Tit for Tat

Posted on by

This expression means to retaliate against some sort of attack or injury. The expression is posted this week as a companion to a review of the book “The World Set Free” by H. G. Wells. The book, written in 1913, describes how atomic bombs are used to destroy Paris and an aviator sets out with three atomic bombs to drop on Berlin, “tit for tat.”

The expression was used as early as 1556 and may have been variations in how to say “this for that.” Also, “tit and tat” are “…both the names of small blows that originated as ‘tip and tap’.”

Costs of Fighting Global Warming

Posted on by

I was inspired to weigh in again on the issue of global warming by an article titled “Post-coal Pueblo left out in the cold” by Lydia DePillis of the Washington Post. Under the headline there is a picture of Pueblo resident Sharon Garcia who “…doesn’t allow lights to be left on in rooms that aren’t being used.” She had her power shut off in 2010, and is constantly struggling to make ends meet running a day care center. She is struggling with paying her electricity bill because the residential rate per kilowatt hour has increased 26 percent since 2010.

The reasons for the increase are complex, and I suggest you read the entire article. The impact of regulatory requirements on utility companies is what attracted my attention. A big part of the problem is caused by “…coal plants shutting down as Colorado transitions to renewable energy.” Black Hills Energy provides power to Pueblo, and Colorado’s 2010 Clean Air—Clean Jobs act caused them to shutter three older plants that would have been too expensive to overhaul. Utility regulators guarantee Black Hills an 8.53 percent return, which gives it an incentive to close nearly all of its relatively inexpensive coal capacity, build new plants, and pass the costs to consumers. Continue reading →

On Writing – A Memoir Of The Craft

Posted on by

On WritingBoth RF_alum and I have tried our hand at writing fiction, so perhaps you’ll allow me a self-indulgent review: Stephen King’s book On Writing.

He defines stories as “vividly imagined waking dreams,” a form of telepathy between writer and reader over time and space. He also notes that “most books about writing [fiction] are filled with bullshit… shorter the book, the less the bullshit.”

The first seventy pages (of a two-hundred page book) talk about his life, mostly childhood and early influences. He started submitting short stories to magazines in his teens, when a few hand-written words on a form-letter rejection were cause for celebration. King thinks this is still the way to get started, especially to get an agent: get your stories published by little outlets (that may only pay in copies of their magazine); that’s how you build your credentials. (I should point out that the book has a copyright of 2000, so King’s advice pre-dates the recent boom in self-publishing, especially of ebooks.)

It’s a nice introduction to King’s style, but I must admit that, anxious to get to his writing advice, I skimmed much of it.

I’m going to include a lot of King’s specific advice; because I’m sure you’re more interested in his opinions than in mine.  Continue reading →

Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Posted on by

appleThe Washington Post did a piece on this saying, quoting author Caroline Taggart,  saying it was first used in the 1860s as a longer rhyming couplet that has become more succinct over time. A phrase from the 1860s is recent to Taggart, though “The fruit also pops up in traditional Ayurvedic medicine, dating back about 1,500 years in southern Asia,” though the word “apple” could mean any round fruit grown on a tree.

Skeptics SE mentions an Italian version of the saying. The UK’s Phrase Finder specifies the source as the1866 edition of Notes and Queries magazine which quoted this as a Pembrokeshire proverb, so the phrase was already in use.

NSC 68 and the Political Economy of the Early Cold War

Posted on by

polit-econ-cold-warFrequent readers of this web site will find that this is an unusual posting because it is a combination review and commentary. I took that approach because I disagree with the basic premise of the book that stated simplistically, the Soviets did not present the threat that was advocated by U.S. policy.  My disagreement with the premise of the book does not diminish its importance. There is, in my opinion, immense value in a healthy argument about whether the U.S. rearmament was the primary cause of the Cold War or whether the Soviet Union would have taken full advantage if that policy hadn’t blunted their efforts. I’m thrilled Truman was convinced that FDR’s trust of Stalin was misplaced and that containment of the Soviets was needed.

Back to a stab at a review, the book was written by Curt Cardwell, and he has some serious disagreements with the U.S. policies about the intentions of the Soviet Union before the beginning of the Cold War. Briefly, the National Security Council (NSC) issued a series of documents that gauged the intentions of the Soviet Union in the mid-1940s to early 1950s. Those who advocated that the Truman administration must take a hard line against the Soviet Union were primary authors of the policy statement titled NSC 68. The doctrine in that paper was approved by Truman and resulted in a massive rearmament program by the U.S. beginning in 1950. It was the culmination of several Top Secret documents advocating that the ultimate objective of the U.S.S.R. was world domination and that the U.S. was required to aggressively build military strength to prevent the Soviets from pursing that goal.  Cardwell strongly disagrees. He thinks the real purpose of NSC 68 was to protect free market capitalism. I disagree. I offer that the Soviets had blockaded Berlin, exploded their first atomic bomb in 1949, the Chinese Communists had taken control of China, North Korea had invaded the South, and the Chinese had entered the Korean War before NSC 68 was finally approved. Those events and actions indicate the Soviets were, in my opinion, interested in expanding their area of control.  Continue reading →

At First Blush

Posted on by

One of my favorite books, “A Hog on Ice and Other Curious Expressions” by Charles Earle Funk, explains, “Anciently, a blush was a glimpse, a momentary view.” The expression evolved from that explanation of the expression to mean “…to redden as from embarrassment or shame.” I didn’t find an explanation why the expression evolved from meaning “a momentary view” to the current use  as described by Dictionary.com of “reddening from embarrassment.” Perhaps that is a mystery of the evolution of language.