When the ‘blackface’ controversy started I immediately thought of Zulu, probably the only place a person my age would have been likely to see actual people in blackface.  I always understood it to be a parody of a parody.  I do have mixed feelings here.  If someone is offended, I don’t think it should be ignored.  Of course, ultimately people offended by this spectacle can just not go to Zulu.

From the New York Times:

A Black Group Says Mardi Gras Blackface Honors Tradition. Others Call It ‘Disgusting.’

Got word that one of my old committee members at UT, Harvey Cragon, had passed away recently (obit).  He was a tough old guy who built some of Texas Instruments supercomputers like the Advanced Scientific Computer back in the 1960s and 1970s.  It was a pleasure to know and work under someone with his background and understanding of computer architecture.  In particular, he made some recommendations for my work that I disagreed with and tried to ignore.  He eventually insisted I pursure some of these ideas, and it ended up being one of the strongest pieces of what I did (and yes, I did tell him he was right and I was wrong, but of course, he already knew that).

The term “buff” came up today.  As in a hobbyist.  Or whatever a good synonym would be.  I can’t say I have heard this word much recently and googled it.  The on-line dictionaries had a few definitions but not what I was looking for.  Then the Voice of America Learning English site comes through again. Who knew it went back to early NYC firefighters:

Buff: Are You a Buff About Something?

One of these guys has been hanging around our neighborhood for a long time.  Now there are two.  Snapped this with my phone while walking out to the car.  Had to zoom in a bit.  Maybe we will have some baby hawks soon.

Still trying to get a handle on what is happening in Venezuela.  Many people will take away the lesson that leftist politics is a failure, except that it worked very well, especially for the poor.  All it needed was high oil prices.  I suppose any system can paper over problems when cash is gushing in.  My take:. Left or right or center, let the voters decide.  And then let them decide again in a few years.  I worry that this is all just subverting our greatest principle, Democracy.  A good article from the London Review of Books that has most of the actual facts I have been trying to find in the US press.

The Battle for Venezuela

Tony Wood

Been busy lately.  And had this on and off cold, which seems to be back on.  Ran across this story about siestas but the bit about time zones was even more unusual.

Siesta no more? Why Spanish sleeping habits are under strain

“The other factor that affects Spaniards’ sleeping habits is that the country is in the wrong time zone. Geographically, Spain should be on Greenwich Mean Time, but in 1942 the fascist dictator Francisco Franco switched the nation to European Central Time in solidarity with Adolf Hitler. Perhaps bizarrely, until recently there haven’t been any moves to change it back.”

Ariana Grande’s New Kanji Tattoo Is An Unfortunate Mistake

To celebrate her newest single “7 Rings,” pop star Ariana Grande got a kanji tattoo. Unfortunately, it’s wrong.

Grande posted a photo of her tattoo. In Japanese, it reads, 七輪 (shichirin). You can see the pic photo (via Grande’s official Japanese Twitter), which has since been deleted from her Instagram.

The kanji character 七 means “seven,” while 輪 means “hoop,” “circle,” “ring,” or “wheel.” However, when you put them together, the meaning is different! 七輪 (shichirin) is a “small charcoal grill” and not “seven rings,” which is written differently in Japanese.

I have spent some time trying to understand the situation in Venezuela.  How could a country with such natural wealth end up in so much economic trouble?  Most of the articles I found seemed to cast the problem in political terms.  The conservatives were corrupt and stole all of the oil money.  The socialists were corrupt and stole all the oil money.  I suppose both could be true.

A friend from Iran recently used the term Black Curse for oil,  The article I just read used the same term several times.  I suppose that is a good way to look at it,  Throw a group of people of any sort into a vast supply of easy money, and watch things go down hill.

The article below isn’t ‘impartial’, but it does seem to be factual (it is a book review of a biography of Hugo Chavez).  A good read if you are interested in how things got so bad in Venezuela and how it could happen in other places.  From the London Review of Books, from a few years back (it turned up in a mailing I get):

Down from the Mountain

Greg Grandin

Vol. 39 No. 13 · 29 June 2017

Headline from the Times-Picayune:

Watched Saints Rams.  That missed intereference call is gonna go down as one of the worst pieces of officiating in history.  Probably lots written by tomorrow.  For now: https://fansided.com/2019/01/20/saints-fans-react-worst-non-call-nfl-history/