March 10, 2025

Author: one man

One man who's got something to say about that.
History / Monday Map

Scotland 1865 – Monday Map

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June 8 1865, 150 years ago today, John Grant purchased Glenfarclas in Ballindalloch, Scotland

Monday Map celebrates 150 years of excellence and dedication to craft with this rendering of Scotland created that same fateful year.

Scotland 1865 map

Hearty people of a hearty land

Scotland had entered into the United Kingdom 1707 but retained its identity when a young Queen Victoria and Prince Albert fell in love with it on their first visit in 1842.

By 1865 all things Scottish were extremely popular in London and by 1875 Scotch whisky had replaced cognac as the Englishman’s aperitif of choice.

Glenfarclas remains an independent, family owned business, where the 5th and 6th generation continue an unmatched legacy of quality and tradition.

 

Humor

A Rude Awakening

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She looked down and turned my hand this way and that before dropping it. “You’re old.” she said factually.

Swiftly I took hold of her firm, flawless arm, before softening my grip and sliding my hand over her ridiculously smooth shoulder, past the skimpy strap of her dress and behind her slender neck, spreading my fingers up into her long, heavy hair to clutch the back of her head in one sudden motion.

She trembled in response.

“And you’re… not.” I said, before pushing her head toward me.

Slowly inhaling the scent of her face, I pressed my mouth onto hers and kissed her, this way and that, for a very long time, as I shifted my weight onto the cushioned window box where she reclined, settling inside her long, slender arms and impossibly long legs, before pulling the last adhesion of my lips from hers.

“I’ve always wanted to do that.” I said.

She looked down between us and then to the side, as she stirred in peevish reply. “I guess you couldn’t see yourself dating the dizzy Rock chick.”

“You’re not a dizzy Rock chick!” I said, surprised at the sudden display of insecurity.

She looked up and behind me, calling out. “I’m NOT a dizzy Rock chick.” to her flatmate, who I didn’t even know was there. But the tow-headed blonde never turned our way from her sofa seat.

“She doesn’t even know we’re here!” she said. “She’s watching — “[some JLo sort of celeb name I cannot remember, followed with the full name, said in response to my blank look.]

I pretended to know who it is. “I’m old, I don’t use compressed names like. I would be what? Toe Fill? Spoon Full?”

She snorted a short chuckle and looked down between us again. And then raised her eyes into the silent intensity of my own.

After a long, still moment I said, “I never thought I’d stand a chance.”

With a mix of feeling flattered and disturbed by the implications of all that was now happening, she dropped her gaze and squirmed a bit, as I waited for her to look at me again.

Our eyes met. But before she could speak, the shrieking alarm on my iPhone went off and I woke up with a start, and an annoyed cat on either side of me.

Neither were as annoyed as I, however. And crestfallen to be sure.

But at least I got to plant a serious kiss on the mile-wide mouth of one Liv Tyler, circa 2001.

I’ve always wanted to do that.

 

………………….~:~

 

Liv+Tyler+01

Arts and Culture / News and Commentary

Us & Them – America’s cultural divide explored – Review

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Investigative commentator Trey Kay explores controversial issues in Us & Them.

A new series on iTunes, Us & Them podcasts delve into America’s cultural divide to find common ground that may help bridge the gaps perceived by Americans along both sides of even the most impassioned ideological argument.

Also available at National Public Radio

A Peabody Award winning radio journalist, Trey Kay has many years of experience interviewing people of all walks of life for various programs on NPR and New York Public Radio. For his own podcasts produced for West Virginia Public Radio, he has focused his keen ear upon the opinions and experiences of those whose core beliefs have been affected by encounters with other people different from themselves.

In some cases they began in a hostile stance against members of their own communities, because of contrary points of view regarding issues such as gay marriage and progressive trends in public school curriculums and textbooks. But these same individuals came to be more tolerant and even friendly with others they first encountered as dogmatic enemies, once they came to know them as people.

“…Trey Kay’s pleasant manner and affable speaking voice has a calming effect, but his concern for his topic comes through clearly, as does his enthusiastic curiosity about the lives and outlook of other people, so that his monologs and interviews never acquire that typical NPR sedated talking head tone. And never does he seem to ask a question and be moving on the next while his recorder takes in their response. He listens and reacts, remaining very much in the moment, which is engaging for his audience, and those he is questioning….”

Read the Full Review

Film

Mr. Holmes Returns

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Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes

The Living Treasure of English Actors Portrays the Living Legend of English Detectives

July 2015 – Mr. Holmes comes to the cinema screen

Was “chuffed” indeed to learn that Ian McKellen was to portray an “aging Sherlock Holmes.” But in 1947???

Sherlock Holmes would have been 93 at minimum. Seems improbable that a man of his years and unhealthy lifestyle would even be alive in 1947, let alone functioning in society as the trailer suggests – not to mention dressing in Victorian garb. Ridiculous is more like it. A pity they did not set it in the ’20s or ’30s, which would have actually made sense.

Still, I will see it and probably love it. At worse it is sure to far surpass the insufferable comic book action movie rubbish that were the Downy Jr. films.

Monday Map / Science and Nature

Smallpox – Monday Map

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In May, 1796 an English country doctor, Edward Jenner, unveiled the smallpox vaccine, which provides immunity from the dreaded disease that caused immeasurable suffering for over a thousand years.

Various forms of inoculation had existed for centuries, which were crude and risked full-blown infection. But the vaccine, the very first vaccine of its kind, opened the door the end of many horrible diseases thereafter.

Sadly, many local populations choose to use the older methods, failing to accept the modern medicine that could saved millions more from suffering a death. As this Monday map shows, most of the world did not eradicate smallpox from their populations until well into the twentieth century.

smallpox Monday Map onemanz.com

 Map: http://ourworldindata.org/data/health/eradication-of-diseases/

It is a good thing the baseless anti-vaccine hysteria sweeping across America didn’t take hold. Otherwise smallpox might well be sweeping across America along with many other avoidable disease.

Uncategorized

Subway Pains

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Why don’t they just officially change the name to subway pains?

“The pains were so slow tonight!” “How long did you have to wait for your pain?” “I had to take 4 pains to get home!”

Ahhhh, how could I forget the Sunday Night Follies in the subway system? Watching it say the train is coming in 2 minutes, for 8 minutes and saying 1 minute, then disappearing off the board and never showing up. Delightful.

Perhaps that was a ghost pain, for the part of my life amputated and thrown away while waiting for pains.

Brooklyn / Guitar

Good to Know I’m Doing Something Right

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While practicing in Prospect Park, a young mother left her spot on the Long Meadow and wheeled the pram containing her sleeping baby toward home.

I almost moved to another location when they arrived, and I had tried to play quietly, assuming they seemed a good ways off.

When she reached the paved walkway, she stopped at my bench and set what looked like a playing card next to me, saying it was just a note she wanted to leave with me. On the reverse were spaced lines, filled with handwriting that said:

“Thank you for playing the guitar so beautifully. It was an honor to listen to & I’m so happy I ended up in this very spot in the park so that your music could fill my ears.”

And she signed it with a first name and a little heart. Ah Spring….!

Propsect Park Long Meadow

Same spot, a few days earlier. This is my office, whenever weather permits.

Uncategorized

Ahhhhhh.

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Ahhhh. Stripped off the lightest of my flannel sheets and replaced them with freshly laundered cotton sheets.

Windows open all day.

And now the sweet scent of ozone sinking through the troposphere from the impending spring thunderstorm provokes yet another ahhhhhh. Spring is in the air and great sleeping weather awaits.

Uncategorized

Four Faces in the Memory of Kent State

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Monday Map – May 4th Marks the 45th Anniversary of the Kent State Shootings

When Ohio National Guardsman fired live ammunition at students protesting the war in Cambodia, 13 fell in the 13 second volley, 4 of them died.

Kent State shooting map

The action at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 forever changed how law enforcement and military authorities of the United States approach and deal with public protests, hostile mobs, and riots. While the social revolution of the Viet Nam era was cresting, in the long run, the horrific mistakes of that day led to a lasting revolution in non-lethal crowd control, preventing many more fatalities in the years to come, all the way down to the sad events in Baltimore in recent days.

 

Monday Map / Science and Nature

Mass Extinction in the Capitanian Age – Monday Map

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Major Extinction Event Previous Missed By Science

According to a paper published in the Geological Society of America Bulletin

Capitanian
Earth During Capitanian Age – photo: University of Chicago

Another Near Miss

In the Svalbard archipelago, far to the north of Scandinavia is the island of Spitzbergen. There scientists have discovered what appears to be strong evidence of sixth major extinction on earth, which had been left out of the history of our home planet. Similar mass extinctions have killed off over 90% of all life on Earth.

According to an article a depletion of oxygen in the seas wiped out brachiopods, marine animals whose shell resembles the logo of Shell Oil, during the Capitanian Age of the Permian period, about 260 million years ago, some 30 million years before the first dinosaur. This was likely do to extreme volcanic activity.

Virtually no soft tissue from plants and animals can be detected from so long ago, so scientists rely on hard shells of marine life, since bones had yet to evolve.

Abstract of the Article

The controversial Capitanian (Middle Permian, 262 Ma) extinction event is only known from equatorial latitudes, and consequently its global extent is poorly resolved. We demonstrate that there were two, severe extinctions amongst brachiopods in northern Boreal latitudes (Spitsbergen) in the Middle to Late Permian, separated by a recovery phase. New age dating of the Spitsbergen strata (belonging to the Kapp Starostin Formation), using strontium isotopes and δ13C trends and comparison with better-dated sections in Greenland, suggests that the first crisis occurred in the Capitanian. This age assignment indicates that this Middle Permian extinction is manifested at higher latitudes. Redox proxies (pyrite framboids and trace metals) show that the Boreal crisis coincided with an intensification of oxygen depletion, implicating anoxia in the extinction scenario. The widespread and near-total loss of carbonates across the Boreal Realm also suggests a role for acidification in the crisis. The recovery interval saw the appearance of new brachiopod and bivalve taxa alongside survivors, and an increased mollusk dominance, resulting in an assemblage reminiscent of younger Mesozoic assemblages. The subsequent end-Permian mass extinction terminated this Late Permian radiation.

Received 7 October 2014.
Revision received 27 January 2015.
Accepted 4 March 2015.

Full text version of the article can be downloaded for free at the GSoA Bulletin website HERE