August 8 to 14 2021

Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, August 8, 2021
through
Saturday, August 14, 2021



___________________________________________________­­­­­_______
It’s Saturday, August 14, 2021
Welcome to the 1,189th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

_____________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Bataille d'Ascalon (1099)

13th century illustration of the battle
Unknown author - http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/ConsulterElementNum?O=IFN-023008874&E=JPEG&Deb=1&Fin=1&Param=C

______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
Three cheers for California, first in the nation to require teachers to be vaccinated. Doesn’t that sound like a no-brainer?
But give CA full credit for it’s soon to pass legislation requiring solar power and battery storage in new commercial buildings and apartment towers.

It’s getting more apparent that the vaccines are losing 6% efficacy every two months. More and more apparent that annual booster shots will be necessary. So what? We’ll do what it takes to defeat covid-19.

This, too much fun to pass up: a plagiarized report from the AP wire: “In a break from protocol, Pope Francis took a cellphone from an aide and chatted animatedly while standing at center stage in a Vatican auditorium for his weekly public audience yesterday.”  How cute.

And six days after the Cousin’s Party, no illnesses to report. For which we are grateful and remain on alert.

______________________________________
3.0 Reading and Writing
I am still reading The Underground Railroad. It’s terrific.

My manuscript is composed of Five Parts, each with several sections.
I am working on Part One, Section Four.
Part One deals with the protagonist’s recovery from a forced heroin addiction, preparing for her reintegration into society.
In Section 1 our heroine decides to cold-turkey withdraw form her forced heroin addiction. In section two, we see some of the physical torments she goes through. In Section Three, she begins to emerge from her isolation. And now, in Section Four, she plots out a new life and a new name.

______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'this poet lies!
Such heaven never touched earthly faces”
~William Shakespeare

_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Alone tonight.
I enjoyed Chicken Soup from the same pot I made last week and tucked into the freezer.
There’s still more for another time.

And I worked on three dinner dates, all with the families of nieces with whom I spoke at our Cousin’s Annual Party.

____________________________________
7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
Katherine and President Valerie Smith of Swarthmore, Graduation Day
As outspoken President of the Student Council for two years, Katherine enjoyed a unique relationship with the President, frequently emailing her on one issue or another, and always getting a response.

__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
The Battle of Ascalon took place on 12 August 1099 shortly after the capture of Jerusalem, and is often considered the last action of the First Crusade. The crusader army led by Godfrey of Bouillon defeated and drove off a Fatimid army, securing the safety of Jerusalem.

The Crusaders completed their primary objective of capturing Jerusalem on 15 July 1099. In early August, they learned of the approach of a 20,000-strong Fatimid army under vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah. Under Godfrey's command the 10,200-strong Crusader army took the offensive, leaving the city on 10 August to risk everything on a great battle against the approaching Muslims. The Crusaders marched barefoot, carrying the relic of the True Cross with them, accompanied by patriarch Arnulf of Chocques. The army marched south from Jerusalem, approaching the vicinity of Ascalon on the 11th and capturing Egyptian spies who revealed al-Afdal's dispositions and strength.(The distance from Jerusalem to Ascalon is ca 77 km)

At dawn on 12 August, the Crusader army launched a surprise attack on the Fatimid army still sleeping in its camp outside the defensive walls of Ascalon. The Fatimids had failed to post enough guards, leaving only a part of their army capable of fighting. The Crusaders quickly defeated the half-ready Fatimid infantry, while the Fatimid cavalry barely fought at all. The battle was over in less than an hour. The Crusader knights reached the center of the camp, capturing the vizier's standard and personal baggage, including his sword. Some Fatimids fled into the trees and were killed by Crusader arrows and lances, while others begged for mercy at the Crusaders' feet and were butchered en masse. The terrified vizier fled by ship to Egypt, leaving the Crusaders to kill any survivors and gather up a vast amount of loot. Ibn al-Qalanisi estimated 12,700 Fatimid dead.

The first Muslim attempt to recapture Jerusalem ended in complete defeat, but Godfrey failed to exploit the victory and take Ascalon, whose Fatimid garrison was willing to surrender only to Raymond of Toulouse, a condition Godfrey would not accept. The Fatimid base in Ascalon remained a thorn in the side of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and would not fall until the siege of Ascalon of 1153.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

___________________________________________________­­­­­_______
It’s Friday, August 13, 2021
Welcome to the 1,188th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Alex Haley

promoting Roots at the University of Texas at Arlington in 1980
University of Texas at Arlington Photograph Collection - UTA Libraries Digital Gallery
Alex Haley speaker at University of Texas at Arlington's Texas Hall.

_____________________________________
2.0 Commentary
Vaccinations are a matter of the health of our nation. I thrill at the announcements of every company, every school, and every government agency that vaccinations will be mandatory.

We who attended our annual outdoors cousins party, about 30 of us, are on day 4 of the 14 day quarantine countdown. No illnesses reported yet.

I have announced plans for an indoor cousin’s party in December. No spouses or children in attendance, so I expect fewer than a dozen. While masks will likely not be worn, all of us are double vaccinated. The menu will be French champagne with nibbles, a pasta course, dry-aged Rib Roast, and a Flour-provided desserts.

And I am planning several dinner parties of four to six, that will include all members of a single family. It’s time I got to know my nephews and nieces and their children and spouses.

_____________________________________
3.0 Reading and Writing
I am reading The Underground Railroad. It’s terrific.

My manuscript is composed of Five Parts, each with several sections.
I am working on Part One, Section Four.
Part One deals with the protagonist’s recovery from a forced heroin addiction, preparing for her reintegration into society.
In Section 1 our heroine decides to cold-turkey withdraw form her forced heroin addiction. In section two, we see some of the physical torments she goes through.

______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“I'm never growing up,
I'll just sit in the corner of time and sip my juice box petulantly and judge your terrible Hamlet adaptations.”
~Rhiannon McGavin

_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

We received half a dozen responses from my nephews and nieces re: a December dinner party: all positive. Except, a lot of pushback on a full dress affair.

Blog meister responds: So I will say this: I plan to wear a tie, no jacket. Please come dressed as you’d like.

_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night I had a repeat of Sunday night’s dinner: Lasagna, followed by the other half of a slow-roasted double rib pork chop.
Also delicious.

My daughter will be returning to our apartment home, her boyfriend Will with her, his visit running from Saturday to Wednesday. I made up a chart of lunches and dinners covering the visit. It’ll be fun.

___________________________________
7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
Remember that turkey that I photographed at Post Office Square, she was happily testing out the Greenway across from where I live.

__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992) was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and aired it in 1977 to a record-breaking audience of 130 million viewers. In the United States, the book and miniseries raised the public awareness of black American history and inspired a broad interest in genealogy and family history.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965, was Haley's first book.[17] It describes the trajectory of Malcolm X's life from street criminal to national spokesman for the Nation of Islam to his conversion to Sunni Islam. It also outlines Malcolm X's philosophy of black pride, black nationalism, and pan-Africanism. Haley wrote an epilogue to the book summarizing the end of Malcolm X's life, including his assassination in New York's Audubon Ballroom.

Haley ghostwrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X based on more than 50 in-depth interviews he conducted with Malcolm X between 1963 and Malcolm X's February 1965 assassination.[18] The two men had first met in 1960 when Haley wrote an article about the Nation of Islam for Reader's Digest. They met again when Haley interviewed Malcolm X for Playboy.[18]

He was working on a second family history novel at his death. Haley had requested that David Stevens, a screenwriter, complete it; the book was published as Queen: The Story of an American Family. It was adapted as a miniseries, Alex Haley's Queen, broadcast in 1993.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

___________________________________________________­­­­­_______
It’s Thursday, August 12, 2021
Welcome to the 1,187th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

_____________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
The Green Knight

______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
Keeping a check on the Saturday, August 7th Cousins Party.
If no one has covid symptoms after fourteen days we may expect to be free of contamination.
The earliest symptoms could start today, Monday. By Tuesday, the 10th, day three, no reports. Still very early in the countdown.

The typical 16/8 diet, i.e. 16 hours no food and 8 eat well, (remember that if you include, say, 3 hours after supper without eating and then 8 hours in bed, that’s 11 hours when one would not usually eat anything anyway) dictates no food for 16 hours. So you’d be ‘without’ for 5 hours and eating for 8.
At eighty years old I find that 16 hour stretch a little much. So I’ve modified it. I eat a half of a sweet roll and a soft boiled egg for breakfast and then go to noon when my 8 hours of eating well starts.
Sounds doable except that my weight loss has stagnated, even showing an upwards tick. Thinking about it, the last couple of days I’ve been abusive. I’ve eaten a generous serving of ice cream and lasagna portions each of the last two days. I’ll get back to the straight and narrow and see if I can continue my downwards trend.

______________________________________
3.0 Reading and Writing
I am reading The Underground Railroad. It’s terrific.

My manuscript is composed of Five Parts, each with several sections.
I am working on Part One, section four.
Part One deals with the protagonist’s recovery from a forced heroin addiction, preparing for her reintegration into society.
In Section 1 our heroine decides to cold-turkey withdraw from her forced heroin addiction. In Section 2, we see some of the physical torments she goes through. In Section 3 she steps out of the recovery house and is introduced to a café wherein she falls in love with Italian coffee drinks. We taste a soupcon of her violent tendencies.
In Section 4, she assesses her condition and makes some serious life choices.

______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“His nature is too noble for the world:

He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,

Or Jove for’s power to thunder. His heart’s his mouth:

What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;

And being angry, does forget that ever

He heard the name of death.”
~William Shakespeare
Coriolanus

_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

Got a much anticipated email from our friend Tucker J:

Hey Dom,

I hope you're well! I had the pleasure of seeing one of the year's best films (in my mind anyway) yesterday and wrote something about it. Figured I would share it with you! 

Blog meister responds: Awesome! We put the text in the Thumbnail section just below and a picture as the Lead Picture.

_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
A great meal. I had a portion of my son’s Lasagna followed by half of a double-thick pork chop.
I love the double-thick: when they take on the attributes of a roast, juicy and tender; and then when finished with a broil/sear, they gain the char-burn that we admire. But a whole double-thick is too large for me so I eat half and put the other half away for dinner in the next day or two.
When I’m planning to eat the chop over two days, I’ll slow roast the whole piece, cut it into two, wrap one piece for the next meal, and then sear this night’s portion.

____________________________________
7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
Boston Common: Taking down the Tempest
A gloomy day both in terms of weather and the season’s end to the Shakespeare event on the Boston Common.

__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail

Among the lesser terrors Covid -19 wrought on the world was the delay or destruction of the film industry. Dozens of films that were scheduled to be shot or released were shelved during the pandemic with studios terrified they would never recoup the money spent on producing them if they couldn’t rake in theater sales. Many of those same studios adapted to the pandemic by releasing some of their films via streaming services they own or have dealings with. This did breathe some life into the moviegoing calendar and gave all of us a few new things to pore over while relegated to our homes for much of the last 18 months. The sad truth of those home releases though is that they were rarely anything to get excited about once seen. That isn’t to say there hasn’t been marvelous work produced during the pandemic. There has been. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing one of those works over the weekend. Let me tell you about it. 

Rich with atmosphere and metaphor, propelled by a soundtrack of hollow strums, whispering strings, and gorgeous English folk ballads, David Lowery’s The Green Knight is a fantasy epic, an Arthurian legend by way of one of distributor A24’s arty horror mood pieces. Over two-plus hours, the film never stops dazzling the viewer with mythic imagery. During one interlude, which may be real or a vision brought on by mushrooms (an argument could be made for the entire film taking place under similar circumstances) pale, naked giants of almost extraterrestrial wonder lumber across the landscape. They’re amazing, in their scale and otherworldliness. Yet so is just about everything captured by cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo’s camera, affording the natural world of this medieval setting the same storybook awe framing its supernatural intrusions. 

Among the film’s most remarkable attractions is its title one, who arrives like a weed bursting from cracked tile, bringing a primordial Earth-god power through the gates of Camelot. Lowery first exercises his creative liberty in the transformation of this villain of classic literature from a mammoth of a man to something born in the deepest darkest center of the forest, with a face as rough as bark and an axe that sprouts flowers when laid in the dirt. He looks fearsome, and sounds even scarier, limbs creaking and groaning with every movement, as though they were the branches of an ancient oak swayed by high winds. The Knight is a creature of uncommon tactility; you feel like you could reach out and run a hand across his corklike skin. Even the film’s digital wizardry has a handmade quality. 

On paper, the Knight was green only in hue. That’s how the author, unknown to this day, described the towering challenger of his Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, and how everyone from J.R.R. Tolkien to Simon Arbitage have described him too, when translating the 14th-century poem from Middle English into modern verse. What did he represent? Whole college curriculums have been filled with theories on the matter. A staple of academic study, Sir Gawain And The Green Knight has inspired endless interpretations and thematic readings over the ages. It’s also spawned stage productions, operas, and two prior cinematic adaptations. Lowery seems drawn to the story mainly as a symbolic text. He revels in its mysteries and ambiguities and internal conflicts, like the collision of an older natural world represented by the Knight with the new one of the New Testament. 

In shortening the title, Lowery lends it a dual meaning: The other “green” knight here is Gawain himself, played by Dev Patel. Introduced waking in a brothel on Christmas morning, his Gawain is a shiftless teenage libertine caught between the implicitly pagan values of his mother Sarita Choudhury the enchantress Morgan le Fay and the explicitly Christian values of his uncle, Sean Harris, as the film’s aged, thoughtful King Arthur. It’s the young man’s insecurity about his own lack of accomplishments that inspires him to accept the challenge of the Green Knight, landing a blow that the hulking visitor will return in kind one year later. When Gawain ends up decapitating the knight, who gallops off with his own cackling noggin under one arm like the Headless Horseman, the gravity of the quid pro quo begins to sink in.

The following Christmas, Gawain nervously sets out on a journey to find his mysterious sparring partner and uphold his end of the bargain. Like its source material, The Green Knight has an episodic structure, but most of the episodes don’t resolve in simple or instructive ways. An encounter with a deceptive thief (Barry Keoghan) on a body-strewn battlefield, for example, offers no “satisfying” closure, only the shame of defeat. Later, Gawain’s journey brings him to a castle and a hospitable host (Joel Edgerton)—one of the more significant chapters from the original text. The Green Knight complicates it, however, by casting Alicia Vikander in a dual role as both the stranger’s flirtatious wife and Gawain’s sweetheart back in Camelot. The addition of a romance in the modern sense of the word to this classic chivalric romance hints at the film’s priorities as a kind of coming-of-age story for a feckless scion. It also intrinsically ties his grasp for honor, the driving motive of the young man’s quest, to his relationship with the kind of character who rarely makes the final draft of stories bound for the libraries of history.

Legends have always been of paramount interest to Lowery, who mounted an extended tribute to a one-man Hollywood history in his last film, The Old Man And The Gun, and reached for eternity itself in his eccentric A Ghost Story. Here, the Texas writer-director revels in the opportunity to create image after image worthy of immortalization: The Green Knight is his most purely striking achievement, offering sprawling forests bathed in ghostly orange light and overhead shots that suggest the surveying eye of a curious god. Lowery shot much of the film in County Wicklow in Ireland, with scenes in a castle previously glimpsed in John Boorman’s take on Arthurian legend, Excalibur, and in another tale of a young man fumbling his way forward, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. Lowery, never shy about wearing influences on his sleeve, borrows a little from both, while nodding also to the controversial revisionism of Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation Of Christ and to the allegorical dread (and talking fox!) of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist.

This is, in the end, a spectacle of contradictions: as grandiose as the canon of tales to which it belongs but also oddly intimate in focus, with a modern psychology that clashes productively with its squalid evocation of the far bygone yesteryear. But though Lowery resists committing to any one popular take on this anonymously penned cornerstone of world literature, instead riffing on its key motifs and the centuries of discussion they’ve provoked, he does ultimately locate a relatable subversion of legend in his depiction of Gawain as a young man wrestling mightily with the consequences and responsibilities of delayed manhood. The film opens, elegantly and significantly, with a house on fire in the distance, then pulls back in the same shot, through a doorway, to find Patel slumbering in close-up, asleep while the world literally burns. Watching him finally wake up is the payoff waiting at the end of The Green Knight’s long road.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

___________________________________________________­­­­­_______
It’s Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Welcome to the 1,186th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

_____________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Nascar

Military flyover by the United States Air Force Thunderbirds[29] before the start of the race
Chief Master Sgt. Gary Emery (US-Air Force) - U.S. Air Force
Las Vegas Motor Speedway before the NASCAR UAW-Dodge 400 Sprint Cup Series race.

______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
The accelerating transition to all-electric cars is nothing short of inspiring.
It’s a direct, effective attack on a leading cause of climate change.
What’s particularly exciting is the cooperation of the federal government and big business.

A tangential benefit is the penetration into the mindset of our labor force that going green doesn’t mean unemployment. More and more information is being presented that better jobs are on the horizon, weakening the stubborn resolve of some to oppose any movement away from digging, hauling, and burning coal.

______________________________________
3.0 Reading and Writing
Monday is our first class on The Underground Railroad. What fun!

Section Three of Part One is going out to beta readers. In this part our protagonist is shaking her drug addiction, replacing it with a love of Italian coffee. Several moments presented challenging writing obstacles which I took as opportunities and really enjoyed the creation.
Part One, as a whole, deals with the protagonist’s recovery from a forced heroin addiction, preparing for her reintegration into society.

______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“I was not angry since I came to France

Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;

Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill:

If they will fight with us, bid them come down,

Or void the field; they do offend our sight:

If they’ll do neither, we will come to them,

And make them skirr away, as swift as stones

Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:

Besides, we’ll cut the throats of those we have,

And not a man of them that we shall take

Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.”

~William Shakespeare
Henry V

(Blog Meister’s Note: I was particularly moved by this scene as presented in the Kenneth Branagh movie rendition.)

_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

This from another blogger who wishes to remain anonymous: a nom de plume: APVSQ  (Anonymous pro-vaxxer, pro-science, pro-questioner)

Thank you Dom.

One comment on your comment about masks. You wrote: “I applaud every company, every civil organization, and every non-profit that makes vaccination a necessary part of their employment criteria. If for no other reason than to obviate the use of masks. A nuisance. Masks won’t be necessary of we achieve the somewhat mythical goal of ‘herd immunity.’”

From what I am hearing, the CDC is now leaning towards mandating masks again because the vaccinations are at this point irrelevant to the spred of the Delta variant.  Listen here to Dr. Wallensky and Wolf Blitzer, especially at about 1:20: CDC’s Dr. Rochelle Walensky admits (rumble.com)

I hear them both saying that masking is necessary because the vaccine is not fully effective, so that no matter how many people vaccinate, a) we won’t have herd immunity and b) we may still need masks. Or am I missing something?

Consider these questions: What if vaccines are simply not effective? Not through anybody’s fault. They are just not working. Would the CDC, Pfizer, Moderna, J&J etc. admit this? Who would hold them to admitting it?

And consider that the vaccine is a huge money making product, giving huge incentives to hide product defects. Add to this the reputations of many people that would suffer if this were admitted. It should not be this way, science should rule, but it does not work that way. We are human, all to human.

Your friend always,

APVSQ  (Anonymous pro-vaxxer, pro-science, pro-questioner)

Blog meister responds: I do believe the various recent reportages have truly muddied the waters for the average listener. Confusion reigns now that didn’t when Dr. Fauci was holding regular court. It’s time for him to talk to us daily again.

_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Saturday Katherine and I ate at the Cousins party. I ate a burger, a taste of Lasagna, and a meatball. The Lasagna and meatball (both from my son Dom) were terrific.

An act of love from Camie to the rest of us Cousins.

____________________________________
7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
Here is a picture from the Cousins party.

__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
The 2008 UAW-Dodge 400 was the third stock car race of the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It was held on March 2, 2008, before a crowd of 153,000 in Las Vegas, Nevada, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, an intermediate track that holds NASCAR races. The 267-lap race was won by Carl Edwards of the Roush Fenway Racing team, who started from second position. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second and Edwards's teammate Greg Biffle was third.

Kyle Busch won the pole position, which he held for twenty laps until he was passed by Edwards. He held the lead until the first green-flag pit stops and regained the position after the stops ended. Busch retook the lead on lap 81 and held it until he was passed by Matt Kenseth. Jeff Gordon took over the lead on lap 163, before Earnhardt became the leader on the 181st lap and maintained this position until Edwards regained it 14 laps later. The race was stopped for 17 minutes when Gordon crashed on lap 262, and car parts were strewn into the path of other drivers, requiring officials to clean the track. Edwards maintained the lead at the restart and held it to win the race. There were 11 cautions and 19 lead changes by nine different drivers during the race.

The race was Edwards's second consecutive win of the season, and the ninth of his career. He was later issued with a 100-point penalty after his car was found to violate NASCAR regulations, dropping him from first to seventh in the Drivers' Championship. Kyle Busch increased his lead over Ryan Newman to twenty points as a consequence. Ford took over the lead of the Manufacturers' Championship, five points ahead of Dodge. Chevrolet moved clear of Toyota in third place, with 33 races left in the season. The race attracted 12.1 million television viewers.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

___________________________________________________­­­­­_______
It’s Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Welcome to the 1,185th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Impala

(Aepyceros melampus) is a medium-sized African antelope
Harvey Barrison from Massapequa, NY, USA -
Western Serengeti_2012 06 03_3630 Uploaded by Elitre

______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
My nephews and nieces and son Dom planned and executed a ‘cousins’ party.
It was terrific.
Fortunately, Cammie, niece, has a lovely home to host such an event, complete with three decks, a pool, and a backyard for the barbecue.
A shout out to them all from me.

Mask wearing at the MFA is not as onerous as I thought it would be.
Their outdoor dining Garden, where in the summer months I do my writing, is 200’ square and the tables are 10’ apart.
And since it’s used for dining and masks aren’t worn when eating, I can buy an orange and eat a section at a time very, very slowly.
In the galleries, one understands that the close quarters mandates mask protection.

______________________________________
3.0 Reading and Writing
I am reading The Underground Railroad. It’s terrific.

My manuscript is composed of Five Parts, each with several sections.
I am working on Part One, section three.
Part One deals with the protagonist’s recovery from a forced heroin addiction, preparing for her reintegration into society.
In Section 1 our sixteen-year-old heroine decides to cold-turkey withdraw form her forced heroin addiction. In section two, we see some of the physical torments she goes through.
I’m just about done with Section Three wherein our heroine discovers coffee and loves it. We also see her violent side.

______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“The leafless trees,
with their black branches stretched hysterically in every direction,
looked to him like illustrations of a central nervous system racked by disease:
studies of human suffering anatomized against the winter sky.”
~Edward St. Aubyn
Dunbar

_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

I got an unwanted email from Alitalia: my flight to Rome in October is cancelled.
I must contact them.

Blog meister responds: It’s possible that this latest burp is the straw that…

_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Friday night I made a Lobster Fra Diavolo having in mind to make a paste of some aromatic vegetables to enrich the pan sauce I created for the lobster.
But I made an error on proportions, adding too much of the aromatics and destroying the gestalt of the dish which likes to be juicier than my result.
Still good.

 ____________________________________
7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
Cousins Party
Children of mine and my three sisters.
An annual outdoor event, twenty-five people, close to 100% attendance.
Love filled the air.
Could ask for nothing greater.

_________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
The impala, Aepyceros melampus, is a medium-sized antelope found in eastern and southern Africa. The sole member of the genus Aepyceros, it was first described to European audiences by German zoologist Hinrich Lichtenstein in 1812. Two subspecies are recognised—the common impala, and the larger and darker black-faced impala. The impala reaches 70–92 centimetres (28–36 inches) at the shoulder and weighs 40–76 kg (88–168 lb). It features a glossy, reddish brown coat. The male's slender, lyre-shaped horns are 45–92 centimetres (18–36 inches) long.

Active mainly during the day, the impala may be gregarious or territorial depending upon the climate and geography. Three distinct social groups can be observed: the territorial males, bachelor herds and female herds. The impala is known for two characteristic leaps that constitute an anti-predator strategy. Browsers as well as grazers, impala feed on monocots, dicots, forbs, fruits and acacia pods (whenever available). An annual, three-week-long rut takes place toward the end of the wet season, typically in May. Rutting males fight over dominance, and the victorious male courts female in oestrus. Gestation lasts six to seven months, following which a single calf is born and immediately concealed in cover. Calves are suckled for four to six months; young males—forced out of the all-female groups—join bachelor herds, while females may stay back.

The impala is found in woodlands and sometimes on the interface (ecotone) between woodlands and savannahs; it inhabits places near water. While the black-faced impala is confined to southwestern Angola and Kaokoland in northwestern Namibia, the common impala is widespread across its range and has been reintroduced in Gabon and southern Africa. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the impala as a species of least concern; the black-faced subspecies has been classified as a vulnerable species, with fewer than 1,000 individuals remaining in the wild as of 2008.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

___________________________________________________­­­­­_______
It’s Monday, August 9, 2021
Welcome to the 1,184th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

_____________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Whiskey Rebellion

Unknown, attributed to Frederick Kemmelmeyer
- Metropolitan Museum of Art

______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
Loved Biden’s remark to Texas and Florida governors, they who are resisting masking and vaccinations; they whose two states are responsible for 33% of all new covid cases:
”If you’re not going to help, at least get out of the way.”

I applaud every company, every civil organization, and every non-profit that makes vaccination a necessary part of their employment criteria. If for no other reason than to obviate the use of masks. A nuisance. Masks won’t be necessary of we achieve the somewhat mythical goal of ‘herd immunity.’

______________________________________
3.0 Reading and Writing
I am reading The Underground Railroad. It’s terrific.

My manuscript is composed of Five Parts, each with several sections.
I am working on Part One, section three.
Part One deals with the protagonist’s recovery from a forced heroin addiction, preparing for her reintegration into society.
In Section 1 our heroine decides to cold-turkey withdraw form her forced heroin addiction. In Section 2, we see some of the physical torments she goes through. In Section 3 she begins her reintegration into society by visiting a coffee shop. I should finish Section 3 in the next day or so.

______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“Well, the thing that I suppose is closest to my heart is Shakespeare. I really am a nerd about Shakespeare, I love it [laughs] and the reason why is because he’s one of the wisest, most compassionate writers in the course of Western literature, in the course of all literature. And he understood human nature so deeply, not just our great capacity for virtue and for goodness, and for love, but our capacity for pain and destruction and anger.”
~Tom Hiddleston

_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

This from a friend re: a response to my complaining of itchy masks.

Comfortable, washable, reusable, with a replaceable disposable filter.

Adjustable and flexible, and without too much fussing can be made virtually fog-proof worn with glasses.

I’ve been using these for what will soon be a year.

https://www.honeywellstore.com/store/products/honeywell-dual-layer-face-cover-dark-gray-rws-50111.htm

Blog meister responds: I know the person well enough to accept the recommendation on faith.

____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Thursday night I treated Katherine and I to a plate of Chilean Sea Bass in a Parisian Bistro Butter Sauce. (I kinda made that name up.) But it was good.
I steamed broccoli to go with it.

BTW: I bought an inexpensive plastic microwave steamer and the thing works marvelously.
I use it a lot.

____________________________________
7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
Beer garden on Greenway
So good to be in nice weather so people can go out and enjoy themselves.

_________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
The Whiskey Rebellion (also known as the Whiskey Insurrection) was a tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington, ultimately under the command of American Revolutionary War veteran Major James McFarlane. The so-called "whiskey tax" was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. Beer was difficult to transport and spoiled more easily than rum and whiskey. Rum distillation in the United States had been disrupted during the Revolutionary War, and whiskey distribution and consumption increased after the Revolutionary War (aggregate production had not surpassed rum by 1791). The "whiskey tax" became law in 1791, and was intended to generate revenue for the war debt incurred during the Revolutionary War. The tax applied to all distilled spirits, but consumption of US whiskey was rapidly expanding in the late 18th century, so the excise became widely known as a "whiskey tax". Farmers of the western frontier were accustomed to distilling their surplus rye, barley, wheat, corn, or fermented grain mixtures to make whiskey. These farmers resisted the tax. In these regions, whiskey often served as a medium of exchange. Many of the resisters were war veterans who believed that they were fighting for the principles of the American Revolution, in particular against taxation without local representation, while the federal government maintained that the taxes were the legal expression of Congressional taxation powers.

Throughout Western Pennsylvania counties, protesters used violence and intimidation to prevent federal officials from collecting the tax. Resistance came to a climax in July 1794, when a US marshal arrived in western Pennsylvania to serve writs to distillers who had not paid the excise. The alarm was raised, and more than 500 armed men attacked the fortified home of tax inspector General John Neville. Washington responded by sending peace commissioners to western Pennsylvania to negotiate with the rebels, while at the same time calling on governors to send a militia force to enforce the tax. Washington himself rode at the head of an army to suppress the insurgency, with 13,000 militiamen provided by the governors of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The rebels all went home before the arrival of the army, and there was no confrontation. About 20 men were arrested, but all were later acquitted or pardoned. Most distillers in nearby Kentucky were found to be all but impossible to tax—in the next six years, over 175 distillers from Kentucky were convicted of violating the tax law. Numerous examples of resistance are recorded in court documents and newspaper accounts.

The Whiskey Rebellion demonstrated that the new national government had the will and ability to suppress violent resistance to its laws, though the whiskey excise remained difficult to collect. The events contributed to the formation of political parties in the United States, a process already under way. The whiskey tax was repealed in the early 1800s during the Jefferson administration. Historian Carol Berkin argues that the episode, in the long run, strengthened US nationalism because the people appreciated how well Washington handled the rebels without resorting to tyranny.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

___________________________________________________­­­­­_______
It’s Sunday, August 8, 2021
Welcome to the 1,183rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Maniac Magee

book cover
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=5825202065

______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
Covid strikes again.
Not directly at me but in terms of altering a favorable lifestyle: the MFA has decided that patrons must wear masks inside the museum.
This hurts.
I’ve been really enjoying my daily visits to the museum. They have been very comfortable.
I am not a fan of masks but if I have to wear one I’m going to find one that is better designed than the cheapos that I have been wearing for use on the T.


And again.
My Alitalia flight to Rome has been cancelled.
I must first confirm this isn’t a scam.
And then decide if I am still up to going.
When I made my bookings, I fully expected that covid would be under control.
But it refuses to wither.
So, whither goest I.
Sorry. Too tempting to pass up.

_____________________________________
3.0 Reading and Writing
I am reading The Underground Railroad. It’s terrific.

My manuscript is composed of Five Parts, each with several sections.
I am working on Part One, section three.
Part One deals with the protagonist’s recovery from a forced heroin addiction, preparing for her reintegration into society.
In Section 1 our heroine decides to cold-turkey withdraw form her forced heroin addiction. In section two, we see some of the physical torments she goes through.
In Section Three she’s introduced to Italian coffee, a socially accepted addiction.

______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“Could life get any worse?
She had read that great literature often comes out of great tragedy.
If that was true, well, Shakespeare better move over.”
~Jerry Spinelli,
Do The Funky Pickle

_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

This from someone well-known to and loved by me but wishing to remain anonymous.

Dom:

Totally against mandates. Not against vaccines, just mandates. We are up to 70+% vaccinated.  Add to that the 30 million+ who have had Covid-19 and survived and who now have anti-bodies. Basically we are at 80% immunity already.  Ask yourself why they don’t count natural immunity, which studies show is stronger immunity than vaccines. Cases are up like last summer as we would expect, but even more this year because Delta spreads easier. But it is also weaker, which is why hospitalizations and deaths are down. Covid is real and will be with us for a while still, but we can’t loose our heads or freedom.  Encourage vaccines, yes, absolutely. Do NOT mandate. Please consider that if we give big pharma this kind of power they will never give it up.  They will mandate a booster, then another, and another, and then shots for a different strain or a  different virus. The money is too good for them not to do it.  Please think carefully about this.  

I still love you.

If you post it, please do so anonymously? Would rather not put my name to it – see, that is how bad it already is.

Blog meister responds: This is an issue we have had with us since the country was formed and public schools begun. Fifty years ago, when we were enrolling our sons in private schools there were parents who insisted their children would not be vaccinated against polio or other diseases. Balancing the rights of the individual against social rights is never clear cut, always difficult, often coming down to an ad hoc basis. I’m afraid it will always remain so.

_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Wednesday night Katherine and I had dinner at Yvonne’s. It’s in the genre of a yuppie hangout where one goes for drinks, loud music, and dinner by snack.
But they’re right on the mark producing an experience perfect for their audience.

_________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
Jerry Spinelli was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and currently lives in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. At the age of 16, his love of sports inspired him to compose a poem about a recent football victory, which his father published in the local newspaper without his knowledge. It was at this time he realized that he would not become a major league baseball player, so he decided to become a writer.

At Gettysburg College, Spinelli spent his time writing short stories and was the editor of the college literary magazine, The Mercury. After graduation, he became a writer and editor for a department store magazine. The next two decades, he spent his time working "normal jobs" during the day so that he had the energy to write fiction in his free time. He found himself writing during lunch breaks, on weekends, and after dinner.

His first few novels were written for adults and were all rejected. His fifth novel was also intended for adults but became his first children's book. This work, Space Station Seventh Grade, was published in 1982.

Spinelli graduated from Gettysburg College in 1963 and acquired his MA from Johns Hopkins University in 1964. In 1977, he married Eileen Mesi, another children's writer. Since about 1980, as Eileen Spinelli, she has collaborated with illustrators to create dozens of picture books. They have six children and 21 grandchildren.

Maniac Magee is a novel written by American author Jerry Spinelli and published in 1990. Exploring themes of racism and inequality, it follows the story of an orphan boy looking for a home in the fictional town of Two Mills. Two Mills is harshly segregated between the East and West, blacks and whites. He becomes a local legend for feats of athleticism and helpfulness, and his ignorance of sharp racial boundaries in the town. It is popular in middle school curricula, and has been used in social studies on the premises of reaction to racial identity and reading. A TV movie was released on February 23, 2003.

Awards and honors for the book include:

1990: Boston Globe/Horn Book Award

1991: Carolyn Field Award, Newbery Medal (American Library Association)

1992: Charlotte Award, Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, Flicker Tale Award, Indian Paintbrush Book Award, Rhode Island Children's Book Award

1993: Buckeye Children's Book Award, Land of Enchantment Award, Mark Twain Award, Massachusetts Children's Book Award, Nevada Young Readers' Award,[Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Reader's Choice Award, Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award, West Virginia Children's Book Award, William Allen White Award

The U.S. National Education Association named Maniac Magee one of "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children" based on a 2007 online poll. In 2012 it was ranked number 40 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with primarily U.S. audience.

The book is popular in elementary schools as a historical-fiction novel. Many study units and teaching guides are available. including a study guide by the author. It has been used as a tool in scholarly work on childhood education and development. Fondrie cites it as an example in a discussion of how to bring up and discuss issues of race and class among young students. McGinley and Kamberlis use it in a study of how children use reading and writing as "vehicles for personal, social, and political exploration." Along the same lines, Lehr and Thompson examine classroom discussions as a reflection of the teacher's role as cultural mediator and the response of children to moral dilemmas, and Enciso studies expressions of social identity in the responses of children to Maniac Magee.

In a less pedagogical vein, Roberts uses the character of Amanda Beale as an archetypal "female rescuer" in a study of Newbery books, and Sullivan suggests the book as being useful in discussions of reading attitudes and difficulties.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!