Leveraged Intelligence

I’m Almost Back

Saturday, I will be traveling back to the Bay Area from San Diego.  I sent the item on Fred Schott’s passing sadly today from the road and the next topic tomorrow morning I just sent – with a time delay.  But, it is more difficult to respond to comments than to post at this time.

Starting Sunday, though, I will be making up for lost time, so comment away and I’ll catch up.

Enjoy!!

A Tribute to Fred Schott, Sr. on His Passing

This is the picture that James Schott, Carly’s betrothed, put in their new apartment yesterday of his beloved grandfather, Fred Schott, Sr.  Mr. Schott passed away this morning with his family by his side – including James who traveled the 800 miles to his bedside by car yesterday and James’ twin, Tim, who traveled from Denver.

Fred Sr. was the patriarch of the family I wrote of in an earlier post, Yesterday I Met the Fockers!  I only met Fred once, but I was highly impressed.  Very highly!

Shackman, We Aren’t Alone in Our View of Reading

Of course, it looks like it is nothing new.

Readers Note: This week’s offerings are being tossed in ahead of time, because we are out of town for the week.  However, thieves beware, for my brother-in-law is staying at the house.  And, we have a watchturtle!

New Zealand: The Fiordland!

India is in Monsoon season, the Magpie just got soaked in England – but neither has anything on New Zealand’s Fiordland in terms of overall rain.  Believe it or not, they get seven to nine METERS – for the Americans, 23  to 29 1/2 FEET or 276 to 354 inches – of rain annually!  And these are the results:

Plant growth that is perennially green and THICK.

Water continually running out of every nook and cranny, flowing, cascading, washing out roads.  You can literally just stand and hear the background roar of water.

We stopped the bus on a bridge and the water was rushing below it with such power, the bus continuously rocked back and forth.

The rocks are covered with moss.

… and the best is yet to come.

Milford Sound

Milford Sound is reputed by many to be the most beautiful place in New Zealand.  Mind you, this is like talking about which is Michelangelo’s best sculpture, but Milford Sound takes a back seat to nothing.

The day that we went, it rained all day – surprise – and then cleared up as we got to the sound – which is actually a fiord!  Here are the definitions:

Sound – a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight, wider than a fjord, or it may identify a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land.

Fjord (fiord) – a submergent landform which has occurred due to glacial activity.

Milford Sound is misnamed and was actually created by glacial activity.  But, like they say, you can call me anything you want, just don’t call me late to dinner.  Well, you can call it a sound or a fiord and neither makes it less beautiful.  First, the countless waterfalls:

The glaciers:

And the stunner, the sight everyone comes to see … Mitre Peak!

Rhonda, you said in one comment that you wanted to go there.  Well, let me tell you … it is worth it.

You Can’t Find Insight Like This Everywhere!

This was sent to me yesterday as part of a whole series of comments awaiting moderation and I found that it just had too much insight to not be shared:

Mr. Rajgopaul, now that you are prosperous on the seat, how does it accomplish you seek when group misunderstand you as objective and dead, eh?

Verity is, you and I are a bit ornery, but that doesn’t norm we don’t fixture about people. Quite to the unfavourable, what you did with your soul in the hospital was command mouth, as Ellen Weber has voiced to so clearly. Nutriment often allows communicating script that conveys solon interpersonally than a lancelike examination of facts. Quite simply, if it doesn’t activity at triplex levels, it isn’t singular. You were extending sustain in a way that hopeless categorisation never could. You put your christian get, I actually believe this is a quite colourful man who does indeed record pointing to himself. What a disgrace! I consider I could bang learned a extraordinary aggregation from him.

Now, we demand to get Trousers over here. I’ve got both majuscule jokes about the "Pants pool" that we can use…

Now, how can a person argue with that?!

Books

This is my addition – late this time – to the Loose Blogger Consortium Friday offering.  Sorry gang.  I didn’t forget, I ran myself out of time.

But, here it is, late rather than never.  Why?  Because I really do treasure what I share with you, the reader, and with my fellow bloggers in this group.  They are listed on the left with clickable links and I encourage you to see what they have to say on Books, a topic brought to us by gaelikaa.

My original idea was to take photographs of my bookshelves, some leisure reading, some technical in my office, but decided instead that this post should be more book-like itself, lean, descriptive narrative unadorned.

This is a generation who reads, but I fear they may lose the joy of book reading, just as our generation lost the joy of sitting around the radio as a family, listening to a mystery on the radio, listening to a mesmerizing voice, images forming in your head.  No two had the same experience, for what isn’t explicitly supplied must be supplied by the imagination, by the receiving party.  The trick is for the presenter to be so descriptive in what is supplied that filling in, adding to, is involuntary.  Television, unfortunately, does that filling in for you, the viewer becoming more passive, less actively engaged.

Now, why am I talking about the radio suddenly when this is a post about books?  Because the analogy is apt.  In our migration to on-line reading and to social media and to television, we are losing those same types of engagement that we lost with the passing of the great radio dramas.  That, quite honestly, is the joy I have in seeing younger people caught up in the Harry Potter series; a re-engagement of the imagination, creation of a shared sub-culture entered through the pages of a book first, on the screen second.

The strongest argument I can make for the joy and magic of book reading is this: characters brought from a book story to movies or television virtually never meet the standards or the reality of that character who formed in my mind while reading.  THAT is why I read for pleasure.

The Murphys: Worthy Additions to Our Heroes List

Today’s young people, if they know of Audie Murphy at all, probably remember him as a movie star, some guy who played soldiers or cowboys.  Well, those of us older know of course that he was much more than that.  Audie Murphy was the most decorated soldier of World War II.

Look at this list of decorations.  Of course, in America, the Medal of Honor is the highest and I want to let the official citation that went with it speak for itself:

Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company B 15th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division.

Place and date: Near Holtzwihr France, January 26, 1945.

Entered service at: Dallas, Texas.

Citation: Second Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by six tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to a prepared position in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, one of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire, which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from three sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad that was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued his single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way back to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack, which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy’s indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy’s objective.

List of Decorations for Audie Murphy.

Additionally, Murphy was awarded:

• |  the Combat Infantry Badge,
• Marksman Badge with Rifle Bar,
• Expert Badge with Bayonet Bar

His wife was quite the quiet heroine in her own right.  Selfless, committed, dedicated, please read her story below:

The Story of Pamela Murphy: A Great Lady Dies

They don’t make very many like these people.  To love their effort, their willingness to sacrifice is not to love war.  Indeed, Murphy spoke out against the Vietnam war.  There are times, though, when evil does rear its ugly head and heroes such as these are called upon.

America the Free

This morning, I went to put gas in my car at our local Chevron station.  For years, they have had free pressurized air for the tires and free water for your radiator.  This station has always been packed.

Today, I noticed a couple of changes and just had to take a picture of them:

Notice that it still has Free Air and Water.  Free, that is, unless you want to pump it into your tires!  That costs $1.00 now – but you apparently can still breath the air for free.  Oh, and the water for the radiator is out of order, even if you have a dollar.

I was the only one in the station.  I think that is the first time.  Probably just a coincidence.

Potatoes and Beans …

This is the Friday offering for the Bloggers Consortium, members with clickable links on the left.  This topic was brought to us by the Magpie himself.

Anyway, on with my story.  When given a topic like this, I immediately thought of the navy bean soup we used to eat as kids, both at home and at school.  Navy beans and ham hocks tasted great and they fit a less than extravagant budget.  You could eat it summer or winter.

Little did I know that I was eating such an American tradition.  When we visited DC around 1990, one of the things we did was stop in for some Senate Bean Soup!  So, for the first time on this blog, a recipe:

Senate Bean Soup

Bean soup is on the menu in the Senate’s restaurant every day. There are several stories about the origin of that mandate, but none has been corroborated. 

According to one story, the Senate’s bean soup tradition began early in the 20th-century at the request of Senator Fred Dubois of Idaho.  Another story attributes the request to Senator Knute Nelson of Minnesota, who expressed his fondness for the soup in 1903.

The recipe attributed to Dubois includes mashed potatoes and makes a 5-gallon batch.  It also saves me needing to write about beans AND potatoes, don’tcha know!  The recipe served in the Senate today does not include mashed potatoes, but does include a braised onion.  Both Senate recipes are below.

The Famous Senate Restaurant Bean Soup Recipe

2 pounds dried navy beans

four quarts hot water

1 1/2 pounds smoked ham hocks

1 onion, chopped

2 tablespoons butter

salt and pepper to taste

Wash the navy beans and run hot water through them until they are slightly whitened. Place beans into pot with hot water. Add ham hocks and simmer approximately three hours in a covered pot, stirring occasionally. Remove ham hocks and set aside to cool. Dice meat and return to soup. Lightly brown the onion in butter. Add to soup. Before serving, bring to a boil and season with salt and pepper. Serves 8.

Bean Soup Recipe (for five gallons)

3 pounds dried navy beans

2 pounds of ham and a ham bone

1 quart mashed potatoes

5 onions, chopped

2 stalks of celery, chopped

four cloves garlic, chopped

half a bunch of parsley, chopped

Clean the beans, then cook them dry.  Add ham, bone and water and bring to a boil.  Add potatoes and mix thoroughly.  Add chopped vegetables and bring to a boil.  Simmer for one hour before serving.

Trust me, either recipe works a whole lot better than the Senate does!  It’s a great choice, though, for they never seem to run out of pork …

Macho

According to Wikipedia:

Macho is a word of Spanish and Portuguese origin which describes a person or behavior that is overtly masculine. The attitude, called machismo, ranges from a personal sense of virility to a more extreme male chauvinism.

The Spanish/Portuguese word macho derives from Latin masculus, which has the same root as the words masculine and male, with the same meaning.

After all of our fun-loving strutting through Abilene and its history, it is time for a little perspective.  People look romantically at the Wild West and it fed stories to Hollywood for years.  Abilene was one of the prime examples, because cowboys would ride those trails in heat and dust and beans and no women for miles … and miles … and miles.  All of us from out in the area who have driven from Abilene to Houston or thereabouts can tell you that driving through Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas takes FOREVER!  And the scenery does not change through a whole lot of it.  Five million head of cattle were driven on that trail and that had to be one trying trip!

Well, when our good ol’ boys got to Abilene, they were ready for a change of scenery at every level.  That also just happened to be where they were paid when the cattle were delivered.  So, Abilene had stockyards, the railroad, 20 saloons (I think about right) and whorehouses!  These boys were getting laid and drinking liquor that would blind you.  People were stealing their money through gambling and … well, just stealing it if they got a chance.  Made a lot of people really mad!  That’s why Tom Smith wanted no guns in town, because they also thought it pretty cool to take out frustration by shooting things and each other up a bit!  That’s why Wild Bill was such a legend – because it takes one to know one and in many ways he was King of that way of life.

Oh, it was a macho world alright.  Here is a story explaining the ultimate extension of macho:

A Cowboy was on his ranch, hot, thirsty, irritated.  He mentioned to God that he could sure use a break!  Having one of those days where He wanted to get involved, God said, “Hey, I’ll give you anything you want.  Pick, Cowboy, but recognize that whatever I give you, I’ll give your neighbor twice as much!”

Well, the Cowboy thought it over for a bit and said … “Take one of my eyes!”

And that is the trail macho tends to end up following!