Author: Ken Goetz

Casualty Numbers from the Covid-19 Vaccine Battlefield

Posted on by Ken Goetz

“Mr. Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings institution,

argues that human beings have a natural tendency to believe what they wish,

irrespective of evidence.” (From a book review in the October 13, 2021, Wall Street Journal)

Let’s look at some specific evidence related to our nasty battle over the virus vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control, as of October 4, 2021, 185,000,000 people in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. By that October date, the CDC had received reports from 50 states and territories. The combined results showed that 30,177 of the 185 million vaccinated developed breakthrough infections complicated by hospitalization or death (6,617 of those 30-some thousand died).

According to my back-of-the envelope math, these numbers indicate that fewer than 4 people out of every 100,000 individuals who received Covid-19 vaccination have died of the disease. That seems to offer pretty good odds. The source of the above numbers, and more details, can be found here. (Ref)

So what particular group of our populace is the virus killing? According to data from mid-2021 and later, 98 to 99% of those dying recently from Covid-90 have been unvaccinated (see data here, and here).

These dying, unvaccinated individuals, as one might expect, include a good number of warring anti-vaxxers. Details are provided (here, and here).  These unfortunate deaths have caused grief and often considerable regret that the individual had not been vaccinated. This situation is reminiscent of  Ben Franklin’s regret that I described in a previous post. Vaccination wasn’t even a word in Franklin’s time, but a more primitive and less effective procedure known as inoculation was available for smallpox, a much more lethal disease than Covid-19. Inoculation (taking scabs of smallpox from one person and injecting the mashed particles into another) was much more dangerous than our vaccinations. It killed 2% or more of those so treated. Nevertheless, it provided better odds of living when compared with cases when the disease was contracted by personal contact. When thus acquired the malady killed roughly one-third of its victims. (It’s worth emphasizing that smallpox has been totally abolished by vaccination.) Nevertheless, given the conditions in Franklin’s time, one might understand why he, after assessing the risks, hesitated to inoculate his 4-year-old son against the disease. He came to bitterly regret his inaction when the lad died of that very illness.  (See it here).

All of these considerations shout loudly that getting vaccinated against Covid-19 is by far the best option. I’ve had all three Pfizer shots. Admittedly, some might argue that I acted simply on my wishes, as Mr. Rauch at the Brookings institution might suggest, but the evidence also is on my side.

Tribute to a Friendship

Posted on by Ken Goetz

It began in Illinois decades ago, four young men having no idea they were forming a lifelong friendship. They were just having fun. “Friendship does not arise out of necessity, but out of pleasure,” wrote one of my favorite contemporary writers, Joseph Epstein, in Friendship: An Exposé (Link), a delightful discourse on the subject.

The four fellows lived in the same barracks while attending weather observer school at the now-closed Chanute Air Force base. When not expending their youthful vigor on identifying multiple forms of cumulus and stratus clouds, or analyzing the adiabatic lapse rate, they found time to banter with each other, to sketch in their varied backgrounds.

John grew up in Toledo, Ohio, and had studied at the University of Texas. Vic came from Washington, a graduate of the University of Puget Sound. Chuck, from Cicero, Illinois, enlisted after high school, and I, the fourth guy of the group, had completed an aimless year of college in South Dakota and had never ventured beyond Dakota borders until my enlistment (Link).

I can’t define what pulled us together, I doubt any of us really knew. Probably it was simply because we liked each other, and our liking led to common adventures. One unforgettable evening we chug-a-lugged uncounted steins of frothy beer at the airmen’s club and then decided to play a rousing game of football in the snow, rushing and tackling until exhausted, our fatigues soaked and splotched with white.

Fine Transportation

John owned a Studebaker and soon traded it in for a late-model Cadillac, a nifty trophy that shuttled us through the region in style. We zoomed up to Chicago a few times, once to visit Vic’s relatives. Two families of his uncles, or maybe cousins, I don’t remember which, lived in the Windy City, one set friendly to Vic’s family, the other not, so his target was clear. As we approached Chuck’s home town, he passed along neighborhood tidbits about Cicero’s own Al Capone.

Vic’s kin greeted us warmly and immediately led us to the basement where a table stretched almost wall to wall, its top heavy with gigantic platters of food. A tub of spaghetti and huge bottles of red wine covered a smaller table along the left wall, a family gathering being in full swing. As we were introduced, one specific comment changed Vic’s smile to an embarrassed pucker. “Wrong family,” he whispered to me. Despite this blunder, no grudges flared. We four stuffed ourselves with course after course, and hours later left amid a burst of happy farewells, the family rift repaired, at least temporarily.

Back in the barracks we formed our own special club, driving to the nearby town of Rantoul to gather whiskey, cheeses, crackers, and other snacks and storing them in our lockers. I, the least worldly of our quartet, volunteered during our first shopping to “find the Velveeta” and was suitably ribbed for my naiveté. Evenings we hunkered down in our small private circle to relish our simple provisions, to express opinions, to share confidences, to appreciate each other, to ease our way into friendship.

Exploring

With our passes permitting us to leave the airbase during our generous free time, we hit the road often, usually aiming southward to destinations such as Springfield, or Urbana‑Champaign, where we once watched the Fighting Illini battle a forgotten Big 10 opponent during a heavy snow storm, the opposite side of the stadium, and the far goal post blotted from our view by the curtain of wet flakes.

Earlier, as we sped to that game, John ran onto a stretch of iced highway and quickly discovered his Cadillac had become uncooperative. He twisted his steering wheel with no effect, and jammed the brake pedal without slowing his proud possession, but rather sending it into a smooth and languid 360 degree spin as we glided toward a huge post lurking ahead on the right shoulder of the highway. With the post only yards away, the Cadillac fortunately competed its full rotation and veered a foot or two to the right of that bulky obstruction before skidding harmlessly into the ditch and easing to a stop.

“Wow,” I said, shaken in the back seat, “sure lucky we missed that post.” “What do you mean lucky?” John said, his features flushed as he turned back to face me. “I wasn’t fixin’ to hit that post!”

Such moments sealed our friendship. We all sensed, I think, our strengthening bond, so much so that by the end of our a couple of months together, as graduation from weather observer approached, we documented our ties by visiting a professional photographer. Soon afterward, destined for separate assignments in Germany and Alaska, we shook hands and parted, each with a precious photograph in duffel, and vowed to keep in touch with each other.

Vic, top; John, bottom; Chuck, left; Ken, right

After our parting, communication between us, and one-on-one meetings, were sadly rare. Chuck and John did meet in San Francisco months after our goodbyes and sailed together to Alaska where they parted when assigned to separate bases. Vic and Ken, while stationed in different bases in Germany, met and traveled to Holland on brief furlough. Some years later Ken and John met in Houston. There were scattered others, but for the most part our separation was complete. Still the pilot light of friendship remained brightly lit. Decades later, through threads of complicated magic, we four learned of an Air Weather Association (Link) reunion in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Thus communication was reestablished. Plans were made. We would meet in Cocoa Beach!

Reunion

As the day approached, I wondered how it would go. I should have known the answer. There were no hesitations, no distances, just an instantaneous familiarity, a comfortable closeness so genuine that it felt as though we never had been separated at all. In that short week we brought our lives up to date, filled in gaps, once again linked together as tightly as we ever had been. And of course we made another keepsake by finding a Sears photographer open on a Sunday afternoon, knowing the finished product  soon would be paired with our earlier version and framed on our walls.

 

                  Commemorating 52 years of friendship

Friendships are undone by various means, death being the grimmest, and ours recently has been fragmented. Two have slipped off to eternal rest, Vic being the first to go in May of 2019, and John following in May of 2020. Within days Chuck and I will meet in Kingsland, Texas to pay our respects to John at his Covid19-delayed memorial service. Friends to the end, our number now cut by half.

Ben Franklin on inoculation

Posted on by Ken Goetz

From time to time, when itching for a snippet of diversion, I’ll head to one of my book cases and scan the spines, searching for something to perk me up. I found myself doing that this afternoon. While skimming along a neglected lower shelf, I zeroed in on a small paperback I hadn’t touched in years. I pulled out that little treasure, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, thumbed it open, and read the first paragraph my eyes found.

In 1736, I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret, that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it – my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that therefore the safer should be chosen.

Sad History

As I read that sad bit of history, coincidences and questions flew through my thoughts. One coincidence struck dead center, childhood inoculation. Only hours earlier I had read on the front page of the morning’s newspaper a story headlined Pfizer Vaccine Found Safe For Children as Young as 5 (See it here). As I considered that unusual connection, I began to mull over the time frame of Franklin’s account. It mystified me. Something seemed to be off. As I mentionedin one of my recent comments on this site (See it here), I’d learned in medical school of William Jenner’s successful vaccination of an 8-year-old boy using cowpox in the late 18th century to immunize the boy against smallpox, demonstrating that vaccination worked. But Franklin’s son had died over a half century before Jenner’s accomplishment. So what inoculation was he referring to?

Before I get to that, let’s review some basics. Smallpox was (it’s now considered to be totally eradicated (See it here]) a viral disease (Variola major and Variola minor) transmitted mainly through the air to infect the nose, mouth, and lungs of another person, a transmission pathway essentially identical to that of today’s Covid-19. But smallpox was far deadlier than Covid-19, our current virus from Wuhan (See it here). Smallpox killed about a third of the people it infected. It attacked throughout the body, especially the skin. It left many survivors with ugly scars, blindness, and other infirmities.

Risky Method of Prevention

What Ben Franklin was referring to, I’ve just learned, was a risky method of smallpox prevention that had been discovered centuries earlier in China (See it here). This semi-effective method was commonly called variolation (from variola, the smallpox virus). Franklin used the word inoculation for this method, which was accomplished by taking scabs from the skin of an infected person, crumbling and powdering the scabs, and then administering the powder to a healthy individual by inhalation, or by injection.

This approach was far from perfect. It naturally gave the healthy person a case of smallpox. So why do that? Well, the disease contracted by this method was found to be less lethal. The numbers I saw varied, but usually something like 2% and rarely up to 10% of those sickened in this manner died, a significantly better outcome than the 30% death rate of those getting it “the common way.”

Franklin surely knew these odds, thus his regret for not giving his son the disease by inoculation is understandable. It was from this painful awareness, that he offered his advice to parents, those who did not inoculate their children because they would never forgive themselves if their child died from the inoculation. Franklin made clear that the sting of regret may be equal either way, and he therefore recommended that the safer course be chosen.

Now, nearly four centuries after the death of Franklin’s son, as one considers the rare side effects of Covid-19 vaccines, and the almost zero risk of dying from vaccination, along with the evidence demonstrating how effective those vaccines are in preventing the disease, Ben Franklin’s sage advice is multiplied a thousand-fold. Chose the safer course! Get your family vaccinated!

REQUEST TO MY READERS

            If you’ve sampled my essays here, you know that I have a loose focus, that I swing from topic to topic as I try to condense my thoughts and entertain readers. If you know of others who might have an interest in what I post here, please spread the word. The more readers I have, the more I’ll produce. Thanks!

Political Correctness, continued

Posted on by Ken Goetz

As I said when posting my recent quiz on political correctness (see it here), I knew little about the term. At the time of that posting, PC was just a mild annoyance to me, probably because I don’t like others telling me how to talk (I prefer to put my own words in my mouth). I started with the quiz to prompt me to learn more about the subject.

Since then, I’ve waded through a smattering of PC history. Wow! The topic can be explosive. It clearly sends blood pounding through the eyes of some, especially those making PC “rules,” and those thumbing their noses at said rules.

During my digging, I learned that the term political correctness was used by U.S. Communists in the 1930s and ’40s (a group not especially rare then, and a group that later produced some well-known Red Diaper Babies  (see it here). Communists back then used the phrase to designate the proper language party members should employ when discussing a political issue (see it here), perhaps something like the talking points political parties often parrot today.

Later in the 20th century, the term devolved to its more common social meaning of today, a phrase that seems to say, “alter your speech so you don’t offend certain groups,” the assumption apparently being, for example, that a deaf person might feel less offended if referred to as being “hearing impaired.” I suppose this could be true. I know several individuals who are losing their hearing, but I haven’t asked any for their preferences. Beyond that, I won’t attempt to guess whether a prostitute might take it more kindly if called a “sex worker”. I’ve seen no scientific studies on the topic.

As I was considering all of this, my mind somehow jumped to the famous speech of Juliet as she muses aloud on her balcony (she is overheard by Romeo standing below in her garden.). Juliet is distraught because her beloved Romeo is a Montague, a family in a long-time feud with her Capulet family.

Here are her tender words:

’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

It was those lines, especially the ones I’ve emphasized in bold type, that prompted me to wonder whether they might speak to the political correctness of today, and if so, to wonder what that message might be.

Below are my answers to my own quiz. (I obviously have no inside authority, so your answers may well be more valid than mine.)

A dark-skinned Ohio man whose great-great grandfather was a slave: African-American man
A university president: University president
A South Dakota man of Sioux descent: Native American man
A white-skinned owner of a Silicon Valley tech firm: American man
A man formerly know as a janitor: Custodian
A member of the U.S. Senate: Senator
A deaf person: Hearing impaired person
A college student: College student
A prostitute: Sex worker
The governor of a state: Governor
An illegal immigrant: Undocumented immigrant
An Ivy League professor: Professor
An Illinois woman of Japanese descent: Asian woman
A Iowa farmer of German descent: American man
A retarded student: Mentally challenges student

A further thought

As I look at the above list, I’m struck by a notion that may or may not have validity, a possibility I’ve not seen discussed as I reviewed this subject, so I’ll mention it here. Much related to political correctness flows out of universities. Is it possible that political correct terms are being propagated by groups whose eyes are looking downward on others? Are elites directing their decrees to express their concern and pity for individuals they deem to be inferior? The lack of PC terms for some of those in the above list seems to be consistent with that possibility. Do those demanding political correctness speak with a presumption of superiority?

Political Correctness: A Quiz

Posted on by Ken Goetz

I’m not well-versed in political correctness (see discussion here). In fact, this post is intended to be a learning experience for me, and maybe for readers as well. To this end, I’ve come up with a little beginner’s quiz, an imperfect tool to ease gently into the subject and maybe even discover a few basic truths. I recognize that the adjective “political” tends to set some individual’s teeth on edge, especially when they think of the politics of Washington’s Swamp (See here)

If you’re current on this topic, your answers may make some of us look bad, but that’s the chance we all take when venturing blindly into a quiz. I plan to keep my own answers personal for a few days before revealing them in a later post. You’re on your own, but you may want to compare your answers with neighbors and friends.

Are you ready? Good. Let’s go. This quiz is super-simple. Each phrase below is followed by space enough to insert the politically correct term you think is best for that phrase. If you’re compulsive, you might want to copy and paste. If not, just jot down your answers on a separate sheet of paper.

The Quiz

A dark-skinned Ohio man whose great-great grandfather was a slave:

A university president:

A South Dakota man of Sioux descent:

 A white-skinned owner of a Silicon Valley tech firm:

 A man formerly know as a janitor:

 A member of the U.S. Senate:

 A deaf person:

 A college student:

 A prostitute:

 The governor of a state:  

 An illegal immigrant:

An Ivy League professor:

An Illinois woman of Japanese descent:

An Iowa man of German descent:

 A retarded student:

End of quiz. Thank you for participating, and stay tuned.

Examining “Shrinkflation”

Posted on by Ken Goetz

Are you as inattentive when shopping as certain manufacturers think you are? Or have you noticed that many grocery items are appearing in smaller packages these days? It’s a neat trick, this shrinkflation, because even if the price per package doesn’t increase, the food inside a shrunken container obviously costs more.

I first spotted this trend years ago when I pulled a package of Breyers® ice cream from a neighborhood grocer’s freezer. It seemed to have lost a bit of heft, and indeed it had. The former half-gallon package had shrunk to 1 3/4 quarts. I just checked the Breyers in my freezer now and discovered the container holds 1 ½ quarts, an example of creeping shrinkage, the current package providing 25% less ice cream than the original half-gallon size.

Spreading shrinkflation

Examples of shrinkflation have become especially widespread during the recent surge in inflation (1). The economy is heating up and driving up prices. If it squares with your view of economics, take a deep breath and cast a baleful eye on one likely cause, the FOMC and its chairman, Jerome H. Powell. And, if it squares with your political views, take a deep breath and cast a baleful eye on another likely cause, the folks in the Washington swamp (2) who are providing unemployment benefits generous enough to keep some folks from working, thus forcing employers to plead for workers. How many “Help Wanted” signs have you seen lately?

A couple of months ago I picked a box of Kellogg’s® Raisin Bran from a shelf and was amazed by how skinny it was. Its height and width (as it set proudly on the shelf) probably hadn’t changed but it had been narrowed. When I brought it home, it wobbled when I put it on a pantry shelf. Poor thing barely had enough base to stand on.

The ploy is harder for me to recognize when it comes to paper goods. I’m inept in judging the number of sheets in a roll of paper towels, or a roll of toilet paper, but I know the numbers of sheets are shrinking.

Clever dodges

Some dodges are especially clever, almost awe inspiring. Cunning folks at Skippy® Brand peanut butter came up with one fine illusion. They devised a new jar that has exactly the same profile as the older version, but the bottom has been hollowed out. Imagine a bottom like a wine bottle, and visualize how that bulge in the bottom of the jar fills space formerly occupied by peanut butter.

To be clear, I’m not arguing against price increases. I’m just jousting against the way they are foisted on us. Manufacturers are experiencing inflation of their own. The costs of materials and labor are increasing, and companies must find a way to maintain their income to offset their own increased costs, at least if they want to stay in business. I simply would prefer them to be more transparent. One final thought: It’s clear that I have no future in marketing.

Wuhan Waltz #3

Posted on by Ken Goetz

As I indicated in my earlier posts on the Wuhan Institute of Virology ( A and B), I believe evidence suggests that this laboratory was the origin of Covid-19. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Dr. Robert Redfield (a virologist, and former director of the CDC) and Dr. Marc Siegel (clinical professor of medicine at the NYU Langone Medical Center) provides additional circumstantial evidence for this possibility.

The authors explain why they doubt that Covid-19 emerged from bats and spread through an intermediate animal. They point out that similar coronaviruses (SARS discovered in 2003, and MERS in 2012) have produced fewer than 10,000 cases of each virus world‑wide since their discovery. They add, “What virus comes out of a bat cave and infects humans by the millions? It’s not biologically plausible. If instead it evolved slowly over many years in nature, how come no one knew of it?”

Gain of function research

They examine the theory that Covid-19 (also known as SARS‑CoV‑2) was “taught” to infect humans in the Wuhan lab by passing viruses through mice with grafted human tissue and immune cells. (As I explained in Wuhan Waltz [A,], this is often called “gain of function” research.) Consistent with that idea, Redfield and Siegel point out that Covid-19 has a kind of cleavage site that allows its spike protein to change its orientation and attach easily to human cells.

The authors believe the virus escaped unintentionally from the Wuhan laboratory where it was being studied. Moreover they argue that China has chosen stonewalling over transparency in this matter, adding that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wasn’t allowed to visit the city of Wuhan, China, or the Wuhan Institute of Virology in early 2020.

To further support their opinion that there was an unintentional leak of the virus, the authors report 1) that coronavirus bat sequences were deleted from the Wuhan Institute’s data base in September 2019. 2) that security protocols for the lab were changed. 3) that $600 million was requested for a new ventilation system in the lab. 4) that the U.S. State Department reported that employees of the Wuhan lab were becoming sick with Covid‑like symptoms in the fall of 2019. 5) that a Harvard study of satellite images revealed a shutdown of traffic around the Wuhan lab in the late summer and early fall of 2019. 6) that weeks later, in late September, the hospital parking lots were filling up.

Somber warning

Redfield and Siegel offer a somber warning, one I think we should keep in mind: “A virus with a head start in becoming acclimated to humans likely has an easier time evolving to increase transmission. Hence the variants, which seem more effective than anything nature usually delivers on its own. In the months ahead we may have another variant that is even more contagious than Delta, that makes people sicker and—in the worst‑case scenario—that eludes vaccines.”

Rounding up Reindeer

Posted on by Ken Goetz

Although I’ve inhaled the pure air of Finland for no more than a few months, I’ve had an array of happy adventures while there. If you’ve read other posts in this blog, you may recall I’ve flown above Finland’s magical countryside on Midsummer Eve, watching bonfire after bonfire being set ablaze along the shores of the glistening lakes that slid beneath our wings. More and more fires appeared until hundreds of flames flickered in the dusk (read that here). Torching bonfires on the first evening of summer is a long-held Finnish tradition. I’ve also been a crafty opponent against a well-prepared doctoral student and within hours paid an unconventional price for that service (read that here), and I’ve bused to Leningrad with my professor friend, Martti, in a crowded bus full of tourists to sample life in Russia (read that here, and here).

Early one summer while I was living in Kuopio, Martti and I headed to northern Finland, reaching Lapland and traveling up farther beyond the Arctic Circle to spend a few days in endless daylight. Watching the sun sail through its entire oval in the sky is an awesome experience. No matter what time of day or night you look up, old Sol is right there, maybe swinging far to the south at midday, or slanting lower as it veers westward and northward in the afternoon on its long downward glide to skim above the northern horizon and begin rising again to repeat its voyage, doing this day after day, never disappearing.

A new adventure

A major highlight of that trip developed when we plopped ourselves smack into the middle of a reindeer roundup. Such roundups are common events in Lapland, but I knew nothing about them until I became part of one, learning as I went along. Roughly 200,000 reindeer wander freely through Lapland, grazing pretty much where they want, and munching on whatever their noses lead them to. Yet, like many wild animals, the reindeer usually stay within their self-defined areas and rarely venture more than roughly 35 miles in any direction.

Even though they are free to roam, the reindeer in Lapland are semi‑domesticated animals, and every one is owned by a reindeer herder. As you can imagine, keeping track of which animals in a wandering herd belong to whom requires effort. This is neatly accomplished by periodic reindeer roundups. Usually word of such events is kept mum, and schedules are rarely given out to other than those directly involved (see here) but thanks to a stroke of luck Martti had been tipped off about this one. His friend at a Lapland wildlife research station, knowing we were headed up that way, passed along the information.

Confusion on the road

Our getting to the roundup was not part of the fun. The place was hard to find. Martti had been given general directions, but roads in rural Lapland aren’t necessarily well marked, and in some cases they aren’t marked at all, and this was before the availability of cell phones or other GPS aids. So we jammed about the countryside, Martti pushing the pedal on his Mercedes as we roared into one blind alley after another, stopping at the rare dwelling and getting conflicting directions, buzzing here and flitting there, our frustration growing as our frantic search extended to well over an hour. The roundup was to begin at midnight, and we knew we would be late. Finally, miraculously, we got to our destination, some forty-five minutes after the roundup had started.

The roundup we joined was relatively small, but the place was buzzing with activity. The reindeer had already been herded into a large corral, where a couple hundred of the animals milled about, the bulls and cows snorting, the calves making little honking noises. (I’m using Finnish terminology. If you prefer, substitute bucks, does, and fawns)

The entire herd in this roundup was owned by only two reindeer herders, and the ownership of each individual deer (except the calves) could be determined by the earmark it carried, the unique mark of its owner. The primary goal of this roundup was to identify the ownership of each calf. Secondary goals were to check the health of each animal and to get a complete count of how many reindeer belonged to each owner.

The owner of each calf was determined by a simple and foolproof method, a  process that had already begun when Martti and I arrived. Something like a dozen men were working in the corral, separating cows with the earmark of one owner and herding them into a pen on one side of the corral. Cows belonging to the other owner were also being separated and herded into a pen on the opposite side of the corral. The remaining bulls and calves were cordoned off in yet another segment of the corral.

Getting dressed for the job

Martti and I reported for duty, and the organizers of the roundup provided us with coveralls and matching gloves, mine an eye-catching green. Then the fun began. Because youngsters in the wild always stick close to their mamas and don’t like separations, there was plenty of impatient snorting and honking going on around us.

After all the cows were separated and confined, men stood guard by the opening to each pen, and on signal a few calves were released. Not surprisingly, amid the snorts and honks, the youngsters made  unerring beelines to their own mothers. They were allowed to enter the proper pen to rub against their mothers, or to suckle. Men inside the pen, having thus made the proper identification, labeled each calf with a yellow tag, and hoisted it into the arms of a transporter who carried the calf to the man keeping tally. After completing his job, the teller passed the young deer to the next station to have its ear marked. More calves were released, and the sequence was repeated over and over.

Martti and I were assigned to be transporters of calves from the pen where they were identified to the tally keeper, a task I accomplished repeatedly without mishap, and with enthusiasm. It was more fun than you can imagine. I think I grinned the entire time. Martti took a break during the action and snapped a picture of me doing my job. The photo was taken about 2 a. m. No flash needed.

We transported calves until there were no more to transport. By that time my muscles were sending emergency reports and it was a relief to ease out of coveralls and gloves. Martti and I then followed his friend to the wildlife research station for a tour and a bit of chitchat, during which I learned more about Lapland. After I told a young lady how much I was enjoying the twenty-four hours of sunshine, I asked her how she managed to endure the winter with its twenty-four hours of darkness, day after day.

“It’s not dark in winter,” she corrected me. “White snow is everywhere, and the moon and stars add plenty of light. One can see so many details. And of course there’s the miraculous aurora borealis, which flares high in the sky at least every other night. It’s a beautiful time. You should come see it sometime.”

That sounded good to me, so I put a little box beside that thought. So far, the box hasn’t been checked.

Ranking Russian Novelists

Posted on by Ken Goetz

I was an undergraduate when I read The Brothers Karamazov, my first Russian novel.  I powered through that mighty book in one intense weekend, shielded from interruptions by the closed door of my small room. Never before had a novel affected me like Dostoevsky’s classic. Its effect lingered for weeks. I followed up with Crime and Punishment and The Idiot, both memorable, but for me not as powerful as The Brothers Karamazov.

About that time I also sampled Tolstoy, digging into Anna Karenina and thoroughly enjoying it, but stopping there. I didn’t get around to his massive War and Peace until my middle age. For some reason that huge book, dare I say it? disappointed me. I simply couldn’t pull together the sprawl of it all.

The other Russian novel I read during my university days was Dr. Zhivago, this during my rebellious first year of medical school. Pasternak’s story offered welcome periods of relief from my unscholarly battles at the time. His plot, despite its series of improbable coincidences, intrigued me, and calmed me. But in this case I enjoyed the movie more than the book. (I fell in love with Julie Christie’s Lara and the melody of her haunting theme.)

With this skimpy background, on the later rare occasions when I’ve talked with a Russian native, I’ve always managed to ask a question: Who is Russia’s best novelist? The first time I added, naively, Dostoevsky or Tolstoy?

Neither, the man answered, surprising me. Turgenev was our best novelist, he added. I knew the name but nothing beyond that, so I picked up a library copy of Fathers and Sons and discovered it to be a great book. Thinking of it now, with its description of the social upheaval and growing radicalism in mid-nineteenth Russia, I wonder if it resembles certain recent developments in this country. I hope not. The Russian turmoil revealed in Fathers and Sons foreshadowed the Russian revolution that evolved early in the next century.

 

 

Looking closer at Fathers and Sons, I like Turgenev’s methods. He uses little to none of the “show don’t tell” advice favored by many present-day teachers of fiction. He reminds me of a story teller around a campfire, cracking open his characters’ heads for the listener to examine. The father and son combo most prominent in Fathers and Sons is Nikolai Petrovitch Kirsanov the owner of a small estate in rural Russia who tries to keep up, at least partly, with evolving ideas, and his son, Arkady, who has come under the influence of the then-emerging philosophy of nihilism while studying in St. Petersburg.

Follow along as we read snippets of a long scene between two of Turgenev’s other major characters, these being Bazarov (Yevgeny Vassilievitch Bazarov), a medical student and, as he makes abundantly clear, a devoted nihilist. The second is an older woman, a widow, Odintsova (Anna Sergeyevna Odintsova). I’m guessing she’s in her late 30s or early 40s. She is described as wealthy, and with “liberal views”. Odintsova has invited the two students, Arkady and Bazarov, to her elegant house for a stay. Both quickly become infatuated with her. Check out how Turgenev develops this thread of the story in the selected segments below.

“If a woman pleases you,” he [Bazarov] used to say, “try to get to the point; if that’s impossible, well–too bad; turn your back–you’re not at the end of your rope.”  Odintsova pleased him.  The wide-spread rumors about her, her freedom and independence of mind, her definite inclination towards him–everything, it seemed, spoke in his favor; but he soon understood that he would not “get to the point” with her, and to his amazement, he lacked the strength to turn his back on her.  His blood caught fire at just the thought of her; he could have easily subdued his blood, but there was something else taking root inside him–something he did not tolerate at all, which he had always jeered at, and which aroused all his pride. . . . He caught himself in all sorts of “shameful” thoughts, as if a devil were mocking him.

            . . . He [Bazarov] had struck Odintsova’s imagination; he interested her; she thought about him a great deal.  In his absence she was neither bored nor expectant, but his appearance immediately enlivened her;  she enjoyed being alone with him and enjoyed talking to him, even when he angered her or offended her taste, her exquisite ways.  She seemed to want to try him and test herself.

As expected, their attraction grows and leads to the scene below, both characters revealing themselves more completely, with Odintsova speaking first.

            “Listen, I have wanted to speak plainly with you for a long time.  You didn’t have to be told – you know this yourself – that you’re not an ordinary person; you’re still young – your whole life lies before you.  What are you preparing yourself for?  What future awaits you?  I mean – what aims do you want to reach, where are you going, what’s in your heart?  In a word, who are you, what are you?”

            “You surprise me, Anna Sergeyevna.  You know I’m engaged in natural science, while who I am . . .”

            “Yes, who are you?”

            “I’ve already told you that I’m a future country doctor.”

            Anna Sergeyevna gestured impatiently.

            “Why do you say that?  You don’t believe it yourself.  Arkady could answer me that way, but not you.”

            “And how would Arkady-“

            “Stop it!  Is it possible you’d be satisfied with such a humble occupation, and aren’t you always protesting yourself that so far as you’re concerned, medicine doesn’t even exist?  You – with your ambition – a country doctor!  You’re giving me that kind of answer to brush me off because you don’t have any confidence in me.  But, Yevgeny Vassilich, you should know that I’m capable of understanding you: I myself was poor and ambitious like you; perhaps I went through the very same trials as you.”

            “That’s all very fine, Anna Sergeyevna, but you must excuse me.  I’m not generally accustomed to expressing my feelings, and there is such a distance between us. . . .”

            “What distance?”  Are you telling me I’m an aristocrat again”  Enough, Yevgeny Vassilich; I thought I had proved to you–“

            “But besides that,” Bazarove broke in, “what urge is there to think and talk about the future, which for the most part doesn’t depend on us?  Should an opportunity come along to do something – fine; if not – at least one has the satisfaction of not having jabbered for nothing beforehand.”

            “You call a friendly conversation jabbering. . . .  Or, perhaps, you don’t consider me, being a woman, worthy of your confidence?  Of course, you despise us all!”

            “You I don’t despise, Anna Sergeyevna, and you know it.”

            “No, I know nothing – but let’s assume it; I understand your unwillingness to talk about your future occupation, but what’s happening inside you now . . .”

            “Happening!” repeated Bazarov.  “As if I were a kind of state or society!  In any case, it’s not at all interesting; and besides, can a person always say out loud everything that’s ‘happening’ inside him?”

            “I don’t see why one can’t say everything one has on one’s mind.”

            “Can you?” asked Bazarov.

            “I can,” answered Anna Sergeyevna after a brief hesitation. 

            Bazarov bowed his head. “You’re happier than I.”

            Anna Sergeyevna looked at him questioningly.

            “As you wish,” she continued, “but something tells me all the same that we weren’t drawn together for nothing, that we shall be good friends.  I’m certain your, how can I say it, your tenseness, reserve, will disappear in the end.”

            “So you’ve noticed reserve in me – and as you also said – tenseness?”

            “Yes.”

            Bazarov rose and went to the window.

            “And you would like to know the reason for this reserve, you would like to know what’s happening inside me?”

            “Yes,” repeated Odintsova with a kind of fear she was not yet able to understand. “And you won’t get angry?”

            “No.”  Bazarov was standing with his back towards her.

            “Then know that I love you, foolishly, madly. . . . There’s what you elicited!”

            Odintsova stretched out both hands, but Bazarov leaned his forehead against the windowpane. He was gasping; his whole body was visibly trembling.  But it was not the trembling of youthful timidity, not the sweet dismay of the first confession of love which had overcome him; it was passion struggling inside him, strong and tragic – a passion resembling hatred, and perhaps related to it.

            Odintsova felt both fear and pity for him. “Yevgeny Vassilich . . .” she said, and an involuntary strain of tenderness came into her voice.

            He turned around quickly, threw a rapacious glance at her – and seizing both of her hands, suddenly drew her to his chest.

            She did not free herself from his embrace immediately; but in an instant she was standing, looking at Bazarov from a remote corner.  He rushed towards her. . . .

            “You misunderstood me,” she whispered with sudden fear.  It seemed as though if he took another step she would scream.

 Any comments on the above sample? And finally, should you be interested in the current tally of my unscientific poll of Russians choosing their best novelist, the count now has  Dostoevsky leading with 5 (one of his admirers being the Russian physicist I described in my second post on the Brandenburg Gate), Tolstoy with 3, Turgenev 2, Pasternak 1, and Gogol 1 (a writer I’ve not read, and probably won’t).

Group Think

Posted on by Ken Goetz

I apologize for the lack of activity here for two long weeks. I’m working on other projects and haven’t taken time to post anything fresh here.  Yesterday, Independence Day, I heard someone sputter about “group think”, a  common phrase these days. But when I heard the words yesterday, they set off that frustrating feeling you get when trying unsuccessfully to pull something from another part of your head. Then, as sometimes happens, the target was identified, something Michael Chrichton had written years ago, a sketch of one of his characters, and a likely suspect. I pulled out my copy of Rising Sun and there it was. Here’s how Chrichton described that particular character.

I found myself thinking of Lauren. When I knew her, she was bright and ambitious, but she really didn’t understand very much. She had grown up privileged, she had gone to Ivy League schools, and had the privileged person’s deep belief that whatever she happened to think was probably true. Certainly good enough to live by. Nothing needed to be checked against reality.

She was young, that was part of it. She was still feeling the world, learning how it worked. She was enthusiastic, and she could be impassioned in expounding her beliefs. But of course her beliefs were always changing, depending on whom she had talked to last. She was very impressionable. She tried on ideas the way some women try on hats. She was always informed about the latest trend. I found it youthful and charming for a while, until it began to annoy me. Because she didn’t have any core, any real substance.  She was expert at watching the TV, the newspaper, the boss – – whatever she saw as the source of authority — and figuring out what direction the winds were blowing. And positioning herself so she was where she ought to be. I wasn’t surprised she was getting ahead. Her values, like her clothes, were always smart and up-to-date.

As many of you know, Michael Crichton graduated from Harvard Medical School and published his first bestseller,The Andromeda Strain, before he graduated from medical school. He was a giant physically (6 feet 9 inches tall) and intellectually (summa cum laude, Harvard), and erudite to the extreme, not to mention immensely productive. His books, among them Jurassic Park sold over 200 million copies. He created and produced the popular television series, ER, a show derived from his medical background. But now back to my point. I applaud Chrichton for vividly sketching a member of the group think crowd.