Category Archives: News

Kyiv

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Until the other day, I thought of Kyiv as merely an alternate transliteration of the capital of Ukraine, but I am willing to revise my opinion. Apparently the Ukrainians insist that it is the correct one, as opposed to the Russian-inspired Kiev, and as the bombs fall on that city, it only seems fair to write it Kyiv.

“This rush to Ukrainianize spellings is not only a response to Kyiv’s sudden newsworthiness,” says an article posted by the Atlantic Council in 2019. “It represents the latest chapter in a long-running campaign to secure recognition for the Ukrainian-language versions of Ukrainian place names, and is part of a much broader post-Soviet drive to assert an independent Ukrainian identity.”

As I recall, the Ukrainians also insisted that “the” be expunged from the nation’s name in English 30 years ago, as an affront to their nationhood. Most English-language publications went along with that. That’s OK, but it still rings a little funny without the “the.” That’s only because I grew up in the days of the Ukrainian SSR and old language habits die hard.

Further down the Atlantic Council article is this useful nugget about the political history of the region:

“For hundreds of years, successive Russian leaders sought to absorb Ukraine into their country’s national heartlands, exploiting the cultural closeness between the two nations to overwhelm and incorporate the historically Ukrainian lands to the south.”

Old Soviet apparatchik he may be, but clearly Mr. Putin’s a traditionalist when it comes to classic Russian expansionism.

ToreOre Chicken & Joy

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“Rain in the evening will transition to a wintry mix overnight,” the weather savants say. It’s already pretty wet out there already, more of a late March rain than mid-February. But not to worry: it will devolve into snow and ice by tomorrow.

I’ve read a number of PJ O’Rourke books over the years, as well as other writings of his, such as the highly amusing (unless you’re a pearl-clutcher) “Foreigners Around the World.” I even remember recommending Parliament of Whores to an Australian friend of mine to help him understand American politics. RIP, Mr. O’Rourke. You were a humorist who was actually funny. No mean feat.

We had some Korean-style chicken not long ago, acquired in a bright yellow box that says it includes joy, too.
toreore

ToreOre is a brand of Korean fast-food chicken, available in metro Chicago at the small mall attached to Super H Mart in Niles, a suburb that functions as the region’s Koreatown these days.

“Thanks to patented mixed-grains crust and fryers bubbling with 100% vegetable oil, the finished product is trans fat–free and nearly greaseless, but far from tasteless,” Time Out Chicago notes about ToreOre.

I agree. We got one of the spiciest selections this time around, and may tone it down a notch next time. But it made for a satisfying meal all the same.

In South Korea, the brand is much bigger than a mere suburban outpost. Nonghyup Moguchon is the food-processing arm of South Korea’s state-run National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (Nonghyup), and oversaw the rapid growth of ToreOre beginning in the early 2000s.

“ToreOre, Nonghyup Moguchon’s main restaurant franchise business, opened the first outlet in 2003 and had grown exponentially with the number of outlets reaching 1,000 in just five years,” Korean outlet Pulse News reported in 2018. “But it was forced to reduce the number of its restaurants to 700 amid intensifying competition in the country’s fried chicken business and has remained at a standstill for several years.”

Just the 2nd Sunday in February for Me

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Shucks, I forgot to miss the Super Bowl on purpose. I just forgot about it, period. Outside at dusk on Sunday I caught a nice view of the near-full moon over bare trees, though.
Moon over Schaumburg

Pleasant to see, not so pleasant to stand around outside to see it. But the days are getting longer, the very first harbinger of spring. Otherwise, no hint of that season yet. We’re in winter stasis.

Am I right in thinking that this year’s Super Bowl is later than usual? I couldn’t let a question like that go unanswered, not when the uber-almanac that is the Internet is available.

This year is in fact the latest ever, and a major jump further into the new year from last year’s February 7. In fact, any game in February is historically late. Back in the early days of the contest, mid-January was more likely, and January was the norm for the 20th-century games. The earliest the Super Bowl has ever been was January 9, 1977.

According to this handy table from ESPN, the first February Super Bowl was only in 2002, when it was on the 3rd.

That season the league’s schedule was pushed back a week by the September 11, 2001 attacks. Wiki puts it this way: “Rescheduling Super Bowl XXXVI from January 27 to February 3 [2002] proved extraordinarily difficult. In addition to rescheduling the game itself, all related events and activities had to be accommodated.

“This marked the first time in NFL history that the Super Bowl was played in February; all subsequent Super Bowls (excluding Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003) after that have been played in February.”

The games from 2004 to 2021 were played on the first Sunday in February, after which the NFL expanded its season from 16 to 17 regular season games. So this year’s became the first to be played on the second Sunday of the month, which looks to be the schedule for the foreseeable future.

Nice to know, I guess. Maybe someday it’ll drift into early spring. I don’t think I’ll be watching, whatever day it is.

Spouting Off Thursday

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Compare and contrast, as my English teachers used to say.

Dusk on February 1.

Dusk on February 2.

For comparison, about the same framing — the view from my back door — but a whole lot of contrast. We caught the edge of the aforementioned winter storm on Wednesday morning. Not a huge amount of snow, just enough to be the usual pain in the ass.

Speaking of which, wankers are on the loose. They always are. Taken at a NW suburban gas station recently. No doubt posted by a true believer, unwittingly on behalf of the listed grifters.

One objection to the Covid-19 vaccine I find particularly irksome — one quasi-rational objection, that is, as opposed to the microchip ‘n’ such crackpot ones — is that it was developed too quickly.

True enough, it was developed much more quickly than any vaccine in history. Know what I’d call that? Progress. You’d be mistaken in believing Progress can cure all of mankind’s many ills, but it does a pretty good job in treating a lot of literal ills.

The other day I read about a woman who favored certain famous quack treatments for a relative dying of Covid-19, and who pestered his no doubt overburdened health care workers about it. One commentator on the situation said that the woman had attended the Dunning-Kruger School of Advanced Medicine.

Next, something a little lighter. Some time ago I was watching a video of “Puff the Magic Dragon,” sung in by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1986. At 2:53, the camera points toward a fellow in the audience, the one with dark curly hair — and instantly I recognized him.

That’s Dave, an old friend of mine I met in in the mid-80s Nashville, where he was from. Later we hung out in Chicago, since he went to graduate school there. These days he lives in Minnesota and teaches art. According to his Facebook page, he’s also a fellow at the Center for Residual Knowledge, Division of Other Things.

Bet I could get a fellowship there.

I didn’t realize the Winter Olympics were starting today until I saw it mentioned online. Upcoming events, according to the site, include figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hockey, snowboarding, curling, bobsled and Uyghur internment, which is special to these Games.

Genocide aside, and that’s a big aside, I can’t muster much interest in the Games, except maybe for luge and skeleton, the events most likely to inspire spectacular accidents.

More Winter

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Kicked off February with a day above freezing. Two observations: The only thing good about February is that January is over. Also, winter hasn’t abated. It’s just lulling us with a temporary moment of ease.

The map below is lifted from the NWS, which of course puts it in the public domain. Looks like we’ll get at least a few inches tomorrow, while the real wintertime action is some distance away. Ann will probably experience some heavy snow. I’m glad that didn’t happen on Sunday. Rather, a bomb cyclone had just hit the Northeast. There’s a term I enjoy: bomb cyclone. But it’s not so much fun to be visited by one.weather map 2/1/22

Train of thought for the day, inspired by a Google doodle. Today’s doodle connects you to an page labeled Lunar Calendar, which is a discussion of that kind of calendar, not the specific Chinese calendar whose new year is always around now in the Georgian calendar. That might give people the idea that all lunar calendars begin around now.

Then again, there are vanishingly few people who care about the subject at all. There aren’t any ardent U.S. calendar factions, such as those pushing for a restoration of the Western lunar calendar, asserting that the pointy-headed solar calendar is just an interloper and Sosigenes of Alexandria was a con man, or communities of Julian calendar users in pockets of Appalachia who quarrel with the federal government every year about when Tax Day is. It’s just a fact that most people’s entire concern with the calendar is what day is it now, and how far in the future is this planned event?

Then again again, I don’t know much myself about the Chinese lunar calendar, except that it’s a lunar calendar, it’s Chinese, and new year comes around the beginning of February. And that each year has one of five elements and 12 animals, making for a cycle of 60 years, though that’s actually an aspect of Chinese astrology, which I hold in exactly the same regard as any other astrology.

What calendar knowledge I have is fairly Gregorian and Julian, and some about liturgical calendars, and a bit about the Jewish and Muslim calendars. So maybe I should learn myself some Chinese calendar facts. The remarkable thing is how easy that would be to do in our time, sitting right here at my desk.

Which can easily become a rabbit hole. When I was reading about calendars today, I found a page about Lunar Calendar and Standard Time, which as far as I can tell was made up by some Swedes because they perceived a lack of standard units of time to be used on the Moon.

Tuesday Humor

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Up to balmy double-digit Fahrenheit numbers this afternoon, barely, as a brilliant sun reminded me that in January a sunny day usually means it’s cold as Swedish hell.

I didn’t know Dave Barry was still doing his annual humor piece, or even that he was still alive, but so he is on both counts. Found that out today.

In case the Washington Post is behind a paywall, here’s an essential nugget from Barry:

At this point these are the known facts about the pandemic in America:

Many Americans have been vaccinated but continue to act as though they have not.

Many other Americans have not been vaccinated but act as though they have.

Next, a joke that’s evidently begin kicking around a while. I spotted it this morning. I’ve put it, as they used to say in school, in my own words.

Just before he was appointed chancellor, Hitler — always with an interest in the occult — visited a fortune teller and asked her a number of questions, including what day he would die.

The fortune teller told him that he would die on a Jewish holiday.

“How do you know that?” an outraged Hitler demanded.

“Any day you die will be a Jewish holiday.”

Things in the Mail

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Got a circular in the mail recently — another bit of paper, in this supposed digital age — advertising live shows at a metro Chicago theater I’ve been to exactly once, maybe five or six years ago. The theater has never forgotten that, on the off chance that I’d be willing to put in the miles (and it’s quite a few) to see another show there.

Topmost act on the ad? Grand Funk Railroad. It’s a nostalgia-oriented theater, and that name does take me back to adolescent days, or rather nights, of listening to my cheap bedside radio.

The band itself doesn’t have a lot of nostalgia value for me, though. They were fine. Had a few hits. Such as a decent version of “The Loco-Motion,” of all things. They were part of the astonishing variety that was commercial radio in the 1970s, which wasn’t that astonishing until the radio business decided to silo itself in unimaginative ways in later decades.

I was curious enough to look at the band web site, learning the following (all caps sic):

“Grand Funk Railroad is extremely excited to be touring in 2022 marking a 53 year milestone. After playing to millions of fans on the band’s tours from 1996 to 2021, Grand Funk’s 2022 SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL TOUR will continue to reach both new and long-time fans.”

I didn’t know they were originally from Flint, Michigan. Learn something every day. Forget just as much every day as well, probably.

I checked the ticket prices at the theater web site. For seats far away from the stage, $60. Most seats are north of $100, and if you want a seat in the loge right or left, that will run you at least $248. This doesn’t encourage me to see Grand Funk Railroad.

Also in the mail lately.

My name, unusual as it is, is gender ambiguous. I’ve been getting things addressed to Miss and Ms (and maybe Mrs, not sure) for as long as I’ve been getting circulars and other solicitations. That and, of course, a variety of misspellings, including of my last name, which is perfectly phonetic.

Our gas bills, which come all too regularly in the mail, offer up data on the price of natural gas. This isn’t good.

December 2020: 29 cents/therm. December 2021: 68 cents/therm. Good thing the most recent December was warmer than a year earlier, but I’m afraid January isn’t turning out that way.

I had to refresh my memory that a therm = 100,000 Btu. I’ve always liked that name, the British thermal unit. A Btu is the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of liquid water by 1 degree Fahrenheit at the temperature that water has its greatest density (at about 39 degrees Fahrenheit). If that’s not a legacy of Victorian scientists, I don’t know what is. Sure enough, it is.

I’d read that natural prices were on the rise, and sure enough, there it is in my bill. “What’s Up with Natural Gas Prices?” this American Petroleum Institute article asks, as if Andy Rooney were asking. The short answer: the market fluctuates, and be glad you aren’t in Europe, where prices are astronomical, rather than merely steep.

50 Riel, Cambodia

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Text from a recent fortune cookie: What does the future hodl?

I can overlook the typo. We’ve all done those. But is it right for fortune cookies to ask questions, rather than offer fortune-cookie wisdom?

Besides, the answer to that particular question is simple enough: death. Sooner or later, probably one at a time for all of us humans, but possibly all going together when we go, every Hottentot and every Eskimo, though I suppose that should be revised to Khoikhoi and Inuit and Yupik.

I heard about Dwayne Hickman this morning, and my reaction was, he was still alive? The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis had its charms, and the episodes that I’ve seen tended to be funny. As for Bob Saget, my reaction was, sorry to hear about a 65-year-old passing suddenly, but the episodes I’ve seen of Full House were not funny. What happened to sitcoms in the ’80s anyway?

The other day, I hauled out my envelope of cheap banknotes for a look, as I sometimes do. We might be on the way to excising banknotes from our lives in this country — a great mistake, if so — but I take some comfort in thinking that they will linger quite a while longer in parts of the world not so hep on digital infrastructure.

A nice-looking note, if a little orange.50 riel, Cambodia

50 riel, Cambodia

Cambodia, 2002. 50 riel. Still valid currency, with this note worth about 1.25 U.S. cents these days.

Here’s info from wiki to make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck: “There have been two distinct riel, the first issued between 1953 and May 1975. Between 1975 and 1980, the country had no monetary system.”

On the note’s obverse is Banteay Srei, a 10th-century Cambodian temple and relic of the Khmer Empire. The reverse has a dam on it, likely supposed to be a symbol of modern progress.

Looking into the history of the temple, I came across an oddity.

“It was 1923 when [Andre] Malraux, then 22, arrived in Cambodia with his wife Clara,” journalist Poppy McPherson writes in a publication called The Diplomat. “Newly broke Parisian intellectuals, they had a scheme to steal statues from the Angkor temples to sell in the West. It failed, and they were both arrested in December of that year. The legal wrangle that ensued, ending in a one-year suspended sentence for Malraux and nothing for his wife, meant he spent more than a year stuck in Phnom Penh and, later, Saigon.”

First Thursday of the Year Musings

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Little wind today, which made the outdoors marginally better to experience. But not much. Tonight will be really cold, an illustration of the superiority of the Fahrenheit scale for everyday use, with 0 degrees being really cold and 100 degrees really hot.

I can’t remember exactly when I read it, but years ago there was an item in Mad magazine lampooning the midcentury notion — the quaint notion, as it turned out — that Americans were going to have a surfeit of leisure time in the future, including a vast expansion of the number of holidays. Millard Fillmore’s birthday was a suggested holiday.

Well, that’s tomorrow, and I have to work. That idea about leisure time didn’t pan out anyway. But I will acknowledge the 13th president’s birthday, because why not. Besides, I paid my respects to President Fillmore in person recently.

Today’s also a good day to acknowledge the expansion, ever so slow, of the public domain, eking out growth despite the rapacious efforts of certain media oligopolists whose mascot is a rodent. Works published in 1926 are now in the public domain.

I’m happy to report that The Sun Also Rises is one of those works, to cite one of the better-known novels of 1926. I could have quoted it previously, and in fact I have, relying on notions of fair use. Now all the words are freely available, no questions asked.

“Here’s a taxidermist’s,” Bill said. “Want to buy anything? Nice stuffed dog?”

“Come on,” I said. “You’re pie-eyed.”

“Pretty nice stuffed dogs,” Bill said. “Certainly brighten up your flat.”

“Come on.”

“Just one stuffed dog. I can take ’em or leave ’em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog.”

“Come on.”

“Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog.”

“We’ll get one on the way back.”

“All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault.”

Speaking of life between the wars…

If that song doesn’t make you smile, what will?

Holidays

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Christmas and New Year’s Day came and went pleasantly, a pause in paying attention to the rest of the world except maybe for weather reports. And I did hear that Betty White died, not an hour after I saw her face on a magazine in a drug store rack, noting her upcoming 100th birthday. RIP, Betty.

A bit of Christmas morning. A few hours later, a zoom with other family members in Texas.

Christmas dinner was nearly the same, in foodstuff prepared for the table, as Thanksgiving, except no beans and instead a large salad. Toward the New Year, Yuriko prepared osechi ryori, as every year. Homemade dishes need not be as elaborate as in this article, but they are put in a three-tiered box, and ours are just as delicious as any prepared by a store.

Mostly pleasant December weather gave way at the end of the month to snow and then heavy snow for New Year’s Day, but nothing blizzard-like. Nothing to interrupt traffic for long, though I expect not that many people were out on Saturday or Sunday anyway. We didn’t go anywhere either, but we did shovel, since today brought a return to workweeks.