Author Archives: michaelulinedwards

BEGAT

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DAVID CRYSTAL – RECOMMENDED

This book attempts to tell how various editions of the Bible influenced the evolution of English. It is incomplete; the text could be longer, much longer.

The text introduces the reader to the subject, succinctly refreshing readers/writers to the subject matter and its sensitizes writers to the contents. The book is organized by idioms, phrases and verses, like it is a guide explaining business or management practices. [Robert Townsend, Up the Organization was one of the first types of this book.] Hence Begat becomes a valuable quick resource for references to Biblical idioms, phrases and verses, sometimes from the original usage to the present.

There are omissions. Before 1559 the English Bible was in prose and paragraphs. Thereafter, the Bible was in verse. Its style was greatly influenced by poetry and the playwrights of Elizabethan England. Prose and poetry obviously differ. Modern prose stresses the verb; poetry has always been about using and associating nouns and sometimes using specific forms and linguistic devices. Prose seems much more accepting to change of grammar, use of words, shifting words and odd word order.

The original language of the Volgate Bible, in the fourth century from the Greek, was Latin, with its five declensions. Modern day English has three declensions – subjective, possessive and objective. Most modern English speakers nail the subjective declension but botch or ignore the other two. Miss declensions in Latin, German, Russian or languages stressing nouns and get the word order wrong, and the student fails!

In Begat there is nothing about the prose/poetry shifts in English, when the Bible was being translated and through time to today.

SUCCESSION OF TEXAS

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An idiot on Morning Joe (January 3, 2022) promoted his futuristic book and stoking fears: Succession of individual states of the United States – like Texas. Succession will not happen. The economic consequences for each such state will be disastrous.

The idiot was vague about the legal complications arising when a state tries to leave the United States. Before legal complications will come the economic consequences. What would the independent country of Texas be forced to do?

RAISE TAXES A LOT

Texas has the Texas Rangers, fine and fit group of law enforcement personnel, counting 200 or so persons. That’s not enough to police a small Texas city, let alone defend it.
Texas would have to pay for the state’s defense because the United States Government would leave. The Federal government would take all its military equipment and personnel and move it all to the remaining states. Texas has no Navy; it has no Coast Guard; it has no Army; there is no Marine Corps; there is no effective Air Force.

Start a military from scratch in the 2020s. What are the costs? Who wants to serve? There will be compulsory military service. Texans who are first most Americans, will leave before being compelled to serve. If evading the draft during Vietnam was bad, think about draft evasion during the Internet age.

Texas needs to improve its infrastructure which it will have to do on its own. Everyone knows they have bad electrical connections. And no more money from the Infrastructure Bill passed in 2021. Indeed, most Texas Congressmen and Senators voted against it.

POOR ECONOMY

Texas currently prides itself on a solid economy, low taxes and productive people. If Texas wants to remain prosperous, it should follow the example of Rhode Island. In 1790 the Rhodes did not want to ratify the United States Constitution, while the 12 other states had done so. Congress passed tariffs against imports from Rhode Island. So how long will it take before the United States passes tariffs on Texas products? How much will the Texas economy not grow? Will new companies go to Texas? Will companies in general move from Texas?

How long? A year.

NEW POPULATION

When Texas becomes independent, with foreign border exposure on the south and west, and it has no military and no border guard, Mexicans and persons from other countries will emigrate. How will the Texans handle the unending surge? More of them will enter Texas than are wanted; there will not be enough low paying jobs. Meanwhile, Americans living in Texas will leave.

The day will come when political power shifts to the emigrants. They will tear down the Alamo, and every town square will be required to erect a statute of Santa Anna: For some persons Santa Anna is a forgotten person of civil worship.

Next step: Texas becomes part of Mexico.

REENTRY INTO UNITED STATES

It’s no so simple. All past agreements are historical oddities and void. Texas will become a territory of the United States and under the rule of Congress, much like Puerto Rico is today. I doubt if a Congress of the future will allow Texas to exist in its present landmass. Before reentering the United States, parts of Texas can be chiseled off and given to Oklahoma, New Mexico and Louisiana (reasons for those states not to leave the U.S.A). The remainder can be broken into separate states, not all at the same time but whenever Congress is generous and feels another state is needed.

So this is the reaction of the day: New York author raises alarms about the Texas Succession movement, while overlooking the obvious: Texas secessionists are idiots. Wanting to spread fear, New York publishers, also idiots, give author an advance and publish QAnon speculations. The idiots of Morning Joe advance the rumors of terror and interview author who ineptly and incompletely tells how real his book is.

CRYTPO and the FED

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They say the FED has let cheap, easy money circulate for so long. People – the rich – have access to that money and need a place to put it. Crypto prices have benefitted. When an old name of finance flipped to crypto investments, he said because crypto was all mathematics and related fields, stuff he had learned in college. Investing was obscurely nostalgic. But part of the foundation of crypto is public confidence – it will continue to trade and there are enough like- minded persons to trade. Atop this foundation is the cheap money of the FEDERAL RESERVE, of other central banks, and large government deficit spending from 2017. A report says the Europeans may do away with negative interest rates.

So what happens to crypto when the FEDERAL RESERVE raises interest rates, as everyone seems to think will happen, despite the lure of mathematics? Now, does pure mathematics controls or set the prices? Public perceptions are being presented but not channeled. Crypto no longer advertises on TV; the mystery of those products are in the open. Frequent price updates on the streaming lines (worms?) are presented underneath each TV financial face. Crypto is seen everyday.

The crypto market is changing, and ready for academians to study. Don’t wait for conclusions to be published.

SAVE OUR FETUSES

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The United States Supreme Court is about to enlarge law and impose new procedures and protections in every state by going beyond the limits of Article III of the Constitution, It is totally brand new law, presented without restraint and uncontrolled. Currently, fetuses are treated horribly; the cruel, harsh state laws work against unborn human beings can be changed with the flick of a pen. State legislatures can huba-huba, chop-chop, or the U.S. Supremes will do it piecemeal in an attempt to bring another nine months of life to the human race. Life expectancy will increase. But fetuses need legal standing, so fetuses can instantly protect themselves throughout their status until birth. Once a fetus is born such protections end. Everyone knows babies are like the rest of us and have to take their chances on the globe.

In the meantime without a change of statutes, fetuses suffer from discrimination in the most mean, base, vile ways, yet no state has gone whole hog to protect them. No federal court will interfere with the slightest changes any state wants to make. Again, there is no political will to protect fetuses. Following are examples of fetus abuse in all the states.

I. If a mother with a fetus is emotionally injured but has no physical injury, no one cares about the fetus. Yet, when the mother suffers emotional injury, the fetus also suffers. more intensely; a fetus, a young human being, is more vulnerable and frail – scars from the womb last a lifetime. These sorts of situations arise when emotional distress flows from many acts – intentional infliction of emotional distress, breaches of fiduciary duties, fraud and deceit cases, breaches of privacy (e.g.concealed or hidden cameras), attacks on pets, destruction of personal property, etc. Law suits should allow fetuses to recover for themselves regardless of whether the mother sues.

II. All of paragraph I is included here. When a mother is also physically injured, recovery of damages should be allowed to the fetus. For instance, assaults and batteries; car crashes whether deliberate or negligent; drunk driving, stuff falling from the sky including flying craft and plunging sky divers; being non-vaccinated; gun shot wounds; drug usage; whiskey drinking; over medication from pharmacies or from the street; spouse beating; boyfriend fights; smash and grabs. If any of these mishaps occur when the fetus is in the womb, the fetus alone should recover damages against wrong-doers, bad guys, perpetrators, cold-blooded felons and anyone else who does not care whether the fetus is hurt. Some of these actions involve crimes, and obviously the fetus is a victim of the unsettled society following crime.

III. Negligence is a big field in civil law, and on its own a fetus should recover damages on its own if the host, the mother with fetus is so affected. This includes falling, slip and falls, missteps, lack of good health, exercising excessively or not enough, smoking, sucking and inhaling reefers, workplace accidents; causing a miscarriage; not having enough folic acid; failure to get proper pre-natal care; medical malpractice; and suits against insurance companies who refuse to pay promptly. (Having an insurance company refuse to pay when the policy is paid up, is a deliberate act and causes hurt and damages.)

IV. And the fetus, being a recognizable human being, should be allowed to sue the mother who carried him to birth – affirm or disavow her. With advances in genetics and our understanding of the tiny, wee and pee, itsy-bitsy world of things, a fetus should be able to sue for bad genes: Too tall; too short; tends to fat up; has no brains or has a weak mind; inherited mental illnesses; needs plastic surgery in a decade; is not quick enough to be in professional sports. These are legitimate issues arising when allowing fetuses to think!

V. At least one other category should be mentioned. Commerce. Fetuses should pay their own way from conception – pay taxes, income and otherwise. And fetuses should be allowed to enter into contracts, be represented by attorneys, be able to enforce contract rights, assignments and rights as third party beneficiaries, and be entitled to rights to privacy!

Paragraphs I through V should be enacted by states nationwide. These rights to sue are the birthright of every American fetus. There are no Constitutional issues when legislatures protect American fetuses, human beings who have rights in law, and are expressed the natural laws of liberties and freedoms, like those being claimed by rioters on January 6, 2021! Passing the legislation above might impose burdens on society. Bureaucracies might come into being just to monitor the state of fetuses in the United States. A Bureau of Fetus Immunity might become a necessary cabinet post.

However, there is resistance and no political will. Given the history of this country, Americans will break these laws often or over look them because nobody in America cares about unborn fetuses. The absence of laws protecting fetuses suggests what Americans really think about womb-livers – fetuses are what they have always been: Expectancies (not expectations). An expectancy, like winning the lottery, is something that might happen, or not.

That has been the public policy of all the individual states in the United States of America. Expectancies have made fetus law uncomplicated: Fetuses are expectancies and give them no more thought; they have no rights whatsoever. This status must change because if fetuses are to be protected, the public policy of the states must change. After all, public policy, reflected in the status of the current state statutes nationwide, is the will of the American people. To leave fetuses as expectancies in all the states, that is no public policy. It is neglect; it is careless; it is reckless; it is abusive. It allows fetuses to be murdered and injured in hundreds of ways with no penalty or compensation. If fetuses are to be protected, each state must act now!

The United States Supreme Court is on its way to the rescue – change a millennium of Anglo- American jurisprudence without a thought, without a analysis and without a spec of knowledge. The legal precedent of expectancies began when the Duke of Normandy, grabbed a girl from the field (a daughter of a leatherworker) and forcibly impregnated her with William. It was a complete surprise because no one expected that illegitimate child to grow up to become William the Conqueror of England of 1066 fame.Thereafter, that expectancy, William, was known as The Bastard. William also shows that expectancies can illegitimately grow up well. Moreover, it shows marriage and criminal laws might need changing to increase the gene pool of persons that society must tolerate to produce the best stock.

I hate to lose the present precedent about expectancies, through actions by an activist, unthinking, emotional court that does not respect tradition, customs and ancient laws. The floodgates of court involvement in fetus rights are about to open and become enforceable throughout the U.S.A. It’s big money for litigation lawyers and butt-sitting transactional guys. Chaos in the courts will bring a new world.

LIBERTIES, FREEDOMS AND RIGHTS

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American liberties, freedoms and rights are not to be confused. Their interrelations and differences have not always been understood, especially in the Ante-bellum South. Since the Civil War and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, Americans have used the Court to define actions and impose restrictions. However, today these guardians of the Constitution, the justices of the Supreme Court, are losing the game of this Republic, Nine to Zero.

Liberty is the general state a human being is in when standing on Earth, alone. It is an unmonitored state of existence where anyone can do whatever is pleasing. Liberty in the human mind means that everything in the imagination is 100 percent real. Move, talk, gesture – does anyone hear or see? It is liberty, and it is absolutely embedded in the hearts and minds of Americans. The government and other Americans usually don’t interfere with expressions of pure liberty. (see a short discussion in T.H. Breen, The Will of the People, (2019).

Freedoms originate in society, and impose restraints on liberty with rules: Freedom of Speech/ Press, Avoid libel, slander, incitement and privacy laws; Freedom of Religion, Limit extreme cult practices; Freedom of Assembly, No mob activity; Freedom to Petition the Government – No threats to life or property. Human beings claiming to exercise liberty have taken expansive views of freedoms, beyond restraints, laws and customs.

Americans have always had citizens ignoring limitations provided by freedoms. Individuals and groups moved into the Frontier to avoid the restraints. Within our lifetimes the “cultural” movements of the 1960s attacked and brought forward behaviors and challenges, changing what was tolerated and accepted. Some people were libertarians; other were libertines; individuals claimed the mantle of anarchy: “Do his own thing.” Left and Right movements today scream for freedoms, the protection of society. They say little about liberty. This is a moving area of law: To protect itself and the free society, restraints against liberty founded in freedoms are usually accepted, well known and frequently enforced.

During this Country’s founding, citizens knew such claims were wrong and perilous, full of “rebel spirits more dangerous and difficult to reduce.” One can not be licentious, “acting under sensual passions,” departures from civil norms. (See T.H. Breen, The Will of the People, last chapter.) Reason is necessary. Why? It is in the Constitution.

The Ninth Amendment reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Rights cannot be founded on individual passions, emotions and urges. Rights need objective criteria. One unenumerated right widely recognized by Americans, is the right to privacy, a work in progress. Circumstances arise, some being emotional and personal, and others are founded on bedrock principles of society. Yet all Americans claim this right and some want it extended. This Country, assessing and considering facts daily in piecemeal fashion, arrives at what is permissible.

An issue of interpretation arises. What is a Right? Madison in his Report of 1800 observed “technical phrases” from the common law could be used to define current usage, especially for persons seeking original views or original meanings of the Constitution. A Right goes beyond a license. It was in that category of endowments akin to privileges and immunities. They have been in Western society since the Middle Ages. Monopolies were rights once given to certain entities or individuals: The East India Company of the Boston Tea Party was such a monopoly. Rights can be modified and changed, as circumstances change. In Great Britain the monarchy had that power. In the United States the people are sovereign and should use processes and procedures set forth in the Constitution., whether legislatively, by amendment and frequently by the courts.

Originally, a right gave liberty to act exclusively within a specific area of land or commerce. It is not a freedom, but it was specific to the person(s) identified with the right. Concepts of Rights have broadened since 1789, but Rights do not always produce identifiable behaviors and circumstances which society can withstand. Rights are identified in the Constitution: Right against Self-Incrimination. (Fifth Amendment); Right to Bear Arms, (It is not, Freedom to Bear Arms.) (Second Amendment), which may not be as expansive a right as is proposed today. Society might be able to restrict and limit activities associated with rights – which are not freedoms – more broadly.

An American problem today is talking through one another, using the same words with such force and certainty to assert “plain meanings” which conflict and contradict: “I have my rights!” “I have freedoms!” Many of those Americans are claiming liberties. It is widely accepted that words and terms do not have fixed meanings, yet words and terms are becoming toys, playthings to toss around to keep opponents off balance. They are losing their significance. The Courts, including the Supremes, must act and decide according to which facts before them give rise to Liberties, Freedoms or Rights.

THE YEARS AT OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE IN THE LATE SIXTIES CHARLES E. ROUSE

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Events in this book are about the author. The college setting is an accidental backdrop.

The book does not tell about the effect of significant, outside events on the Occidental College campus or among the students: Were there anti-War protests, demonstrations and writings on campus by teachers or students? What were the effects of rioting elsewhere? The author did not see Martin Luther King speak at Occidental College in 1967, but in less than a year Doctor King had been assassinated. Where there reactions about assassinations at Occidental? What did the administration do?

An odd fact out: I doubt if the yippies organized the 1967 Pentagon demonstration, as the author reports. This demonstration was inserted like other significant events: Tet, student riots, student politics campus to campus. Merely mentioning events does not tell what happened to anyone or to anything at Occidental College.

The author is loyal and devoted to Occidental. He identifies every class he had and every professor. But little is told about the teaching, the learning or the students action and growth of the author, or of other students. Everyone at Occidental was smart. They liked to drop names and supply authorities, venturing into German philosophy or onto someone’s newly discovered poem. The author’s favorite authorities were Thomas Wolfe – Electric Kool Air, etc – and Ayn Rand.

The author was awkward around girls, but the psychological diagnosis is incomplete. The reader does not learn if the trouble with women is the root cause of psychological disabilities, or merely one manifestation of other problems. Lots of pages are given to girlfriends (ambiguous suggestions of sex: Everyone was chaste at Occidental?), to mental issues, to eastern religions and to meaningless comments from persons or others in quotes.

For IRONY, try. On the back cover squirb, the author mentions that Barack Obama spent two years at Occidental College during the 1980s. Not mentioned is a state legislator, decades later always trying to please Obama, had a stretch of the 134 Freeway named after Obama. Those four miles, east of the 2-Freeway to Figueroa Avenue, is the route to the Scholl’s Canyon Dump.

Avoid this book.

THE SEA WOLVES, 19

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Gregory Peck, David Niven, Roger Moore, Trevor Howard and a group of middle aged British actors.

Being unaware of this movie set in India in 1943, I noticed it was done well. But the story and characters seemed like a mediocre script writer’s effort written and produced to do a World War Two story to compete the spy thrillers in 1980.
NOPE, the story is TRUE, and events happened as casually, awkwardly and as surprising as shown, likely with little input from the script writer’s craft.

One set of images, as an undercurrent, is also present. The British in India, and their elevated, privileged place in society held by Britons, the last vintages of colonialism. Within four years the British were removed and India and its people were free.
Since the events are true, it is a movie to see.

CALIFORNIA RECALL

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The Recall is five weeks away, so I thought I ought to pass on my impressions.

Leave it to Californians to demonstrate how wacky residents here are. Whatever you think appropriate about the Recall of Governor Gav, the recall has brought out the strangest sorts of persons who want to replace Newsom. Most of these people are Republicans, 46 of them. I don’t know all the names and I don’t want to know. But this is the Internet age. Let’s shorten the reference to Reps. Democrats can be called Dems. Dems might mistakingly call their opponents, the Reps, Reptiles.

Most Rep candidates have local constituencies. Most notably is Caitlyn Jenner, nee Bruce Jenner, an Olympian athlete before the operation. I do not believe Caitlyn will corral the transgender vote, so I don’t know why she is running except to get some publicity and perhaps money will come her way from that. The media report Larry Elder, radio talkshow host, is rising in the polls. But who wants a less prominent entertainer (has no TV shows and no film prospects) as governor?

The Dems are counting on Gav, and have brought in big-gun supporters like Elizabeth Warren, known throughout America as Pocahontas. A biography of Pocahontas told the two women are not alike. The native American was a diplomat supreme, persuasive, and urging and working for peace and cooperation between her peoples and the recently arrived immigrants. On the other hand Liz Warren is stringent, distance, pretentious, scowling, condescending, know-all, mean- spirited and not credible. She should not be involved in the anti-Recall effort. And I don’t mind calling Elizabeth Warren a half-breed Scandinavian immigrant.

THE HADES FACTOR

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Avoid

This made for TV movie taken from a Robert Ludlum story unsuccessfully tries to replicate the thrills from the Bourne movies. The bad guys are everywhere – Afghanistan to the Middle East, in the government and among pharmaceutical companies. And not everyone else is squeaky clean or filthy dirty.

Characters do stupid things. Sophia Myles plays Stephen Dorff’s wife [girl, financee]: Let’s go to dinner. She steps from the hotel. I need a sweater. Another ten minutes of film later, she and Stephen have checked out of the hotel, yet she leaves her cell phone in the room. I would hope her work as a medical researcher of infectious diseases was handled with more care, but she seems soporific. She is clearly seems someone to be murdered, and later she killed.

Stepping into Sophia’s place is Mira Sorvino, once a bedmate of Dorff’s. For the first 90 minutes of film, the former lover waiting in the wings, is her role. She supposedly is outside all agencies, so she has no connections. She’s completely free lance, yet she is well-informed. She suddenly appears in Afghanistan, having previously been in Paris. It’s convenient to have extra friends show up to help kill bad guys.

Stephen Dorff’s, former secret agent, has a bad time in this movie. In every fight he is outweighed by 30-50 pounds, and every opponent is at least six feet tall. Right off, when Stephen Dorff returns to the hotel room to retrieve Sophia’s phone, he get into a fight with a bad guy. He turns his opponent around – face to the wall – and the audience can see what’s coming next: An elbow from the opponent sent Stephen sprawling. Next is a foot chase which Stephen loses.

At that point I realized there would be many scenes ahead in this overlong movie where fast forward on the DVD could be used – one-quarter, perhaps a third of the movie. Every time Stephen confronts a bad guy the audience knows he’s going to get pounded. This is not “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Yet, like the Champ, Stephen emerges with no bruises on body or face. Indeed, no ill-effects linger from the last fight: Stephen, wounded, fights bad guy, wounded, on a bridge. They fall off, into the sewage treatment plant known as the Potomac River.

By The End Stephen Dorff doesn’t seem much mutated, but I noted that Mira Sorvino had the grace to avoid the final scenes.

JUNGLE CRUISE – Review

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I’ve now seen enough trailers, snippets and scenes from this movie during its promotion to cobble together the story and players.

For decades producers have tried to put an attractive guy and a good-looking babe in the jungle, as happened with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen. [I’m not mentioning Tarzan and Jane.] I’m not sure which was more drunk – Bogart or the crocodiles.

Upon seeing ten minutes of The Jungle Cruise on TV, to support the story line and good- character development, I’ve concluded that Emily Blunt’s character should not be around when the boat returns to home port: Either she goes missing in the jungle (happens all the time) or she’s swallowed whole by a python. The audience can have a good cry, and the movie can garner loads of sympathy and big bucks for people who have gone missing in far-off places.