Friday That Feels Like a Thursday

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Now it's a Friday that feels like a Thursday, because earlier this month I started writing a short story, and it's gone slowly, and most of it is on the little old emergency backup computer known as the Sickly Snail, and I didn't want to lug the Snail into town on a sunny Friday when there was going to be so much other lugging to do, and the deadline is tomorrow, which means that in order to finish that "job" I'm going to have to come into town on a Saturday. Cue the "Wah wah waaahhh..." music from old TV shows. Wail! Woe is me!

Dump unsold books back in the storage space. Lug out the New Laptop, the one from 2009, into the nice cool cafe.

I should mention that, although a Bakery Cafe seemed for a long time like the wrong place for a celiac blog about the gluten-free life to be written, there actually are things at the cafe that I can eat, and like, whenever I can talk myself into imagining that I can afford them. There's the corn taco soup, the Cow Patties (chocolate oatmeal cookie/candies), and (in summer) the fruit salad. As temperatures vaulted up into the eighties in the market this morning, I visualized a meal-size fruit salad. I got into the cafe and was told that they buy the fruit for the fruit salad in summer only. Well...that's probably why it's so good, when they do the fruit salad: fresh local fruit. Greenhouse produce trucked up from Florida is never quite as good...

Log on to the Internet. See updates from Puerto Rico in the e-mail. I'm not seeing so much about the U.S. Virgin Islands so I'm imagining, hopefully, that they're recovering by now; this may or may not be true.

Be underwhelmed by the Huffington Post's claim that after a flood people don't have drinking water. Right, so the water they have is nasty. In the lower-lying parts of these United States all the water is pretty nasty, all the time. People strain it, boil it...er, wait...strain it through what, exactly? Lack of water does not appear to be the real problem, but Hermes Ayala does not discuss the status of the supply of water filters on Puerto Rico. I would imagine they're running through their supply rapidly.

Bandied about on Twitter yesterday, but apparently not happening, was a proposal to evacuate Puerto Ricans to the U.S. at the federal budget's expense and then require them to pay the full cost of their visit before reclaiming their passports. Hmm. Do the ones who can't afford to evacuate themselves to Florida have passports? In the contiguous States, most people at that income level don't have passports. Did whoever proposed this realize that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and should not actually need passports, either to come here, or to go home? This sounded so unworkable that I posted yesterday that it had to have been just a prod for people to come up with better ideas. Apparently it was. Apparently the prod has yet to generate a workable idea.

Do Puerto Ricans have to wait for the overburdened federal government to process yet another demand for disaster funding, after two previous hurricane disasters?

A song parody started to pop into my mind..."They Call the Wind Mariah."



The Territories we'll protect, we said, come flood come fire.
If we don't stand by Puerto Rico, then we'll be a liar,
A liar, a liar, we'll be a big fat LIII-ar...

That's "we," as in We The People. Yesterday President Trump did suspend a law that had interfered with the shipping of supplies to Puerto Rico. Bombs away, Gentle Readers. Food and bottled water are being sent. Bleach, diesel fuel, antibiotic and antifungal treatments, and prescription medications are still needed, and people probably wouldn't mind more food and bottled water. Or water filters. Or personal hygiene supplies, clean unused underwear, school supplies--the same things people need in Texas or Florida.

What they want the federal government to do is fix their electrical power system, an issue this web site can't claim to understand. I'm guessing that their system will serve them better, longer, if they fix it themselves. At least, although nature provides plenty of challenges to the electricity, the water, and other things at the Cat Sanctuary, the last thing I'd want would be to try to get the federal government to handle those things.

Book Review: The Quaker Oats Wholegrain Cookbook

Title: The Quaker Oats Wholegrain Cookbook

Author: Quaker Oats company staff

Date: not given (Amazon says 1979)

Publisher: not given

ISBN: none

Length: 64 pages (covers numbered as pages)

Illustrations: several full-color photos

Quote: “[Y]ou'll find delicious wholegrain oat recipes, of course. But you'll also learn about...some different, more basic ways to cook.”

In 1979 an ISBN was not considered to define the difference between a Real Book and a pamphlet. However, even then, The Quaker Oats Wholegrain Cookbook could fairly be described as more pamphlet than book. It wasn't sold in bookstores; it was sold to people who sent in proofs of purchase of oatmeal. Despite the more general term “wholegrain” in the title, all the recipes call for oats. But this book does present some relatively “new, different” ways to cook oats. Oatmeal is not just for cereal and cookies any more. Oatmeal is naturally gluten-free and can be a yummy, healthy alternative to rice and corn for us gluten-intolerant people.

The “Five Exciting New Ways to Use Wholegrain Oats” are (1) by grinding the crushed but still “whole” grains to flour in a blender and using this flour in baking; (2) using the oat flour to thicken soup, sauce, or gravy; (3) toasting the crushed oats for a different flavor and texture; (4) frying the oats in butter with flavorful ingredients for either savory or sweet crunch toppings; and (5) gilding the oats with egg, then frying them in a little butter and then simmering with a little liquid, the way you'd cook a rice pilaf.

Oats are naturally gluten-free. For a long time most oats grown in the United States were cultivated and processed along with other grains, so the finished oat products sold in supermarkets were not gluten-free. However, if Monsanto's glyphosate-based “Roundup” poison spray served any good purpose on Earth, it was to raise North Americans' consciousness of celiac disease. (Before glyphosate, celiac disease was rare, found only in a small percentage of the people who inherited a minority gene.) People who didn't even have the celiac gene were popping up with false celiac reactions, and no, they weren't psychosomatic or mass-hysteria reactions...anyway, the false celiac phenomenon this web site has been observing and documenting did create a market for gluten-free products, including more carefully prepared oats. Oat products are now much safer for celiacs to eat.

So, how much will this little book expand the gluten-free cook's repertoire of relatively simple, cheap, and natural complex carbs? Quite a lot.

(1), (2) Oat flour can be safely substituted for wheat flour (or glyphosate/GMO-contaminated cornstarch) in any recipe where you use just a little grain for a coating or thickening agent. Because oat bran is softer and, if fresh, has a less overwhelming flavor than wheat bran, wholegrain oat flour is a better substitute for white flour than whole wheat flour would be. Once you've ground the oats, which are soft enough to grind easily in a blender, no further special techniques are needed; oat flour for wheat flour is a simple substitution that will work in almost any recipe you already had.

(3) Toasted oats have a slightly stronger flavor and texture than raw oats. They can be substituted for bread crumbs in desserts, meat loaf, fish cakes, etc., or as toppings. They are the basic ingredient in granola.

(4) The fried oat crunch recipes may be yummy, but are too high in fat and/or sugar to qualify as real health food. As party foods, however, a parfait or sundae of oat crunch, fruit, and ice cream or yogurt may be a more appealing alternative to “real” wheat-based cakes or cookies than the more elaborate, expensive gluten-free baked goods often are. Nothing gluten-free is ever going to be quite the same as those layer cakes baby-boomers' mothers and grandmothers used to make, or those crunchy breakfast cereals and wonderfully spongy Twinkies and ooey-gooey doughnuts baby-boomers used to snack on, before we went gluten-free. A buttery, sugary, naturally gluten-free oat crunch dessert might be more satisfactory than a pricey pastry that, by trying hard to resemble a wheat-based dessert, merely reminds some of us that it isn't.

(5) Because the egg-puffed “golden” oats are used more or less like rice in pilaf-type recipes...well, they definitely add a new flavor to the cook's repertoire. Additionally, although just one egg will gild and puff enough oats to serve at least four, the egg converts the oats into a protein food.

After discussing these five innovative ways to use oats, the writers present a generous sample of more traditional recipes that would traditionally have been made with other grains—soups thickened with oat rather than wheat flour, pilafs made with puffed oats rather than rice, salads with toasted or fried oats in place of croutons, meat loaves and balls and burgers made with oats rather than breadcrumbs, baked meats coated with oats, candies and granola bars made with oats and fruit and/or nuts and/or chocolate, frozen desserts or cheese balls crusted with crunchy fried oats, all naturally gluten-free.

In among the gluten-free recipes are mixed an equally generous number of recipes for baked goods that are still basically made with white wheat flour, but textured with oats. Oatmeal breads and oatmeal cookies are such a nice traditional way to add soft, palatable fibre to baked goods wheat eaters can enjoy that it's a shame that they just about have to be made with some wheat in order to work.

The writers do present one recipe for cookies made with oat flour only, but warn that these cookies will be both “heartier” and crumblier than wheat-based cookies. That's putting it tactfully. While all-corn and all-rice flours produce baked goods that crumble back into meal in the hand, all-oat flour tends to produce baked goods that have the heavy yet crumbly consistency of dried-out oat porridge. The all-oat-flour cookies are made with lavish amounts of shortening and sweetening, then pressed thin for quick baking, which yields cookies the writers describe as “light, rich, and [only] a little chewy.”

The true oat-based answers to cookies are, however, the sometimes simmered but not usually baked candy-cookies (like those “Cow Patties” served at the cafe where I'm typing this) and their denser, more nutritious but even higher-calorie cousins the granola bars. In both of these types of dessert the oats are bound by generous quantities of saturated fat (butter, chocolate), usually even more ample amounts of sweetening (sugar, honey, molasses, dates, raisins, other dried fruit), and sometimes milk or egg. These confections are good choices for anyone who either wants to grow bigger or is preparing to run a marathon, and for the rest of us, well, as long as our skinny pants fit comfortably an occasional treat does no harm, but some people need to be reminded not to eat the things every day.

If seriously tempted to cook and eat the richer, more tempting oat products described here, you probably should not own a copy of this book. If you can be an adult about rich desserts—if, even if you've kept the child's ability to enjoy overindulging in them, you've at least developed the adult's ability to choose not to overindulge—then this book is for you.

Small though it is, this web site's price for most books is $5 per book + $5 per package + $1 per online payment. Somebody is probably offering this one for less. However, ten or twelve or maybe even more books of this size will fit into one $5 package; if you order other books from this web site your total order may come out to less than it would add up to if you ordered from lots of different Amazon sellers.

Status Report: Money, Phenology, News, Schatzi Cat

(Finances: $20 this week--in "sales" to a local sponsor who insisted on overpaying, bringing you a few free posts. I plan to do another "good" one in addition to this me-me-me one. If your income for 2016 was US$12,000 or more, you should support this web site. Here are the current links you can use...note that the easier ones to use encourage you to make this web site more valuable to your web site. Sponsorship will not only make more posts available but stop this list of links appearing at the top of every post.)

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You can also mail a U.S. postal money order to Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, Gate City, Virginia, 24251-0322.)

This post has four more sections: Phenology, Politics, Headline News, Cat Sanctuary Updates. Should we make things easier by separating them with bold-type headings? Why not? Some correspondents say they like even blog posts broken up into small sections by bold-type headings.

Phenology
So we've had a heat wave this week. Autumn weather is getting off to a delectably slow start. An early spring and a long cool summer have brought some things to their "autumn" phases based on how long leaves have been on trees, like the pawpaw trees, dutifully bearing fruit and turning yellow on schedule. (The Cat Sanctuary had a nice pawpaw harvest.) Other trees, like dogwood and sycamore, are changing color on a schedule that seems to be directly tied to seasonal changes in light, independent of temperature. Trees that stay green until frost are still green.

This weather seems more favorable to the family known as Brush-Footed Butterflies than any weather I can remember. I'm seeing more of these autumn-flying beauties, in richer variety...Two members of the Nymphalid butterfly "family," both of which are common and well distributed in the Eastern States but unusual at the Cat Sanctuary, are the Painted Lady and the Red Admiral.

Some form of Painted Lady is found in almost every part of the world. Scientists think most of those seen in the Eastern States are the same species found in Europe, but a minority of our Painted Ladies, which have darker upper sides and more vivid lower sides, are a distinct species. The fun part is that individual butterflies vary, with variations depending partly on weather, so even experts can disagree on which species an individual Vanessa cardui or V. virginiensis should be counted among...Here's V. cardui, the "basic" Painted Lady, sometimes also called the Cosmopolitan or Belle Dame:

Photo donated to Wikipedia By Jean-Pol GRANDMONT - Self-photographed, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27747981

And here's V. virginiensis: 

Photo donated to Wikipedia By Patrick Coin (Patrick Coin) - Photograph taken by Patrick Coin, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=768953

I've seen both kinds in the last week or two; I looked them up for you because the underwings of V. virginiensis looked--startling. If I'd seen one before, I hadn't noticed how much bigger and more contrast-defined the camouflage pattern on the underwings can be.

Today on Twitter someone posted a photo of a butterfly and asked if anyone recognized it. It looked a lot like V. cardui but, without size and location information, it's hard to say; some little Checkerspots have wing patterns that look a lot like V. cardui. One way to tell the difference is that Painted Ladies are largish butterflies, as big as some of the smaller Swallowtails, with wingspreads that would probably cover the palm of your hand (well I've not seen your hand). Checkerspots are small, with wingspreads only about one inch.

Red Admirals, V. atalanta, average slightly smaller than V. cardui and have even darker colors...

Photo donated to Wikipedia By Ernie - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7738907

All three species eat "weeds" when young, sip flower nectar when mature. Cardui, meaning "thistle," refers to one of their favorite foods.

And, although the poisoners have left Spanish Needles and cow-toxic Johnson Grass (the tall wild grass that's easily mistaken for young cornstalks in spring) as dominant species along Route 23, at the Cat Sanctuary several flowers keep on blooming. I don't think my flybush has ever bloomed so profusely for so long. Dayflowers are finally subsiding; ladies' thumbs are not. Several species of bedstraws and Eupatorium are blooming beautifully. Black-eyed Susans...as I just mentioned on Twitter, the specimens in the not-a-lawn at the Cat Sanctuary are almost five feet tall. But I'm not seeing wild sunflowers along Route 23 where I've seen them in other years.

Politics

Yesterday I spent most of my online time writing an article about Alabama's Moore-Strange primary election. (It'd be interesting to know +Andria Perry 's preference, if any; I didn't ask.) Here's what that article did not say...

"Can this election get more strange?" quipped Jim Geraghty, although apart from the candidates' names, and Judge Moore's claims to fame, it doesn't seem to have been an especially strange bit of Republican Party infighting. From here in Virginia, it seems a bit like deja vu.

Obviously I don't have a vote in Alabama, so I'm not sure how I got onto the Moore mailing list. If he'd asked me about some of his publicity stunts, I would have advised against them. Roy Moore of Gadsden, Alabama, is an evangelical Christian who's never avoided any possible controversy. He achieved nationwide fame by plunking this 5,280-pound rock into his state's rotunda:

Photo donated to Wikipedia By maorlando - God keeps me as I lean on Him!! from Far NW Houston, Pinehurst, Texas, U.S.A. - Front of Impressive Ten Commandments Monument, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62091917

Anti-Christians screamed and howled. Moore dug in his heels, and eventually surrendered his position rather than his monument, which brings the word "graven image" to some minds...even if the person also concedes that any crybullies claiming a chunk of stone hurts them should be allowed to waive the fine they deserve for wasting a judge's time if they carry the stone to where they say it won't hurt them any more, on their backs.

Then there was a flap about same-sex marriage, on which I would have advised him not to feed the monster any more attention than it's already consumed. Homosexual lobbyists think annoying people with their "weddings" is more important than securing equal rights for widows and bachelors...what more need be said? That fact disparages those homosexual lobbyists so much more thoroughly than any comment anyone could add to it. There have to be more worthwhile moral battles to fight. A Real Leader might have chosen the rights of widows and bachelors.

And I think the position of this web site on Republican infighting has been made sufficiently clear. In Virginia, Republicans had several acceptable candidates for governor. All of them ran at the same time. All of them did the Democrats' job for the Democrats. That's how our governor's mansion came to be occupied by a Democrat who, when a deranged member of his party opened fire on Republicans, blurted out one of the tackiest-sounding shock reactions of all time. I won't even type his name here because I do feel sorry for him, but Lord have mercy.

There is a very wide range of opinions these days about who Republicans are, who they should be, what they should stand for, whether some of their favorite authors (e.g. Thomas Sowell) even are Republicans. In the presidential election we had so many legitimate Republican candidates they couldn't even all be fitted onto one stage for the preliminary debates, and what did we get? I'm still getting e-mail from Republicans who still hate that infighting brought us an alleged Republican President who has no politics, neither has he any shame, and whose hand many Republicans vow they'll never shake. Deal with it, Republicans. That's what infighting does for you. There are times for thinking in terms of tennis, or NASCAR racing, or chess, and times for thinking in terms of football.

This web site would like to have been able to report that Mr. Moore and Mr. Strange sat down and worked out a strategy they could use as a team, rather than locking horns. Did not happen. But it's not too late; that could happen.

NBC featured a priceless photo of Roy Moore's impression of Roy Rogers, cowboy hat and buckskin horse and all. Right. A lot of the electorate miss Roy Rogers. I'm sure the Old Left can think of many snarky things to say about this. Myself, based on yesterday's reading and what I've learned while writing this blog, I see an important lesson for the nation here:

1. Circa 2007, yes, 2007, Democratic Party bloggers were aware of rifts within their ranks. Specifically, a poll that surveyed lots of Democrats' attitudes on lots of issues found that there were basically three types of Democrats: (1) centrists whose views differed from those of centrist Republicans on only a few issues--and those were individual differences, not solid enough to be used to define a difference between centrists in the major parties; (2) another large bloc of benefits-oriented voters, including many women and members of ethnic minorities as well as retirees and welfare recipients, who identified strongly as Democrats because of their handouts or concerns about discrimination, and whose views on everything else were generally well to the right of John McCain; and (3) a minority of left-wingers who expressed the kind of views President Obama and Candidates Clinton and Sanders have been expressing in the past ten years and who were solidly committed to their party, financially and otherwise. The Democratic Party gambled on party loyalty, financial dependency, and fear, to allow these extremists to take control of the party's policy and direction. Real Democrats, including friends and relatives of mine and people for whom I'd still be willing to vote, still exist...but you never hear about them any more.

2. And, as Hugh Hewitt explained in detail in his wearisome little book, and as the same poll also showed, there are several distinct types of Republicans too. The ones who, if not solidly committed to their party, are solidly committed to preserving their wealth and willing to invest some of their wealth in politicians, are "good old boy, country club" types with very little noticeable politics, religion, or shame. The ones who at least fear and loathe "liberal" attitudes toward "immorality," the Religious Right, are another distinct bloc within the party. Civil libertarians, constitutionalists, most of the serious Tea Parties, might be considered a majority of Republicans if we could be lumped together as Republicans, but (a) we don't like being lumped together and (b) we're not necessarily even willing to identify ourselves as Republicans, which makes it hard. We saw this acted out last year, didn't we? Candidates Carson, Cruz, and Paul each had many passionate supporters, Jeb Bush had his share of the vote...and the rich guy who'd never even been a Republican, in any noticeable way, ended up getting the richies' vote and thus the nomination. 

3. Centrist Republicans like John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and let's never forget W Bush, work very well with Democrats--because typically on all but one or two issues they could be Democrats. In Faith of Our Fathers McCain said that in so many words: apart from his commitment to military issues he could as easily have been a Democrat. So no wonder he worked well with politicians who--so far as I know George Stephanopoulos is the only one who's said it in a book--could, apart from one or two issues, as easily have been Republicans. Similarly, Mark Warner gets along well with his still majority-Republican constituency, and Jim Webb gets along so well with Republicans that in some years he's actually let himself be called one...and this is where the majority of Americans actually seem to be these days. They're not right-wingers, they're not left-wingers; some of them are loyal to one party or the other for just one or two personal reasons, and some of them are swing voters because they truly have no preference between the major parties. And the election between Bill Clinton's moderate right-wing buddy and Bill Clinton's extreme left-wing buddy was a jolly close one; if Trump won the popular vote--which has been questioned--he won on the votes of those centrist Democrats and swing voters.

4. So when Penny Nance e-mailed, recently, that her correspondents were bewailing the way the extreme left just keeps winning, what can they do-o-o? and PN replied that for a start they could pray...praying is good, yes, but a secular answer also suggests itself to me. The centrists of these United States could just stop letting the extremists play both ends against the middle. They could, as Arthur Brooks suggested, recognize themselves as being a majority. That's not where the money for the big expensive TV campaigns is, granted...but it is where the American grassroots vote is, and in these days when every eighteen-year-old seems to have a web site, it's possible that the centrists could win the popular vote without the big expensive TV campaigns. 

Purely as a strategy...if "conservatives" or "Republicans" could agree to represent the Religious Right viewpoint Judge Moore embodies, and "liberals" or "moderates" or "Democrats" could agree to represent the mainstream viewpoint Senator Strange has represented, the first thing I'd expect would be that the party of Luther Strange, Mitch McConnell, Jim Webb, Lindsey Graham, and so on, would rock the first popular vote in which they could get themselves unified. 

I'll stop there, let Republican correspondents chew on that thought, and move on. As far as I'm concerned, today's national news brought one piece of good news and one piece of bad news.

Headline News, Good & Bad

Good news: Steve Scalise. If you watch TV or follow anyone who follows any news site on Twitter you've seen the official pictures of him limping back into the Capitol. Tear-inducing, maybe. I am so glad the suicidal lunatic failed in his effort to murder a Republican.

Bad news: yet another hurricane, after all that disaster relief money's already been poured out, and our President's extremely controversial suggestion for funding...I don't seriously think he's going to get away with what Twitter reported he was threatening to do to fund the evacuation of flooded-out Puerto Ricans. They are U.S. citizens. They have rights. They also have friends, and it is to be hoped that those friends have got their backs. I tweeted "Say WHAAAaaat?" with extra A's for extra outrage, but I suspect it was a shock reaction intended to generate better ideas; our President may be orange, old, and obnoxious, but he's not really that stupid.

Enough politics, some are saying, what about the cats?

Cats

Some local lurkers might consider it a fail: Heather is still the only full-time resident cat at the Cat Sanctuary. I do consider it a fail that Suzie-Q rejected me, and a tragedy that sweet little Boots died during the round of animal mortality following the glyphosate poisoning disaster. But as far as the other cats I agreed to adopt? I'm seeing a clear win.

I think the core cat family at the former Cat Sanctuary on Jackson Street are definitely social, and definitely tame, gentle, and lovable cats, although not pets. Nobody had been petting them; when I lured some of them within range, grabbed them by the scruff of the neck, and picked them up, they made it clear to their human neighbors and to me that they liked being petted. 

As discussed in earlier posts, I tried to adopt the young black cat, Boots' mother, first. I called her Schatzi. She looked as if she recognized that as a name. I said, "Is that your name? Schatzi?" She looked as if she'd accepted it as her name. And I've been speaking to her since, and she has definitely continued to respond to the name "Schatzi." 

So she is a Listening Cat--one of a minority even among clever social cats who become devoted pets. If anybody goes to the trouble of bonding with her and teaching her words, I can guarantee they'll be bowled over by her cleverness. Schatzi was born to be another once-in-a-lifetime pet, like my Heather, or Mogwai, or Mackerel, or even Black Magic. 

But not mine. She made that clear. She let me pick her up, pop her into a carrier, and take her to the Cat Sanctuary. Then she saw Heather, Boots, and Bruno. Then she bolted, and although I set out food for her, I didn't see her again...because I didn't go back to the former Cat Sanctuary on Jackson Street. One of her neighbors on the block Schatzi considers her home called to tell me that she was back there.

She had found her way back home, after being carried more than a mile away in a carrier from which she wasn't able to see out. 

We are not talking about a normal cat here, Gentle Readers. Well, she is Heather's cousin. Heather's great-uncle Pell also had an uncanny homing sense...I took him into the Duffield market one day while he was up for adoption, and although he hadn't been able to see out from the truck in which he was transported, he knew which way Gate City was and spent the entire day pulling in the direction of home. He accepted a new home when he was ready to move out on his own, and not before.

I went back to the house Schatzi called home, and she knew me, she knew her name, and she would not take a food treat from my hand again. She was where she wanted to be, she nonverbally said. So I petted other members of her family and talked to the human neighbors about how most cats really feel more attached to a place than to a person, and a trailer park really needs a few resident cats, and I did not particularly need more cats, and although I couldn't let cats as clever and lovable as that family go to a shelter the cats were obviously happy where they were...

Well, they're still there. I saw Schatzi and her larger, equally black brother, and her friendlier, gray-tabby brother, too, out in the yard this morning as I walked past. They still look very pleased to be in what they consider their home--the little strips of grass that constitute yards in a trailer park. As far as they're concerned, one of them has claimed a human pet of her very own and got that human to feed the rest of them a few yards from where their original human used to feed them, and they're still a happy social cat family. And Schatzi still knows me, still knows her name, and is still nonverbally saying "Don't call me, I'll call you, if I ever want a new home, which I don't."

From these cats' and my point of view, the Cat Sanctuary did rescue and place five particularly valuable cats in a good home, this summer...and I only had to pick up one of them to get them into their Fur-Ever Home.

I give all the credit to Schatzi, another little black alley cat who is evidently smarter and nicer, in some ways, than some humans.

Do youall miss Petfinder links yet? I do too. When they get rid of the nasty sticky cookies I'll post more Petfinder links. Meanwhile, here's an Amazon link:

Edgar Allan Poe seems solely to blame for the myth that black cats are unlucky or sinister; in England it's orange cats that are said to be unlucky, and black, black-and-white, or three-colored cats are said to bring good luck. Meh. They make lovable pets, anyway. Just ask anybody who's been owned by one.

Tim Kaine Likes Obamacare

From U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), whose opinions are his own, and fully explain this web site's support for Ed Gillespie:

"

Today, we can breathe a sigh of relief. Republicans decided to scrap a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act and dismantle Medicaid. The “Graham-Cassidy” proposal would have taken care away from millions of Americans, weakened protections for those with preexisting conditions, and raised premiums for Virginia families. It would’ve also made drastic cuts to the core Medicaid program that’s a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of Virginia’s children, seniors and people with disabilities.

I met with Virginia parents and their children this week in my office who would have been affected by this proposal. They call themselves the “Little Lobbyists” and the group is an example of the countless Americans who have made their voices heard in the fight to protect health care. The Graham-Cassidy proposal may have been stopped for now, but I’m going to keep speaking out against attempts to cut Medicaid and repeal the Affordable Care Act. We should be working across the aisle to improve health care for all Americans, not take it away.

"

Book Review: The Sound of Wings

A Fair Trade Book

(The picture shows the hardcover first edition, which is what I have. It came to me as the gem in a truckload of clinkers from a friend who knows nothing about books; it's actually a collector's item by now. The link is likely to go first to the more recent paperback edition--but I found the image of the hardcover book by clicking "Hardcover" on the page for the paperback.)

Title: The Sound of Wings

Author: Mary S. Lovell

Author's web site: http://www.lovellbiographies.com/

Date: 1989

Publisher: Century Hutchinson (UK), St Martin's (US)

ISBN: 0-312-03431-8 (US)

Length: 411 pages plus index

Illustrations: maps and black-and-white photos

Quote: “I realized that not only was George Putnam a fascinating person in his own right but also that if it had not been for him, Amelia would undoubtedly have dropped out of public awareness...So this story, which began as a biography of Amelia, has become the story of Amelia and George.”

Amelia Earhart's story has long appealed to a wide range of readers. Blonde, pretty, and a poet, Earhart chose to be known primarily as a pilot—not exactly “the Aviatrix” as which she was remembered, but one of a group of women whose interest in airplanes generated lots of publicity for the new, expensive, dangerous technology. (Lovell lists eight others in the U.S. who made headlines during the same years Earhart did.) Each of them set a few records in aviation. Then Earhart disappeared, becoming one of the world's mysteries; many wanted to believe she had faked her disappearance and was still living somewhere, probably in Japan, probably as a spy.

There was also her ambiguous status as a feminist heroine. She was one, of course, but the timing of her story complicated the story of women's history the 1970s feminist movement preferred: Despite the verifiable existence of discriminatory laws and employment policies that oppressed all women to some extent, the extent to which women were in fact oppressed varied widely. Earhart had trained as a nurse aide and social worker before some rich (male) publicists came up with the scheme of publicizing the “aviatrices.” Far from having to break down doors to get into the job that made her famous, because she was female, Earhart was recruited because she was female (and, some observed, she looked as if she might have been Charles Lindbergh's sister). She hadn't always dreamed of being a pilot; she had in fact said a plane exhibited at a fair was uninteresting; as a young woman she did all sorts of odd jobs for fun and money, and being a pilot happened to be the one for which she was most rewarded by other people.

She was, as Lovell explains in detail, heavily publicized because her husband happened to be a publisher. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was primarily a writer, not a pilot. Beryl Markham was both,but she was British. Earhart was more pilot than writer but Putnam saw to it that every publishable piece of writing she did was distributed and promoted. He also steered Earhart toward the most generous funders. Some accused him of having exploited her; Lovell attempts to prove that, despite their different personalities and talents, they were real partners-for-life.

“It is extremely difficult not to like Amelia,” Lovell observes of Earhart's personality. Earhart even had a sense of humor. Nevertheless, she “could be waspish, intolerant, and ill-humored, just like any of us.” Putnam was less charismatic. “People either loved or loathed George Putnam, and there is still no middle ground.”

The various funders who encouraged people like Earhart, Markham, Charles Lindbergh and the other pioneers in aviation, were to some extent in competition; they set the planes and pilots they funded in competition against one another. When Earhart and two men shared the work of flying across the Atlantic Ocean, a British editor sneered, “Compared with the solo flights of lady pilots as Lady Bailey and Lady Heath, the crossing of the Atlantic as a passenger does not seem to us to prove anything.” The aviators themselves seemed, like competing athletes, more generous. Mary Heath's reaction to Earhart's flight to England was “to tell you that if you phone me I'll throw down whatever I'm doing to come and fly with you or talk...Ring me!” They became friends, as did some of Earhart's other competitors. At the time Mary Heath, Elinor Smith, Richard Byrd, and several other people whose names have been forgotten, were also setting world's records with “first flight” headlines. They were free to like each other, as athletes are, yet their funding depended on being "first."

  

Lovell denies any attachment to any of the theories about Earhart's disappearance, but presents the facts that have been cited to support the credible ones, followed by the final radio log and several appendices.

The Sound of Wings is likely to appeal to anyone interested in U.S. history generally, in women's history in particular, or in aviation. If readers understand that there is not and will never be a satisfactory end to the story of Amelia Earhart, nothing else in this biography seems likely to disappoint them. Amazon readers generally rate this book high; one complaint was "I wish it could have had more pictures."

There are many pictures. If Amelia Earhart hadn't gravitated toward jobs that used her brain and education, she could have been a model. 

Then there's the grumpy feminist who resents the sympathetic attention Lovell gives Putnam. Well...some people still do loathe him, even now that his name exists primarily as a brand found on many good books.

Mary Lovell is still alive and writing biographies, though displaying the bare minimum about herself on the Internet. So this is a Fair Trade Book. For the now collectible hardcover first edition, the real-world price is lower, but this web site would have to charge $30. For the paperback edition, we can charge our usual price of $5 per book, $5 per package, $1 per online payment, from which we'll send $1 to Mary Lovell or a charity of her choice. If you insist on the hardcover, your total payment would be $35 or $36, Lovell or her charity will receive $3.50. If you order the paperback edition of The Sound of Wings together with, e.g., The Mitford Girls, you'd send $15 (U.S. postal money order, for which the post office will collect its own surcharge) or $16 via Paypal, and Lovell or her charity would get $2. And if you enjoy smoothly written, well documented biographies in a particularly fluent, international form of English (Lovell's narrative style doesn't call attention to itself as being "American" in England or "British" in the U.S.; she is British), check out her newer books at http://www.lovellbiographies.com/ .

Fiction: Tennis Advantage

[It's entirely my own fault that this story didn't win a contest. It was written for a Sunday School magazine that still requires printed submissions, and I didn't get it printed and mailed in time. This is not, unfortunately, a true story. It might be a true story if my real name had been Venus Williams...mercy, that woman gives me such sister envy.]

“Mom!” Sarah's tennis racket bounced off the fence. “Mom, they'll never let me win a game! It's not fair!”

“No, it's not fair,” her mother said soothingly. “Your brother and sister play tennis better than most of the teenagers in the club. You are only six. Katie! Dan!” Mother continued. “As well as you play, can't you think of a way to help Sarah win a game?”

“Oh, very well!” Katie beckoned Sarah back to the tennis court. Sarah picked up her racket. Plop, plop, plop! One after another the low, slow, easy balls bounced off Sarah's racket...

“Mom!” Sarah pounded her racket on the ground. “Now they won't even let me play a game! It's not right!”

Dan knelt down on the ground to look straight across at Sarah. “If you want to win a real game,” he said, “you will just have to keep practicing until you can play.”

“We weren't born playing tennis either, you know,” Katie said. “The first time someone served the ball to me, I ducked.”

“I practiced serving to the fence,” Dan said. “I tied a handkerchief to the fence and hit the ball onto the handkerchief. After that, I pretended Katie's blind spot was the handkerchief.”

“Dan almost doesn't have a blind spot,” Katie said proudly. “I practiced mixing up shots, because the way to beat Dan is to keep him running.”

Sarah picked up the ball and served it into the net. “I'm going to take a shower,” she announced. “After that I'm going to read.”

Later, when Dan and Katie had put away their rackets, Sarah tied a ribbon to the fence and practiced hitting the ribbon.

She did that the next day they went to the club, too, and the next day, and the next day. She asked her mother to take her to the club when Dan and Katie went to the library. She asked her uncle to buy her a round with the tennis machine when they went downtown and passed a place called the Batting Cage.

The next time they went to the club, while Dan and Katie played furiously against each other, Sarah heard another voice say, “I'm six years old.” She turned and saw a boy carrying a tennis racket.

“I'm six, too,” she told the boy. She looked up at his parents. “My name is Sarah Preston.”

“Nice to meet you, Sarah Preston.” The boy's mother shook Sarah's hand. “What do you say, Riley?”

“My name is Riley Taylor. It's nice to meet you,” the boy said politely.

“It's nice to meet you, too,” said Sarah. “Are you here to play tennis?”

Riley Taylor smiled. “I always play with my Dad. It'll be fun to play with another kid, if Dad doesn't mind.”

“I don't mind,” said Riley's Dad. “This should be fun to watch.”

Sarah served the ball. Riley slammed it back almost as fast as Katie did. Sarah ran a few steps backward to hit the ball, barely getting it across the foul line. Riley was just watching Sarah. He missed the ball. Sarah scored.

They kept playing. Riley wasn't as strong or as fast or as tricky as Dan and Katie, but he kept the game moving. Sarah ran all over the court. She hit several fouls, but she was hitting the ball almost every time it came at her.

Riley's parents started keeping score. “You're winning, you little tiger! Riley, she's going to win!” Riley's mother said.

“I don't mind if she wins,” Riley said. “Not today, anyway. It's just neat to see another kid really playing tennis.”

“It is, isn't it?” said Riley's father. “In a few years you two will be as good as those two.” He pointed to Dan and Katie.

“They're my brother and sister,” Sarah said proudly.

“How did I guess?” Riley's father laughed.

Sarah missed the ball, trying to watch Dan and Katie through the fence. After that Riley held a one-point lead for several minutes. Then Sarah picked up a few points and held a one-point lead until Riley's mother called the end of the match.

“You're really good, for a kid,” Riley said.

“You have a real talent,” Riley's Dad said. “You'll have to play with us again some time.”

Sarah went to watch Dan and Katie finish their game. Sarah watched Katie jump to hit a high ball. She watched Dan smash the ball back so low it hardly passed the net. She watched Katie drive a fast ball past Dan's left side, so that Dan hit it back with a rather weak backhand and Katie slammed a long shot to his right. She could almost imagine how it would feel to move as fast as they were moving, some day when she was as big as they were.

“Want to play?” Katie said, as their long, close match finally ended.

“Can't,” said Dan. “People are waiting. Let's have a swim before we go home.”

“Look out!” Riley's mother said as they left the court. “That sister of yours has a real talent for tennis!”

“Why would Coach Taylor's wife say that?” Katie frowned at Sarah.

“Because I beat Riley Taylor by one point,” Sarah said. “His Dad said I have to play with them again some time.”

“Guess you do have a talent, then, if Coach thinks so,” said Dan.

“Don't let it go to your head!” Katie chased Sarah into the showers, laughing. “I can still beat you.”

“Of course,” Sarah said. “You're older.”

“Don't you forget it!” Katie said. “But one day that will be an advantage for you.”

Book Review: Mixed Feelings

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Mixed Feelings

Author: Francine Klagsbrun

Date: 1992

Publisher: Bantam

ISBN: 0-553-08841-6

Length: 420 pages

Quote: “[T]he ties between brothers and sister soften stretch far into old age...Parents die...brothers and sisters cannot be divorced.”

To me the interesting thing about this book was that so many of the people who had so little new information to share apparently wanted so much to be included in this book.

Really. You knew that many siblings are close, some are distant, many are loyal lifelong friends, some are enemies, and a few are incestuous. That's what this book has to tell you. So, the pleasure of reading the book is in the stories the siblings tell, and this review will maunder along with a few more of them.

Whatever your sibling relationships were like, or are like now, you'll find others who share your feelings, often with vivid examples of how other people showed brotherly or sisterly love—or something else.

Even if you are an identical twin, you may have defined yourself in contrast to a sibling...I think back to a classroom where school administration had been unable to keep mildly hyperactive twins from tormenting the same teacher at the same time. “Calling me by his name is ruining my reputation,” complained one twin. He was the only one who noticed that he was fractionally quieter than his brother was. Neither twin was a close friend of mine, but I remember feeling some empathy for the one who perceived himself as less manic. Not only have a surprising number of people failed to notice how much younger, taller, and prettier my sisters are, or that they've been legally classified as belonging to different “races”; when we were kids some people failed to notice that my brother and I were even different genders.

...Or, as it might be because you and your sibling were “more secure in [your] own skins” at home, you might have defined yourself and sibling in contrast to other people. Klagsbrun dwells less on this type of family. Sometimes the whole family define themselves in contrast to neighbors.

 

Even extended families can do this.

Does the social status of having a well defined and researched extended family, with a pedigree, come before or after the individual's willingness to describe self and relatives in terms of “the Logan gaze,” an “inside” piece of nonverbal communication, or “the Hapsburg lip,” an inherited trait, or even “the Bannon temper,” an acknowledged character flaw? “Probably a self-perpetuating cycle,” suggests a local informant, proud enough of the “family” looks, land, and reputation to claim the “family” temperament with pride. (That temperament can be perceived as anywhere from “meek” to “relentless,” depending on the extent to which the speaker has locked horns with a member of the clan; the family rule is “Don't start a fight, and don't lose one.”)

The more likeness siblings are willing to admit, the more competitive they may be—especially the younger siblings. “Mary Ann, like many elder siblings, remains aloof from open competition,” Klagsbrun observes. “'She has a right to feel proud, she has done very well,' she said when I asked about her response to Nancy's career achievement. 'Here is someone who had to wear my hand-me-downs and who thought of herself as a dumb blonde.'”But then, on second thought, respondent “Mary Ann” complained that younger sister “Nancy” “has to flaunt everything she does. I left college to help support the family,” and Nancy, though aware that she offends Mary Ann by flaunting her degree and achievements, “can't seem to help...seeking again and again the recognition she still craves from the older sister she still idolizes.”

Anything resembling favoritism from adults seems to guarantee a more competitive, less cooperative relationship. Klagsbrun finds respondents with good things to say about being a “sibling of the disabled”: “Grossman found that college students with retarded sibs were often more tolerant of differences...and more willing to take a stand against prejudice than other students.”

Maybe. Maybe not. My sister's brain damage is not the most typical kind. “The pretty one” tests in the high normal range for intelligence, did well in school, and for a year or two even pulled her weight on a job. She's strong, though not graceful; she hears most sounds, though the range of pitches she doesn't hear includes most of the range in which women normally speak and sing. People see her as beautiful, smart, “neurotic,” spoiled, and a snob. If you try to imagine being an attractive young woman, with long black hair and a top-heavy figure, who can talk naturally with men but has trouble hearing what most women say...aren't you glad you don't really know what that's like? Nobody meeting her for the first time ever says “brain-damaged.” You have to be able to remember what she was like before scarlet fever to understand that in our family neurological trauma did indeed produce the “normal” child...and "normal"-range abilities did indeed produce the "neurotic," depressed personality.

But then our parents challenged my brother and me. If we bonded by doing, reading, understanding things that were over the heads of my classmates (and he was three years younger), we were still scolded for not doing, reading, and understanding as much as adults already. If we wanted any special treats or pleasures or privileges, we worked for them. Then my brother died, I went off to school, and there was Poor Baby left alone in the empty nest...and anything for which I'd had to work was handed to “the pretty one” on a platter, when she reached the same age, whether she even particularly wanted it or not.

I don't hate “the pretty one.” I even contributed to the shower of prezzies and benefits she never appreciated. Let's just say that “the tough one,” whose early life was much harder than mine, is easier to love. And anyone whose brain damage is more obvious than “the pretty one's” really gives me the willies...and, despite sympathy and good will, and possibly just because I'm an Ear Person, I've never gone beyond finger-spelling in sign language or worked with anyone who was deaf.

Does this sort of thing fascinate you? How typical, or atypical, were your family? If you enjoy this sort of bloggy chat about family relations, you'll like Mixed Feelings. What you'll learn from it is that you're not the only one whose family relations affected you in the way they did; you may be in a majority or a minority, relative to Klagsbrun's sample of respondents, but you're almost certainly normal. It's as good a way as any to relax before bed, pass the time on a train ride, or even start a conversation with someone you'd like to know better.

Francine Klagsbrun is still alive and writing so Mixed Feelings is a Fair Trade Book. If you buy it here, from the $5 per book + $5 per package (two books the size of the copy I have will fit into one package) + $1 per online payment, we'll send $1 to Klagsbrun or a charity of her choice. If you add Married People to the package, for a total of $15 via postal money order or $16 via Paypal, Klagsbrun or her charity will receive $2. 

Morgan Griffith Faces Challenges

From U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA-9); this web site has no foreign policy; members of Congress are required to legislate on foreign policy. Pray for your Congressmen, Gentle Readers...

"
Healthcare and Foreign Affairs
Healthcare Update
Due to its arcane rules, the Senate faces a September 30 deadline for voting on a plan to replace Obamacare that requires a simple majority, not a 60-vote supermajority, for its passage. Current efforts center on the plan put forward chiefly by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA).
The House of Representatives passed a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare months ago, and it was frustrating to see the summer slip by with no movement on this issue by the Senate. If it manages to act by the end of the month, the House will have no options beside yes or no on the Graham-Cassidy plan. This makes it impossible for us to follow normal process and have a conference committee on the differences between the two houses. This is not a good way to legislate.
Challenges Around the Globe
The 72^nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York in September. Among the world leaders who addressed the meeting was President Trump, who gave an important speech outlining how his “America First” policies would guide U.S. relations with other nations.
While much attention was paid to the leaders who participated in the General Assembly, some who weren’t there were instead engaged in activities of deep importance to the United States and its allies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend the General Assembly. Instead, he attended a large-scale military exercise in the western part of his country and in Belarus. The exercise likely involved more troops than Russia publicly claimed, and they practiced with state-of-the-art equipment.
The exercises rightly unnerved Russia’s neighbors along its western border, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, which have long been targets of Russian power and suffered under decades of Soviet domination.
Chinese President Xi Jinping also was not present at the United Nations, as his country’s Communist Party Congress nears. Under his tenure, China has widened its reach around the globe, both economically and militarily.
In the South China Sea, through which an estimated one-third of global shipping travels, China’s expansive territorial claims put it at odds with several other countries, including the United States. With attention focused on other hot spots, China has asserted itself more in this region. Previously, it had built islands on reefs in dispute for military airbases. This year, China has bullied other countries to stop them from engaging in commercial activities such as drilling, in particular Vietnam. This past summer, it reportedly threatened to attack Vietnamese military bases if that country didn’t stop a gas-drilling project. Vietnam complied and ordered the project to stop.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un didn’t appear at the U.N., in keeping with his regime’s rogue character. Despite its isolation, his country poses a growing danger to the United States and allies in the Pacific. North Korea continues testing nuclear devices and missile systems that could deliver nuclear payloads. A nuclear-armed North Korea destabilizes the Korean Peninsula and alters the balance of power in Asia. It could strike the United States and allies such as South Korea and Japan or sell its weaponry to other rogue regimes or terrorist groups.
To increase pressure on North Korea, President Trump issued an executive order on September 21 imposing new sanctions on the country’s trade and financial sectors. By undercutting North Korea’s economy, it may have difficulty funding its nuclear program and have to come to the bargaining table, but China will have to truly participate in the sanctions for this to happen.
The activities described above each challenge the security and prosperity of the United States, although in different ways. North Korea is an avowed enemy of the United States, and the recent developments in its nuclear program are the latest in a series of provocations. The Trump Administration recognizes the gravity of this threat. Other countries need to as well. Trying to “be sweet” and placate the North Koreans hasn’t had a positive effect, so President Trump is right to take a tougher stance.
As for Russia, its military drill along the western border offers an uncomfortable reminder of its Soviet and imperial past. It should be discouraged from acting on any dreams to restore its empire. China, in contrast, is a rising power, but its rise should not be aided by bullying tactics in an area that has great importance to our economy and the economy of the rest of the world.
U.S. diplomats have a lot of work to do, but a lot is at stake.
If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov.
"

Book Review: Preacher's Justice

Title: Preacher's Justice (“The First Mountain Man”)

Author: William W. Johnstone

Date: 2004

Publisher: Kensington

ISBN: 0-7860-1548-9

Length: 272 pages

Quote: “Preacher, who was twenty-seven years old, had been trapping in these mountains since he was fourteen.”

Not especially evangelical or devout, Preacher was called “Art” before he was kidnapped by some “Indians” to whom he preached a sufficiently long and fervent sermon that they decided he was an inspired lunatic and let him go. He has had an adventurous life—there are several volumes in this series.

He's never felt sure enough of his ability to live “in love” to want to settle down, but he has a girlfriend, an enslaved prostitute called Jennie. Horrid though Jennie's life story is, in real history many women's stories were even worse; the 1840s and 1850s were the period when idealization of Pure and Innocent Ladies reached literally sickening levels (tuberculosis was actually fashionable among people who scorned exercise, wholesome food, and “rude health”) while poor and enslaved women, whom nobody believed to be “innocent,” had no rights at all. If the best Johnstone can do for Jennie is to write her off with a good clean murder rather than a slow horrible death from a loathsome disease, which it is, Jennie has been one lucky little victim. Preacher, of course, doesn't see it that way. He feels obliged to be detective, judge, and executioner—and, this being a classic “shoot-'em-up Western novel,” he'll take out a lot of people, all nasty characters who'll never be missed, before page 272.

Racists, rapists, land grabbers, and busybodies get killed. Other baddies get a nice healthy dose of humiliation; Preacher buys a sackful of rusty “washers” to hand over to baddies who want to steal his money, a trick that actually worked, in the 1850s, because relatively few people (or horses) had the energy to carry around sacks of junk metal as well as sacks of gold coins. Johnstone has written novels with higher body counts, but “Western” publishers, and presumably readers, expect levels of violence that would be unacceptable in fiction set in their own century.

The real explorers who trapped and traded in the Rocky Mountains in the 1850s led lives of high adventure all right, though their life-and-death combat was more often against weather, infections, and animals than against other White men. An honest, detailed memoir would be much more interesting than the “shoot-'em-up Western” genre, invented by writers who had never been in the Rockies but had been in a fight somewhere. Perhaps especially valuable for our time, when stupid people sentimentalize about wanting to “protect” animals that eat humans, might be accurate accounts of how our more sensible ancestors dealt with bears and cougars. Nevertheless, among living writers in this genre, Johnstone rates high.

A glance at Amazon shows that "for people who like this kind of book, this is a book they like." "Good series...great read...good adventure...very good book...excellent...very well done...kept me interested all the way...a mighty fine job...hard to believe they wouldn't have a script in Hollywood for the Preacher." Lots of people have read Preacher's Justice and the majority of them have liked it. 

The bad news? It's not a Fair Trade Book; William W. Johnstone has a nephew who's promoting his series, but Preacher's creator is dead.  This web site's minimum price for gently used books is $5 per book plus $5 per package; the best deal we can offer would be a total of $45 for eight Mountain Men novels, which might be competitive with the prices offered by sellers who don't send a percentage of the price to the author if the author is alive. Add $1 to send e-payments to the Paypal address you get by e-mailing salolianigodagewi, or send a U.S. postal money order to Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, at the addresses at the very bottom of the screen.

Book Review: J.B. (Murphy)

Title: J.B. (Murphy, Stormy Petrel of Surgery)

Author: Loyal Davis

Date: 1938

Publisher: Van Rees

ISBN: none

Length: 306 pages plus index

Illustration: portrait of the subject

Quote: “John Murphy...was given no middle name. This omission troubled him...[H]e asked his girl cousins for suggestions...Margaret Grimes...suggested Benjamin.”

Some time after the publication of this book, with J.B. on the front cover, Archibald MacLeish published a more successful verse drama called J.B., based on the biblical book of Job. It's possible that recent readers of Loyal Davis' book may have thought they were getting a verse drama. They're not. This is a biography of a controversial celebrity surgeon who was easily cast as both the best and the worst of the popular stereotype of Irish-Americans.

When J.B. Murphy was born (in 1857) and even when he was a medical student, a few heroic doctors had tried to correct damage to the intestines, but they always failed. Murphy invented a gadget that gave patients some chance of surviving an intestinal operation. It was called a “Murphy button” and was used to bond severed intestinal tissue back together. By 1938 the “Murphy button” had already been surpassed by newer medical technology, but it saved enough lives to make Dr. Murphy's name and fortune.

Loyal Davis (father of Nancy Davis Reagan), who worked with Murphy, traces two dominant themes through Murphy's whole biography: what was likely to be considered “good” by his fellow Catholics, and what was likely to be considered “bad.”

On the good side, Murphy showed a genuine passion for advancing medical knowledge, and if his patients didn't recover he'd jollywell know the reason why. He cured several patients who would undoubtedly have died if any other surgeon of his day had operated on them. So far as was known, he was always faithful to his sweet old Irish-born mother and to her Catholic teachings, and when his reputation was challenged he tried to “kill his enemies with kindness.”

On the bad side, there was no denying his selfish interest in worldly gain and fame. Davis presents Murphy as indisputably “on the make, on the take,” and probably also “hard to shake”--although there seems to be some evidence that the woman Murphy married for her looks and money had chosen and, to some extent, pursued him. (A woman pursuing a man was considered bizarre and comical in the 1930s.) Murphy was constantly accused of self-advertising in what were then considered unethical ways and aggressively pursuing rich celebrity patients. (He seems really to have regretted not being able to operate on President Taft; he did remove a bullet from President Roosevelt.) He was blunt, tactless, overbearing, mean-mouthed, and...is “arrogant” the word for someone who has no living equal in his field of expertise, and knows it?

As a surgeon Murphy seems to have been his generation's counterpart to Ben Carson, only with none of Carson's soothing, self-effacing manner. Davis describes him as habitually humiliating underprepared students, in the classroom and in front of patients, but the students waited for chances to be in his classes just the same. At one point his professional colleagues formally told Murphy that, in spite of their personal dislike and professional jealousy, they couldn't think of anyone else who deserved to be president of their association as much as he did.

His was that generation of shameless White men who called themselves “lords of creation,” affirmed that domineering over the rest of the world was “the White man's burden,” were proud of fighting for the title of “boss bully of the town” when they were young, used “bully” as a term of praise even after they were full-grown, believed in Capitalism and Imperialism and Social Darwinism, and seriously believed they were both meant to build Heaven on Earth and likely to do so. Humility was not a virtue of Murphy's time, and it certainly wasn't one of his own. Apparently Murphy displayed less modesty than Muhammad Ali.

But he did save lives; he taught other doctors how to save lives; and toward the end of his life, Davis tells us, Murphy knew he was dying, suspected he was dying of an infectious disease as yet unidentified by medical science, and was primarily concerned with enabling other doctors to identify and study whatever it was that was killing him. 

Medical science is not usually concerned with its own history and biography, but if you prefer biographies to novels, J.B. (Murphy, Stormy Petrel of Surgery) will probably appeal to you. Apart from a few poetic references (in 1938 everyone seems to have recognized that “Rosaleen,” cited on page one, was to Ireland as “Uncle Sam” was to the United States) Davis' style should be clear and “modern” enough for even young readers, starting from about age ten. (And, yes, although this book is Sunday-school-standard free from sex and violence, it's about surgeons; readers can expect a few healthy gross-outs.) I found it a quick, pleasant read.

What you see above is an Amazon copy of J.B. certified to be fungus-free. What I physically have is the same edition, similarly battered, not fungus-free. Real-life lurkers who are accustomed to coping with the abundant fungi of Scott County, Virginia, may buy the moldy copy for much less. Online customers will get a clean copy from Amazon, and it'll cost them, as of today, $10 per book plus $5 per package and $1 per online payment. (Two books of this size will ship in one $5 package.)