Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Once again, I am just responding to the headline, so you can take my opinion on this matter with a grain of salt. I tried to read it, but got some page about ‘managing preferences’ and I clicked ‘accept all’ because I didn’t want to argue about it but that, apparently, wasn’t good enough for them. There was a button that said ‘read more’ but I really didn’t want to read more about my computer preferences, I just wanted to read the article, but if they’re going to be dicks about it, well, there you go.
The headline read “Perhaps Gutenberg didn’t invent the printing press after all,” and the accompanying picture showed some kind of metal plate with a bunch of (presumably) Chinese pictograms.
O.K. I guess it’s good that we’ve got people who are willing to continually revisit and revise history. Knowledge is always good. But, even if the Chinese had a kind of printing press, Gutenberg printed a bible, it was a big best seller, and this revolutionized Western, and world society.
Sure, it’s good to know that the Chinese invented spaghetti, but it was the Italians who made it what it is today. Sure, the Vikings were the first to reach North America, but they didn’t begin a wave of settlement. For better and/or worse, Columbus did. It’s good to know, regardless of what they teach in American schools, that Henry Ford did not actually invent the automobile. Before Ford, they were too impractical for long distances, too unreliable for a daily commute, no fun at all in inclement weather and, above all, expensive enough that only crackpot inventors and millionaires could own one.
So, back to the printing press. It’s cool to know someone had had the idea before Gutenberg, but Gutenberg still matters. In fact, he matters the most.

Here’s a little poem I posted a few days ago on Rattle’s Anything Goes poetry page:

Bells should ring

and drums should pound

and trumpets boldly blare

sending out a joyous sound

and filling up the air

Pictures should be pretty

and flowers should smell sweet

and all the food upon your plate

should be good to eat

Teachers should instruct you

and doctors help you heal

and psychologists should tell you

why you feel the way you feel

Parents should be patient

and children should be good

and poetry, above all else

should be understood



and it got more comments than anything I’ve ever posted, by far. Which is not to say it’s the best thing I’ve ever posted, it’s not that at all. Apparently, it just touched a nerve. A lot of people were seriously bothered by the idea that a poem should be easy for readers to understand. (and some were supportive. It was a good, healthy comment thread, and is still going on)
This (along with the rhyming thing) is what sets me apart from most other poets. It’s good to have a niche.
Also, spent a bit of time today working on putting together my next book of poetry, which I hope to put out before Christmas.

I just finished watching First Man, a 2 hour+ made for Netflix movie about Neil Armstrong, starting in about 1960 with early astronaut training and climaxing, of course, with the moon landing. On the other hand, I am currently binge watching Vikings, and I’m almost up to season 6.
There is a difference between watching ancient history and watching modern history. Of course, I’m interested in both because it is history, the ongoing story of mankind and, as a human being, that is of great interest to me, but I enjoy watching the ancient stuff more, and by ancient I guess I mean anything that happened before the 1950s, when I was born.
One difference, of course, is that I remember the moon landing, and a lot of the events that led up to it, because space is also fascinating. So, the film held few surprises. I did catch them in one historical inaccuracy. It was in a montage scene of people objecting to ‘so much money’ being spent on NASA (which is chronically and shamefully underfunded imho, hence the scare quotes), and they showed Gil Scott-Heron performing ‘Whitey on the Moon,’ which wasn’t released until 1970, after the moon landing. A minor thing, and a brilliant poem, actually.
Vikings, on the other hand, is only very loosely historical. One of the main characters at this point is Ivar the Boneless. I went to Wikipedia, of course, and they said that his name may have referred to a physical handicap, or impotence, or maybe it was a total mistranslation and just meant Ivar the Hated, but apparently the makers of the film just decided to cover all those bases, and portray him as a legless, impotent son of a bitch who enjoys torturing and killing people to a totally unnatural degree, especially if they are related to him. The character of Lagertha, pretty much the only one I still sympathize with at this point, may be totally mythical, or a compendium of real characters, a la Robin Hood, or King Arthur.
The further back you go, the more liberties you can take, seems to be the rule.

The U.S. Supreme Court just decided that religious institutions are exempt from the rules against large gatherings, and recently appointed Christian Warrior Amy Coney Barrett (who was confirmed with almost zero resistance from Democrats) cast the deciding vote.
Of course I think this totally violates the concept of separation between church and state. To their credit, though, it’s not just churches. The wording clearly says ‘religious institutions’ so Jews, Muslims, Satanists and Pagans can also gather in large groups and infect each other, although I think Satanists and Pagans are actually smarter than that.
I actually think the whole ban on group gatherings is a bit unconstitutional, but I accept the safety concerns.
This could lead to a huge spike in the number of religious people who get infected, but maybe not. Just because they’re allowed to gather in large numbers doesn’t mean they’re required to, and maybe the smarter and/or more cautious among them will choose to stay home.
But, I doubt it.

Tonight’s topic is nothing politically controversial, it is not about something which is a threat to the human species or even democracy, nor is it about some scientific discovery which will change everybody’s life for the better.
It’s just a kind of weird, funny thing that I want to share the link to, in case there’s anybody who hasn’t heard about it.
A helicopter crew, who were very scientifically counting the bighorn sheep in a wild, rocky, desert region in southeastern Utah, noticed a big, steel monolith. Well, big is a relative term. It’s 3.6 meters in height, which might put it just above the roof line of a single story, flat roofed building. And it looks pretty much exactly like the monolith in 2001, a Space Odyssey.
The article in the Guardian says ‘it may have been put there by a fan of 2001.’ I don’t even see that as a ‘may have been.’ More like a ‘well, duh.’
He (or she, or they, because just getting it there would have been more than a one person job) is obviously a fan of the movie. That’s the whole point. My question is ‘how long has it been there?’ because it may have been years and years. That requires an incredibly amount of patience on the part of the artist, who as of this writing has not stood up and taken credit.
In a way, it reminds me of the whole crop circle phenomenon. I must admit, I considered them legit evidence of alien visitation, until a couple of college students stepped up to take credit, and explained exactly how they’d done it.
Whether anybody ever steps forth and takes credit for this one, only time will tell, but I say this: Good on you, dear subversive artist, whoever you might be. Full credit plus bonus points.