Author: Mark Tokarski

Just a man who likes to read, argue, and occasionally be surprised.

Millennials: Stop your moping, start reproducing!

Birth DeaarthI just got done reading a long piece at National Review by Lyman Stone, a Hong Kong resident, called Our Global Birth Dearth. It’s behind a pay wall, unfortunately, but they do allow three free articles.

I first subscribed to NR when I was perhaps 21 years old, and carried the subscription for a couple of decades. I ventured off into liberalism, and dropped it. I recently re-upped, not imagining that I would find much of interest, and generally that is true. I don’t care about party politics or Trump or the Democrats or the elections. NR cannot go near the notion that any major public event might be a hoax. In fact, such ideas would be quickly subject to derision.

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The lead OJ actor has a new gig

I have not paid much attention to the Trump impeachment proceedings, assuming it is all a sideshow complete with clowns and carnival barkers. It could be that something real is in store, as Trump is, like all presidents before, just an actor. In my worst imaginings, he is set up to act as controlled opposition in the Climate Change game and will take all of the remarkable skeptical community down with him.

Climate Change is one of the biggest hoaxes I have seen, and I have lived through McCarthyism, the assassinations of the 1960s, The Cold War, The Missile Crisis, The Iran Hostage event, Jonestown, the Iraq Wars (including the alleged starving of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi kids and old people), the Soviet Collapse, AIDS,  911, the 2000 election, and, oh yeah, I almost forgot, Bill Hicks’ cancer death. Commenters will add to this list no doubt. In the end, we might have 33 or more major hoaxes.

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Baseball’s sign stealing scandal: Bang the can slowly

AstrosI had an interesting conversation with a buddy a couple of days ago as we hiked a Colorado trail. He’s a baseball fan, and so am I, him Cubs, me Reds, and we both agreed that the teams we support were not good enough last year to be part of the sign-stealing scandal. I cannot rule that out, however.

First, a couple of baseline thoughts:

  • Baseball has a very clean image, and to the casual viewer it would appear that games are very hard to fix. Instant replay tends to get every umpire call right. But games are actually easy to fix. Baseball hitters are some of the best athletes in the world, able to hit fastballs traveling nearly 100 mph. Pitchers are only good to the extent that they are able to fool hitters by concealing their pitches. They cannot just overpower them. However, if a batter knows what pitch is coming, the odds are high that he will send that pitch to the cheap seats. That’s really all it takes to fix a game – tipped pitches.
  • We are told that last year that the baseballs used in Major League games were “juiced.” Home runs were up for nearly every team. The aerodynamics behind a juiced baseball were said to be compressed seams that allowed it to go further and faster than in years prior.

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Martha Gellhorn: The Forest Gump of war correspondents

Gellhorn

I have no idea where I am going with this, or if it will see light of day. Enjoy my “process,” such as it is, as I do not outline blog pieces, or even plan them in advance. Yesterday I had no idea that I would be writing about Martha Gellhorn today. I just finished this piece with the words “I get it” way down below. There comes a certain point when writing this stuff that I realize I have reached an appropriate ending.

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Odds and ends

Just a few matters here, some loose ends to clear up.

A writer using the pseudonym Dagen D. Proveritas submitted an essay at the Miles Mathis site called I’ve Been Considering Matthew Shepard and I Believe His Murder Was Faked. It’s a good piece of work, a bit longish for my taste. Because it is Mathis, Mathew is linked to the actors Sam and Cybill Shepard. On what evidence? The last name. However, there is no mention of anyone being Jewish.

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Blogging and geriatrics

BBDI while back I was emailing back and forth with a lady who lives in Cody, Wyoming, business related, and mentioned to her that on a trip to Yellowstone National Park last June our grandson (then age 12) wanted to see a dam. We drove by Boysen Reservoir, and when we got to the head the boy was disappointed that it was an earth-fill dam. Meh. So I made it a point on the way home to make a right turn in Cody and head up the highway to Buffalo Bill Dam, a real one. There was so much snow in the mountains last year that during the winter they had drained the reservoir so that it would not overflow. Even so, last June both floodgates were wide open and an amazing torrent of water was entering the Shoshone River down below.

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The One

OK, it is time to fess up here. I have a Facebook account and check it daily. I watch TV, though not news. I like intrigue and good acting, and there is not much to be had. I am currently watching Season Three of Bosch, the detective created by Michael Connelly, and played sort of okay by Titus Welliver. (I think the lead character should be taller and have more muscular legs. This guy is supposedly a former Green Beret but looks more like a Lt. Detective Fife. [Now that I published that I realized it is false. Welliver is a very muscular man.]

This has nothing to do with Bosch. It’s not like Game of Thrones, where they routinely kill off lead actors. Bosch always wins. Boring. What I notice, and I know we all do, is that every time Bosch ends up in court, the judge is either going to be a woman, or a black, usually both. Why do they do that? It is so predictable. If I ever see a white male judge on TV, as we have in real life, I think it will signal end times.

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