It’s a still life day.

I should probably start by noting that I was wrong (again) about the price of the new book. It will be $12.95. A further saving for you, the valued consumer!

I rode down to Iowa with four other guys on Saturday. Not Viking stuff, but Sverdrup Society stuff. We had a meeting in Radcliffe, Iowa, which is where my paternal grandfather spent his childhood, and it’s a place I haven’t visited much, so I thought I’d go. (Travel report: it looks pretty much like the rest of Iowa.)

What surprised me was how much I enjoyed it. We talked all the way down and back (it’s about a three-hour trip), and I actually had a good time. Even now my subconscious is working in the background, reprocessing the memory, finding reasons to believe that I made a jerk of myself and spoiled everybody’s day, but—for the record—I had a good time.

I heard a couple memorable quotations. A pastor of Finnish ancestry told us something his father used to say—“I don’t know if I understand all these things I know.”

And someone quoted an old North Dakota farmer, what you’d call a “character,” known to a couple of the guys present, who used to say, “These modern times! When will they end?”

Tonight, more proofing.

When will it end?

Edvard Munch was Norwegian. Perhaps, that’s why he said, “Disease, insanity and death were the black angels that guarded my cradle, and … followed me throughout my life.” Obit Magazine has a piece on his painting, Death in the Sickroom, and a little about his life.

Top 10 Forgotten Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novels. Check your library or bookstore. Have you read any Pulitzer winners over the years and noted their overall strength or beauty? I could say some things about Beloved, but not right now.

As Lars pointed out yesterday, today could be dangerous. In fact, you could be a danger to yourself and the entire country without even knowing it. I’m not talking about being a carrier for a disease or a polluter. Friends, I’m talking about right-wingism.

The Federal Government, may it live forever, has raised the warning we all should heed. “Rightwing extremist activity,” as defined by the Feds, could be in your city; it could be in your heart. The Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis (DHS/I&A) has issued a report saying that while they have no evidence of an impending threat any in our country, “rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.”

Now before you start shaking your head, saying you may be conservative, you may agree with Rush Limbaugh and Victor Davis Hanson, but you aren’t an extremist by any stretch, let me quote the report from the DHS/I&A: Continue reading You Too May Be a Right-Wing Extremist →

A book stolen from the Washington College library by a Union soldier in 1864 has been returned by a descendant of the pilferer.

A note Gates inscribed in the book reads: “This book was taken from the Military Institute at Lexington Virginia in June 1864 when General Hunter was on his Lynchburg raid. The Institution was burned by the order of Gen. Hunter. The remains of Gen. Stonewall Jackson rest in the cemetery at this place.”

The rest is here.

Speaking as a librarian, when a book’s been gone a few years, I’m just glad to get it back without quibbling about fines.

This is a pulsar named PSR B1509-58. Here’s a larger photo, taken by Nasa’s Chandra observatory in orbit. Matthew Moore writes, “Although the pulsar itself is only 12 miles in diameter, the cloud or nebula that it produces stretches across 150 light years of space. Neutron stars are created when standard stars run out of fuel and collapse, and Nasa believes that the one pictured is rotating around seven times a second.” The redness for which the hand is reaching is a neighboring gas cloud. Space is beautiful. What a wonder God has made.

Scientists have developed a chocolate inhaler–pure chocolate taste with no calories, according to the designers.

Best not to stand between me and the counter when this comes on the market.

(Tip: Conservative Grapevine.)