"If anyone could figure out how to steal Italy, Alaska would be the place to hid it." What a vivid way to describe Alaska's immensity. 'There has been a host of excellent books on Alaska. My favorite until recently was Joe McGinnis's Going to Extremes (F91O.M28 1981), but John McPhee's Coming Into the Country is wonderful, too.
     McPhee's book is divided into three parts: first an exploration of wilderness described during the course of a canoe/kayak trip down the Salmon River. Much in the manner of the river, his descriptions meander into all sorts of eddies and whirlpools. His description of bush pilots is priceless. On one occasion he is flying (a regularly scheduled airline, mind you) in a single engine plane in horrible weather. The pilot is skimming the trees to find landmarks because he can't see anything. He has a map on his lap, but suddenly hands it to a passenger to help figure out where they are. "I had been chewing gum so vigorously that the hinges of my jaws would ache for two days."
    Stumbling on a grizzly bear in a blueberry patch (fortunately upwind), he muses on the best way to survive a grizzly's charge - no consensus of opinion, but most survivors believe the best thing to do is stand absolutely still and shout as loudly as possible, for that is the least likely reaction the bear, which does not have good sight, would expect of game. Running away is useless for grizzlies are very fast. They are also quite coordinated. They enjoy schussing down snow-covered mountains at 96 feet/second through trees and around boulders only to screech to a stop, stand up and walk away, just before going -over the edge of a cliff.
    The second part of the book discusses the Alaskan government's search for a new capital and the conflict that generated. Juneau really makes a lousy site because of its remoteness, not to mention its horrible landing approach to the airport. Alaska attracts very independent and anti-authoritarian types of people so it witnesses a battle between those suffering from the "Sierra Club Syndrome" or others fondly embracing the "Dallas Scenario."
    Many of these folks are affectionately profiled in the third section. John Cook, for example, has consciously tried to eliminate the need for money and authority. He tries to live on $1,500 a year (this was written in the mid seventies); he has a series of trap lines and rarely uses a parka, even at -30'. The closest town is Eagle, about 30 miles away via dog sled, with a population of about 100. Almost all live by the ut restrictions on code, "Never put restrictions on any individual.... Up here they ain't gettin' you for spittin' on the sidewalk."
Ironically, most moved there for the space, yet land is less available (as of 1977) than in the lower '48 because when Alaska became a state deals were made with the native Americans and the federal government to set aside almost the entire state as either a reservation or park land. Whereas before statehood someone could build a cabin 80 miles from nowhere, now a government helicopter might fly over and throw them out. Homesteading no longer exists, but in Alaska that loss seems especially poignant in territory where you might have to fly somewhere to take a shower.

    Ed Rollins had a reputation as a very honest man. Everyone said he always told the truth. Time magazine called him a "compulsive truth teller." So what do you do when the man whom everyone says tells the truth calls himself a liar? More evidence of the death of irony.
    Sydney Blumenthal dissects the recent Rollins debacle in the December 13, 1993 issue of The New Yorker. Evidently Rollins was both a creature and a creation of the media who really had done nothing constructive on his own. Most of what he claimed to have done was actually the work of others. He was truly an "image" man who suffered from an almost constant urge to say something self-destructive; this was often confused with truth by a media devoted to negativism.
    An article by Murray Sayle in the same issue reports on the final release by Yeltsin's government of the infamous "black box" - the orange cockpit recorder - of flight KAL007 which was shot down after it strayed over Russian territory about ten years ago.
    The recordings verify what careful analysts had suspected but had never been able to verify, and which conspiratorialists refused to believe, that three very small, normally inconsequential, errors and oversights combined with a very tired crew to create a level of cast-west tension unheard of since the Cuban Mssile Crisis.
    The little errors were failure to turn on the INS navigational equipment (satellite referencing) at the proper point, an out-of-service VOR (radio navigational beacons) at the Anchorage airport combined with Russian stupidity and paranoia.
    Ironically, the recorders had been found almost immediately by the Soviets, but because they failed to reinforce the Soviet line, were withheld from the public.
    The only puzzle that remains unsolved is why U.S. military trackers that routinely followed all Pacific flights did not warn KAL007 that it was off course. The United States Air Force has said that all the radar and audio tapes are routinely erased and nothing exists to suggest any reason why they were not warned. The answer is probably also trivial.
    Conspiracy theories became all the rage - conspiracies are sexy, accidents are not."

According to The New Yorker (December 13, 1993), bills similar to the Brady Bill that were enacted in California prevented the purchase of 11,000 handguns by 71 convicted murderers, 900 robbers and burglars, and over 6,000 people who have been convicted of assault. Guns don't kill people, bullets do, so let's ban bullets and let people have all the guns they want.

You may remember a book I reviewed some time ago about underground New York: the vast networks of cables, tunnels, sewers, caverns, old roads, (even complete old sailing ships) that have been found under the city's streets. Well, it turns out there's a whole population of people that live in these subterranean places. They are called "mole people," and young reporter Jennifer Toth got to know many of them during a year she spent seeking and interviewing them out. (The Mole People, HV4506.N6T68 1993).
In her introduction she says that, given the choice, she would never do the year's work again. "The sadness and tragedies are overwhelming." She received little assistance from the agencies officially charged with helping homeless people. And veteran tunnel dwellers don't like the agencies either. "They're as bad as city government. They have their agenda and we have ours. They need money to keep their jobs at their organizations. They make up the truth to support their platform so they get donations. We don't have a platform. We have the truth.... You tell them the tunnels rob you of life. No one should come down here.... You can't go back up"
No precise count of mole people is available. An imprecise census done in 1991 counter 6,031 in Grand Central and Penn Stations alone. Reasons for people going underground include drug abuse, mental illness, an( simply a desire to escape society It's not a pleasant world, In the deep railroad tunnels, often buried 15 stories underground, the rats run toward people, not away from them - each is a source of food for the other. The smell of urine and feces is overwhelming and it's not unusual for people to die quickly when they fail to get out of the way of a speeding subway train. Some of the communities have created quasi-governments, with mayors and other elected officials. Most are purely anarchical - many people go underground precisely because they can't abide the rules that society wants to place on them. Some live in holes behind concrete walls, others in relative splendor in old abandoned frescoed subway stations, one of which is rumored to even contain a running fountain and piano. But one Transit policeman who regularly patrols the area describes this world as the closest thing to Hell he's ever seen.
On the other hand it's dangerous to make assumptions and generalizations. Sometimes there is a real sense of community; certainly there is one of forgiveness ' for rarely is a man's past held against him. Occasionally, the tunnels become a temporary residence until enough resources can be accumulated to return back to the "normal" world. Bernard, a long-time tunnel resident advises ' "...there is no single truth about them. Emotions are more sincere. He's a good guy and if he wants to start over down here he can. That's the beauty of the tunnels."

The Leopold-Loeb case continues to fascinate the American public. In the December 1993 issue of The Journal Of American History, Paula Fass discusses the case and its impact on American culture.
From the beginning, the press played an important role. in fact two journalists were instrumental in solving the case and shared part of the reward money. A question that intrigued the public was what motivated two rich boys from privileged backgrounds to kidnap and murder a clad?
    Eventually the sensational case evolved into a debate over the meaning of "normality" and the value of the death penalty. The case was seen by some as a metaphor for the dangers of modern youth: boredom and wealth (and this was in 1924).
    Both youths were brilliant, although Leopold, who spoke I I languages, was clearly the more precocious of the two. The media was unsure how to play up the story. If the crime was an irrational deed of "madmen," then it was difficult to justify the enormous amount of attention it was awarded in the papers. On the other hand, if they could show how the boys' case had larger implications for society, "a reflection of modem life," then they could continue to write reams of commentary. Billy Sunday, the evangelist, blamed the murder on "precocious brains, salacious books, and infidel minds," - another example of the anti-intellectual strain that consistently surfaces in the United States. A prominent Progressive judge went even further: "...It was the story of modem youth, of modern parents, of modem economic and social conditions, and [horror of horrors] modern education,"
    Generally, it was assumed that the defense team, led by Clarence Darrow, would use the insanity defense to get the boys off, a tactic that had been used often before, most notably in the 1881 trial of Guiteau, Garfield's assassin. But Darrow surprised everyone by pleading the boys guilty, hoping to seek lenience in sentencing based on the boys abnormality, a psychological concept at that time with no clear legal definition. Darrow argued they were not legally insane, but were so emotionally chaotic that they should not be executed.
    One long-range result of the trial was the acceptance of psychological explanations for behavior rather than considering that sometimes people do evil things perhaps out of boredom or in search of some thrill.
    Over the years, many of the same themes that surfaced during and after the trial have persisted. What may have simply been a couple of rich kids trying to commit the perfect crime and get away with murder has been inflated to a moral debate.

    A Walk In The Sun by Harry Brown has been reissued by Knopf It was written in 1944 and describes in vivid imagery the life of an army platoon during the first few hours following their landing on a beach in Italy. Their objective is simple: reach an isolated farmhouse near a bridge and guard that bridge. Ill luck dogs their path from the moment they get on the landing craft ' First their new lieutenant is killed by a stray shell fragment - it was his first engagement. Their old, well experienced sergeant who had commanded the platoon through several actions, is stitched by a German machine gun on a vehicle that just happened to pass their way. The platoon is then strafed by 3 enemy fighters, and the remaining sergeant slowly begins to lose command. The result is a very realistic account (I assume) of: men fighting during the Second World War.

    The melting pot has been the defining metaphor for America ever since J. Hector St John wrote during the American revolution: "Here individuals of all nations are melted down into a new race of men" - unless, of course, you were black. Recently, however, culture has become the defining issue of our time, threatening to make us more separatist than ever before.
Dale Maharidge has been writing a series about American families in Mother Jones ("Can We Get Along: A Study of Four California Families," Nov/Dec 1993). He sees evidence of this separatism in several ways. First the rich are segregated from the poor: they send their children to private schools and hire security police to protect their suburban enclaves in an attempt to ward off the urban nightmare. The poor are separated occupationally, condemned to low paying jobs by lack of training and education, and finally there are those who withdraw into the "cult of ethnicity" whereby ethnic leaders and whites laden with guilt define ethnic dissimilarities.
    The result is a society of societies, the haves and the have-nots. The east-west confrontation has been replaced by a north-south antagonism. A diverse society will not function unless the diverse groups overlap culturally. Denying citizenship to illegal immigrants and benefits to their American-born children, a has been suggested in California, will only exacerbate existing social divisions. (The earthquakes must have affected their reasoning ability.)
    Samuel P. Huntington, professor at Harvard, is quoted as saying there are seven or eight major civilizations in the world: Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin- American and perhaps African. He anticipates that conflict in the future will arise not along national boundaries, but where cultures collide. It's time to take steps to defuse that source of dissension.

"Has anyone really understood the famous story that appears at the beginning of the Bible - that is, God's hellish fear of science (the quest for knowledge and inquiry into the natural cause of things)?... Man himself had become God's greatest mistake, he had created a rival for himself - science puts one on a level with the divine it puts an end to gods and priests when man becomes scientific! The moral of all of this: Science is thefirst sin, the germ of all sin, the primal sin.... How does one protect oneself against science?... Man must not think.... And yet the work of science begins to build up, storming heavenward, spelling doom (the twilight of the gods.)" Friederich Nietzsche

    "There is indeed a manly and legitimate passion for equality which rouses in all men a desire to be strong and respected. This passion tends to elevate the little man to the rank of the great. But the human heart also nourishes a debased taste for equality, which leads the weak to want to drag the strong down to their level and which induces men to prefer equality and servitude to inequality and freedom. It is not that people with a democratic social state naturally scorn freedom; on the contrary they have an instinctive taste for it. But freedom is not the chief and continual object of their desire; it is the equality for which they feel an eternal love; they rush on freedom with quick and sudden impulses, but if they miss their mark they resign themselves to their disappointment; but nothing will satisfy them without equality, they would rather die than lose it." Alexis de Tocqueville

Richard Reeves, one of our preeminent political writers, decided to retrace de Tocqueville's journey 150 years later. He describes what he found in American Journey (E839.5 .-R38). De Tocqueville's Democracy in America has been called one of the best, and perhaps the first, modern book on political science - it's also one of the most readable. He and a friend, Beaumont, came to America in 1831 ostensibly to examine the American penal system - that in France being considered archaic and medieval.
   America was an exciting place in the 1830's, with expansion across three frontiers: geographical, industrial, and Political. Reform was the byword, and de Tocqueville was struck by the conditions of equality he saw around him.
The difference between federal governments in Germany and Switzerland and the United States was that in America the federal government had direct access to the people. It did not have to go through an intermediate level of bureaucracy. He could see already how the power of the purse lead to more and more centralization of power, a trend that Reeves notes has continued without abatement since then. But today power rests less on the people, more on "the businesses who threaten to move out-of-state [or country]... they have a chokehold on us. We have to do what they want or they'll leave... leaving us to clean up the mess."
Americans have always valued and taught the importance of independence, but freedom with a communal self-interest. So we become "leavers" who, in search of independence, leave what we have in search of something elusively better, but we continue to identify ourselves as part of subgroups with political agendas of self-interest.
Americans' enthusiasm for Freud is a reflection of this self-interest. "What Freud did was to legitimize and eventually institutionalize an emphasis on the individual and self American democracy did just about the same thing. 'It is about themselves that the Americans are excited,' "[said de Tocqueville] the answers did not come from God or anywhere else, they came from within us.
"Therapy represents antireligion," according to Christopher Lasch, "the hope of achieving the modern equivalent of salvation, 'mental health."' The "born again" movement is another example of this emphasis on individuality - albeit in the opposite direction from Freud -- a direct personal link to God without the church as an intermediary.
The United States was the first to use penitentiaries, i.e., detention, as a punishment for crime. It was an attempt by the Quakers to humanize a system which heretofore detained persons until trial, then punished them with death, banishment, branding, etc. The new prisons placed prisoners in solitary confinement, the theory being that solitude, reflection and Bible reading would be reformative. While intended to be humane, the result, as Charles Dickens was to complain 12 years later, was in many cases insanity. De Tocqueville surprised his hosts by asking to talk with the prisoners. He learned what Dickens was to report, that solitude was an intense form of punishment (unless, of course, one had many children, in which case it came as a blessing.)
De Tocqueville reported that criminals were always caught and confined because everyone conspired to catch them. Reeves notes that today that's laughable. The general feeling is that most criminals never get caught, that most crimes are rarely investigated, and that, if caught, most criminals get off. Rehabilitation was just beginning to be considered a solution at the time of De Tocqueville. Medicine and psychiatry had turned crime into a sickness rather than evil. The pendulum has swung back and the public now demands vengeance and retribution.
    Tyranny is tyranny whether it comes from a regent or a majority, and De Tocqueville worried that ,the majority in the United States has immense actual power and the power of opinion which is almost as great.... 'The people is always right' that is the dogma of the republic just as 'the king can do no wrong' is the religion of the monarchic states... what is surely true is that neither the one nor the other is true.... The consequences of this state of affairs are fate-laden and dangerous to the future." We must all rejoice when the Supreme Court protects the rights of the minority.

"It is an axiom of Political science that the only way to neutralize the effect of newspapers is to multiply their numbers." Alexis de Tocqueville

"When men can speak in liberty, you can bet they won't act." Charles Ingersoll

"In a democracy if the individual isn't responsible then we're finished as a free people. If the individual isn't responsible then the government becomes responsible for behavior. Freedom will be lost because the government is then going to regulate behavior and tell people what to do and what not to do." Robert Schrank quoted by Reeves

Henry Petroski, that most excellent of engineering writers, uses the pencil as a metaphor for the study of the engineering process in his first-rate history The Pencil.- A History of Design and Circumstance (TS1268.P47 1990). The pencil represents innovation, ingenuity and inventiveness.
The problems facing a pencil engineer are similar in concept to those of an engineer building a bridge. The pencil lead must be created in such a manner so that it will be strong enough to remain sharp as long as possible and strong enough not to break. This requires special mixtures of clay and graphite, proper baking temperatures and pressures. The bridge engineer must also seek the proper balance between competing materials and methods of construction for the best balance of price and strength (see Petroski's other book on bridge building and accidents, To Engineer Is Human: The Role Of Failure let Successful Design TA174.P474 1992); it is not always easy to predict how combinations of materials will perform.
The common inexpensive pencil we take for granted actually requires an exacting manufacturing process to create and uses many different materials from around the world. "The lead... might be a proprietary mixture of two kinds of graphite, from Sri Lanka and Mexico, clay from Mississippi, gums from the Orient, and water from Pennsylvania. The woo den case would most likely be cut from western incense cedar from California, the ferrule possibly of brass or aluminum from the American West, and the erase perhaps manufactured using a mixture of South American rubber and Italian pumice stone."
Actually, the "lead" pencil of today contains no lead, not even in the paint on the outside. The writing material is a mixture of:: graphite, clay, and other ingredients. The most famous graphite came from a single source in the British Isles, and it was so valuable that workers mining the material were required to strip down as they left the mine through several vaulted and locked rooms to prevent theft. The depletion of the mine was a source of great consternation until substitute materials were found.
The pencil got its name from the Roman fine-pointed brush called apenicillus. It was created by inserting a tuft of animal hairs into a hollow reed, later called by the diminutive penis, Latin for tail, hence a little tail used for drawing fine lines.
    So, through the history of this little tool, Petroski celebrates the engineer as the innovator and amalgamator of the practical and the theoretical.

"I've always made it a firm policy not to fly with a pilot who believes in reincarnation."Paul Lazarus, head of the film studies department at the University of California, on why he refuses to fly the Indonesian airline to Bali. (My thanks to Tom Wallmo.)

Many years ago I went through a stage when I read every historical novel I could get my hands on, from Gone With The Wind through all of Cecilia Holland's fine tales. For years since I have avoided them until I ran across a review of Hella Haasse's In A Dark Wood Wandering, Originally written in Dutch in 1949 - it was wildly popular in Holland - it was not completely translated into English until 1989. Most of the work had been completed years earlier, but the death of the translator and subsequent burial of the manuscript in a closet for years prevented its publication.
The epic story takes place in France at the time of the Hundred Years War, beginning with the reign of the mad king Charles VI. In wonderful detail the story reveals what life was like during the 14th and 15th centuries in the courts of Europe. Haasse follows the life of Charles, Duke of Orleans, through palace intrigues and the long battle for power between the duchies of Burgundy, Bourbon, Orleans and the king.
Unfortunately for France Charles VI suffered from periods came and went in of insanity that
cycles of increasing severity during which he would not recognize his kin. He would dance around, attack and occasionally kill people, generally making a nuisance of himself Because he still had periods of lucidity when all appeared normal, and because he eventually could recognize the onset of his periods of madness and learned to wam his courtiers, the power fell only intermittently to his Council, dominated by his brother Louis, Duke of Orleans, and his uncle, the Duke of Burgundy, a powerful duchy that derived much of its wealth and power from its ties to England.
Louis of Orleans, and later his son Charles (the poet and our story's hero) after Louis was murdered by the Duke of Burgundy, sought to achieve a more nationalistic role for France and to sever the connections and claims of the King of England. This nationalistic fervor was the source of much power for Joan of Arc, born about 1412.
    Of course, the English wanted most of France too, and Haasse's description of the Battle at Agincourt, brief though it is, gives a real flavor of what it must have been like to be a French knight, his horse mired in mud up to the knees, unable to move, so tightly were the knights lined up in traditional formation, as the peasant English archers inexorably marched down on them, slaughtering as they went, in a battle that redefined warfare. Kevin Branaugh's Henry V (VHS 656) recreates the battle, too; it's truly excellent.).

"Television, whatever its failings, may be something of an alcohol substitute. It seems to serve the same relaxing and time filling function for many older Americans that drugs do for many younger ones."
Richard Reeves

"The trouble with children is that they are not returnable." Quentin Crisp

"If ever freedom is lost in America, that will be due to the omnipotence of the majority driving the minorities to desperation and forcing them to appeal to physical force."
Alexis de Tocqueville

"Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill because they pissed me off" Anon.

Beryl Markham was an extraordinary lady. She could train race horses to perfection, track lions and elephants, and speak Swahili with the natives. She was the first person to fly the Atlantic solo westbound. She was also an extraordinary writer.
Her autobiography, West With The Night (which we have both in print and on cassette) is one of the best books I have listened to in a long time. The cassette version is ably read by Julie Harris. Several of the passages were so striking that we listened to them more than once. I particularly like the time she and famous hunter Bror Blixen faced down an elephant in the African bush.
She was born in England almost nothing is told of her mother - and followed her father to British East Africa where, it seems, she was allowed to pretty much "run with the natives." She learned many of their hunting and tracking skills, not to mention their language, but once grown the racial biases of her 1920's white heritage had taken hold. She remarks with only a small sense of regret that native children she formerly had played side-by-side with, now had to walk behind her.
She tells her life with such understatement that you may want to read one of the biographies that have appeared since the 50th anniversary of her historic flight. (We have Straight On Till Morning, TL 540.M345 L68 1987 - thanks to Mrs. Gochnaur - and a summary will no doubt appear here in the future.) I completely missed the book when it was first reprinted in 1986 even though it was on the NYT best seller list for over 42 weeks. Tsk. Tsk. Then again, I won't notice the end of the world until the book comes out several years later.

    Anything about trains is worth reading, so naturally when the Wilson Quarterly's cover story for Winter 1994 (personally I think winter's issue should come last in the year, but nobody asked me) dealt with the rise and fall of American railroads I immediately appropriated it. Nothing like getting first crack at everything.
    Most rail fans, I hazard, believe that the decline of the passenger railroads was caused primarily by competition from the automobile and airplane, coupled with the reluctance of railroad companies to spend any money on improvements for passenger service.
    Mark Reutter details the successful steps that railroads took on their own initiative to reverse a decline in passenger traffic that had begun in the twenties The Zephyrs, those sleek stainless steel beauties that tore across the plains chopping hours off travel time between cities, effectively brought passenger traffic to new levels, so that by 1935 traffic was UP 35% over previous records. The new stainless steel cars and diesel engines were cheaper to operate, could travel faster, and brought new levels of comfort to the passenger. The railroads saved so much money they were able to reduce fares from about 3.6 cents per mile traveled to less than 2 cents. Much of this technology was added just in time for WW 11 - and the railroads were key to our success in that conflict.
After the war the prospect looked bright for railroad traffic Yet by 1965 passenger traffic had plunged by two thirds. Reutter writes that the cause was not exclusively the automobile and the airplane, but a radical shift in the transportation ground rules: government became the railroads' chief competitor.
Pork barrel became the watchword of Congress, and unfettered by the "discipline of war, federal expenditures for airports and highways rocketed to dizzying heights...... Railroads had to build and maintain their own rights of way. Buses and trucks and cars and airplanes did not.
Speed, inexpensiveness, and efficiency, the characteristics that had made such a success for rail passenger travel during the thirties was penalized by government policies. For example, at a time when the railroads were thinking of increasing the speed of their trains, the ICC placed a 79 mph limit on trains without cab signals. Ironically, they had been running at much faster speeds without incident for years.
    The 15% tax placed on common carrier passenger tickets to discourage travel during the war was continued after the war. It continued to be successful. Property taxes were used to build air ports, and railroads, because they owned stations and track, were paying taxes to support their competitors. The Great Northern calculated that at one of the cities they served the GN paid $3.82 for every airline passenger served by the airport while Western Airlines paid only 4 cents.
    Featherbedding was an even greater problem. On a 16-hour trip from New York to Chicago, a train was required to change crews every 100 miles, a legacy of the days when 100 miles constituted a day's travel, This meant the railroad had to pay 8 days' wages for one day's trip.
    The interstate highway dealt another blow. The addition of 28,000 miles of roads meant the loss of 54,000 miles of track taken out of passenger service. In the meantime, France and Japan were using ideas developed in the United States to create 175-mph trains that use one-sixth the energy as a passenger plane to propel the same passenger load. They are also profitable and have extraordinary safety records ironically, the high-speed tilting X-2000 Swedish-built train that has been hailed in this country as so "revolutionary" was designed using technology developed 40 years ago by American Foundry and then sold to Spain, where it was very successful. They could find no market for it in the United States.

Correction: In the last issue I stated incorrectly that Father Curran had been stripped of the fight to teach in Catholic universities. That was technically incorrect: he was stripped of the right to teach on the theological faculties of those universities; he would have still been allowed to teach non-doctrinal courses, assuming he was offered a position on the non-theological side of the university. Thank you C.W.

The perfect book to read while solidifying in subzero weather is The Raft by Robert Trumbull (D790.T78 1992). And one look at the cover will suggest that another bite of that fat laden steak is well-worthwhile.
Trumbull retells the story of 3 aviators whose plane went down in the Pacific. They had a rubber raft and little else because the plane sank so quickly. They were adrift for 34 days and traveled over 1,000 miles. The raft was about four by eight feet. It was so small that no one could stretch out. "Imagine doubling up on a tiny mattress, with the strongest man you know striking the underside as hard as he could with a baseball bat, twice every three seconds, while someone else hurls buckets of cold salt water in your face." The raft also had a nasty tendency to overturn when waves got a little high, or the occupants moved incorrectly. Their clothes were often wet from spray. They were very hot during the day and cold at night. They had no food, and, after the several flips of the raft, only a penknife and themselves for company.
It's always amazing how resourceful people can be under trying circumstances. Harold Dixon, who had the most navigational experience, managed to calculate about where they were and where they needed to go, more or less, and then figured small ways to steer the craft to go in that particular direction.
Squalls were viewed as a mixed blessing. Rain was their only source of drinking water (which they gathered by wringing out their clothes. But squalls brought wind and waves which might turn them over.
Finally, after being tossed by the winds of a passing hurricane they sighted an island toward which they frantically paddled, The natives were astonished to see them for they managed to float through the surf of a coral reef that the natives considered impenetrable in their canoes. They were slowly nursed back to health and then eventually rescued.

The year 1566 was tough for the Dutch. It included a plague, a great freeze, floods, and drought, not to mention a Spanish invasion. Dutch artist Rien Poortviiet has created a gorgeous volume of paintings (Daily Life in Holland in the Year 1566 And the Story of My Ancestor's Treasure Chest, (Di 155.P66 1991) representing life as his research showed it to be during that year. He shows in Rembrandtesque detail what clothes people wore, how they got dressed, the misery of the poor, and numerous details of it daily life. For example, many cities had laws regulating the length of knives that could be worn -- perhaps society's first attempt at weapon control. (No doubt the Dutch Sharp Edge Association, also known as the Netherlands Rapier Association, protested vigorously.) The town would hang a wooden knife cut to the s proper length at the town gate so visitors could measure up.
Poortviiet revels in revealing the smallest details. He shows examples of engagement ring and the medallions that peasants their hats. Some were quite humorous; evidently the middle ages wasn't quite as scandalized by the scatological as we have become. Houses had no r house might be numbers, so your house might be the one three houses down from the red boot - the red boot being the sign of a local tanner, perhaps. Men going out for a beer would say, I'm going to pick up a circle," so naturally women getting together for needlework in the evening would have a "sewing circle."
Sanitation was unknown. Garbage and trash were thrown into the streets If a canal passed by the front of a house, it became the catchall of all the debris. Out houses were built over the canal, which was then used for rinsing dishes. It was, however, forbidden to burn deathbed straw within the city limits. Fire itself:: was a constant danger and the city strictly regulated the way houses could be built. Homes with tile or slate roofs were subsidized and, depending on the value of the house, the owner was required to have one or two leather pails on hand, One job of the fire chief was to make sure that there were open holes kept in the ice during the winter for fighting fires.
Traveling was dangerous. Wolves were common, as were robbers and cutthroats. Usually one could tell when approaching a city by the smell, and the sight of bodies hanging from trees. It was required that the condemned confess before being executed so torture was common and the devices used to extract confessions were ingeniously designed to be both beautiful and effective. They are rather vividly portrayed here. Executions were a form of entertainment and it was common for the entire family to attend. The town bailiffs income was derived from the number of criminals or malefactors he was able to torture or execute. (And we thought ticket quotas were bad!) Of course, it wasn't just criminals who got their dues, A nabaptists were also prime fodder for the rack and gallows.
In fact, 1566 was a year or great ferment in the church. The Reformation was beginning to take hold and the anti-idolaters were smashing church icons in a maddening attempt to vent their frustration against the government and the church. All this history is portrayed in hundreds of beautifully detailed paintings and sketches, each supplemented by short text. A magnificent volume.

One of the features I liked best about The Hunt for Red October was the detailed description of submarine technology. Now that Tom Clancy is famous and the darling of the military, he gets to tour all the ships and hardware that he wrote about and the military guys all have to suck up to him because he represents just one more method of increasing their public image. Anyway, Clancy has just had published a non-fictional tour, if you will, of a modern nuclear-powered submarine (Submarine: A Guided Tour inside a Nuclear Warship). Being somewhat enamored of technology myself I had to read it, and I must admit it's quite fascinating. We are good at creating awesome weapons of destruction -- shame we can't get high speed rail going with the same enthusiasm.
     Contrary to the John Wayne crash dives in movies we were all raised on, a modern nuclear submarine requires 5-8 minutes of delicately balanced ballet to submerge, After all, a Los Angeles class submarine weighs about 7,000 tons, so maneuvering is "done with subtlety and a minimum of rapid action." Eliminating noise is the key. They must be as silent as possible to avoid making their presence known.
    Underwater running is very smooth, just like walking on concrete. There is no sensation of movement. Of course, on the surface, especially during choppy weather, it's a whole new ball game; "it rolls rather drunkenly. " Living quarters are tight and the men must practice "hotbunking," the sharing of bunks, since there is not enough room for a separate bunk for each. The bunks themselves are identical in size to coffins, 6 x 3 x 2. The captain gets a huge space measuring about 8 X 10 feet.
The crews are quite small, only about 130 men, but that still requires lots of food and water.
The distillation plant produces 10,000 gallons per day. Oxygen is produced by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen is vented to the outside and the oxygen used for breathing. Living on a nuclear sub is "a combination of living in an oversized motor home and summer camp. Not much room, very little noise [summer camp?], very little news from home, and no privacy."
Clancy delves into the weaponry also. One interesting sidelight. The Exocet missile that destroyed the Sheffield during the Falkland Islands spat actually failed to detonate. It was the unburned fuel of the rocket engine that started a fire that ultimately destroyed the ship. The Tomahawk cruise missile the subs carry which were used extensively during Bush's attempt at reelection was actually Nobel Peace Prize winner Kissinger's successful desire to thwart the treaty obligations of SALT 1. These cruise missiles were a nuclear loophole.
Achieving silence is the most classified technology of the submarine service. The power plant generates 35,000 shaft horse power, yet "the noise radiated by the Miami is probably something less than the energy given off by a 20-watt light bulb. Everything is mounted on rubber. and special sensors are used to detect unusual vibrations from equipment. This has the added benefit of warning of equipment failure, as bearings begin to sound differently as they wear out.
Clancy dedicates about half the book to an examination of British submarines and their role
in NATO, which -is quite interesting. I recommend this book to all non-Luddites.

"I had never realized before how quickly men deteriorate without razors and clean shirts. They are like potted plants that, go to weed unless they are pruned and tended daily. A single day's growth of beard makes a man look careless; two days', derelict; and four days' polluted." Beryl Markham

From a recent review of a new compact disc entitled "Full Bladder": "A purposefully discordant compilation of deep sounding sometimes strained and hollering female vocals sets the stage for sarcastic lyrics expressing alienation and isolation, all the while making a broader general criticism of how stupid everything is." Just makes you want to run out and buy the thing. (My thanks to John Weber.)

From the "Thank Goodness Doctors Think of These Things" department: Before condemned prisoners are given the lethal injection, their arm is swabbed with alcohol to prevent possible infection. (Dead Men Walking by Helen Prejean)

"Scholarship is a mechanism to remove impediments to understanding." Ralph McInemy