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  1. <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/" xmlns:blogger="http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0" version="2.0"><channel><atom:id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016</atom:id><lastBuildDate>Wed, 14 May 2025 00:06:22 +0000</lastBuildDate><category>JRRT</category><category>Tolkien</category><category>books on Tolkien</category><category>CSL</category><category>Fantasy</category><category>Cats</category><category>Taum Santoski</category><category>Politics</category><category>rpgs</category><category>Peter Jackson films</category><category>TSR</category><category>the Hobbit</category><category>events</category><category>Poke-Em-With-A-Stick Wednesday</category><category>books</category><category>news</category><category>Anime</category><category>C. 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S. Lewis</category><category>tea   China</category><category>tea plant</category><category>tengwar</category><category>the Tolkien Professor</category><category>the election</category><category>the rules</category><category>tobacco</category><category>tolkien recordings</category><category>torture</category><category>train</category><category>transcripts</category><category>tree beavers</category><category>treebeard</category><category>trolls</category><category>ubiquity</category><category>vacation photos</category><category>walking the cats</category><category>wars</category><category>whales</category><category>work in progress</category><category>zombies</category><category>zoos</category><title>Sacnoth&#39;s Scriptorium</title><description></description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/</link><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</managingEditor><generator>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>2530</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-8784770183212754846</guid><pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2025 19:29:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2025-05-02T12:29:04.670-07:00</atom:updated><title>Tolkien and Wartime Oxford</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, here&#39;s a brief allusion to Tolkien&#39;s work creating and administrating the syllabus for the accelerated cadet&#39;s course at Oxford during WW II:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;One of the most eye-catching initiatives was the course in English literature designed by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: this was the first external examination authorised by the University of Oxford.&quot;*&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*The Book at War: How Reading Shaped Conflict and Conflict Shaped Reading by Andrew Pettegree (2023)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;endnote: Bruce R. Johnson, &#39;The efforts of C. S. Lewis to aid British prisoners of War during World War II&#39;, &lt;i&gt;C. S. Lewis Journal&lt;/i&gt;. 12 (2018), pp. 41-76.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[endnote: Pettegree page 444]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I found this of interest because it co-credits Lewis, whom Tolkien outranked professionally. I&#39;ll have to hunt down Johnson&#39;s article.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--current (re)reading:: the Murderbot series by Martha Wells&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2025/05/tolkien-and-wartime-oxford.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-1353518461301586704</guid><pubDate>Thu, 10 Apr 2025 01:25:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2025-04-09T18:25:39.268-07:00</atom:updated><title>Kalamazoo 2025</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;&quot;&gt;So, barring the unforeseen, it looks like I&#39;ll be going to Kalamazoo this year (April 8th thr 11th)&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;&quot;&gt;after all.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;&quot;&gt;&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;&quot;&gt;If you see me, stop and say hello; I&#39;ll be the one with the brown fedora at the Tolkien events.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;&quot;&gt;--John R.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2025/04/kalamazoo-2025.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>1</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-3544180321130963690</guid><pubDate>Tue, 11 Mar 2025 03:06:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2025-03-10T20:06:14.783-07:00</atom:updated><title>Ring Any Bells?</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;So, yesterday, going through a box, I came across the dungeon map I did as part of the Map Order for some adventure &amp;nbsp;I worked on back in TSR/WotC days (the comments on the map in green ink are in my handwriting). &amp;nbsp;Problem is, I don&#39;t remember what adventure it goes with. If anyone out there recognizes it, I&#39;d be interested in comparing the draft with the published module.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2025/03/ring-any-bells.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-9101459634882969587</guid><pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:52:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2025-02-03T16:52:07.697-08:00</atom:updated><title>four billion dollars in gold</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;So, this news item in the Guardian this weekend caught my eye:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;[BEGIN QUOTE]&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, &amp;quot;Guardian Text Egyptian Web&amp;quot;, Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem;&quot;&gt;US banking giant JPMorgan plans to deliver $4bn of gold bullion to New York this month, before an anticipated escalation of Donald Trump’s trade-rebalancing tariff moves planned for Saturday.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;dcr-s3ycb2&quot; style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, &amp;quot;Guardian Text Egyptian Web&amp;quot;, Georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;&quot;&gt;The US bank, the world’s biggest bullion dealer, said it would deliver the hefty raw material, weighed as&lt;b&gt; 30m troy ounces of gold . . .&amp;nbsp;&lt;/b&gt;&amp;nbsp;against contracts that will expire in February.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div id=&quot;sign-in-gate&quot; style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: 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style=&quot;box-sizing: border-box;&quot;&gt;&lt;/gu-island&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;dcr-s3ycb2&quot; style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, &amp;quot;Guardian Text Egyptian Web&amp;quot;, Georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;&quot;&gt;The delivery comes as the price of gold has surged to $2,813 per ounce, and the delivery notices are the second largest ever in bourse data going back to 1994,&amp;nbsp;&lt;a data-link-name=&quot;in body link&quot; href=&quot;https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-31/jpmorgan-plans-4-billion-gold-delivery-in-us-amid-tariff-fears?sref=fqqmZ8gi&quot; style=&quot;border-bottom: 1px solid var(--article-link-border); border-image: none; border-left-color: currentcolor; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: currentcolor; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: currentcolor; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #121212; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;&quot;&gt;according to Bloomberg&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;dcr-s3ycb2&quot; style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, &amp;quot;Guardian Text Egyptian Web&amp;quot;, Georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;&quot;&gt;&lt;a data-link-name=&quot;in body link&quot; href=&quot;https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-31/traders-load-us-bound-planes-with-gold-and-silver-in-tariff-bet?sref=fqqmZ8gi&quot; style=&quot;border-bottom: 1px solid var(--article-link-border); border-image: none; border-left-color: currentcolor; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: currentcolor; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: currentcolor; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #121212; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;&quot;&gt;The outlet&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;has also reported that tariff-war fears have made it profitable to fly silver into the US – a commodity that typically is transported by ship because it is considered too cheap and bulky to justify the costs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;[END QUOTE]&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;--And here I thought Smaug had a fabulous fortune.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;I wonder how much a dragon considered enough to keep him respectable.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Not to mention how much gold and silver Bilbo packed away in that pony&#39;s saddlebags. &amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;And what Gandalf did with his half of the treasure he and Bilbo lugged all the way back to Bag-End.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;--John R.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;--current reading: Tanith Lee, THE BIRTHGRAVE&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2025/02/four-billion-dollars-in-gold.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-2597574690335802674</guid><pubDate>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 04:33:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2025-01-21T20:33:05.328-08:00</atom:updated><title>Dice</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;So, I&#39;ve been going to occupational therapy recently in hopes that it will help with the tremors in my hands, which sometimes make difficult things like writing, typing, zippers, buttons, et al. As a way towards setitng up one of &amp;nbsp;the exercises, the therapist asked if I have any dice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do I have dice?&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have dozens of dice. &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(It used to be hundreds before I down-sized a few years back).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Polyhedral (d4, d8, d10, d20) and traditional (d6).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Opaque and crystaline. &amp;nbsp;Inked and un-inked (which I preferred). Pristine and worn-down.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A lot of these dice are beautiful but impractical, like the Roman pottery dice or set of somewhat skewed wooden dice. Or there&#39;s the beautiful but sinister set I picked up at last year&#39;s GaryCon, which have a die-within-the-die, with this interior die being a monstrous eye that floats freely to stare at the person rolling the die.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For years I carried a d8 (red) and d10 (green) around with me everywhere I went, just in case an impromptu game of D&amp;amp;D broke out nearby. And all gamers I used to play with had huge jars of dice somewhere around their gaming table.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In recent years things have changed. Most of the people I game with use electronic dice programs rather than actual physical dice. And it&#39;s clear they get just as much fun from and feel just as much suspense with the new virtual dice as with their predecessors.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But there&#39;s still something iconic about rolling those weird dice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;--John R.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;current reading: THE DRAGON HOARD by Tanith Lee (1971)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;THE WIFE SAYS&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Isn&#39;t that a paperback book you&#39;re reading?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2025/01/dice.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>1</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-6387542153861378702</guid><pubDate>Sat, 04 Jan 2025 04:45:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2025-01-03T20:45:11.456-08:00</atom:updated><title>Happy Tolkien Day</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, today is Tolkien&#39;s birthday (January 3rd, 1892).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;You will often see it stated that he was born in South Africa, but this is not quite right. He was actually born in Bloemfontein (&quot;Flower Foutain&quot;), the capital of the Orange Free State, one of the Boer Republics. It makes for a good shibboleth when picking up a new book on JRRT whether the author says something like &#39;Tolkien was born in South Africa&#39; instead of &#39;born in south Africa&#39;. The latter is the more accurate; the former shows he or she has a more casual knowledge of the details of Tolkien&#39;s life.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As years go by, and Tolkien becomes more and more mainstream, and the number of books about Tolkien by authors are not themselves Tolkien experts increase, we&#39;ll be seeing a lot more stuff like that. &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: Here&#39;s an old button I&#39;ve proudly worn at quite a few conventions over the years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJYHAPrPS98BLeI-V1lyw1gE4jm8GD148d0iir_MWm54sOSx9hw18guMLV2C_GjlTzNOa83i-DjHO2Oh2une9g8oBaKVzWLMaH13xbUe4E4f90XTmbNExXlleAMkv7490MMd68K4Kb-aQKrb04_WZFFxh3K1vKMsRpNvyYDywM4Q_8KKR8mMrvcdqZjOv-&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; data-original-height=&quot;1304&quot; data-original-width=&quot;1402&quot; height=&quot;240&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJYHAPrPS98BLeI-V1lyw1gE4jm8GD148d0iir_MWm54sOSx9hw18guMLV2C_GjlTzNOa83i-DjHO2Oh2une9g8oBaKVzWLMaH13xbUe4E4f90XTmbNExXlleAMkv7490MMd68K4Kb-aQKrb04_WZFFxh3K1vKMsRpNvyYDywM4Q_8KKR8mMrvcdqZjOv-&quot; width=&quot;259&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2025/01/happy-tolkien-day.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJYHAPrPS98BLeI-V1lyw1gE4jm8GD148d0iir_MWm54sOSx9hw18guMLV2C_GjlTzNOa83i-DjHO2Oh2une9g8oBaKVzWLMaH13xbUe4E4f90XTmbNExXlleAMkv7490MMd68K4Kb-aQKrb04_WZFFxh3K1vKMsRpNvyYDywM4Q_8KKR8mMrvcdqZjOv-=s72-c" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>1</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-5122492498687507959</guid><pubDate>Thu, 02 Jan 2025 01:04:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2025-01-01T17:04:42.718-08:00</atom:updated><title>Speaking of Silly Season (Wooster and Jeeves)</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, here&#39;s a good note to end the year on: meeting up with our friends Jeff and Kate to see a new play based on the Wooster and Jeeves stories by P. G. Wodehouse. &amp;nbsp;Wodehouse had an extraordinary career, writing about the same characters for sixty years --something of a record in itself. He aso survived imprisonment by the Germans during World War II (during which he was accused of being a collaborator), being championed by figures like George Orwell (never one to hold punches), and knighted by the Queen.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;More important to his readers, he was also one of the finest writers of his time.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Highly recommended, if you find yourself in the mood for some silliness in these dark times.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;current reading: THE COTTINGLEY FAIRY PHOTOGRAPHS: NEW APPROACHES TO FAIRIES, FAKES AND FOLKLORE. ed. Simon Young. &amp;nbsp;Fairies and Fairylore series volume 14.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2025/01/speaking-of-silly-season-wooster-and.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-3772533252859115182</guid><pubDate>Mon, 23 Dec 2024 02:12:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-12-22T18:12:54.685-08:00</atom:updated><title>It&#39;s that time of the year again</title><description>&lt;blockquote style=&quot;border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Christmas comes but once a year&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;And when it comes, it brings good cheer&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;So, it&#39;s time for one of my longstanding Christmas traditions: listening to the Beatles&#39; Christmas album. This collection of seven Beatles singles was recorded and sent out to members of their fan club each year from 1963 through 1970. The Beatles were famous for their wit and repartee: these quips and skits and ad-libed bits of songs (many never made available elsewhere) give a good sense of what it was must have been like to be in the room.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the group broke up, John recorded a final song on his own that ends it all on a pognant note: his &quot;Give Peace a Chance&quot; &amp;nbsp;beginning with&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote style=&quot;border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;&quot;&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&quot;And so this is Christmas . . .&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this time of great stress and strife, it helps once in a while to indulge in a little sillyness.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, my original tape, which dates back to 1980/81, has long since worn out. Now the replacement cd I made of it is barely audible as well. &amp;nbsp;Luckily there is YouTube. For a sample ofwhat one year&#39;s installment (in this case, 1965, the third) might sound like, &amp;nbsp;give this a listen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZWBtMF2DTE&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZWBtMF2DTE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For a more involved compilation which draws together the Xmas material with other Beatles material given the fan club / Beatles treatment, see&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUvCPkp0H0U&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUvCPkp0H0U&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--current reading: Sarbon.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/12/its-that-time-of-year-again.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-6300922789866324874</guid><pubDate>Fri, 13 Dec 2024 02:12:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-12-12T18:12:04.220-08:00</atom:updated><title>The Duwamish Longhouse</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, for a long time now I&#39;ve been wanting to visit the Duwamish longhouse the (reconstructed) dining hall &amp;nbsp;/ &amp;nbsp;cultural center and museum and gift shop along the lower banks of Seattle&#39;s major river. Last week we finally made it. if you&#39;re at all interested in such things, I recommend making a visit.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The original longhouse does not survive, but building this new one seems to have been part of a resurgence of the Duwamish people, the Native American people who lived along the banks of the local rivers system --especially the Green River, the area around the mouth of which is still known as &lt;b&gt;the Duwamish&lt;/b&gt;, as well as the Black River (only a small marshy bit of which survives) and Cedar River (completely remade around the turn of the twentieth century into a salmon run).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Duwamish people were dispersed in the 1850s. Denied a reservation, and official recognition, they were forced to the margins. By the time of the Native American rights movement got going, there were too few of them left to meet the federal guidlines for establishing a reservation, opening a casino, and the like. That is, there are people in the area who can prove their direct descent from Duwamish living in the area continuously since the time of Chief Seattle himself. But there are none of full Duwamish descent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;However things work out in the long term, it&#39;s good that the Duwamish people are no longer being persecuted and have a symbolic icon like the Longhouse to help them recover and preserve relics and their culture.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;-- P.S.: These photos of Duwamish, on bookmarks at the checkout counter in the gift shop, give a good idea of what their life was like a century and more ago. &amp;nbsp;I think each bears the slogan&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;WE ARE STILL HERE, &lt;/b&gt;which I take it to be their motto.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhOHps8mYlSIXVMD6Q8zS3iVAcmNNumpvz-Dq4eS6UciFk03T5OI_nWYF50U6Q0SgcL0R1ne1LWlM2kZokHLvPRfQCT4DEr4xCjzOkgw986NZ0IZrawPptvpaX7uphmPd92jfWRl64mjfXvWO434iMddqK4D9geewsyszSkhZ2SGJ4ZWwJ5pO7kPWAKA-dD&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; data-original-height=&quot;603&quot; data-original-width=&quot;232&quot; height=&quot;240&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhOHps8mYlSIXVMD6Q8zS3iVAcmNNumpvz-Dq4eS6UciFk03T5OI_nWYF50U6Q0SgcL0R1ne1LWlM2kZokHLvPRfQCT4DEr4xCjzOkgw986NZ0IZrawPptvpaX7uphmPd92jfWRl64mjfXvWO434iMddqK4D9geewsyszSkhZ2SGJ4ZWwJ5pO7kPWAKA-dD&quot; width=&quot;93&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEin5XyKv_fR-exjmflWV2gA_EG714nVfq-LGhSfm2dzkIzDi4FijH8-odeG42e8vOXW4bTmlAXE7uTAUbMgZiOcmWkOiu4ZXxwwXklO8OuVdO5E301_tzpLgh82UBgQFeJE6CT-MEksL6LxDdeBhGllylbRNZrOJUruv-02G-ov4NNZ3ezMLNqI6rUBg4h_&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; data-original-height=&quot;610&quot; data-original-width=&quot;232&quot; height=&quot;240&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEin5XyKv_fR-exjmflWV2gA_EG714nVfq-LGhSfm2dzkIzDi4FijH8-odeG42e8vOXW4bTmlAXE7uTAUbMgZiOcmWkOiu4ZXxwwXklO8OuVdO5E301_tzpLgh82UBgQFeJE6CT-MEksL6LxDdeBhGllylbRNZrOJUruv-02G-ov4NNZ3ezMLNqI6rUBg4h_&quot; width=&quot;92&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-duwamish-longhouse.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhOHps8mYlSIXVMD6Q8zS3iVAcmNNumpvz-Dq4eS6UciFk03T5OI_nWYF50U6Q0SgcL0R1ne1LWlM2kZokHLvPRfQCT4DEr4xCjzOkgw986NZ0IZrawPptvpaX7uphmPd92jfWRl64mjfXvWO434iMddqK4D9geewsyszSkhZ2SGJ4ZWwJ5pO7kPWAKA-dD=s72-c" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-7150002773007212278</guid><pubDate>Mon, 09 Dec 2024 20:46:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-12-09T12:46:19.919-08:00</atom:updated><title>Quote of the Day</title><description>&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&quot;If we believe absurdities&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;we shall commit atrocities&#39;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;--Voltaire&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Came across this the day before yesterday.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If I&#39;d known Voltaire was this good, I&#39;d have read more of him.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/12/quote-of-day.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-9067521933540503104</guid><pubDate>Sun, 08 Dec 2024 21:51:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-12-08T13:51:21.422-08:00</atom:updated><title>Poison Springs Confederate battleground</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, I&#39;ve been reading lately James W. Loewen&#39;s LIES ACROSS AMERICA. I&#39;d thought this would be a sort of road trip, with Loewen driving cross country, making frequent stops to read those little historical markers you see all over the place--Loewen&#39;s point being that there&#39;s little or no standard for what passes as history in such markers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In fact, it turns out some such markers are fairly innocuous, while others have agendas we shd be wary of. &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As the son of a historian who was way ahead of the curve when it came to embracing what can be called the Dee Brown revolution, &amp;nbsp;and the grandson on the other side of an old-school Southerner who wrote a book denouncing Reconstruction, this is all in the family, so to speak.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, though, a passing reference to to Poison Springs State Park really threw me. For one thing, &amp;nbsp;I was a long-time Scout (an Eagle Scout. with palms. in the Order of the Arrow).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For another, I&#39;ve been to Poison Springs. It&#39;s less than forty miles from my home town. Our troup went over there once, to build wooden plank walkways, along with tall blue signposts, returning for hikes there later on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s one thing to know that there was a Civil War battle site near where I lived when I was growing up.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s quite another to learn, as I did yesterday, that there were war crimes here: captive Union soldiers executed after the battle by the victorious Confederates.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And learning that has been deeply unsettling.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;Over the years I&#39;ve become more aware of the links between the Boy Scouts and Confederate history.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But it&#39;s going to take more than carefully worded accounts on recently erected historical markers for me to process this.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--current reading on the Kindle: Loewen&#39;s LIES ACROSS AMERICA&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/12/poison-springs-confederate-battleground.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-5910901607230129353</guid><pubDate>Sat, 07 Dec 2024 04:20:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-12-06T20:20:18.527-08:00</atom:updated><title>Susanna Clarke&#39;s nod to Tolkien</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, &amp;nbsp;the following, taken from one of Susanna Clarke&#39;s inimitable footnotes, ought to sounds familliar to readers of J. R. R. T.:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&quot;The truth is that the &lt;i&gt;brugh&lt;/i&gt; [fairy-mound]&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;was a hole of interconnecting holes that was &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;dug into a barrow, very like a rabbit&#39;s warren&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;or badger&#39;s set. To paraphrase a writer of fanciful&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;stories for children, this was not a comfortable&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;hole, it was not even a dry, bare sandy hole; it&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;was a nasty, dirty, wet hole.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;text-align: right;&quot;&gt;--THE LADIES OF GRACE ADIEU .176&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;current reading: LIES ACROSS AMERICA by James W. Loewen&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;current audiobook: John Garth&#39;s TOLKIEN&#39;S GREAT WAR&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/12/susanna-clarkes-nod-to-tolkien.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>3</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-1885314896070392187</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Nov 2024 06:35:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-11-22T22:35:48.157-08:00</atom:updated><title>Christopher Tolkien Centenary Conference</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;So, I&#39;ll be busy this weekend, attending the Celebration for Christopher Tolkien, who wd have been a hundred years old this week. &amp;nbsp;It&#39;s an online conference (webinar) hosted by the Tolkien Society via Zoom.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;ll be taking part, first as a member of a Q&amp;amp;A / Roundtable talking about editing Tolkien (e.g., my work on THE HISTORY OF THE HOBBIT). &amp;nbsp;Then I&#39;ll also be giving a talk whose official title is &quot;Editing THE HOBBIT&quot; but which might as well be &quot;Christopher, Taum, and Me&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The list of speakers is impressive; pity that time zones mean some events starting as early as 3.a.m my time. &amp;nbsp;Fortunately they&#39;ll be recording presentations for folks who miss out to catch specific speakers later via recording.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;My events, for those interested, are at 11.30 to 12.30 &amp;nbsp;ROUNDTABLE with Dimitra Fimi, Peter Grybaukas, Andrew Higgins, and JDR.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;EDITING THE HOBBIT, my other event, is at 1 pm and lasts for thirty minutes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I know I&#39;ll be attending as many events as I can fit in and can stay awake for.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you&#39;re interested, drop by and give it a look-see.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/11/christopher-tolkien-centenary-conference.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>2</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-4995448902559247292</guid><pubDate>Thu, 31 Oct 2024 03:50:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-30T20:50:41.472-07:00</atom:updated><title>Ghost Posts</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: medium;&quot;&gt;So, here&#39;s a piece in The Guardian that explains a lot:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: &amp;quot;GH Guardian Headline&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Guardian Egyptian Web&amp;quot;, Georgia, serif; font-size: 2.125rem; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit;&quot;&gt;Ghost jobs: why do 40% of companies advertise positions that don’t exist?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;dcr-1fnjjtg&quot; data-gu-name=&quot;standfirst&quot; style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; grid-area: var(--grid-area); line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot; dcr-1mt0mpc&quot; style=&quot;--source-text-decoration-thickness: 3px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: &amp;quot;GH Guardian Headline&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Guardian Egyptian Web&amp;quot;, Georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: 1.25rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.15; margin: 0px; max-width: 540px; padding: 0px 0px 14px; vertical-align: baseline;&quot;&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;&quot;&gt;&quot;A survey has revealed that the practice is widespread, with many companies going as far as fake-interviewing too&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;&quot;&gt;This syncs up with a lot of anecdotal accounts but places it within a context and rationale:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/oct/30/ghost-jobs-why-do-40-of-companies-advertise-positions-that-dont-exist&quot;&gt;https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/oct/30/ghost-jobs-why-do-40-of-companies-advertise-positions-that-dont-exist&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thoroughly reprehensible, but no solution presents itself, at least in the short term.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;dcr-1fnjjtg&quot; data-gu-name=&quot;headline&quot; style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; grid-area: var(--grid-area); line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;dcr-14emo0l&quot; style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 620px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;dcr-cohhs3&quot; style=&quot;border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 36px; vertical-align: baseline;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/ghost-posts.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-7350170250624454141</guid><pubDate>Wed, 30 Oct 2024 02:56:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-29T19:56:10.664-07:00</atom:updated><title>Breakdowns in the system</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, &amp;nbsp;the past few days there have seen a few unrelated but similar events.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;First up the Internet was down for the day, apparently due to theft rather than sabotage (that is, thieves cut the cables for the copper).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second was the forty-five car smash-up on I-five between Seattle and Tacoma. No one killed, thank goodness, &amp;nbsp;though there were a lot of cars that needed towed away (seventeen I fotget).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Third, and most sinister of the three, someone tried to set fire to two ballot boxes, one in Portland and the other in Vancouver, Washington. No one hurt and only minimal damage, but distressing nonetheless.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/breakdowns-in-system.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-2970112117871682300</guid><pubDate>Wed, 30 Oct 2024 00:59:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-29T17:59:02.005-07:00</atom:updated><title>We See Dracula (on stage)</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, today we traveled down to Tacoma to see a live preformance of DRACULA. &amp;nbsp;We&#39;d seen it before, this being our third time, but it&#39;s &amp;nbsp;been a long time.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first was in the Milwaukee Public Library: a staging of the original stage play famously filmed a few years later starring Lugosi. It was by far the best of the three. It cleverly had the heroes suspect Count Dracula but rule him out because they&#39;re in England: his &#39;native soil&#39; wd be hundreds of miles away; it&#39;s a real breakthrough for them when they realize he brough the dirt with him. &amp;nbsp;The mirror-smashing scene was also impressive.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The second was an amateur perforance in Elkhorn in which one actor --I think the one playing Van Helsing-- dominated the whole show, to its detriment.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And the third was this one in Tacoma, more than twenty years later. &amp;nbsp;Renfield and Mina were really good, with Dr. Steward not far behind. Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, and Miss Lucy did pretty well as well. In fact the only one I thought was lacking was Dracula himself. The actor had clealy seen LOVE AT FIRST BITE, and his slightly campy performance didn&#39;t fit particularly well with the rest of the cast.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So: well worth seeing, especially for the Renfield. Also, they combined Lucy&#39;s four suitors into one (Dr. Steward) and made her less the flirt in Stoker&#39;s novel and more the victim of fate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--current (re)reading: LADIES OF GRACE ADIEU by Suzanna Clarke&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.tacomaartslive.org/events/dracula/?gad_source=1&amp;amp;gbraid=0AAAAAD05WzRwcd0gXLbqXeZbfj53kaNW9&amp;amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwyfe4BhAWEiwAkIL8sD5J7fXK8MlxmhfzPBJQ0oEjgkJxdlbrq_6T55xCdrwvZF279rRl_xoC0asQAvD_BwE&amp;amp;gclsrc=aw.ds&quot;&gt;https://www.tacomaartslive.org/events/dracula/?gad_source=1&amp;amp;gbraid=0AAAAAD05WzRwcd0gXLbqXeZbfj53kaNW9&amp;amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwyfe4BhAWEiwAkIL8sD5J7fXK8MlxmhfzPBJQ0oEjgkJxdlbrq_6T55xCdrwvZF279rRl_xoC0asQAvD_BwE&amp;amp;gclsrc=aw.ds&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;P.S.: and, I shd add, we were fortute on the drive up to avoid the forty-five car pile-up&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/search?q=forty-five+cars+i-5+washington&amp;amp;sca_esv=2e8d468bbac54b5e&amp;amp;source=hp&amp;amp;ei=oxsfZ6exOvaH0PEPir7X-Ag&amp;amp;iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZx8ptFSYuR1a0-BDONb5aPBUJMpoHLU5&amp;amp;oq=forty-five+cars+i-5&amp;amp;gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IhNmb3J0eS1maXZlIGNhcnMgaS01KgIIADIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABSPZtUABYhFdwAHgAkAEAmAFQoAG0CqoBAjE5uAEDyAEA-AEBmAIToAKyC8ICERAuGIAEGLEDGNEDGIMBGMcBwgIIEAAYgAQYsQPCAgsQLhiABBixAxiDAcICCxAAGIAEGLEDGIMBwgILEC4YgAQY0QMYxwHCAg4QLhiABBixAxjRAxjHAcICCxAuGIAEGLEDGNQCwgIFEC4YgATCAggQLhiABBixA8ICDhAAGIAEGLEDGIMBGIoFwgILEC4YgAQYxwEYrwHCAgUQABiABMICBhAAGBYYHsICAhAmwgILEAAYgAQYhgMYigXCAggQABiABBiiBMICCBAAGBYYHhgPmAMAkgcCMTmgB4WXAQ&amp;amp;sclient=gws-wiz&quot;&gt;forty-five cars i-5 washington&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/we-see-dracula-on-stage.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-5742369628467952694</guid><pubDate>Sun, 20 Oct 2024 03:43:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-19T20:43:18.011-07:00</atom:updated><title>Our Ballots Have Arrived </title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, &amp;nbsp;our ballots have now arrived; just have to go through them, mark them up, and get them either into the dropbox or mail by the fifth. &amp;nbsp;I already know who most of the people I&#39;m voting for are (president /vice president, senator, Congressional seat, govenor, &amp;amp;c) because I&#39;ve been paying attention.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But there are down-ballot candidates, such (as judgeships) and initiatives and the like --including our state Secretary of State, who&#39;s an avid D&amp;amp;D player (i.e., one of Our People).* There&#39;s the candidates&#39; self-descriptions of who they are and their qualifications for the job. A lot of crackpots emerge at this stage, who can be interesting in a horrifying sort of way. But there are shortcuts that eliminate a lot of the not-worth-considering from the rest and shake some apples from the tree. It&#39;s my rule of thumb not to vote for anyone who boasts about his or her lack of qualification to do the job --e.g. anyone who&#39;s never held office before. Or tax deadbeasts (governments cost money to run; those who pretend otherwise need not be taken seriously). Those who wd mandate term limits also get the hairy eyeball. And so forth.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s a lot to go thorough, but being able to vote is worth it. &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*I was invited to a meet-and-greet with Hobbs at a game store, but cdn&#39;t make it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/our-ballots-have-arrived.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-8125887581968991947</guid><pubDate>Thu, 17 Oct 2024 04:15:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-16T21:15:42.273-07:00</atom:updated><title>Salmon Run in the Cedar River</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, today we took a walk along the Cedar River in downtown Renton &amp;nbsp;to see if the salmon run was underway. It&#39;s quite a sight, on years we get it right (the fish being unpredictable).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We&#39;ve found a good spot last year, just down stream (north) of the Renton Library, which is right over the river. The viewing was even better this year. Whether the timing was right or this is just a better year for the fish I don&#39;t know. Maybe both.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don&#39;t know how many fish there were --dozens and dozens--mostly grey with some golden, almost as bright as koi. A few were purple, which I suspect were either grey fish turning purple or contrarywise purple ones turning grey.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It helped that the day was beautiful, with sunbeams to shine right down to the river bottom (the Cedar being a fast, shallow little river).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;All in all, a good outing. We&#39;ll see if we have such luck again next time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;currrent reading: Tolkien&#39;s poem on Tea.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/salmon-run-in-cedar-river.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-4626206135612481718</guid><pubDate>Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:45:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-15T17:45:13.284-07:00</atom:updated><title>TOLKIEN AND LEWIS PLAY</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, the Taproot Theatre, a local theatrical group we enjoy getting to occasionally, has announced they&#39;ll be staging a &amp;nbsp;Tolkien / Lewis themed play, called simply LEWIS AND TOLKIEN.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Written by Dean Batoli, whose work I don&#39;t know (apparently BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER scripts figured in largely), it imagines a chance meeting between CSL and JRRT at some point after the Inklings towards the end of Lewis&#39;s life. Sounds like it has potential. At any rate, I plan to go, so here&#39;s hoping it&#39;s good.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;DATE: January 22nd through February 22nd, 2025&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;THE SEASON: just to give a better idea of what Taproot&#39;s like, the four other plays that make up this season are&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A RAISIN IN THE SUN (not my kind of thing),&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Patsy Cline Story (likewise),&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;MURDER ON THE LINKS (Poirot stories can be fun, but I&#39;m doubtfull about their choice of a murder mystery play set on a golf course), and&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (which I&#39;ve seen more than once, and read several more times; the problem here is deciding how many times I want to see the same play).&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I guess we&#39;ll find out&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1zvgnGKaG1RUj1t6TepnMLViRtA6_IBnXtdwZo8kAZQbitlNPDoxipa83nj2lsxWPHLfY4I97RjmmDRujfBXZaP6P8jKH-PqzEune5PXPYe7dzypo3N82klLJ0ku3OMewKd8zDRgeYdXVm9xjc2ffNs_LSoQ8tXD5DG83aJr_b5UkieUpb5_mUuDzp6Sf&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; data-original-height=&quot;1693&quot; data-original-width=&quot;1234&quot; height=&quot;240&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1zvgnGKaG1RUj1t6TepnMLViRtA6_IBnXtdwZo8kAZQbitlNPDoxipa83nj2lsxWPHLfY4I97RjmmDRujfBXZaP6P8jKH-PqzEune5PXPYe7dzypo3N82klLJ0ku3OMewKd8zDRgeYdXVm9xjc2ffNs_LSoQ8tXD5DG83aJr_b5UkieUpb5_mUuDzp6Sf&quot; width=&quot;175&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/tolkien-and-lewis-play.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1zvgnGKaG1RUj1t6TepnMLViRtA6_IBnXtdwZo8kAZQbitlNPDoxipa83nj2lsxWPHLfY4I97RjmmDRujfBXZaP6P8jKH-PqzEune5PXPYe7dzypo3N82klLJ0ku3OMewKd8zDRgeYdXVm9xjc2ffNs_LSoQ8tXD5DG83aJr_b5UkieUpb5_mUuDzp6Sf=s72-c" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>3</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-714963220626175412</guid><pubDate>Mon, 14 Oct 2024 23:50:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-14T16:50:03.334-07:00</atom:updated><title>The Antiquarian Book Fair</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;So, it&#39;s that time of year again when rare book sellers gather down at the Seattle Center (the old World&#39;s Fair fairgrounds) to offer up an amazing array of collectables --anything from a Kelmscott Chaucer or copies of WEIRD TALES through local-interest booths and first editions of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.seattlebookfair.com/&quot;&gt;http://www.seattlebookfair.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;These past few years I&#39;ve been working at downsizing my collection, not adding to it, which calls for a whole different mindset. But it&#39;s still quite an experience just to browse. And I still occasionally at the end of the day carry away a book, particularly if it&#39;s something I&#39;d been looking for a long time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We&#39;ll see how it goes this time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-antiquarian-book-fair.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>2</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-326137618205357793</guid><pubDate>Sat, 12 Oct 2024 03:47:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-11T20:47:11.538-07:00</atom:updated><title>My Tea Plant Flowers</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, yesterday I noticed that my tea plant (a kind of camelia) has put out its yearly flower. I&#39;d just planted some pansies, which along with some violets (which if they flowered this year I missed it) make up my modest little flowers-in-pots minigarden for this year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Possiblee adjustments include replacing the capnip, which died out at some point over the last few months. I&#39;m also pleased to note the flourishing of the Italian shell beans&#39; leafy greens so beloved of Hastur. Neither of our current cats show much interest, but Tyburn has taken some of some grass growing out of the side of one of the pots, so we&#39;ll let that stand for cat greens for now.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;--John R&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3vMZo-0QInSK296KB6OQAhezQZsw8NaoxZ6CKKkntwf2hiHTe774VJSazK-Oa72sLDWQ7GwlMjP27xRcyWGQS_-gdmjnkF5KZy-FACu8Tpnkzq-2flnuBftDvKW-1UDvAC7i_f6X-RU2xpSK_Cx0WCaW7SW1nb-MAOHNvlWz1CPIEQtbc3JQHPHXYs_JB&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; data-original-height=&quot;3024&quot; data-original-width=&quot;4032&quot; height=&quot;240&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3vMZo-0QInSK296KB6OQAhezQZsw8NaoxZ6CKKkntwf2hiHTe774VJSazK-Oa72sLDWQ7GwlMjP27xRcyWGQS_-gdmjnkF5KZy-FACu8Tpnkzq-2flnuBftDvKW-1UDvAC7i_f6X-RU2xpSK_Cx0WCaW7SW1nb-MAOHNvlWz1CPIEQtbc3JQHPHXYs_JB&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--JDR&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;P. S.: Thanks to JC for the photol&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/my-tea-plant-flowers.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3vMZo-0QInSK296KB6OQAhezQZsw8NaoxZ6CKKkntwf2hiHTe774VJSazK-Oa72sLDWQ7GwlMjP27xRcyWGQS_-gdmjnkF5KZy-FACu8Tpnkzq-2flnuBftDvKW-1UDvAC7i_f6X-RU2xpSK_Cx0WCaW7SW1nb-MAOHNvlWz1CPIEQtbc3JQHPHXYs_JB=s72-c" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-1870311522692456038</guid><pubDate>Fri, 11 Oct 2024 04:04:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-10T21:04:32.888-07:00</atom:updated><title>I Am Podded</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;So, thanks to Ben Riggs, author of SLAYING THE DRAGON&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(a highly entertaining account of the fall of TSR)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;and Gareth Hanrahan, whose work I&#39;m not familiar with&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;(his work on The One Ring rpg sounds particularly interesting), I got to enjoy an hour&#39;s online discussion of LotR. Ben has since posted the discussion in both audio/video form, complete with close captions:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sOa8nrmVxQ&quot;&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sOa8nrmVxQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I can see that I need to learn more about the One Ring rpg and see what the current license holders have done with the newest in a long line of Tolkien rpg. Sounds like the Shire starter set is a good place to start, if I can find it. &amp;nbsp;More on this somewhere back the road.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.*&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*bonus points: Ben knows how to pronounce my name&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/i-am-podded.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-7201682060626468150</guid><pubDate>Wed, 09 Oct 2024 19:53:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-09T12:53:42.960-07:00</atom:updated><title>New Fish Long Ago</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, it&#39;s October 7th, which I always celebrate as the day I was hired at TSR as an editor in their rpg department. Over the next five years I got to work on a lot of adventures and sourcebooks and boxed sets, most of them for core AD&amp;amp;D / D&amp;amp;D but also at one time or another on just about every game world they were publishing at the time.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;I got to work on a lot of great game modules (didn&#39;t keep count, but at a guess, about three dozen releases) and with a lot of amazing people. That same week I was one of four new hires (whom Jim Ward, our boss who&#39;s hired us all, called &#39;new fish&#39;) that same month on sequential Mondays.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I arrived first on October 7th, followed by Rich Baker (designer) and Thomas Reid (editor), both on the 14th, with Wolfgang Baur (as part of the DRAGON / DUNGEON magazine team) on the 21st.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It was a great place to work, from the point of view of &lt;b&gt;GETTING TO BE THE ONES WHO WORKED &amp;nbsp;ON D&amp;amp;D (how cool is that?)&lt;/b&gt; and a terrible place to work from the point of working conditions and the cluelessness of management carried to a high degree.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Later there was coming and going, and coming, and going, for a total of ten years at three iterations of TSR / WotC / Hasbro and a lot more releases I worked on --events some of which I commemorate in turn. But that&#39;s the subject for another time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/new-fish-long-ago.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-4041009861133428612</guid><pubDate>Tue, 01 Oct 2024 19:37:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-10-01T12:37:05.785-07:00</atom:updated><title>Jimmy Carter Day</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, Jimmy Carter has just turned a hundred years old -- something no other President has achieved.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;No one has ever done a better job of being Ex-President. An interesting legacy, and one that I doubt will be matched.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I met him at a book signing once (he was famous for his epic book-signing sessions), and I wonder if he might hold some king of record there as well.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He&#39;s also the first person I voted for in a presidential election.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;He didn&#39;t cure river blindness but he helped a lot of people over the years --from the roll-up-yr-sleeves and pitch in of Habitats for Humanity to election monitoring and off-the radar unofficial diplomacy.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;I hear they&#39;re planting a hundred trees in his honor. I wonder what kind, and where?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Well done, Mr. Carter.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;--John R.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/10/jimmy-carter-day.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-8286370969507737955</guid><pubDate>Sun, 29 Sep 2024 19:52:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2024-09-29T12:52:36.609-07:00</atom:updated><title>D&amp;D Gets Some Respect</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So, thanks to Andrew H for this &amp;nbsp;link to a piece by a writer with the great name of Jedediah Berry. And the article is pretty good too: from the inside, linking together the roles of DM and author in a respectful way. And it&#39;s not another one of those journalist-descends-to-write-about-strange-people-and-their-strange (possibly dangerous) hobby.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://lithub.com/what-fiction-writers-can-learn-from-dungeons-dragons/&quot;&gt;https://lithub.com/what-fiction-writers-can-learn-from-dungeons-dragons/&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--And this &amp;nbsp;is a week when &#39;Settlers of Catan&#39; was the correct answer to one of the challenges on NPR&#39;s &#39;Wait, Wait, Don&#39;t Tell Me&#39; &amp;nbsp;(an answer they didn&#39;t quite get right).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Have I mentioned the fundraising event coming up for the state of Washington&#39;s Attorney General where he&#39;s focusing the &amp;nbsp;event on his being a dedicated fan of the game? More on this one later.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;--John R.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2024/09/d-gets-some-respect.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (John D. Rateliff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item></channel></rss>

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