That wasn’t it. What’s the opposite of focus? Fuzziness? Lack of definition? Wandering off the point?

Something like that, I suppose. I start things, but I can’t finish them. I don’t know how. I can’t tell if I’ve covered the topic or just put random words down.

Just Checking In

Hi. I’m still alive and pretty much fully recovered from the year’s travails, though my right arm is still weak despite physical therapy and ordinary use. I hope to post stuff again in the future, but at the moment I’m bogged down in the routine debris of staying alive. Today, for instance, I spent time looking for change in all the wrong places in the hopes of buying a few items at the store. Time-consuming, but rather dull to write about.

Speaking of time-consuming and dull, I’ve been staring at the textual variations in the various witnesses to Huckleberry Finn, in part simply because I can. I’m struck repeatedly by the way close examination of the manuscript allows the observation of Mark Twain at work. At the beginning of chapter four, for example, he twice starts to pick up the narrative with the salt spilling incident, each time cancelling it to add a bit more background, before actually getting back to the main storyline. In the floating house episode he doesn’t quite know what to do with the wooden leg Huck and Jim found, writing originally “The straps was broke off it, but barring that, it was as good as new.” The last phrase didn’t satisfy him, so at a later stage “as good as new” became “a good enough leg”; at some point between the manuscript and the printed edition he made further alterations. Apparently feeling that the absurdity of Huck and Jim carrying off a wooden leg neither of them had any use for wasn’t enough he pounded the joke into the ground with an added passage: “though it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn’t find the other one, though we hunted all around.” Reminds me of the old MAD horrifying clichés—Belaboring the Obvious—with the Obvious depicted as a generic monster, with MT bashing it over the head with an oversize pen.

Still, what strikes me is—a lot of this is simply lost in the word-processing world. My instant second thoughts, for example, are mostly not preserved in the final file. (There is more information in the file than you might expect, by the way, a lot of which would not be found in a nineteenth-century manuscript, so it’s a trade-off, I guess.) The changes I’ve made in writing this entry are preserved temporarily, in case I need to undo something, but there would be no evidence of them in a printed copy of the resultant file—or in the version I presumably am going to post online.

Anyway, I’m hoping to return some day. This is not that day. I have nothing to say, and it shows.

Damaskas

Many years ago, back when I used to listen to The Dr. Demento Show live on KMET in Los Angeles—actually I was in Claremont, but you get the idea—a guy called Damaskas used to perform manic songs under the smogberry trees, sometimes alongside Barnes & Barnes or Sulu even Weird Al. Songs of his that have stuck with me include “Making Love in a Subaru,” “Robert Hillburn,” “Jim Morrison’s Revenge,” “Asteroids” (a takeoff on Devo’s “Mongoloid”), and “Number One” (a takeoff on Blondie’s version of “The Tide is High”).

Okay, so what? you ask. So, I reply, this is now the third time I’ve dug up information about the guy without retaining it, or even being able to locate my notes again. He’s not in Wikipedia (lack of notability, I suppose), and his Discogs presence is minimal, so I thought—what the hell? Maybe I’ll just note what I’ve got about him here in my weblog, and see if that doesn’t help me remember him in the future.

So here’s what I’ve got. Dan Hollombe was born 20 November 1957 and originally submitted his work to The Dr. Demento Show under the name Damaskas Hollodan before settling on just Damaskas. He was a regular on the show for many years in the late seventies and eighties, before apparently drifting into obscurity. And so it goes, I suppose. If I’d been betting on anybody from that milieu to be the next Allen Sherman—or even Tom Lehrer—it would have been Damaskas. Instead, well, sic transit.

Hollow

Feeling as if some critical internal light had burnt out, I’m groping in the dark. The world since covid is a bleak inhospitable place and I want no part of it. I assume this is some sort of after-effect of the disease, but I don’t know. It’s like depression, sort of, but—well, not. It’s just the absence of presence, the shadows of things unseen, the lack of substance. I can’t imagine feeling otherwise; everything is hollow.

I’m hoping things will improve in a day or two, and not seem so strange and disconnected.

The Moment

Things are not going well for me in general; each time I think I’m recovering some, something else comes for me. This time it was covid-19.

For the past week I have been fading in and out of quasi-consciousness while shivering and shaking under what keep being inadequate covers. A home test shows me positive for covid. I have a prescription that’s supposed to help me, and maybe it’s doing something, but I can’t really tell. In the meantime I feel like crap and I can’t cross a room without falling over.

1 July 12022

♀   1 July 12022 is Canada Day if I recall correctly, and I suppose it is celebrated in Canada, but I wouldn’t count on it. My memory is full of holes. It’s rent day, too, and the day my roommate officially applied for his passport, so there’s that. I can’t work up any interest or enthusiasm in the larger scene, so that’s going to have to do for now.

I see that somewhere in Shithole America—maybe Texas, as it has that longhorn stench about it—the authorities want to teach that racism and slavery were deviations from True American Orthodoxy™, not part and parcel of it as is historically true. Racism made America what it is today, for good and for ill. Racism enabled America to seize the labor of large numbers of people without recompense, and to seize the resources of others likewise, all without feeling any guilt or shame, because, after all, the victims were inferior. Not even people, of no more account than whales slaughtered for oil, or birds exterminated for their feathers. That labor and those resources, historically speaking, made America what it is today. I’m not saying that it couldn’t have been done without race-based slavery and race-based genocide, but historically that’s how America accomplished its goals, and to claim anything else is to teach a lie. Feelgood “history”, or to use a technical term, bullshit.

Now of course that’s not the whole story, far from it. The US has a court system that prizes individual rights over government oppression, and doesn’t require people to go begging hat in hand to local authorities for basic rights, like the ability to marry the consenting adult person of your choice, or the ability to make your own choices about who you’re going to let into your body. Not so fast—Shithole America regrets that court system and wants to destroy it. And as for slavery, oppression and racism—Shithole America would rather we just don’t talk about them. Let’s teach the kids fairy-tales instead.

Now I’ve got nothing against fairy tales as such—just don’t call it history. It’s better not to teach the kids about the past at all than to fill their heads with this gooey garbage Shithole America prefers. Believe me, most kids will be happy as hell not to have to learn about James Oglethorpe or Gideon Johnson Pillow (just to name two people I was assigned to do reports on in school) or what the result of the Yalta conference was.

You sure as hell don’t have to know anything about American history to make it, as people like Clueless Clarence and Serpentine Sammy have demonstrated. And after all, we can just make things up, as they used to do in the olden days. You know, Columbus discovered the United States in 1492 and bequeathed it to his descendants in perpetuity forever. And Columbus begat John Smith, and John Smith begat Cotton Mather, and Cotton Mather begat George Washington, whose other name was Uncle Sam. And Uncle Sam had fifty children, whose names were Delaware, New Hampshire, Virginia, Georgia (whose other name was James Oglethorpe) etc. … It would probably be more valuable than the crap they’re trying to pass off as valid in Texas, at any rate.

27 June 12022

☾   27 June 12022 is whatever it is, but at the moment I don’t care. Life is intolerable, everything is crap, and I hope and pray that Shithole America—as exemplified by such garbage states as Florida and Texas—goes down the drain with the rest of the filth and excrement its politicians have chosen to flood the country with.

Do I care? Not really. I have my White Privilege to wrap myself in, after all, and while it may not keep me warm at night, or fed in the famine, it still makes it less likely that I will be mistakenly targeted by some Agent of Authority with a lethal weapon and no judgment. And I’m not going to be pregnant any time soon, more’s the pity.

For anybody who is wondering, my arm is healing—no, it’s healed—but I still have to get my strength and range back. I can type again—clumsily, but I can do it—and even play the keyboard some. I hope that things will continue to improve in my personal world, despite that POS roommate that lives above me in this refuge of the derelicts.

Yes, I have absolutely nothing to say this hideous and unpleasant morning, but I’m saying it anyway. Well, I’m writing it, and I may even post it, just to prove that I’m still alive. That’s always assuming, of course, that there’s anybody out there to prove it to. This isn’t solipsism, by the way—just an acknowledgement that I no longer have any readers of this weblog, my regulars having died, become disenchanted, or simply evaporated.

So that leaves me talking to myself in public—never a good sign. At least my observations, however benighted, have no force of law, and aren’t binding on anybody but myself—and, come to think of it, they aren’t even binding on me, since I can cheerfully repudiate them at any time. Or not post them, or delete them unread. Too bad Alito et al didn’t take that approach with their recent illiterate screeds posing as Supreme Court decisions. Anyone for Dred Scott?

27 April 12022

☿   27 April 12022 is doubtless some holiday or other, but lack of energy and the physical difficulty of doing the research keep me from being interested enough to make the effort to find out. In the news I see that Hamas is putting on display the snake-crowned head of a statue of a woman—supposedly part of a Canaanite statue of the goddess Anat dating from 7500 (2500 BCE). I am curious how the identity of the woman and the date of the statue were identified, seeing as it was found in a field sans inscription or context. Still, it’s striking—even if it was manufactured a week or so ago in somebody’s faux antiquities workshop.

Update: Terance Calhoun is no longer imprisoned for crimes that he did not commit. Here’s what we have, updated with further information: on 26 September 12006 somebody attacked a 15-year-old girl (Victim 1) near Fenkell Avenue and Gladstone Street in Detroit. (The charges were Attempted Kidnapping, Kidnapping, and Criminal Sexual Conduct - Assault with Intent to Commit Sexual Penetration.) She described her assailant as having braids and a puzzle tattoo. A month later, on 27 October 12006, somebody sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl (Victim 2) near a liquor store on Fenkell Avenue. (The charges were Criminal Sexual Conduct First-Degree, Kidnapping, Felony Firearm, and Criminal Sexual Conduct - Assault with Intent to Commit Sexual Penetration.) A used condom was found at the scene of the attack. Victim 2 (the 13-year-old) filed a police report and helped in the creation of a sketch of her attacker. The sketch was posted at the liquor store, where Terance Calhoun was arrested on 3 November.

Both girls identified Terance Calhoun as their attacker in separate lineups. (It should be noted that Terance Calhoun did not have braids or a puzzle tattoo, as described by Victim 1.) As part of a plea agreement charges of Kidnapping and Criminal Sexual Conduct - Assault with Intent to Commit Sexual Penetration were dropped in the case of Victim 1, and the charge of Criminal Sexual Conduct - Assault with Intent to Commit Sexual Penetration was dropped in the case of Victim 2; Terance Calhoun pleaded no contest to the rest on 21 February 12007, and was sentenced 28 March.

Now that no contest plea is at least slightly interesting—it means that while Terance Calhoun did not dispute the charges, neither did he admit any guilt. As this was part of a plea agreement, I can’t help but wonder whether Terance Calhoun, seeing no viable defense to the charges against him, chose the lesser of two evils in not contesting some in return for more serious charges being dropped. Assuming that he was innocent, a plea of no contest might well feel more satisfying than a plea of guilty, even if the result was basically the same.

Because here’s the thing—Terance Calhoun is innocent of the charges against him. According to the authorities, on 15 June 12007 the DNA evidence found in connection with Victim 2 cleared Terance Calhoun of involvement in the crime. For unknown reasons he was not informed of this development, and was allowed to remain in prison.

Now subsequently the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office Sexual Assault Kit Task Force determined that there was somebody in the system with a puzzle tattoo, and that the DNA evidence pointed to a serial rapist; I am assuming that the serial rapist and the man with the puzzle tattoo were the same person, but I don’t find this explicitly stated anywhere. As part of the case they were building now against this person it was obviously necessary to clear Terance Calhoun of involvement.

In any case the wheels of justice have ground slowly on, and Terance Calhoun was scheduled to be released on Friday. Family members had come from out of town to celebrate—and then the unthinkable happened. Like a scene from an old black-and-white movie, a Detroit police officer—one Robert Kane—showed up with a binder of supposedly new evidence proving Terance Calhoun’s guilt. According to at least one account, the supposed evidence included confessions to both crimes. On the strength of Robert Kane’s conviction—she (quite properly) didn’t look at the binder contents—the judge delayed the proceedings until today.

It turned out, however, that Robert Kane was grandstanding; there was nothing new in the file, nothing to counter the DNA evidence that had cleared Terance Calhoun. Robert Kane has some explaining to do. Clearly “a police officer acting alone with no authority [who] could not face the facts” forced Terance Calhoun to be “wrongfully incarcerated” for a few extra days. Fortunately he is now free. Whether Robert Kane will face any penalty for his attempt to subvert the course of justice is unknown; it was a reckless and inexcusable stunt.

24 April 12022

☉   24 April 12022 is the day the French election was held, and it looks like Emmanuel Macron has thoroughly crushed Marine Le Pen. Not as thoroughly as five years ago, mind you, but crushed nonetheless. Le Pen’s defeat is a victory for the forces of Light and Reason; Macron’s reelection not so much. All of which goes to show that you can’t always get what you need even when what you want is out of reach regardless of what the old song says.

Case in point: Terance Calhoun, still imprisoned for crimes that he (apparently) did not commit. Here’s what we have: on 26 September 12006 somebody attacked a 15-year-old girl (Victim 1) near Fenkell Avenue and Gladstone Street in Detroit. (The charges were Attempted Kidnapping, Kidnapping, and Criminal Sexual Conduct - Assault with Intent to Commit Sexual Penetration.) A month later, on 27 October 12006, somebody sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl (Victim 2) near a liquor store on Fenkell Avenue. (The charges were Criminal Sexual Conduct First-Degree, Kidnapping, Felony Firearm, and Criminal Sexual Conduct - Assault with Intent to Commit Sexual Penetration.) Victim 2 (the 13-year-old) filed a police report and helped in the creation of a sketch of her attackers. The sketch was posted at the liquor store, where Terance Calhoun was arrested on 3 November.

Both girls identified Terance Calhoun as their attacker in separate lineups. As part of a plea agreement charges of Kidnapping and Criminal Sexual Conduct - Assault with Intent to Commit Sexual Penetration were dropped in the case of Victim 1, and the charge of Criminal Sexual Conduct - Assault with Intent to Commit Sexual Penetration was dropped in the case of Victim 2; Terance Calhoun pleaded no contest to the rest on 21 February 12007, and was sentenced 28 March.

Now that no contest plea is at least slightly interesting—it means that while Terance Calhoun did not dispute the charges, neither did he admit any guilt. As this was part of a plea agreement, I can’t help but wonder whether Terance Calhoun, seeing no viable defense to the charges against him, chose the lesser of two evils in not contesting some in return for more serious charges being dropped. Assuming that he was innocent, a plea of no contest might well feel more satisfying than a plea of guilty, even if the result was basically the same.

Because here’s the thing—Terance Calhoun apparently is innocent of the charges against him. According to the authorities, DNA evidence found in the examination of previously unexamined rape kits shows that someone else—a serial rapist no less—was the actual perpetrator of the crimes in question. Not Terance Calhoun.

Now I’m taking the word of the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office Sexual Assault Kit Task Force that the evidence is as they say it is. This goes against the grain for me; I prefer to examine the evidence, or at least the results, for myself. We are told that untested sexual assault kits were responsible for the new evaluation of the evidence, but not the specifics. Was Victim 1 tested? (There is no mention of her filing a police report.) Was Victim 2? Are there two sexual assault kits involved, or one, or what? How much of this is hard evidence, and how much inference and speculation? For the moment I am assuming that a rape kit for at least one of the victims turned up, and that the DNA results exonerated Terance Calhoun and implicated somebody else. But this is speculation on my part, and nothing more.

In any case the wheels of justice have ground slowly on, and Terance Calhoun was scheduled to be released on Friday. Family members had come from out of town to celebrate—and then the unthinkable happened. Like a scene from an old black-and-white movie, a Detroit police officer—one Robert Kane—showed up with a binder of supposedly new evidence proving Terance Calhoun’s guilt. According to at least one account, the supposed evidence included confessions to both crimes. On the strength of Robert Kane’s conviction—she (quite properly) didn’t look at the binder contents—the judge delayed the proceedings until Wednesday.

Given that the DNA evidence has cleared Terance Calhoun I would hope Robert Kane has hard evidence—something more solid than confessions or eyewitness identifications. I don’t know what it could be, honestly. We hear that there is nothing new in the binder—though I don’t know if that’s the result of actual examination or just grandstanding for the crowd. But as it stands, it certainly sounds as if “a police officer acting alone with no authority [who] could not face the facts” has resulted in Terance Calhoun continuing to be “wrongfully incarcerated”.

15 April 12022

♀   15 April 12022. I think it's Good Friday, but I don't have the energy to confirm it or to deny it. I had my operation on Tuesday, and my arm is sore, but at least the bones are probably back in their correct order. I had blog entries started that I intended to post—pieces about Henry Kuttner and Tom Lehrer, who recently had birthdays; some stuff about how Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain, and why the standard story about home on the range may be a crock of shit. I'll probably rework this stuff and post it later but for the moment I don't feel up to it; I mostly want to lie here quietly as my arm (I hope) heals. I'll try to get something posted at any rate but I find dictating it instead of typing it is incredibly awkward and slow. Possibly I'll get used to it. Maybe I'll even come to prefer it. So far, however, It's been mostly tedious, horrible, and exhausting.

29 March 12022

♂   29 March 12022 was the day I broke my shoulder and had 2 go 2 the emergency room. My ability to use the keyboard is limited and I am dictating this entry with sometimes surprising results. I will try to correct what it didn't get right. The accident was trivial; I tripped over a map handle in the laundry room and fell to the concrete floor, banging my shoulder against the washing machine on the way down. I could feel something give in my shoulder as it hit the metal surface, and when I was lying on the concrete floor I realized that my right arm was not working properly. So there you have it. Communications will probably be limited over the next interval; I am in some pain and have limited ability to use my right hand. I hope matters will improve, but I'm not betting on it. More later, I hope.

28 March 12022

☾   28 March 12022 seems to be nothing in particular. It may be Teachers’ Day (Czech Republic and Slovakia), Serfs Emancipation Day (Tibet), and Seward’s Day (United States). I should probably recheck everything, but if I haven’t lost count it’s JD 2459667, 25 Veadar 5782, 25 Phalguna 2078, 15 (O.S.) or 28 (N.S.) March 2022, 19 Paremhat 1738, 24 Sha’ban 1443, and 8 Farvardin 1401. I have no saints listed, nor any birthdays, nor any historical events. A quick check of various online sources wasn’t any help either; the day seems to have no outstanding attributes—or at least, none that catch my attention.

27 March 12022

☉   27 March 12022 is World Theatre Day. It is also International Whisky Day. In various corners of the world it’s Laetare Sunday (French Guiana), Armed Forces Day (Myanmar), Mothering Sunday (Nigeria), and the Day of the Union of Bessarabia with Romania (Romania) as well. The is also JD 2459666, 24 Veadar 5782, 24 Phalguna 2078, 14 (O.S.) or 27 (N.S.) March 2022, 18 Paremhat 1738, 23 Sha’ban 1443, and 7 Farvardin 1401. The saint of the day is John of Egypt (died 10394) who spent most of his life walled up in three cells carved out of the rock, giving audiences to selected pilgrims through a small window; even Theodosius the Great sent an envoy from time to time to get his opinion on key matters. People born on this date include Ferde Grofé and Thorne Smith (both 11892). (In honor of the event I’m listening to the Mississippi Suite as I write this; you might prefer to read Rain in the Doorway.)

26 March 12022

♄   26 March 12022 is Make Up Your Own Holiday. Earth Hour is also observed today. Other holidays and observances include Independence Day (Bangladesh), Purple Day (Canada and United States), Prince Kuhio Day (Hawaii [US]), Martyrs’ Day (Mali), and National Day of Life, Peace and Justice (El Salvador). On various calendars in use today is JD 2459665, 23 Veadar 5782, 23 Phalguna 2078, 13 (O.S.) or 26 (N.S.) March 2022, 17 Paremhat 1738, 22 Sha’ban 1443, or 6 Farvardin 1401. The saint of the day is Richard Allen (11760–11831), who was born into slavery as “Negro Richard”, bought his way out of slavery to become a Methodist minister, and then was driven out of the denomination to found his own, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Robert Frost, Bob Elliot, and Pierre Boulez all have birthdays today.

Yesterday when I went for a walk with my aging hound Harry we went up the little wooded trail to the park, and kind of circled around the northern end of it. Even though it was a fairly decent afternoon, only partly cloudy and warm for March, we had the place entirely to ourselves. We cut back through the tennis court to return home, and as I stared across it, empty except for autumn’s fallen leaves blowing across it, a kind of sadness seemed to pervade the scene. There would be life and activity again, I supposed, but it was bleak and empty now. Mind you, I prefer it that way; it’s just that there seems to be more hope with movement and activity. I guess it somehow suited us—the old dog and the old human being together in an otherwise empty landscape.

Well, I got back home and my roommate’s little Frenchie Rudy wanted his turn at a walk, so I got him harnessed and leashed and set out. He headed north, and then down the little wooded trail to the park as well—and when I got to the tennis court, the contrast couldn’t have been greater. A vigorous game was under way, with a small audience of friends, and even another dog. Rudy, of course, wanted to join in, and I had to steer him around the court and up through the park. There were children on the swings now, and other dogs on walks with their human counterparts, and things were generally more as I had sort of expected them to be on a decent Friday afternoon in March. It was like a scene from a different day—and yet not more than fifteen or twenty minutes could have passed, if that. Rudy was ecstatic; this definitely suited his mood and fitted his notions of what the world should be like, and it was all I could do to steer him through the park and back down our street to home.

25 March 12022

♀   25 March 12022 is the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It’s also Freedom Day (Belarus), Feast of the Annunciation (Christians), Greek Independence Day (Cyprus), EU Talent Day (European Union), Independence Day (Greece), Maryland Day (Maryland, US), NZ Army Day (New Zealand), Empress Menen’s Birthday (Rastafarians), Cultural Workers Day (Russia), Anniversary of the Arengo (San Marino), Struggle for Human Rights Day (Slovakia), Mother’s Day (Slovenia), Tolkien Reading Day (Tolkien fans), and Medal of Honor Day (United States).

On other calendars today is JD 2459664, 22 Veadar 5782, 22 Phalguna 2078, 12 (O.S.) or 25 (N.S.) March 2022, 16 Paremhat 1738, 21 Sha’ban 1443, or 5 Farvardin 1401. People born on this date include Béla Bartók (11881), Gene Shalit (11926), Gloria Steinem (11934), and Elton John (11947). (And in fact this date was picked to celebrate EU Talent Day because it was Bartók’s birthday.) The saint of the day is Dismas, who along with Gestas was crucified alongside Jesus, presumably as coconspirators with him in his attack on the Jerusalem temple. Gestas, according to the story, turned on Jesus and joined with the crowd in reviling him, but Dismas did not. In a rather touching moment Jesus, facing imminent death, told Dismas that the two of them would be together in Paradise. I’d like to think they are, but—

In English-speaking countries 25 March is the traditional beginning of the new year; according to Tolkien this commemorates the destruction of Barad-dûr at the end of the Third Age. (And this in turn is why Tolkien Reading Day falls on this date.) It may seem odd to change years in mid-month, but there’s no law against it, exactly. It’s what you’d get, actually, if you ran a strict lunar calendar for the months alongside a strict solar calendar for the year—not that anybody has done this, exactly, as far as I know. But it is a logical consequence of dividing by the moon phases short-term and by the sun’s apparent movement long-term.