Wheels within Wheels

In both senses.

This is more focused on a single area needing improvement, and a bit more profane than my rant on the topic, but also more prescriptive.

For reading little teeny print.

Related info here, as well as a generator.

Post title from the song.

Fess Parker has died. I remember wanting a coon-skin cap when I was a young boy. I never did get one. The other early American history television show I remember watching was Swamp Fox. About all I can remember about it now is that it was in black-and-white and had a lot of trees in it.

The death of Mr. Parker, who played Davy Crockett in his most memorable role, does bring about the timely opportunity to point out this event in Davy Crockett’s career, though. Would that more of our legislators understood this.

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned Steve Green’s quest for science fiction recommendations. One of the comments had a link to the CDs that Baen Books has been including in some of the books they publish. I’ve bought two or three of the books that contain these, but it’s nice to see so many of them in one place.

Steve Green has a post up requesting advice on science fiction to read. He’s received a number of good suggestions, many of which I’ve read. I was particularly taken by a recommendation for H. Beam Piper, who is one of my favorite authors. That comment included a link to his author section on Project Gutenberg, and, in particular, Rebel Raider, from which comes the following. I thought the quote was particularly timely. I could have limited it to just the last sentence, but I felt the context was worth it.

In this last, his best selling-point was a recent act of the Confederate States Congress called the Scott Partisan Ranger Law. This piece of legislation was, in effect, an extension of the principles of prize law and privateering to land warfare. It authorized the formation of independent cavalry companies, to be considered part of the armed forces of the Confederacy, their members to serve without pay and mount themselves, in return for which they were to be entitled to keep any spoil of war captured from the enemy. The terms “enemy” and “spoil of war” were defined so liberally as to cover almost anything not the property of the government or citizens of the Confederacy. There were provisions, also, entitling partisan companies to draw on the Confederate government for arms and ammunition and permitting them to turn in and receive payment for any spoil which they did not wish to keep for themselves.

The law had met with considerable opposition from the Confederate military authorities, who claimed that it would attract men and horses away from the regular service and into ineffective freebooting. There is no doubt that a number of independent companies organized under the Scott Law accomplished nothing of military value. Some degenerated into mere bandit gangs, full of deserters from both sides, and terrible only to the unfortunate Confederate citizens living within their range of operations. On the other hand, as Mosby was to demonstrate, a properly employed partisan company could be of considerable use.

It was the provision about booty, however, which appealed to Mosby. As he intended operating in the Union rear, where the richest plunder could be found, he hoped that the prospect would attract numerous recruits. The countryside contained many men capable of bearing arms who had remained at home to look after their farms but who would be more than willing to ride with him now and then in hope of securing a new horse for farm work, or some needed harness, or food and blankets for their families. The regular Mosby Men called them the “Conglomerates,” and Mosby himself once said that they resembled the Democrat party, being “held together only by the cohesive power of public plunder.”

Note: I updated the post to make it clearer that Rebel Raider is history, not fiction. Piper was a history buff - in the introduction to one of his books (a collection of short stories, I believe, although it’s not handy for me to check), Jerry Pournelle states that Piper knew both the grand sweep of history, as well as many of the obscure stories.

A Message to Garcia is a standard topic in leadership courses, at least in the ones I attended back in the 1970s. Lt. Rowan is held up as someone to emulate, although the assistance he received sometimes left him with so little control over his situation that he was concerned about where he was being taken.

I’d never read Rowan’s description of his trip, so that was interesting, and re-reading Hubbard’s essay was also interesting - I picked up on his examples about grammar and punctuation this time, partly because I had just read an essay on that topic, and partly because I’ve written about that particular topic myself.

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that Abebooks keeps a list of weird books. Well, the UK site does, anyway. I actually own copies of this one (although mine isn’t signed) and this one, and I’ve seen a stack of this one in a discount bookstore and in a museum hosting a Franklin exhibit.

I think my daughter would want a copy of this one.

I own other strange books: among them, I have copies of Der Wizard in Ozzenland, a book on the black death to go with the torture book, a cookbook that contains a chapter on cannibalism, and an inscribed copy of The Mason Williams Reading Matter.

Just things to keep busy with on cold winter nights.

Update: And, speaking of weird books, and things with which to keep busy, here’s an article about a horror story you can buy.

I have the annoying habit of not moving photos from my camera to my computer in a timely basis. As a result, when I import the photos into iPhoto, and it asks for an event or roll name, I usually don’t provide one, since there are normally a half-dozen or more “events” represented among the photos.

In any case, this particular photo dates from a trip to a discount bookstore about a month ago. I just thought it was an interesting category for the book to be filed under.

I was watching a recorded episode of Mythbusters this evening (the one where they ran cars over a cliff to see if they’d explode the way they do in Hollywood movies). I don’t think it’s unexpected that the cars didn’t explode unless they were made to explode - I think we all know that Hollywood tends to go for spectacle when given a choice.

It reminded me of something I read years ago, probably back in the 1970s. Japanese-built cars were starting to make significant inroads into the US market, and the article suggested that one reason was the perceived quality of the cars as evidenced in the movies. Specifically, he talked about stereotypical chase scenes along a cliff.

In the American movies, the hero would exit the car just before it burst through the guardrail and exploded into flame in mid-air. In the Japanese movies, the hero would exit the car just before it burst through the guardrail and tumbled down the the side of the hill/mountain. When the hero caught up to the car at the bottom of the slope, he’d push it back onto its wheels if he had to, then hop back in and drive away, usually to continue the pursuit.

Is it any wonder Japanese cars acquired a reputation for being built well?