"Terra Incognita" by Ruth Downie

(cover image from Amazon.com)

Terra Incognita (2008, also published as Ruso and the Demented Doctor) by Ruth Downie is the sequel to Medicus, her first book about Roman doctor, and unintentional detective, Gaius Petreius Ruso and his slave/girlfriend, Tilla.

This time, Ruso and Tilla have traveled with the Legion to Britannia's northern border, where Tilla was born and her tribe still lives in varying degrees of accommodation to the Roman invaders. Rebellion is just under the surface, especially with the recent appearance of the Stag Man, apparently sent by the British gods.

Now, a soldier has been killed - decapitated - and Tilla's former boyfriend is accused of the crime, while the previous doctor at the fort, locked up as a madman, claims to have committed the murder, himself.

As usual, Ruso is just trying to get by - trying to do his job while keeping his superiors happy, and his girlfriend, too. But for Tilla, this is all tied up with her family's murder and her own enslavement and rape, not to mention her conflicted feelings about the Romans in general.

Like the first book, this one is a lot of fun. Ruso and Tilla are both appealing characters, plus there are plenty of others who just seem very... human. In an afterward, Downie admits that we don't know much about this time and this land. This is just fiction, and probably not particularly realistic fiction, at that.

But that's OK with me. I'm not a big fan of historical fiction, nor do I usually care much about the mystery in mysteries. All I want is an entertaining story with appealing characters, and this certainly fits the bill.

Terra Incognita is very similar to Medicus, so if you liked that book, you'll probably enjoy this one, too. You don't necessarily have to read these in order, but since the relationship between Ruso and Tilla progresses, that wouldn't be a bad idea.

Both are sympathetic characters, but they're very different people from very different backgrounds. So there's plenty of misunderstanding between them, with makes their romance (for it is a romance) rather rocky,... and humorous. The mystery just provides the background to that.

This sort of thing always appeals to me, but not to everyone, I know. Terra Incognita is just light-weight entertainment, but if that's what you want, you could certainly do worse. I'll be continuing with the series, myself.

___
PS. See this page for more book reviews.

Anti-suffragette cartoons

(all images from The Week, except as noted)

My brother sent me this link to "12 cruel anti-suffragette cartoons," and 93 years after women won the right to vote, I'm struck by how much has changed,... and how little.

You see, I'm still still seeing this kind of thing, though the details might be different. Take this cartoon:

Right. If we grant equal rights to other people, that means losing those rights ourselves, huh? Now that women can vote, we men can't?

Obviously, that's ridiculous, but I've actually heard right-wingers claim that allowing homosexuals to marry will mean the end of marriage for heterosexuals. That didn't make any sense a century ago, and it still doesn't. So why are we still hearing it?

Here are some other examples:

Maybe you don't think that's insulting? Well, try this:

Ooh, ankles! Can you see the expression on the faces of those men? I think I'm insulted by that one. But it gets worse. I found this cartoon at another website:

(History of Feminism)

Yeah, only ugly women want equal rights, huh? But I frequently hear similar comments today from those loony 'men's rights' advocates. If a woman dares to speak up, you can bet you'll hear negative comments about her appearance (which doesn't, unfortunately, stop the threats of rape, either).

Here's another which could be taken directly from modern misogynists:

(History of Feminism)

Why would women even want to vote? Well, clearly it's just to tear down men, right? Ask any 'men's rights' advocate today and he'll tell you the same thing.

There are lots more of these. A common theme is that families will suffer:

(BuzzFeed)

"America When Femininized"? That sounds like Rush Limbaugh! And it's the "suffragist-feminist ideal family life" to abandon their families? Oh, we poor, poor males who have to take up the slack...

This might be the worst of these, though:

If you can't read that, it says:

For a Suffragette.

The Ducking — Stool and a nice deep pool,

Were our fore-fathers plan for a scold;

And could I have my way, each Suffragette to-day,

Should "take the chair" and find the water cold.

What kind of person would think that's appropriate? Seriously, how sick would you have to be?

But I hear the same kinds of attacks on feminists even today. The style might be different - and they're definitely cruder - but the sentiment hasn't changed.

"Moon Over Soho" by Ben Aaronovitch

(cover image from Amazon.com)

Moon Over Soho (2011) by Ben Aaronovitch is the sequel to Midnight Riot, an urban fantasy about a young London cop/apprentice wizard.

I really liked that one, which had appealing characters in a light-weight, often humorous, read, but with serious consequences. And this one follows that pattern, beginning and ending with the most serious, even tragic, consequence of the first book.

Like the first, this book easily held my attention, and I thought it was a lot of fun. But IMHO, it wasn't up to the standards of Midnight Riot.

For some reason, I had trouble keeping the characters straight in Moon Over Soho. It wasn't that I'd set the book down for awhile, either. In mid-book, I just realized that I didn't know exactly who was who. I didn't backtrack, to try to figure it out, because it wasn't that important. I got the gist of it OK. But I still have to consider that a problem.

Also, this book is mostly just Peter Grant, while the first had him working with all sorts of policemen and other weird characters. This wasn't completely different, but there was less of that here. Also - and this, too, is just personal preference, I know - I really don't like super-villains, especially recurring super-villains, which one villain in this book threatens to be.

I did enjoy Moon Over Soho, and I plan to continue with the series. And there are parts of this book I really did like which I won't mention for fear of giving away spoilers (spoilers of the first book, mostly, but still nothing I want to do).

You definitely need to read these in order of publication, so don't start with this one, anyway. If you enjoyed the first book, you'll enjoy the sequel. It's not quite that good, but then, you wouldn't expect it to be, would you? After all, you already know the setting and the basic situation.

But one thing Aaronovitch seems to be doing very well is showing us a changing world. This isn't just a magical situation, but a fluid magical situation. In previous years, it looked like magic was dying. Now, it seems to be growing again.

Peter Grant has a scientific mindset (unusual in a fantasy, wouldn't you say?). He studies magic in a way his predecessors don't seem to have considered. As he learns more about what's going on - learning more about magic, as well as learning more about the changes going on in his world - we learn more about it. And that's intriguing.

It's especially intriguing because we're talking about series fiction here. This really has the potential of keeping the series fresh. At any rate, I'm anxious to see where the story goes next.

____
Note: More book reviews, including others by Ben Aaronovitch, are here.

Ballotproof

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. What do those states have in common, besides seceding from our country in 1861 and having Republican legislatures and governors today? All three are red states turning blue.

We're not seeing voter suppression here in Nebraska, because there's no need for it. We're a solidly red state. Republicans don't need to suppress voting, because they're going to win every election, anyway.

But Barack Obama won North Carolina in 2008, and he won Florida in 2008 and 2012, though it was very close in both years. And believe it or not, Texas isn't far from that, unless Republicans can successfully suppress Hispanic voting (and keep gerrymandering districts to keep the state government overwhelmingly Republican).

Southern states couldn't do this until the five Republicans on the Supreme Court overthrew the Voting Rights Act of 1965, despite the fact that it was renewed by Congress in 2006 on votes of 390 to 33 in the House and 98 to zero in the Senate. (So much for Justice Scalia's concerns about invalidating "democratically adopted legislation," huh?)

Well, Republicans will do anything, apparently, to maintain their political power. They're not doing this in every state - not seriously trying, at least - because they don't need to. But if this works, they will. After all, it's either that or change.

And when you're talking about people who still call the Civil War the 'War of Northern Aggression,' change doesn't come easy.

Looking for the truth, spiritually

Unfortunately, I don't just blog here. Foolishly, I also get into these online discussions elsewhere. Yeah, it's the old problem of someone, somewhere on the Internet, being wrong. :)

OK, I enjoy an intelligent debate. I like to find intelligent people who disagree with me, because I want my beliefs to be true. So I want to hear what other people have to say. I think I have good reasons for my beliefs, but if they're not challenged, how can I know that?

But most people will only go so far. It's not that we continue to disagree. I expect that. But often, people will simply refuse to answer questions which they can't answer, questions which demonstrate why they're wrong. They'll often just ignore the points I make, apparently because they have no rebuttal.

I'm not surprised by this when it comes to right-wing fundamentalists. But, sometimes, I find people I probably agree with about most things... who still seem to have some faith-based belief which they won't question. And that does surprise me.

(Note that I'm not unaware of the fact that it could be me who's wrong. I don't think I am, but I welcome rational arguments otherwise. That's kind of the whole point of this, isn't it?)

I was reminded of this in comments recently at my local newspaper from a person who calls himself/herself "Just Watching." The thread is a little hard to follow, but it started when he praised my previous comment about faith-based thinking.

Ironically, given how our discussion turned out, he noted how people inevitably make claims before every Olympics. (I don't know why he said this, but it turned out to be surprisingly pertinent to the discussion.)

You know before every Olympics Games there are a wave of people making claims ...This happens all the time, in every country the Olympics are in...They usually never happen.....but if one gets it right, then that person that made that warning , Well, they become a person of great interest.

As I say, I don't know why he said that, but I'm in full agreement with it. It sounds like a perfect example of Sir Francis Bacon's wise observation that "The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other."

If enough people warn of danger at the Olympics (note that we've been facing the threat of terrorism for a long time - and specifically at the Olympics at least since 1972) then, sooner or later, when there is an attack at an Olympics, someone, somewhere, is bound to have predicted that. But to find anything significant in that (at least, unless that person was involved in the attack) is just superstition.

Apparently, as it turned out, that's not what Just Watching was getting at, so I have no idea what he was really trying to say there. But I didn't reply to that, anyway, but to another comment he made: "Keep looking for the truth..and you will find it."

My reply (in part):

I'm afraid I disagree. Everyone claims to be looking for the truth. Indeed, people throughout history have looked for the truth. So I don't think that looking for the truth is the real issue here. The issue is how you look for the truth.

Progress really got going when we discovered the scientific method. It's not perfect, but it's easily the best way we've ever discovered of looking for the truth. It's not just evidence-based. It also works with human nature, instead of against it. ...

Looking for the truth does you no good at all unless your mechanism, the way you look for the truth, is effective.

Yeah, that's pedantic, no doubt. But this is a very important point for me, so I try to make it whenever I can.

Just Watching replied:

When I say "Keep looking for the truth..and you will find it." I mean both scientific and spiritually.

If you've read anything else here, you can probably imagine how I responded to that! :)

Is there an effective method of looking for the truth spiritually, Just Watching? ...

If you really can look for the truth both scientifically and spiritually, what method do you use for the latter? As I know you agree, the scientific method works. It's proven itself to be a very effective method of distinguishing the truth from delusion and wishful-thinking.

Is there a similar method which is effective in looking for the truth spiritually? Given that spiritualists and religious believers never come to a consensus about anything, really, it's hard to think that there is. And if there isn't, then "looking for the truth" spiritually is going to be a complete waste of time, don't you think?

He never answered this question. We continued to debate this, and I must have asked that specific question ("Is there an effective method of looking for the truth spiritually?") five or six times, but he just ignored it every time. Well, clearly the answer was no, that he did not have an effective way of looking for the truth "spiritually," but he simply did not want to face the implications of that.

At first, he just said that it depended on what I meant by "spiritual." But as I pointed out, I hadn't used the word. He had. It was his statement about "looking for the truth spiritually" that I was questioning. So why ask me to define it?

He never did say what he meant by "spiritual." Eventually, he posted a link to Wikipedia, the very first words of which said, "The term spirituality lacks a definitive definition." Heh, heh. As I pointed out to  him, I didn't care about the debates of lexicographers. All I wanted to know is what he meant by the word, when he used it in our discussion.

But the really funny thing is that he referred back to his first post, repeating this a second time:

You know before every Olympics Games there are a wave of people making claims ...This happens all the time, in every country the Olympics are in...They usually never happen.....but if one gets it right, then that person that made that warning , Well, they become a person of great interest.

But then he added this:

How is it we have records of some people warning us about things they could not possible know about...Our law enforcement, and military, and intelligence groups, know about many of these events. ...

Some things in the history of mankind, can not be explained by our current understanding of science, or science does offer up some possible reason, but we do not see the connection to the spiritual realm at first.

Yup. Instead of being a perfect example of superstition - how many, many people warn about danger at the Olympics and how, every so often, one of them turns out to be right, just through the laws of probability - this is now evidence of psychic powers. Incredible, isn't it?

Indeed, later on he claimed that some people become psychic after brain injuries, too. But where's his evidence of such an extraordinary claim? Where's his evidence that psychic powers exist at all? I tried to pin him down, but he just went back to the Olympics again. "Waves" of people make predictions of danger at every Olympics and, every so often, there actually is danger at an Olympics, therefore... the explanation must be in the spiritual realm, huh?

When he said that "we do not see the connection to the spiritual realm at first," that begs the question: When have we ever discovered a connection to the spiritual realm? Over and over again in human history, we've discovered that things we thought were supernatural turned out to have a natural explanation. (The Sun, for example, is not a god driving a golden chariot across the sky.) But never once the reverse. Ever. So why assume - without good evidence, or even a definition of what you mean by the term - that the "spiritual realm" exists at all?

I was just blown away by his response. He continued to ignore my repeated question, "Is there an effective method of looking for the truth spiritually?" Likewise, he completely ignored my request for specifics on his claims of psychic powers. He just assumed that psychic powers really exist, without bothering to demonstrate that,... and then he further assumed that those powers must be "spiritual," rather than just something science hasn't discovered yet.

Clearly, this is an intelligent guy (or gal). And he's apparently not conventionally religious. But he's still faith-based. He wants to believe what he wants to believe, and if the questions get too difficult, he just ignores them.

I just don't get it. I'd love to believe in psychic powers. And if anything like that could be demonstrated to exist, scientists would fall all over themselves in their eagerness to research it.

Just think about it. This would open up a whole new realm in science. Scientists love this kind of thing! As Isaac Asimov once said, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'" The merest hint of something like this is enough to catch the attention of scientists.

And for the rest of us, it would be amazing. Who could think otherwise? But first - for me, at least - you have to demonstrate that it's actually true. And no, that doesn't mean pointing to newspaper articles where credulous people claim incredible things and gullible - or just ambitious - reporters print them (although Just Watching didn't even do that much).

After all, you can find people who'll claim anything you want to believe - literally anything. You can find 'eye-witness testimony' to alien abductions, Bigfoot, and the resurrection of Elvis Presley, among others. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. (And I'll point out that scientists are the experts on evidence - although even scientists, some of them, can be fooled by a clever magic trick.)

As I say, this exchange really surprised me. But I guess it shouldn't have. Sadly, faith-based thinking is not restricted to right-wing Republicans. It's just human nature, apparently.

Royal baby's first words - a Piers Morgan interview

It's quite a coup for Piers Morgan, to get the first interview with Prince George Alexander Louis, isn't it?

No morality without God - a compilation

Created by CrashCourse Reason.

"Billy Boyle" by James R. Benn

(cover image from Amazon.com)

Billy Boyle (2006) by James R. Benn is a mystery set during World War II, and the first in a series with the title character, a young Boston detective.

Billy Boyle has hardly ever been outside of South Boston, where he lives surrounded by his large Irish family, most of them cops. He grew up wanting to be a cop, and nepotism has served him well. He became a detective, in fact, because his family slipped him the answers to the test questions.

After Pearl Harbor, it's pretty clear that young Boston cops will be drafted, so his family works to keep him safe. (In particular, as IRA supporters, none of them have any desire to fight for the English.) They pull strings to get him into officer candidate school - where he graduates dead last - and then to get him a staff position in Washington, or so they think.

In reality, 'Uncle Ike' is General Dwight D. Eisenhower, newly appointed to command the U.S. Army in Europe, so Billy ends up on a plane to London, pretty much the last place he wants to be, especially during the Blitz. Pretty soon, he gets involved in the hunt for a spy and for a murderer - not necessarily the same person.

Billy isn't a particularly impressive young man, but he's not a bad cop. And although he'd only been a detective for three days before Pearl Harbor, it turns out that he isn't completely useless at that, either. Well, he grew up listening to his homicide detective father (if not paying as much attention as he wishes now).

I guess the way to put it is that he's not nearly as useless as he seems at first. And he's not a bad kid, either. His prejudice against the English doesn't last long in London, and he makes some surprising new friends.

If you know much history of World War II, you might guess the answer to the mystery of the spy, at least in part. But the murder doesn't stop with just one, and that was both unexpected and tragic. The tragedy of war is clearly shown here, too. This might be a light-weight, even humorous, mystery, but it definitely has a serious side.

Billy is an appealing character who becomes even more likeable as time goes by. The murder mystery was fine (but I read mysteries for the characters, not for the mystery). I didn't particularly like Billy's actions at the end of the book, but... I don't know. I'm a sucker for World War II stories.

All in all, I really enjoyed this. I'll definitely be continuing with the series.

___
Note: My other book reviews are here.

"Stars & Stripes Forever" by Harry Harrison

(cover image from Amazon.com)

Stars & Stripes Forever (1998) by Harry Harrison is an alternate history of the Civil War. Now, I'm a big fan of alternate history. (And real history, too. But I have absolutely no interest in historical fiction. Funny, huh?)

But this isn't my usual kind of book, because I'm also a fan of character-based fiction. By that, I mean that I usually want an appealing main character, or characters - people I really care about. That's the hook that usually keeps me reading.

Well, there are a lot of characters in this book, but they're mostly historical figures - Abraham Lincoln, William Tecumseh Sherman, Jefferson Davis, etc.  The few fictional characters generally don't last long - usually dying a few paragraphs after they're introduced.

This is more idea-based fiction than character-based, but the idea is fascinating. In previous decades, we'd already fought two wars against the British Empire, and there was plenty of bad blood between our countries. So Harrison shows how one small change could have caused Great Britain to enter the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy.

In a prologue and an afterword, Harrison explains how this was a very real possibility. I don't know, myself, but he certainly makes it sound plausible. And it's this idea, and how it plays out, that keeps the book interesting. I certainly had no trouble finishing it, despite my normal preference for a main character. (There really isn't a main character. We see this alternate history from multiple points of view.)

I'll tell you right now that Stars & Stripes Forever does not go where I expected it to. One thing Harry Harrison does brilliantly is to show how unexpected events in war can turn everything upside down. If you think you can predict how a war will go, you might want to read this book. Disaster can strike from the slightest of errors.

To my mind, that made an interesting book into a really exceptional one. At the end, the world is a different place - not necessarily better, but certainly different. And you have to wonder about what will happen from there. Several days after I finished Stars & Stripes Forever, I'm still thinking about it.

There was one thing which disappointed me, though. In this war over slavery, slaves - and free black people, too - are almost nonexistent. This is told entirely from a white male point of view - multiple points of view, from all sides, but still entirely white and entirely male.

OK, the characters are important historical figures from America and Great Britain, and the politicians and military leaders at the time were all white and nearly all male. (Queen Victoria is a character, but we don't really see things from her perspective.) Still, that was disappointing.

In an alternate history, I expect historical figures, but also other people who would rise to the new challenges and new opportunities of this history. Well, as I noted, that's my normal preference in alternate history, anyway. That's generally why I like it.

But this is still a very entertaining book. And it's a book which clearly shows the terrors of war - not just the tragedy and horror of a battlefield, but also the roll of the dice which is war. Some things just can't be predicted, not precisely. No nation should go to war without understanding that.

___
Note: The rest of my book reviews are here.

Worst Fox News interview ever?

You've probably seen this - or something similar - because it's been all over the Internet, but I had to post it here. This is Fox 'News' at its worst - bigoted, biased, and woefully ignorant.

Would Fox ask similar questions about any Christian? Of course not! And this just went on and on, not just her own opinions but cherry-picking criticism posted on FoxNews.com!

I don't honestly know if this is the worst interview from Fox 'News.' It is Fox, after all. Obviously, there's plenty of competition for 'worst interview ever.' But this is definitely a contender.

Honest Liberty University ads

Yeah, I know. "Liberty University" and "honest" hardly belong in the same sentence, huh? But that's the whole point.

Mark Kessler, America's dumbest police chief

Uh, oh. Someone gave Barney Fife ammunition!

Actually, that's unfair to Barney Fife, isn't it? Barney Fife wasn't a whole lot smarter than this guy, but he wasn't a deranged lunatic.

But crazy isn't on the fringe anymore, not in America. The Republican Party always had its crazy fringe, even before it was taken over by the Dixiecrats. But the fringe normally stayed on the fringe.

Not these days. Now the crazy fringe is the Republican Party. It's certainly the GOP base. Well, that's what you get when you deliberately set out to woo lunatics, for political advantage. Sometimes, you reap what you sow.

The Confederacy rises again in North Carolina

The Colbert Report
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Much as I hate to post two clips from the same show, Stephen Colbert was really on a roll last night. This was pretty funny, wasn't it?

But, oddly enough, he didn't even show the worst from North Carolina Republicans. For that, we need TYT:



North Carolina has been slowly turning blue. Barack Obama actually won the state in 2008, and he lost to Mitt Romney by only 2% in 2012. Well, North Carolina Republicans are determined to stop that by... keeping Democrats from voting.

And they can do this thanks to the five Republicans on the Supreme Court, who just recently threw out the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which had been renewed in 2006 by Congress - 98 to zero in the Senate and 390 to 33 in the House of Representatives. (Yeah, Justice Scalia had no problem overriding the will of Congress in this case, did he?)

The Confederacy is rising again. Or really, really trying, at least.

After the Democratic Party took a stand for racial civil rights (starting with Harry Truman, actually, but especially when Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the 1964 Civil Rights Act), the Republican Party started to deliberately woo white racists in their notorious 'Southern strategy.'

And it worked. It was a huge success, as all those old Dixiecrats joined the GOP. But now, those people are the Republican base. Now, they control the party. Parts of it are still Republican (after all, the GOP already had the John Birchers and other fringe elements), but this is essentially the Dixiecrat Party now.

And they've gone into complete hysterics with the election of our first black president. Well, they would, wouldn't they?

They're also losing young people, women, and Hispanics, among others (by deliberately wooing Southern white racists, they'd already lost African Americans), and the supply of elderly white men - elderly white bigots, at least - is dwindling.

So their solution - certainly in the Deep South - is to prevent Democrats from voting. Or, at least, to make it as difficult as possible. (If you make it hard to vote, fewer people will vote.)

In 2012, many Democratic voters in the South faced long lines at their polling places - much longer than corresponding Republican precincts. That was deliberate. But there wasn't too much Republicans could do to suppress minority voting until their colleagues on the Supreme Court threw out the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Instantly, they started up their old tricks again.

The Republican Party just can't convince enough of us Americans to support their loony policies, especially after the complete and utter failure of those policies during the Bush Administration. So what do they do? Do they change their policies? Ha! Do they just work harder at convincing people they're right (despite the evidence)?

No, they just work harder at keeping Democratic-leaning constituencies from voting. (Don't worry. If you're a white billionaire, you won't have any problem at all.)

Disgusting, isn't it?

Burn your Obamacare card!

The Colbert Report
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Funny, huh? And the reaction by these right-wing loons is just hilarious!

Do they realize how funny they are? Or are they completely oblivious to that? You really have to wonder, don't you?

PS. Even the "young and healthy" need health insurance, because some of you are going to get sick. Some of you are going to have accidents. And without insurance, the rest of us will have to pay for that.

(No, we're not going to just let you die in the street. That would really stink up the neighborhood.)

Saint Anselm's Proof

(Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

I thought this was great. But you already know what I think about philosophy, right? :)

Recently, I was having an online discussion - in my local newspaper -  with a guy who claimed to have "plenty of evidence" for the existence of God. But when I pressed him for the details, it turned out to be something he called "logical evidence," which was pretty much entirely an argument from ignorance (and its close corollary, the argument from personal incredulity).

So he wasn't just calling logic 'evidence,' he was calling known logical fallacies 'evidence.' But he continued to insist that he'd provided "plenty" of evidence that his god exists.

Well, these kinds of arguments are very common. (I've mentioned some of them in my Non-Belief series.) With professional religious apologists, it can be difficult for us laymen to point out the logical fallacies in their practiced, polished arguments. But using that same argument in a different context, as this cartoon demonstrates, can often show its complete absurdity.

And give us something to laugh about, too. :)

PS. If you really want a more boring argument, maybe we could look at the "best possible" human being.

Now, how you define "best" is hard to say, since we all have many good qualities. Intelligence is certainly better than stupidity. Health is better than illness. Strength is better than weakness, etc.

But it's hard to imagine that the strongest person in the world is also the smartest - and the fastest, the kindest, the most generous, etc.  Even if that person is the strongest human being who could possibly live, he wouldn't be the best in everything. So you could imagine a person who was just as strong, but perhaps slightly more intelligent or slightly faster.

That would be a "better" human being, by our definitions, but he still wouldn't exist. So it seems pretty clear that the "best possible" human being does not exist. Does the "best possible being"? Not if humans are the only beings, certainly.

Show me evidence that a god exists and we'll talk again.

Chris Hayes destroys racist Bill O'Reilly rant

You can find the whole transcript here, but let me just quote one small part of this:

I don’t know if Bill O’Reilly is aware that everything he’s saying is easily debunked with about 20 minutes of Googling, but that’s not really the point. The real reason Bill O’Reilly peddles this stuff is because it gives a cheap, crack-like high to the old fearful white audience that watches Bill O’Reilly and gives Fox News its power—also known as the Republican base. These are the folks Bill O’Reilly is feeding when he laments not being able to criticize black culture.

Yup. Chris Hayes hits it right on the button. And if the hysteria since the election of Barack Obama hasn't been enough to demonstrate that racism is still alive and well in America, the response to George Zimmerman shooting an unarmed black teenager has confirmed it.

Well, Bill O'Reilly knows his audience. But whether Fox 'News' causes this kind of thing, or simply panders to the lowest impulses of our society - for money and political power - it's all pretty disgusting.

(Borrowed from Daily Kos)

"Medicus" by Ruth Downie

(cover image from Amazon.com)

Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire (2006) by Ruth Downie is a sort of historical mystery, with lots of humor.

I've seen complaints online that the book isn't historically accurate, but I neither know nor care about that. I'm not sure how much we know about everyday life in Roman Britain, anyway.

And I'm not a fan of historical novels. I don't even care much about the mystery in mysteries. I read these books for the characters, and I loved the characters here. And the humor.

Gaius Petreius Ruso is a doctor with the Roman Legion - a divorced doctor who's struggling with money problems. So the last thing he needs is to get involved with an injured slave girl. But his compassion gets the better of him, and he's soon stuck with her.

At the same time, he tries to avoid investigating the death of two prostitutes - at least one a clear case of murder. But he can't seem to put that out of his mind, either.

There is a mystery here, but for me, the characters make the book. Ruso is a decent guy who's always in trouble. He has money problems - family problems, basically - which he keeps trying to focus on. But everything else keeps getting in the way.

Tilla, the native slave girl, has a very different point of view. The Romans are her enemy - not to mention being nearly incomprehensible, especially the doctor who rescued her. Of course, Ruso doesn't understand her, either. (For one thing, he thinks he bought a cook, but she doesn't know the first thing about that.)

Ruso's attitudes are almost certainly too modern for his time. But then, we might not like him so much, otherwise. He sees nothing wrong with slavery, but he's still a compassionate guy. So he struggles to do what's right, given that his society's idea of "what's right" conflicts with his general good nature. And all of this is presented not just sympathetically, but humorously.

I loved it. It's just light-weight entertainment, sure, but the book was lots of fun. And although I'm not a fan of historical fiction, the details of medical care in Roman times are fascinating. (Yes, the author claims in an afterward, the Romans did do cataract surgery.)

This is the first book of a series, so I'll definitely be continuing with the sequel. If your tastes are similar to mine, I'd recommend the book. If you're really into historical fiction or mysteries, I really don't know if you'd like it or not. Again, to me, this is all about the characters and the humor.

___
PS. More book reviews are here.

Three urban fantasies

(cover image from Amazon.com)

I've been reading a lot this week, so I'm going to combine brief reviews of three urban fantasies into one post. These are listed in the reverse order of which I read them, and in roughly the reverse order of my preference, too, although I enjoyed them all.

All three are set in the present day, where magic - and magical creatures - exist, unknown to most people.

Jim Butcher's Storm Front (2000) is the first in his popular Dresden File series. Harry Dresden is the only wizard listed in the Chicago phone book and is on retainer with the Chicago Police Department. Nevertheless - somehow - magic stays hidden from ordinary people, even when an evil wizard commits murder by causing his victims' hearts to explode out of their chests.

Pretty soon, everyone thinks that Dresden has done it,... for absolutely no reason at all, that I can see. Apparently, the police think it was him because he's the only wizard they know personally. And the White Council thinks that it was him because... they just don't like him, I guess.

Clearly, no one in this book seems to be very smart, and that includes Harry Dresden (who takes a very long time to put two and two together here). And although advertising as a wizard in the phone book is a clever hook, I suppose, that really doesn't make much sense, either.

Sure, Dresden is a good guy, and as light-weight entertainment, this book is fun. But I wasn't overly impressed. I'll read the next in the series, but I liked the other two books here much better than this one.

(Amazon.com)

Fated (2012) by Benedict Jacka is a very similar kind of urban fantasy - so similar that he acknowledges the earlier book in the first few pages of this one: "I've even heard of one guy in Chicago who advertises in the phone book under 'Wizard,' though that's probably an urban legend."

The hero, Alex Verus, owns a magic shop in London. But he doesn't sell stage magic, just real magical items and potion ingredients. (Since this is also a world where magic is hidden from most people, he doesn't get many customers.)

Verus is a mage, himself - a diviner, which means he has the ability to see the future in terms of probabilities. By looking at the results of making different choices, he can select the one with the best outcome. He's basically the thinking man's wizard.

When his friend - a young woman who suffers from a hereditary curse - discovers a powerful magical item, Verus finds himself caught between extremely powerful Light and Dark mages, both willing to kill him if he doesn't help them,... and quite likely to kill him even if he does.

Dark mages are really nasty people who consider power to be all-important. All too many Light mages tend to be seduced by that idea, too. But even when they're not, they're too timid and/or too ineffective to fight back. (Hmm,... doesn't that really remind you of partisan politics here in America?)

This is a very similar idea to the Dresden Files, but I guess I just liked Alex Verus better than Harry Dresden. His friend, Luna, was really appealing, too. When they get trapped in a seemingly impossible situation, it takes some clever thinking - and teamwork - to get them out again. This is definitely a series I'll be continuing.

(Amazon.com)

Midnight Riot (2011) by Ben Aaronovitch (also published as Rivers of London) is also an urban fantasy set in London, also in a world where magic exists, but is unknown to most people. But it's quite original ("vampires" in this book, for example, are very different from anything you've seen before).

Peter Grant is a probationary constable in the London Metropolitan Police, and while his attractive and capable friend is headed to the Murder Investigation Team, he seems destined to a life of data entry. Until he interviews a ghost who's witnessed a murder.

It turns out that Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale investigates crimes involving magic, and Peter becomes his only apprentice. There's plenty of danger involved, as they try to stop a vengeful ghost who causes people's faces to fall off (among other things), and the book gets more suspenseful than I expected. But it's also chock full of humor.

Plus, it's very different. Peter Grant is just a beginner at police work and magic, both. And although he's an appealing character, he's not especially skilled at either. The magical creatures he meets are quite unique, too. I was impressed by that. (My biggest problem with most fantasy is that it's so derivative, so much like other fantasy.)

The book isn't perfect, but I loved the humor in it. I also liked the fact that the situation went further into tragedy than I expected. Peter can't miraculously fix everything. Combine that with an appealing hero - indeed, a number of appealing characters - and I have to say that this is my favorite of these three books.

Of course, I read this one first, so maybe that has something to do with it.

___
PS. OK, no one reads a fantasy novel and thinks that it's real. I know that. And plenty of fiction tries to justify the setting, pretending to be something other than fiction (even though it's not actually meant to fool the reader).

But I'm allowed to have pet peeves, right? :)

Here's Fated:

You can think of magical talent as a pyramid. Making up the lowest and biggest layer are the normals. If magic is colours, these are the people born colourblind: they don't know anything about magic and they don't want to, thank you very much. They've got plenty of things to deal with already, and if they do see anything that might shake the way they look at things, they convince themselves they didn't see it double quick. This is maybe ninety percent of the adult civilised world.

Next up on the pyramid are the sensitives, the ones who aren't colour-blind. Sensitives are blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with a wider spectrum of vision than normals. They can feel the presence of magic, the distant power in the sun and the earth and the stars, the warmth and stability of an old family home, the lingering wisps of death and horror at a Dark ritual site. Most often, they don't have the words to describe what they feel,...

OK, obviously, that's complete bullshit. 99% of people reading that would be certain that they're one of the sensitive ones, when they'd just be gullible, suggestible, and very eager to think themselves special.

Of course, as I say, this is just fiction. People don't actually believe this. But they might spout such nonsense as "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." You see, most people want to believe in magic, even if it's not actually this magic, which they know is just fictional.

But that's not so bad, not compared to this, from Storm Front:

The end of the twentieth century and the dawn of the new millenium had seen something of a renaissance in the public awareness of the paranormal. Psychics, haunts, vampires - you name it. People still didn't take them seriously, but all the things Science had promised us hadn't come to pass. Disease was still a problem. Starvation was still a problem. Violence and crime and war were still problems. In spite of the advance of technology, things just hadn't changed the way everyone had hoped and thought they would.

Science, the largest religion of the twentieth century, had become somewhat tarnished by images of exploding space shuttles, crack babies, and a generation of complacent Americans who had allowed the television to raise their children. People were looking for something - I think they just didn't know what. And even though they were once again starting to open their eyes to the world of magic and the arcane that had been with them all the while, they still thought I must be some kind of joke.

OK, obviously, this is complete bullshit. Yes, I know I said that before, but this is really ridiculous, isn't it?

Again, it's just fiction. It's simply used to justify the situation. Fiction frequently does that, and it really doesn't mean anything. No one is going to read these books and think that magic is real. No one. But it still gets my goat, I guess.

Another thing I liked about Midnight Riot is that it doesn't do this. It doesn't even make a fictional attempt to justify itself. It is, after all, just fantasy fiction, so why should it? Even a skeptic like me can enjoy fantasy. And even the most gullible person in the world isn't going to confuse these books with reality.

___
PPS. Check out my other book reviews here.

I'm back

Yeah, I'm here. I've had my computer in the shop - nothing major, just an intermittent problem I've been trying to track down. No big deal.

Of course, I haven't been posting much, anyway. It's summer, and I've been busy. But yesterday, it rained (finally!), so I got some reading done. I've read four books in the past few days, in fact. Now if I can just find the time to write reviews.

But I've also got to start netting my grapes - especially the early ones. Just as soon as I can get my raspberry canes tied up. And, well, lots of other stuff, too. What can I say? It's summer.

I can't wait for winter! :)

President Obama speaks on Trayvon Martin

I wanted to post this, because it's got right-wingers frothing at the mouth. Yeah, this. Incredible, isn't it? If someone like Barack Obama can generate this degree of hysteria, what must ordinary African Americans face every day?

For example, here is what Todd Starnes, a Fox 'News' host, posted on his Facebook page:

President Obama is now our Race-Baiter in Chief. His remarks today on the Trayvon Martin tragedy are beyond reprehensible.

Did he even listen to the speech? But the racists are cheering him on. Indeed, they're out in force on YouTube, as well. It's really pathetic.

I get frustrated with President Obama because he always bends over backwards trying to appeal to Republicans. But can you imagine the hysteria in this country if he didn't? Can you imagine how frantic the racists would be if he actually came across as the "angry black man" of their imaginations?

Remember when Clint Eastwood debated an imaginary Obama at the Republican National Convention? Well, they all do that. They all fill that chair with an imaginary black man. And they're all scared to death of that figment of their own imaginations, which bears no resemblance to the real person.

They're doing it again here. When this kind of speech gets the lunatics this worked up, when the haters throw tantrums even at something this mild and balanced,... well, clearly we have a long way to go when it comes to racism in America.