The Explorers Club
№ CCLI - The Pan Am Building (now the MetLife Building), completed 1963.







Master Debating
This evening, The M.A.P. got his first look at the "fish," our curious slang for newcomers, the eager lads Too Sly & your humble narrator spent the summer coaching, & he is pleased by the foundation we managed to give them. Go, team! The summer's fish, my pal Ska Army & a libertarian environmentalist I know from the Econ. Club, are now novices; meanwhile, two new fish arrived, a friend of the code-nameless libertarian & Vitamin H., longtime cohort of The Impossible Ingenue & The Most Dangerous Game, & The Game's new roommate. Ska Army says he has yet another fish on the line (the source of our usage of the term); so, while attrition is inevitable—I recruited a third fish, but he lost interest—we might be building ourselves a real team here, not the confoundingly wee squad with which we crisscrossed the nation last year.

As far as "Master Debating," I am in arrears for three out of last spring's four tournaments. Mea culpa.

Spy v. Spy
On Sunday, at the dinner table, though I cannot recall exactly how his came up, my father & I, both ardent supporters of the American-Israeli alliance (thought for profoundly different reasons), agreed that Israel & the United States are allies, they are not friends. There are no friends amongst sovereign nations. There can be, & are, friendships betwixt peoples, such as the Americans & the Israelis, but not betwixt states. Among the proofs I cited was Israel's irksome habit of spying on the United States, an activity that happens even between allies, but one that would seem to preclude "friendship" all the same. I did not know on Sunday how timely my remarks would prove: espionage-link.

The Stars My Destination
Let's see, President Obama cancelled the program that was to take American astronauts back to the Moon & beyond to Mars, retired the Space Shuttle fleet while simultaneously pulling the plug on a replacement spacecraft, reduced our astronauts to little more than passengers on Apollo-era Russian capsules (capsules that have now been grounded due to the unfortunate frequency with which their rockets inexplicably fail), & placed the only hope for renewed American manned spaceflight in a handful of private business that have between them never managed to launch a single human being into orbit. Who wouldn't want to be an astronaut under those conditions? Human resources-link. "Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan.' Even if the plan is horrifying."

Obamboozled
This is precisely the space policy you voted for if you voted for President Obama in 2008. Is this the change you envisioned? Is this the hope you were promised?

Autobahn
Last week, I took care of some periodic maintenance on Lumi the Snow Queen, having her radiator flushed & filled, because they hadn't been done in an age, & taking her in for her annual free gearbox fluid & filter change & systems check. I had a loose wheel bearing replaced, not wanting to have that done, but deeming the expense less than the repairs that would be needed had the wheel fallen off at speed. I checked the rest of her engine fluids & her tire pressure myself. My motorcar was ready for my sojourn to verdammt Ohio next weekend; I have been invited to Where's Teddy?'s house to watch the Michigan-Notre Dame night game &, curse my bones, I could not devise a convincing lie by virtue of which to weasel out of the invitation. On Friday, not all that long after I'd returned from having the wheel bearing replaced, my father decided to play his own version of Tetris by moving his motorcars around Wilson Field. He relocated Lumi the Snow Queen, too, & in the course of so doing rolled down the windows to try & relieve the stifling heat. He then found that he could not get the window to roll back up; my motorcar has power windows. He had some errands to run & it was took blasted hot to be working outside anyway; I placed some plastic sheeting over the open window in case of rain & resolved to investigate the problem further the next morning.

In the cool of the morning, I looked up how to remove the necessary panels from the massive volumes on mid-'90s Lumina/Monte Carlo repair that were transferred from my father to me when I bought Lumi the Snow Queen. I removed the necessary door panel & lifted out the control board that we hoped was the source of the trouble, as opposed to the motor buried far deeper inside the driver's door. Dad fiddled around with the control box, not really doing anything but removing the buttons & the housing. There was no obvious damage, & window function remained intermittent; so, we thought we were sunk. To be on the safe side, I'd called the mechanic's shop on Friday & arranged an appointment for Tuesday morning. I reassembled the door & had to content myself with at least having managed to put the window up against the present threat of rain.

Whilst running to the grocer on Saturday, I chanced opening the window, to see it functionality was still only intermittent. To my great relief, the window worked like a charm. The window goes up. The window goes down. Every time. For the nonce—& I am cognizant of tempting fate, all but inviting a return of the gremlin, simply by typing these lines—our minor repair, which consisted of, essentially, just shaking the thing, appears to have done the trick. Will Lumi the Snow Queen's power windows fail again? Almost certainly, & almost certainly on a particularly rainy & windy day, soaking me in a bone-chilling horizontal downpour. (Sidepour?) But for nor at least all is right with my beloved motorcar. Hooray!

I saw a fratboy rapist I know driving a Porsche Boxster this morning. Of course, he was motoring like the proverbial Sunday driver. He may own a Porsche, but he certainly doesn't appreciate owning a Porsche.

This next bit really is much ado about nothing, even if you aren't one of the readers who passionately despises "This Week in Motorsport." The only defense I can offer is that the original version was much, much longer.

This Week in Motorsport
Coming into 2011, Lotus Renault's two drivers were to be the same pair as in 2010, Robert Kubica (Poland) as the team leader & Vitaly Petrov (Russia) as the young, rough talent in need of seasoning. But then Kubica was horrifically wounded in a terrifying rallying accident (not W.R.C., but a lower formula); Kubica's life was imperiled, & in an earlier era he would surely have perished; amidst many other grave injuries, his right hand was nearly severed at the wrist & had to be surgically reattached. Lotus Renault (not to be confused with Team Lotus, who also use Renault engines) brought in the veteran Nick Heidfeld (Germany) to replace the rehabilitating Pole. Heidfeld was consistently better than second-year driver Petrov, but not consistently better enough; so, at the Belgian Grand Prix Lotus Renault drafted one of their several reserve drivers, Bruno Senna (Brazil), who drove half of last season with the hapless Hispania (Cosworth) team. Senna brings with him millions of dollars in personal sponsorship money, but Heidfeld is clinging to his seat like grim death, even initiating legal action. Additionally, Romain Grosjean (France), who briefly drove for Renault (no Lotus then) in 2009 in place of the disgraced Nelson Piquet, Jr. (Brazil), has looked mightily impressive this year on his way to winning the GP2 Series crown, having also won the GP2 Asia Series earlier in the year. Champions are not allowed to compete further in GP2; so, Grosjean will be looking for an F1 drive. Plus, Heaven only knows when or even if the supremely talented Kubica will ever be able to return to an F1 cockpit. Petrov is showing slow but steady improvement, besides which he also has a lot of personal sponsorship money as the first Russian driver in Formula One, & it is in F1's self interest to keep him around with the inaugural Russian Grand Prix tentatively scheduled for 2014. But alongside whom will the ultra-polite Russian be racing next season? A recovered Kubica? Senna, invariably mentioned as the nephew of the martyred double World Champion Ayrton Senna? The upstart Grosjean? Surely not the long-experienced, but never victorious Heidfeld, right? Lotus Renault is a Swiss-owned team based in England with an inaccurate French name, since they haven't been the Renault factory team since '09; whom will they have driving alongside their talented Russian next season, a Pole, a Brazilian, or a Frenchman?

I freely confess that I do thoroughly enjoy the international aspect of Formula One.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Paramore, "Looking Up" from Brand New Eyes (T.L.A.M.)

The Stars My Destination
Telescopes aimed at the heavens are time machines, the light by which they see the most distant objects in the cosmos began its journey toward their lenses billions of years ago. Even a glimpse at our nearest celestial neighbor, Alpha Centauri (Yes, Proxima Centauri is currently nearer to the Sun, but the jury is still out on whether Proxima Centauri is part of a triple alignment with the binary stars of Alpha Centauri; so, let's table that discussion for the nonce.), does not show Alpha Centauri as it is today, but Alpha Centauri as it was four-&-change years ago. Our faithful robotic minion, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, has become a different kind of time machine. The images it is capturing from the landing site of the Challenger, Apollo 17's Lunar Module, are contemporary, but because of the lack of atmospheric erosion & "geologic"* disruption the site remains as it was when the last Moonwalkers, Gene Cernan & Harrison Schmidt, departed aboard the ascent stage of the Challenger in 1972. The L.R.O.'s photography allows us to look back in time, metaphorically if not literally: Moon-link.

The Savage Wars of Peace
In my youth, I'd thought the days of the celebrity general, the figure of national renown like General MacArthur or President Eisenhower, were behind us. The enduring high profile of Secretary of State Powell should have taught me better, but for no coherent reason I assumed he was an exception that proved the rule. More fool me. All America needed for the reemergence of the public flag officer was a real war, such as those we've fought & are fighting in Iraq & Afghanistan, not the brief skirmishes of my formative years—DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM, Somalia, & Bosnia. The John J. "Black Jack" Pershing† of our time? General David Petraeus, recently retired from the United States Army to assume the directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency. Thank you for your service, General Petraeus: B.B.C.-link & Wired-link.

Or, lest we forget, "General Betray Us" in the words of left-wing stalwarts MoveOn.org. MoveOn libeled General Petraeus over what they argued was the "failed" "Surge" in Iraq, a strategy that was in fact wildly successful. President Obama was also opposed to the Surge, yet in worked so undeniably well in Iraq that he ordered, after interminable months of paralysis, a similar surge in Afghanistan. MoveOn attempted to erase their despicable "General Betray Us" slur from public memory as soon as the president ordered Petraeus to assume command of the surge in Afghanistan, proving they have about as much credibility as, say, Dalton Trumbo & his wretch polemic Johnny Got His Gun.

A look at D.C.I. Petraeus's new job: Langley-link. Thank Mars (or Francis Walsingham) that we finally have a proper C.I.A. again, not the neutered husk that emerged from the reckless Congressional hearings of the 1970s & limped on in that hamstrung state until 9/11.

A final note on the savage wars of peace: I watched Frontline tonight, an episode titled "Top Secret America." I should have known better, should have listened to the small voice that warned me what a travesty the news division of P.B.S. has become. One of the principal commentators, & the man who had the last word except for the author of the new book, Top Secret America, on which tonight's Frontline was based, was Richard Clarke. You remember Richard Clarke, the Grand Poobah of counter-terrorism in the late Clinton Administration & early Bush '43 Administration. The Grand Poobah of a counter-terroism community & architect of a counter-terrorism strategy that allowed 9/11 to happen. That Richard Clarke. Anyway, Richard Clarke scoffed at what we as a body politic have done since 9/11 to combat terrorism, confident that everything we were doing before 9/11 worked like gangbusters. That's really all that need be said about the weight, or lack thereof, that should be given to Frontline, doesn't it? At least I got to listen to Will Lyman's narration. I could listen to that guy read the phone book.

This Week in Motorsport
Rally Monkey
On Sunday, I watched Rallye Deutschland, the most recent round of the F.I.A. World Rally Championship (W.R.C.). Rallye Deutschland, Rally Germany; whereas F1 grands prix are given as Adjective Grand Prix, e.g., the German Grand Prix, rallies are given as Rally Noun, e.g., Rally Germany. The previous rallies I'd watched had been in the form of an hour-long review of the three days of the rally, but over this holiday weekend I decided to increase my exposure. I watched an hour-long preview of the rally to come, three half-hour reviews each detailing a day of the rally, & an hour-long review of the final, gimmicky stage of the rally, the so-called Power Stage, more about which later. What was learned? The more rallying, the better!

Watching the day-by-day accounts of the rally gave me a much better understanding of the mechanics of the sport (no pun intended). This is the way I plan to watch the rest of the W.R.C. season, in all its glorious madness. There's no point in trying to convince you otherwise, rallying is mad. Tiny cars—turbocharged, rebuilt from stem-to-stern, four-wheel-drive versions of the Citroën DS3, Ford Fiesta, & Mini Cooper, et alii—are piloted across winding courses of dirt, gravel, ice & snow, or asphalt at breakneck speed by teams of two, the driver & the co-driver. Co-driver? The co-driver reads out "pace notes," information about the course gleaned from test runs in the preceding days, information such as how many yards to a turn or bend, how many degrees the turn covers, & at what speed the bend might be taken. Why a co-driver & pace notes? Because the cars are going too fast to rely solely on the driver's reactions. The driver has to anticipate the turns & bends & start correcting his machine's course before it encounters the corner. Madness. Splendid, rapturous madness.

Rallies are run in timed stages, anywhere from twenty to thirty in a given rally. The cars tackle the stages one at a time, released at some unspecified interval so that they shouldn't catch up to one another, not even a faster car to a slower car, unless the car ahead suffers some kind of repairable mechanical issue, such as a flat tire. Without understanding all the rules of how much repair work can be done by the support crew betwixt stages or overnight, the driver & co-driver seem to be responsible for repairing their own car. Each duo's times for the stages are then aggregated & the pair with the lowest cumulative time leads the standings. The distance raced over the duration of a rally is normally over a hundred miles. Peruse this handy, informative hyperlink: W.R.C.-link.

The bit I like least is the Power Stage. Only the top ten or twelve competitors qualify for the Power Stage, which awards separate points from the rest of the rally. For Rallye Deutschland, the Power Stage was held around the streets of the host city Trier. Each car makes an individual, timed run around the circuit, three times around in the case of the Trier course. I've no objection to watching cars race around a street circuit, the Grand Prix de Monaco, around the narrow, winding streets of the Principality, is the jewel in the F1 crown, but to my way of thinking the segregation of the Power Stage from all the other stages of the rally makes it seem quite unlike rallying. The Power Stage isn't what I'm looking to see when I tune in a rally (thanks, Discovery's H.D. Theater channel!). Due to its relative brevity, though, it is accorded more complete television coverage than the rest of the stages, which are spread out over both time & space. Since the highlights of the Power Stage are covered in the half-hour review of the third day, when Rally Australia is broadcast in three weeks' time I'll skip the Power Stage program.

The World Rally Championship, a madcap addition to my motorsport portfolio.

For those of you following along & keeping score at home:
{a} 24 Heures du Mans (& the late, lamented American Le Mans Series) - "By Endurance We Conquer"
{b} Formula One - "Formula Fun!"
{c} World Rally Championship - "Rally Monkey"

Indianapolis Jones or We Named the Dog "Indiana"
I also watched the last few laps of the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix, an IndyCar race on the new street circuit in the City that Reads. I've roundly poo-pooed Indy's marque event (& namesake), the Indianapolis 500, here at The Secret Base, & to anyone fool enough to listen in person I've mocked IndyCar's single-make (or spec series) format. That said, my interest was immediately increased because they were racing on a road course rather than an abominable oval track. Mayhap I should give the IndyCar Series's last remaining road course race a fighting chance?

The Queue
Having finally read The Thirty-nine Steps, a book I much abused by repeatedly jumping it in the queue, I quite enjoyed John Buchan's tale of spies & saboteurs in the summer before the Europe was set ablaze by the Great War. If I have a complaint, it is only that there's not enough of The Thirty-nine Steps; my Dover Thrift Edition was a scant eighty-eight pages long. What there is is a crackerjack yarn, but the enterprise would profit from more of the same. I shall certainly read at least the next book in the so-called "Greenmantle" series, Greenmantle.

Recently
Jeffery Deaver, Carte Blanche
Robert M. Soderstrom, The Big House: Fielding H. Yost and the Building of Michigan Stadium
John Buchan, The Thirty-nine Steps

Currently
Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of M.I.6: 1909-1949

Presently
Allen Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence
William F. Buckley, Jr., Saving the Queen
byeh?

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Neil Patrick Harris, "Everything You Ever" from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Soundtrack from the Motion Picture (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: If not the saddest song ever written, which "Everything You Ever" might well be, it is unquestionably a song of gut-wrenching sadness. There is a terrible beauty in such desolation.

"Now the nightmare's real."

*"Geologic" because the geo- prefix refers specifically to the Earth. Just as there are no earthquakes on the Moon, only moonquakes, by definition there cannot be geology on the Moon. "Geology" continues to be used colloquially, however, & that's not necessarily a bad thing.

†How great was Black Jack Pershing? So great that the rank of General of the Armies of the United States was created for him after his leadership of the A.E.F. in the Great War. The five-star General of the Army/Fleet Admiral rank that was created during the Second World War is subordinate to Pershing's General of the Armies. Pershing's only superior? President Washington—"First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen"—who was retroactively promoted to General of the Armies of the United States in 1976, & declared the nation's senior military officer in perpetuity. Pershing is second only to George Washington, the father of the nation.

The United States Army Band is known as "Pershing's Own." Black Jack!

Operation AXIOM
Labor Day doesn't coincide with the autumnal equinox, the meteorological end of summer, but it does mark, with a bright, shining line, the social end of the summer.

"The cruel, hot summer
led into the long, hard fall,
becoming the dark, killing winter,
until spring replenished us all."

To your health & happiness throughout this long, hard fall.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Wasted Summers" from Pin Points and Gin Joints (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The last day of summer. The heat will return, & could well linger for quite some time to come, but the summer is no more. Football has come, Labor Day has come & gone, & another summer is gone—much, much too swiftly. I considered "End of the Long Summer" by Potshot for the R.B.D.S.O.T.D, but this summer was anything but long. Was this a wasted summer? Maybe, maybe not. When in doubt, Bosstones.

The Victors
Michigan 34-10 Western Michigan
1-0, Big Ten 0-0

That was probably the least satisfactory first-game-of-the-year experience I've had. Yesterday's truncated win wasn't painful like the desolating loss to Notre Dame in the opening game of the '98 season, a rough way to come off the high of the '97 National Championship, but with the multiple delays & the game eventually being called due to weather it hardly feels as if the season has begun.

This was the only Saturday of September that I'll be able to spend parked in front of a television, making all the usual offerings to the football gods; I will follow the valiant Wolverines as obsessively as I am able & will maintain the frequency & quality of "The Victors" posts as well as possible.

"Hoke Springs Eternal"? Absent hope, foster the hope that there is hope.

Go Blue!

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Duvall, "Racine" from Volume & Density (T.L.A.M.)

Samstag, 3 September
The University of Michigan Marching Band, "The Victors" from A Saturday Tradition (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The 2:16 rendition near the beginning of A Saturday Tradition, not the 2:13 rendition at the end of that selfsame album.

Freitag, 2 September
The University of Michigan Marching Band, "Varsity" from A Saturday Tradition (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"O Varsity! We're for you,
Here for you to cheer for you,
We have no fear for you,
O Varsity!"

The Victors: Lightning Delay
Michigan 20-10 Western Michigan (early 3rd Quarter)

You cannot right overnight a course as profoundly wrong as Michigan's was over the past three seasons. Let us hope that the growing pains the valiant Wolverines are displaying are just that, growing pains, not exemplars of the systemic ineptitude we saw under Coach Rodriguez & his staff.

Go Blue!

The Queue
There are many lengthy quotations in The Big House defending amateurism in sport against the relentless encroachment of professionalism, passages I might well quote the next time I bother to give vent to my unremitting hatred of the Olympic Games, but unless you are a loyal son or daughter of the Maize & Blue I'd have to say The Big House might not be for you. There is an unmistakable triumphalism throughout the work, that unassailable Wolverine self-assurance at which the hated Buckeyes, the dastardly Spartans, & the vile Fighting Irish fume, which they detest & denounce as Michigan's "arrogance." The certitude that come what may, win or lose, it's great to be a Michigan Wolverine. I've long expressed it thus: most schools' fight songs exhort the varsity onto victory, but at Michigan our fight song is "The Victors," which presupposes our victory. We play "The Victors" even before the game has begun, much less before it has ended. (That said, the Marching Band don't turn their hats around until the clock ticks down to :00, having learnt that lesson the hard way.) The peerless Fielding Yost expressed this with eloquence far beyond my meager powers, even if he did pronounce Michigan as "Meeshigan":

What you remember as the Michigan Spirit is still throbbingly alive. This spirit is based upon a deathless loyalty to Michigan and all her ways; an enthusiasm that makes it second nature for Michigan men to spread the gospel of their university to the far corners of the earth; and a conviction that no where is there a better university than this Michigan of ours.

Go Blue!

Recently
Len Deighton, SS-GB
Jeffery Deaver, Carte Blanche
Robert M. Soderstrom, The Big House: Fielding H. Yost and the Building of Michigan Stadium

Currently
John Buchan, The Thirty-nine Steps

Presently
Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of M.I.6: 1909-1949
Allen Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence
William F. Buckley, Jr., Saving the Queen

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
The University of Michigan Marching Band, "The Yellow and Blue" from A Saturday Tradition (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The third verse of "The Yellow and Blue," our alma mater:

"Here's to the college whose colors we wear;
Here's to the hearts that are true!
Here's to the maid of the golden hair,
And eyes that are brimming with blue!
Garlands and bluebells and maize intertwine,
And hearts that are true and voices combine;
Hail!
Hail to the college whose colors we wear;
Hurrah for the Yellow and Blue!"

Operation AXIOM
Seventy-two years ago to the day, 1 September 1939, the Second World War—the most destructive & bloody conflict in the charnel house that is human history—began in earnest. The seeds of the war were sown in the retroactively numbered First World War, the world had been in crisis for a decade before the Nazi war machine leapt across the frontier & began the rape of Poland, & the crisis reached a fever pitch in 1937 when Imperial Japan launched a savage invasion into the heart of China, but the scores of millions of deaths that were to result from the war—& the acts of genocide that attended the ebb & flow of conquest—could still have been avoided up until this day in 1939. The world we inhabit, both for good & for ill, is a direct consequence of the Second World War, which began seventy-two years hence, on 1 September 1939. Lest we forget.

(I considered posted W. H. Auden's poem "September 1, 1939," but deemed the work of insufficient quality to endorse through reproduction.)

Coming Attractions
I'm working on a post of some significance to yours truly. The matter is of some delicacy, requiring a sizable investment of time, & this is a peculiar & hectic week. Watch this space for "Der Fuehrer's Face."

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Vampire Weekend, "Campus" from Vampire Weekend (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"How am I supposed to pretend
I never want to see you again?"

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Fountains of Wayne, "Laser Show" from Utopia Parkway (T.L.A.M.)

The Explorers Club
№ CCL - Giorgio Perlasca (1910-1992), Righteous among the Nations.







This series of "The Explorers Club," concentrating on the Righteous among the Nations, has highlighted the heroism of a Japanese, a Portuguese, a Swede, & an Italian. It was the duty of all Mankind to oppose the Holocaust, & many different nationalities & creeds answered the call. I cannot think of a prouder way to commemorate "The Explorers Club's" two hundred fiftieth episode.

I aspire for The Secret Base to be more than just a repeater station, but that doesn't mean I mind in the least passing on particularly fascinating items of interest. To wit: The African Queen.

This Week in Motorsport
Formula One returned this weekend after the August recess. The story? Vettel über alles! The talk over the four weeks since the Magyar Nagydíj (Hungarian Grand Prix) was of the ascent of McLaren (Mercedes) & Ferrari, & the demise of Red Bull (Renault). Even the great Murray Walker had succumbed to this dubious conventional wisdom. The Red Bulls responded with a one-two finish, a maximum points haul, reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel in first & the indomitable Mark Webber in second. Not only that, but both RB7s managed to pass McLaren MP4-26s & Ferrari 150° Italias on track, flying past as if their rivals were standing still. Bwa ha ha ha ha! Vettel started from the pole, the twelfth pole for Red Bull out of twelve grands prix. So far in 2011, Vettel has won seven grands prix while the rest of the field have collectively won five (Ferrari's Fernando Alsono, a double World Champion in '05 & '06, has one win, while the McLaren drivers, '08 World Champion Lewis Hamilton & '09 World Champion Jenson Button, have two wins apiece). But the goods news didn't end there. Hamilton, who had been sitting third in the Drivers' Championship standings, crashed out of the race (he's uninjured, thank Providence), & dropped down to fifth. Button, who had been fifth, passed Alonso, formerly fourth, in the closing laps to claim the third spot on the podium; Alonso is now third, more distant from second-place Webber than he would have been had he managed to fend off Button, now in fourth. Everything's coming up Red Bull!

Sebastian Vettel has 259 points in the drivers' standings, with seven grands prix remaining. He won last year's World Drivers' Championship with a grand total of 256 points. Vettel über alles, indeed.

Also, the results aside, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is just breathtaking; part of me wishes F1 raced there at least twice a year. Spa is one of only four tracks still in use that appeared on the first F1 calender in 1950. The track has been shortened from nine miles-long to four and a half, still far & away the longest F1 track of the year. The awesome Eau Rouge corner truly separates the men from the boys, demanding a level of commitment that borders on derangement. The sweeping corners through the thick forest & looming fog of the Ardennes Forest provide a backdrop with beauty beyond compare. Spa-Francorchamps is everything a circuit should be, & more.

To be continued…

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Vampire Weekend, "California English" from Contra (T.L.A.M.)

Sonntag, 28 August
Avril Lavigne, "What the Hell" from Goodbye Lullaby (T.L.A.M.)

Objective SCHWEDEN
Objective SCHWEDEN was postponed at the eleventh hour due to fear of injuries similar to those suffered last year during Objective FINNLAND. It has been rescheduled for August 2012, to be preceded by intensive preparations. Objective NORWEGEN, et al., is pushed back accordingly.

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Gertrud Huber, "The Harry Lime Theme" from The Third Man (T.L.A.M.)

Freitag, 26 August
Five Iron Frenzy, "Plan B" from Five Iron Frenzy 2: Electric Boogaloo (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Not to be confused with "Plan B," a song by The Impossibles, or "No Plan B," a song by They Might Be Giants.

The Explorers Club
№ CCXLIX - Raoul Wallenberg (1912-1947), Righteous among the Nations.







Pray pardon my boosterism if it seems unseemly, but I cannot resist mentioning that Wallenberg was a University of Michigan Wolverine.

The Stars My Destination
More good news from President Obama's plan to make U.S. manned spaceflight entirely dependent upon Russian rockets: that part of the Soyuz-U rocket that failed yesterday, resulting in the destruction of an unmanned Progress cargo hauler, is exactly the same as in the Soyuz-FG rocket that carries the manned Soyuz capsule. The Soyuz-U & Soyuz-FG are two-thirds different, but the part that failed is the one-third they share. The Soyuz rocket fleet has been grounded pending an investigation, meaning there is absolutely no way to reach the six astronauts/cosmonauts currently manning the International Space Station: Marooned-link. Believe it or not, no matter how horrified you might be, everything is going according to plan. This American impotence? This reliance on the clearly reliable Russians? That is the plan. That was always the plan. Things are going according to plan.

"Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan.' Even if the plan is horrifying."

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
The Pogues, "If I Should Fall from Grace with God" from The Very Best of The Pogues (T.L.A.M.)

The Stars My Destination
You remember the hospital scene in The Dark Knight, the scene in which The Joker expounds his philosophy of chaos to the newly-created Two-Face? The Joker says, "You know what… you know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go," The Joker makes air quotes, "according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying." Think about those words in the context of today's catastrophic failure of an unmanned Russian Progress capsule: Lost in Space-link.

The word from N.A.S.A. is that there's no reason to panic, things are going according to plan. This is meant to be reassuring, even though the plan is horrifying. What is that plan? To leave manned spaceflight, outside of the propaganda-driven Chinese effort, entirely in the hands of the Russians, with their unmanned Progress cargo haulers & manned Soyuz capsules. (More good news: The manned Soyuz capsule is lifted into orbit by rockets almost identical to that which failed today, dooming the Progress & its cargo to a fiery demise.) But don't panic, because the International Space Station has plenty of supplies, strictly according to plan. Of course, those supplies—the very margin for error that N.A.S.A. is now counting on—were delivered by the Space Shuttle, which has since been retired, also according to plan. Meaning no similar delivery can be made in future, even if the problems in the Russians' rocketry aren't fixed. Today's fiasco is not an isolated incident, either; another Russian rocket, a Proton carrying a satellite, malfunctioned last week. Last. Week. Yet another Proton failed in December, giving the Russians—on whom we are now solely reliant for the transportation into & out of orbit, safe or otherwise, of American & affiliated astronauts as well as Russian cosmonauts—three failures in the last nine months. But, so goes the logic of President Obama's space policy, there is absolutely no reason for concern, because relying exclusively on the Russians was always the plan.

All is well because things are going to plan. "Even if the plan is horrifying."

Obamboozled
Remember, if you voted for then-Senator Obama in 2008, this plan is exactly as he promised. So, take heart, because things are going according to plan.

Project GLOWWORM
I am nearly two weeks overdue for a haircut, due to the snail's pace at which the finishing touches to the renovation of the upstairs water closet are proceeding. That might not sound like a long time to you, but when your hair is as short as mine, & kept that short by being trimmed every three weeks, two extra weeks make a substantial, & unpleasant, difference.

The Queue
I began The Big House last night, & it is gloriously indulgent. The smugness & self-satisfaction of Michigan men that the fans of the hated Buckeyes, the dastardly Spartans, & the vile Fighting Irish grouse about so bitterly is evident on every single page. It's a delight. Go Blue!

More Information Than You Require
Carte Blanche is a reboot of the James Bond literary universe. I'm going to catalog a few of the differences 'twixt the world in which Ian Fleming originally situated 007 in 1952 & that in which Jeffery Deaver now situates him in 2011—&, 'tis hoped, for many adventures to follow. No plot points will be discussed without distinct "spoiler alert" warnings, something along with lines of bells & a siren.

James Bond was born originally in 1924-26, being approximately thirty-seven at the time of Casino Royale, written in '52 & published in '53. The year of Carte Blanche is not given, but Bond is said to be in his thirties; his birth can be pegged to 1978 or '79, since he was eleven years-old at the time of his parents' death in 1990. (Sweet fancy Moses, James Bond is my age, your humble narrator having stormed into the world in the tumultuous Year of Our Lord 1979.) The 007 of Moonraker, the third novel, is already musing about his mandatory retirement from the 00 Section at age forty-five. He counts his attainment of that age as highly improbable, given the eight years 'til then & the average of two truly death-defying missions he conducts every year, in addition to countless more run-of-the-mill jobs. The 007 of Carte Blanche has a decidedly less morbid outlook, having been three years on Her Majesty's secret service & viewing the world as one of infinite horizons.

From it's founding in 1909 until 1994, the existence of the Secret Intelligence Service (S.I.S., a.k.a. "M.I.6" or "Six") was not officially acknowledged by Her Majesty's Government. Fleming thus placed his fictionalized S.I.S.'s headquarters near Regent's Park in central London. Deaver confronts the problem of a publicly accountable S.I.S., an organization that is constrained from carrying out assassinations & headquartered in a highly visible building at Vauxhall Cross, by putting Bond under the command of the Overseas Development Group (O.D.G.), a secret organization officially distanced from M.I.6 & headquartered on the sly in a building near Regent's Park. The cinematic 007 is famous for driving Aston Martins, & later Lotuses & B.M.W.s, but the apple of the literary Bond's eye was a pre-war Bentley, souped up to still be a hellion in the '50s & '60s. The rebooted Bond drives a Bentley Continental G.T. & recalls with fondness the Bentley Speed 8's triumph at the 2003 24 Heures du Mans. Bond was armed originally with a .25 caliber Beretta, & began carrying his now iconic .32 cal. Walther PPK only on M's direct order. In the 21st century, Bond is armed with not only a Walther PPS, standard caliber being .38 (or 9mm), but one chambered for the more powerful .40 round. From .25 to .32. to .40; inflation affects more than just money.

Most of the supporting cast remains the same, shifted forward in time alongside Bond himself. M. is M., still a retired Royal Navy admiral named Miles, & 007's best friend within the service (now the O.D.G., mind) remains M.'s chief of staff, the indefatigable Bill Tanner. Miss Moneypenny is M.'s secretary, while Bond's personal assistant is not by his secretary from the early novels, Loelia Ponsonby, but by his secretary from the later Fleming books, Mary Goodnight. (The only disconcerting part of this is that Goodnight is supposed to be lovely, & was embodied on film by the delectable Britt Ekland, yet Deaver describes her as resembling the gorgon Kate Winslet, the site of whom always makes me gag every so slightly.) Along the way, 007 has contact with his old allies René Mathis & Felix Leiter, & thinks of an incident he wishes to describe to his old friend Ronnie Vallance of Scotland Yard. The greatest change is to Q., no longer old Major Boothroyd but rather the family man & cricket fanatic Sanu Hirani; in purpose & abilities, Q. remains Q.

***Achtung! Spoiler Alert! Achtung!***

The biggest change is most certainly in outlook & behavior. Fleming's Bond lives at close quarters with violent death &, knowing it might overtake him at any moment, lives very much for the moment. Deaver's Bond looks more to the future, even while aware that his chosen lifestyle might preclude many of the things he wants. Bond is very attracted to the O.D.G.'s liaison from S.I.S., Ophelia "Philly" Maidenstone, but does not pursue her due to her engagement. When Bond learns that the engagement has been quashed, he moves in to comfort Philly. Yet, he hesitates, not wishing to be a rebound & thinking that if there is anything real 'twixt he & Philly, it will still be there in a month or two, when she's had time to heal. Fleming's Bond abandoned pursuit of Gala Brand, the most prominent literary Bond girl never to make it to film, when he found out she was engaged, but it's hard to imagine him restraining himself if Gala was no longer encumbered by an engagement ring. Fear not, though, James Bond in Carte Banche is hardly a model of chastity; he begins a tempestuous affair with a strikingly beautiful woman who knows him only by his cover identity—false name, false nationality, false occupation—& beds her mere hours after their mutual introduction. Boys will be boys & James Bond will be James Bond.

***All Clear! End spoiler alert. All Clear!***

Recently
Steve Matchett, Life in the Fast Lane: The Inside Story of Benetton's First World Championship
Len Deighton, SS-GB
Jeffery Deaver, Carte Blanche

Currently
Robert M. Soderstrom, The Big House: Fielding H. Yost and the Building of Michigan Stadium

Presently
John Buchan, The Thirty-nine Steps
Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of M.I.6: 1909-1949
Allen Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence
William F. Buckley, Jr., Saving the Queen

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Icon For Hire, "Make a Move" via iTunes, (free) Discovery Download (of the week) (T.L.A.M.)

I'm enjoying the new ThunderCats, as much for its own merits as for nostalgia. Seeing Panthro again has brought to mind an incident from that mythical age of long ago, the 1990s. At the time, "W.W.J.D." bracelets had recently risen to prominence. While we should all strive to lead lives of Christ-like imitation, I took a dim view of these "What Would Jesus Do?" trinkets, deriding them as chintzy displays of faith, a gesture aimed more at seeking recognition—even admiration—from others than promoting serious introspection. Reruns of the original ThunderCats were airing on the Cartoon Network in this same period. With a mind full more of mischief than of Christian humility, I devised my own taunting parody of the W.W.J.D. bracelets: "W.W.F.P.D.," "What Would F---ing Panthro Do?" (I was a foulmouthed blighter in those days.) Hmmm, what would Panthro do?



As a wee lad in the Big '80s, I had a toy just like this one & loved it dearly, though I seem to recall the nunchucks were lost early on.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, "Jolene" from Love Their Country (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Aside from liking the screaming guitar & the breakneck pace of "Jolene," there's something I love about a song written clearly from the distaff perspective being performed by a bunch of blokes.

"Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,
I'm begging of you, please don't take my man,
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,
Please don't take him just because you can.

Your beauty is beyond compare,
With flaming locks of auburn hair,
With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green.
Your smile is like a breath of spring,
Your voice is soft like summer rain
And I cannot compete with you, Jolene."

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
They Might Be Giants, "Bangs" from Mink Car (T.L.A.M.)

The Explorers Club
№ CCXLVIII - Aristides de Sousa Mendes (1885-1954), Righteous among the Nations & the savior of, amongst tens of thousands of others, Otto von Habsburg.







Project MERCATOR
I went out on Friday night at Ska Army's invitation. We took a very meandering route to my "favorite watering hole in the area," in equal parts because I do not have one & because Ska Army favors motoring in any random direction rather than sitting until a purposeful direction of travel has been agreed. He insisted on treating, & we drank pints of Guinness at "buy one, get one free" prices. We spoke of movies & television, of his recently jettisoned ex-girlfriend (a psycho hose beast by the sound of things), a new girl Ska Army is thinking of pursuing, & the debate union, to which he is an informally probationary member. (I say "informally" because we have no formal procedures to speak of, but, seemingly paradoxically, "probationary" because he has yet to encounter our absentee coach, The M.A.P., or debate in anger.) Ska Army is twenty-three, & made a declaration I've heard spring from the lips of many men his age, dating all the way back to when I was of that tender age: he vowed not to date any girl under twenty-one. Of course, the new girl he's interested in is slightly younger than the girl of whom he just rid himself, blowing the age floor right out of the water. C'est la vie. I explained to him Mrs. Skeeter, Esq.'s hypothesis of girls under twenty-five being too unstable & insecure to be worth a damn, but he seems unlikely to heed that sage advice. In his defense, such as it is, the younger-yet girl is very comely.

I got a later start than I'd hoped on my solo excursion to the Back to the Bricks car show in downtown Flinttown & I'd only been perusing the parked classic cars for perhaps twenty minutes when the heavens finally opened. It rained cats & dogs, & my bumbershoot was stowed securely inside Lumi the Snow Queen (more on her in "Autobahn"), blocks distant. But, as I often remarked in my pre-bumbershoot years, I'm not made of sugar & at no point was I in danger of melting. In retrospect, I wish I'd gotten up at the crack o' dawn & gone to the Bricks with my father, who parked his '79 Corvette in the Corvette Corral for the second year running (though this time 'round he had the foresight not to get parked in, a fate that befell him last year). I hadn't made any plans to attend the car show with any of my friends because I held out hope, longer than I should have, that my original plan of spending the weekend in Wisconsin would come to fruition.

This Week in Motorsport
I finally heard back from Captain Malice late Friday morning, by which time I'd planned to be already en route to the Badger State. I bear him no ill will, we are all overtaken by the vagaries of life now & again. At the same time, all I needed to hear from him was even less than the brief voicemail he left on Friday, received on Wednesday or even Thursday. We planned on attending an American Le Mans Series race, but, despite the many inadequacies of the Entertainment & Sports Programming Network that I have already detailed at length, I could have watched the race from home; the purpose of going to Wisconsin would have been to see my friend, making the aborted journey part of Project MERCATOR, more than just another chapter of "This Week in Motorsport."

Autobahn
The Back to the Bricks classic car cruise/car show/street festival/wingding ran from Tuesday through Saturday last week; I saw more vintage automobiles over the last week than I could possibly catalog, even if I'd known what all of them were. I will say this: the second-generation Pontiac Firebird, from the '70s, the one so often sporting a giant firebird decal on the hood? Those cars look best with just a little bit of rust around the edges. I am in earnest. Rust on a '70s Firebird is like the scar on Harrison Ford's chin, it is an "imperfection" that adds toward the near-perfection of the whole. I've seen more Firebirds over the last week than you could shake a stick at.

I've seen recently a television ad for the wee Fiat 500, the first time I've seen promotion for Chrysler's new Italian masters outside of Car and Driver & my own sightings of assumed promotional test drives on the highways & byways of sacred Michigan.

I've changed my Lumina's name from Lumi to Lumi the Snow Queen on a general belief that motor cars' names should be longer rather than shorter. This is in part a reaction against some relatives who recently purchased a minivan & have christened her Olive, despite no part of the vehicle being even remotely olive-colored. Olive is a Honda Odyssey, & to my way of thinking passing up the myriad possibilities than flow from the model name Odyssey is a crime against propriety. Also, I've realized that is appropriate to italicize the name of a motor car, just as with the name of a ship or an aeroplane. The Batmobile is not italicized because Batmobile is not the motor car's name, it is a descriptor of the vehicle's function; it is the Batmobile the same way Lumi the Snow Queen is a sedan. Motor car names differ from ship & aeroplane names in that they are not usually proceeded by the definite article, Lumi the Snow Queen instead of the Lumi the Snow Queen. There are exceptions: Olive's predecessor the Senator's Daughter, the Mousemobile. The long & the short of it: Lumi the Snow Queen is a better name than just Lumi & Olive deserves a better name than just Olive.

As I side note, Where's Teddy? refers to Olive exclusively as "New Car."

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Fountains of Wayne, "No Better Place" from Welcome Interstate Managers (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: It's been quoted before & it'll be quoted again:

"And it may be the whiskey talking,
But the whiskey says, 'I miss you everyday.'"

Operation AXIOM
Twenty years ago yesterday, 19 August 1991, Soviet "hardliners" staged a coup d'état against Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in the hope of reversing the slow-motion collapse of their Evil Empire. Totalitarian states endure as long as the regime's soldiers are willing to open fire on the populous; the Communist thugs conducting the putsch refused to fire on the peaceful resistance lead by Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic & future president of the Russian President. The abortive coup collapsed, & Soviet Communism soon followed. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) had been consigned to the ash heap of history by the end of the year. A remembrance, tinged with regrets: Emperor & Autocrat of All the Russias-link.

Comrade Coquettish was born in the waning years of the Soviet Union, & jauntily refers to herself as the U.S.S.R.'s best export. Hear hear!

Science!
A reminder: dynamite & T.N.T. are not the same substance. In other volatile news, the U.S. Navy has invented a new explosive compound, one that promises to be both more deadly to its targets & less apt to inadvertently maim or kill by-standers: BOOM!-link.

Science!

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Fountains of Wayne, "Radio Bar" from Sky Full of Holes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"They put a song in the jukebox,
It was a hit with the drunk jocks,
Even the guys with the dreadlocks
Sang along at the Radio Bar.
One night there was a girl there,
For some reason she pulled up her chair,
She said, 'Why don't we go somewhere?'
So I passed her her coat,
That was all that she wrote,
That was it for the Radio Bar."

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Fountains of Wayne, "Someone to Love" from Traffic and Weather (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"Seth Shapiro is trying in vain,
To hail a taxi in the morning in the pouring rain,
Beth MacKenzie sees one just up ahead,
She cuts in front of him and leaves him for dead."

The Queue
As expected, Carte Blanche is a fourteen-day loan, rather than the usual twenty-eight days.

This Week in Motorsport
I received word from Captain Malice later on Monday evening, after the publication of the last "This Week in Motorsport." His message was brief, that he'd "get with" me on the following day, Tuesday. I've received no word from the Captain since, putting the kibosh on the race weekend excursion to the Badger State. Alack!

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
She & Him, "Sentimental Heart" from Volume One (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: I am enamored of Zooey Deschanel's voice, quite apart from also being enamored with her visage & her bizarre choices as a thespian. I was once told that someone, whose identity must be shielded, even beyond our usual code name procedures, was very hostile to Deschanel's singing. This was not someone for whose opinions I give a tinker's damn; her opinion neither positively nor negatively influenced mine own. But at the risk of overreaching I think there just might be something not insignificant about our disagreement. She & I see the world in starkly different terms. She favors rigid conformity, I favor individual initiative. We disagree about religion. We disagree about politics. We disagree about popular culture. Zooey Deschanel's voice is not the cause of our disagreements, but it has become, in some small way, at least to me, that disagreement's aural mascot.

"Old habits die hard when you've got,
When you've got a sentimental heart."

The Explorers Club
№ CCXLVII - Chiune Sugihara (1900-1986), Righteous among the Nations.







Zooey Deschanel Appreciation Day
I was typing away, only half-listening to Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, followed by Sex Bob-omb, when began "Sentimental Heart" by She & Him; it would have knocked my socks off if it wasn't too verdammt hot to be wearing socks. "Sentimental Heart" would have been a shoo-in for the R.B.D.S.O.T.D. if I hadn't arisen this morning with Séan McCann's "Sooner or Later" already in my head. Not enough of Mrs. Gibbard is seen these days; let us hope that her sitcom New Girl proves a Raising Hope-like exception to the banality of its genre.



The Queue
I've now read thirteen novels by Len Deighton, the ten volumes of the Bernard Samson series (a trilogy of trilogies & a prequel published 'twixt the first & second trilogies) & three stand-alone yarns, Horse Under Water, XPD, & SS-GB. The singles were all written prior to the decalogy, & none are its equal. There are of course going to be variations of quality in a canon as lengthy & prolific as Deighton's, peaks & valleys, but there is also the possibility of a long-term upward trend. When next I read Deighton I shall select one of the novels written during the long interregnum 'tween the second & third trilogies. I also remain open to the very real possibility that the Bernard Samson decalogy is his masterpiece (nothing to scoff at in that, it is quite a masterpiece); I've read the best, how much do I want to read of the rest?

I am № 1 in the Genesee District Library's queue for Carte Blanche; a copy is waiting to be claimed at Grand Blanc's McFarlen Library. Barring misadventure, I will fetch it first thing Thursday morning. I began this vigil as № 68, the sage words of Rudyard Kipling's "If—" foremost in my mind: "If you can wait and not be tired by waiting…." Let us hope that good things do indeed come to those who wait.

Recently
John le Carré, Smiley's People
Steve Matchett, Life in the Fast Lane: The Inside Story of Benetton's First World Championship
Len Deighton, SS-GB

Currently
Jeffery Deaver, Carte Blanche ***soonest***

Presently
Robert M. Soderstrom, The Big House: Fielding H. Yost and the Building of Michigan Stadium
John Buchan, The Thirty-nine Steps
Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of M.I.6: 1909-1949
Allen Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence
William F. Buckley, Jr., Saving the Queen

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Séan McCann, "Sooner or Later" courtesy of The Watergirl (T.L.A.M.)

Project GLOWWORM
I am overdue for a haircut & about this I am none too pleased. I was due on Saturday last, 13 August, but by then my father had removed not only a shower curtain but the shower curtain bar. Three weeks before this, on Wednesday, 20 July, I had taken a shower by stealth; the shower was verboten, but I took one anyway, knowing that if I didn't get a haircut before Where's Teddy? & The Squeak arrived it would be impossible until after they'd left. The lack of an installed shower curtain forestalls a repeat of that surreptitious feat. As is usual when my hair grows too long, I'll probably cut it too short when I get the chance, to the stubbly Level 1, which allows the gray of my scalp to be seen, instead of the ideal Level 2, to which I normally cut my hair every three weeks. Fires are necessary to the long-term health of a forest; every now & again the underbrush must be burned away.

In other GLOWWORM news, I retrieved my sandals from the cobbler yesterday, a week or so earlier than I'd expected. Score! (My leather, weather-beaten Columbia sandals, not my cheap, throwaway flip-flops.) He pointed out what I already knew, that the soles are getting a mite thin, but we both agreed that the old girls have a year or two left in them; they're already over ten years old, purchased sometime in the late '90s, & every additional day they endure is a boon. Sneakers, especially flimsy canvas sneakers like Chuck Taylors, aren't typically repaired, & my feet have outgrown my dress shoes unto the present day (though I think both my square-toed black pair & brown pair will last a good long while unless I start wearing them far more frequently); so, my need for cobbling services is sporadic at best. Support your local cobbler, dear readers, you'll be glad you did.

The Canadas
Let me wish a fond & hearty "Welcome back!" to the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Canadian Navy, & the Canadian Army, missing in action since 1968 when they were blandly renamed the Air, Maritime, & Land Forces Commands of the unified Canadian Forces: Royal-link. The structure of the Canadian Forces has not changed, only the names, but names—contrary to the immortal & recently quoted lines from the Bard—are important, they are meaningful. The Canadians made a grave misjudgment when they adopted the Maple Leaf flag in '65, or, more specifically, when they chose to replace the Red Ensign with a flag that did not incorporate the Union Jack. Likewise, they erred in dropped the "Royal" names of their armed forces. If they wish to have a republic, they should have a republic, but they do themselves a disservice by adopting republican symbols while hewing to their multinational monarchy. Choose one course of the other, but once chosen, commit. The Canadas are an awful, benighted place & the Canadians a duplicitous, supercilious people, but they have now taken a small step on the road back to respectability.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Fountains of Wayne, "Someone's Gonna Break Your Heart" from Sky Full of Holes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: I should so dearly love for someone to break my heart.

Sports Night is all around us, you don't even need to search high & low. At dinner tonight, as we chatted about the Back to the Bricks hoopla, I said that we'll follow Napoleon's battle plan, we'll show up & we'll see what happens. The words flowed off my tongue like the most natural thing in the wide world. Scant hours later, the "The Sword of Orion", this time without loss of life, thanks & praise. Sports Night is all around us, & the thought warms my heart.

The Victors: The Big "Ten"
The Big Ten Conference has twelve members. This circumstance came about when the cheating Cornhuskers of the University of Nebraska ("cheating" is their official Secret Base epithet) joined the conference in July 2011; between 1993 & June 2011 the conference had consisted of eleven members, yet retained the Big Ten name. This was an unprecedented deviation from both reason &, perhaps more importantly in the world of college football, tradition. That's right, sports fans, the Big Ten wasn't always called the Big Ten, especially when it didn't have ten members.

What we know as the Big Ten was founded in 1896 & known informally as the "Western Conference." The Great Lakes might not seem very western to some of you, but in 1896 the American population, especially of football-playing colleges, was heavily concentrated in the Northeast & the Eastern Seaboard; the Western Conference name was as valid at the time as the name of the Northwest Ordinances had been when they were enacted. The Western Conference consisted of seven schools, among them the University of Michigan (thus explaining the otherwise curious lyric "The champions of the West" in Michigan's fight song, "The Victors"). The conference became known as the Big Nine when two more schools were added in 1899. Michigan left the conference in 1908 & was replaced in 1912 by THE _{(Ohio State University)}. The conference did not become known as the Big Ten 'til Michigan returned in 1917, raising the membership to ten. The conference was again renamed the Big Nine after the University of Chicago left in 1946, & did not become again the Big Ten 'til a tenth member, Michigan State, joined in '49. The salient point here is that the Big Ten was not the "Big Ten" when it had a membership other than ten; similarly, it did not retain the earlier name "Big Nine" when its membership exceeded nine. The name reflected the number of the membership; this is right & fitting for a conference composed of supposed institutions of higher learning.

The "Big Ten" name was retained after the addition of the eleventh member, Penn State, for reasons of marketing &, supposedly, tradition. Yet the conference's history clearly shows that its tradition is not blind, stubborn adherence to what we're used to, but accuracy. Rectitude is supposed to be a cornerstone of education & was for many decades at the heart of the once-&-future Big Ten's varying names. What would have been so wrong about renamed the conference the Big Eleven? If that was so onerous & yet the admission of Penn State still so highly prized, the conference could simply have jettisoned one of its two most academically deficient members, Michigan State or THE _{(Ohio State)}. I enjoyed the cleverness of the numeral "11" hidden in the negative space of the Big Ten's logo as much as anyone else, & I have a long-stated aversion to change that is not of my own device, but even I would eventually have acclimated to & indeed embraced the renamed Big Eleven Conference.

The problem now is even worse. The name the "Big Ten" is twice as imprecise as it used to be; eleven is 10% greater than ten, but twelve is 20% greater. ("Ten" is equally inaccurate as a descriptor of eleven as as a descriptor of twelve. My argument is about not inaccuracy, but imprecision. Inaccuracy is similar to but not synonymous with imprecision.) Upon the admission of Nebraska into the conference the Big Ten Should have become the Big Twelve. A complication there is that there is already a conference known as the Big 12, but that is a difficulty easily surmounted. The Big XII was known as the Big Eight until it was hijacked by hateful Texas & added four schools, formerly members of the scandal-ridden Southwest Conference (the Big Eight had eight members & the Big 12 twelve). The Big 12 now has only ten members, having lost Nebraska to the Big Ten & Colorado to the newly renamed Pac-12 (more about whom later). The ten-member Big 12 should become the Big 10 & the twelve-member Big Ten should become the Big Twelve. Confusion would result undoubtedly, but this would rapidly fade & eventually disappear.

The reason the twelve-member Big Ten will stay the Big Ten & the ten-member Big 12 will remain the Big 12? Filthy lucre. Do not misunderstand me, I am a dedicated capitalist & hold that free markets—restrained only to the extent of preventing fraud & enforcing contracts—are a pillar of not only our prosperity, but our political & social freedom. Much as I am loath to quote Oliver Stone, "…greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works." This belief does not require me to celebrate all market transactions, not even those that result in profit to all concerned. Would it be easier to re-brand the Big Ten as the right & proper "Big Twelve" were it not for the existence of the Big Ten Network, a 51/49 ownership split twixt the Big Ten Conference & the News Corporation? Mayhap, but it surely would be no more difficult. Unmistakably, misguided commercial concerns are at the heart of these crass rebukes to forthrightness.

The Big Ten now has twelve members. The Big 12 now has ten members. The Pacific-12 is now home to four schools in states not bordering the Pacific Ocean. The conference realignment fiasco has gotten so far out of hand that the Big Ten, traditionally centered around the Great lakes, & the Pac-12 now share a border, as Nebraska abuts Colorado (which at last report was still landlocked). How seriously can the education of tomorrow's citizens be treated at these universities when the Big Ten & the Big 12 cannot before basic mathematical operations & the Pac-12 doesn't know the first thing about geography? Collegiate athletics is big business, & there is nothing inherently wrong in that; my fear is that collegiate athletics is becoming nothing but a big business, i.e., a big business to the exclusion of all else.

Guest Contribution
A counterpoint to the above is offered by a W. Shakespeare of, if I'm reading this correctly, someplace called Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom. Mr. Shakespeare offers a quotation from his own play, Romeo and Juliet, with which I must confess no familiarity. Ahem, Act II, Scene II, spoken by a damsel named… where is it?… oh, yes, here 'tis… Juliet:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

This Week in Motorsport
Captain Malice has gone silent, placing in serious jeopardy the scheme to motor to Wisconsin over the coming weekend to attend the American Le Mans Series (A.L.M.S.) race at Road America. The scheme was of the Captain's device: he noticed my lamentations over the Faustian pact the A.L.M.S. has struck with the Entertainment & Sports Programming Network; mentioned that his employer offers tickets, gratis, to a wide range of entertainments; & proposed to requisition a pair of tickets for we two to see all that was on offer at Road America. There is no scheme without Captain Malice. The likely cancellation is a shame, both because I see the Captain more infrequently than either of us would like & because I was looking forward to this as a sort of formal parting of the ways with the A.L.M.S. Alas, sure, but there's no great tragedy in this. My hope now is that nothing sinister lies at the heart of Captain Malice's radio silence.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
They Might Be Giants, "Road Movie to Berlin" from Flood (Ska Army)

The Explorers Club
№ CCXLVI - Orpheus, amongst many other exploits & achievements the husband of the nymph Eurydice.







Wilson
The kitchen ceiling looks like new & all is now back to normal on the ground floor. There are signs that work is resuming on the upstairs water closet; so, at the peril of jinxing the endeavour, it looks like the final push is close at hand. It seems like such a long time since Mom was grinding away the wallpaper with that odd-looking tool, the beginning of a bout of home improvement work no one imagined would take as long as it has—& might yet. From whence did I learn to procrastinate? To quote the most recognizable public service announcement of my generation, "You, Dad! I learned it from watching you." The challenge of my remaining twenty-eight years is to rise above the standards set by my childhood hero, to set forth for my future children a new & more virtuous model for imitation. (My intent it not to blame my father for my many failings, merely to explain the context in which I fostered the habits of misadventure.) But I digress. We start preparing the W.C. for work upon the morrow.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Fountains of Wayne, "Acela" from Sky Full of Holes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: A few words on Fountains of Wayne's album titles. The band has one self-titled album, their debut; two albums named after songs, Utopia Parkway & Traffic and Weather; & a fourth album with a title only indirectly related to the songs, Welcome Interstate Managers. The new album, Sky Full of Holes, is not named after a song, but the words "sky full of holes" are amongst the lyrics to the song "Cemetery Guns."

Back to the song at hand, "Acela." I have ridden the Acela line, from the District of Columbia's Union Station. Alas, I was not on my way to a ladylove:

"Got to get the next Acela,
Got to get myself back home to you."

Operation AXIOM
One year has passed since the theatrical release of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World!



I know this isn't like the old days when we could celebrate the anniversaries of the Star Wars prequels, in rapturous anticipation of the next episode in the saga, but it's fun all the same.



"If your life had a face I would punch it."

Elsewhen…
Fifty years ago to the day, 13 August 1961, the Berlin Wall—in Marxist-Leninist doublespeak, the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart"—was erected to prevent the oppressed denizens of East Berlin & surrounding areas of the German Democratic Republic from escaping to West Berlin, to freedom, to Freiheit. 50. Jahrestag-link.

Happy (Belated) Birthday!
Speaking of 1961, a few days hence—4 August—I meant to wish a happy fiftieth birthday to Barack Hussein Obama II, the President of the United States. The big five-oh, quite a milestone. Happy birthday, sir! Here's hoping Mr. Obama enjoys a long & fruitful retirement… to begin at noon on 20 January 2013.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Plumtree, "Scott Pilgrim" from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (T.L.A.M.)

Wilson
The upstairs water closet is still a shambles, but now is the time to cordon off the kitchen & repaint the ceiling? If I never take another bath again it will be too soon. I shower at the Rec. Cen.; so, I haven't been completely bereft, but there's more at stake here than just cleanliness. A morning bath just doesn't wake me up like a morning shower.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Tullycraft, "Wild Bikini" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

The Victors
I am belatedly catching up on the "Countdown to Kickoff" videos: Go Blue!-link. Three weeks & a day 'til the most wonderful time of the year, the college football season. Woo hoo!

I'm having difficulty keeping straight which half-dozen of the Big Ten (Twelve) are "Leaders" & which half-dozen are "Legends," (Horrible, horrible divisional names, those.) but methinks it will be easier once we get into the meat of conference play. I remain outraged that Nebraska was added as the twelfth school in the increasingly inaccurately named Big Ten; a twelfth member is fine, but did it have to be Nebraska? Nebraska?! Those blackguards cheat as a matter of course. The verdammt Cornhuskers wouldn't recognize sportsmanship if they brained an old lady with it so as to steal her Social Security cheque. Nebraska? Nebraska?! The same Nebraska that openly cheats? Yes, that Nebraska. What's the matter, Big Ten commissioners, the S.M.U. teams of the '80s weren't available to be the twelfth team in the Big Ten? *grumble grumble*

Go Blue!

Science!
More concerning the planet darker than coal: Kepler-link.

Science!

The Explorers Club
№ CCXLV - The doomed love of Hero & Leander.







Spy v. Spy
A great heroine has met her demise: B.B.C.-link. I had never heard of Captain Wake before reading her obituary; the loss was mine. For more on the "White Mouse," in quick reference form: Wikipedia-link. I, for one, intend to read her autobiography, The White Mouse; I confess that my knowledge of the secret war during the Second World War is not what it should be. "I have one thing to say: I killed a lot of Germans, and I am only sorry I didn't kill more." Freedom has lost a wily & adamantine champion. Requiescat in pace.



Science!
The branch of Jack "The King" Kirby's epic (in the genuine sense of the word, not the debased modern slang sense) "Fourth World" that was closest to the mainstream D.C. (Comics) Universe was Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen, which involved intrepid cub reporter Jimmy Olsen's adventurous interaction with a secret government mad science research body named the D.N.A. Project. The D.N.A. Project was in the monster business: breeding through genetic engineering bizarre creatures called "D.N.Aliens." Say "Hello" to an honest-to-the-New-Gods D.N.Alien: Dr. Worm-link.

Poetic license requires that something sinister must lurk beneath the surface of this darkest of planets: the Dark Planet-link.

Science!

The Stars My Destination
I envy the B.B.C.'s resident "spaceman," Jonathan Amos, his boundless optimism: the long road back-link. (I know that envy is a grave sin; I trust in the Lord Almighty to spare me the wages of that sin.) I so dearly wish I could believe that Boeing's plans will amount to more than just bluster, but until I recover the ability to hope I must, as Babylon 5's Ambassador G'Kar taught us, foster "the hope that there is hope."

A generalized complaint: sometimes the internet is absolutely useless. What is the point of thousands of websites with information on a given topic if they all have the same, tremendously incomplete information? I am, at present, frustrated beyond all credulity.

The Queue
I very much enjoyed Life in the Fast Lane & the glimpse it provided inside Formula One, but I've taken the lesson of the longing for an F1 grand prix that it engendered; based on that longing, it might be inadvisable to read The Big House before I have weekly access to Michigan football. Accordingly, John Buchan's The Thirty-nine Steps has once again been pushed aside, this time by SS-GB, an alternate history detective-cum-spy story set in a Great Britain under Nazi German occupation in 1941.

I'm up to № 8 in the queue for Carte Blanche. After waiting since I was № 68, I really hope this doesn't turn out to be another debacle like Devil May Care.

Recently
Charles Cumming, A Spy by Nature
John le Carré, Smiley's People
Steve Matchett, Life in the Fast Lane: The Inside Story of Benetton's First World Championship

Currently
Len Deighton, SS-GB

Presently
Robert M. Soderstrom, The Big House: Fielding H. Yost and the Building of Michigan Stadium
John Buchan, The Thirty-nine Steps
Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of M.I.6: 1909-1949
Allen Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence
William F. Buckley, Jr., Saving the Queen
...
Jeffery Deaver, Carte Blanche

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Kevin Stermer, "Breaker of Hearts, Destroyer of Worlds" courtesy of K. Steeze (T.L.A.M.)

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Spike Jones & His City Slickers, "Der Fuehrer's Face" from The Spike Jones Anthology (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: There is nothing amiss with the title of "Der Fuehrer's Face." My quarrel in this instance is with the spell checker that inspects bloggy blog posts during their composition. "Fuehrer" is the accepted English language spelling of the German word Führer, when it is inconvenient or impossible to place an umlaut atop the letter u. Whatever spell checking software Blogger's evil masters at Google require, it faults both Fuehrer & Führer, giving its blessing only to the nonsense word "Fuhrer." "Fuhrer" is a word in neither German nor English. I should have expected nothing less from the villains at Google, since their company itself is branded with a nonsense word. (Googol, an actual word, is faulted as misspelt in Google's Newspeak, while "Google" gets the seal of approval. For that matter, misspelt is faulted, Google's Newspeak only permitting the alternate—equally valid—spelling "misspelled." While I'm at it, Google's Newpeak approves of burnt, but finds fault with learnt & dreamt. Not just fiends, but inconsistent fiends, the very worst kind.)

Dienstag, 9 August
John Williams & the London Symphony Orchestra, "Belly of the Steel Beast" from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (T.L.A.M.)

The Queue | This Week in Motorsport
Reading Life in the Fast Lane during the Formula One summer recess might not have been my best idea: reading about grands prix past is making me itch to watch grands prix present, of which there are none 'til month's end. Drat, drat, drat.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Super Boat Warp, "Neutron Bomb" (live) courtesy of K. Steeze (T.L.A.M.)

Sonntag, 7 August
Super Boat Warp, "Farewell Atlantis" (live) courtesy of K. Steeze (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: I cannot spare my dear friend's band the grammatical persnicketiness with which I have pilloried bands not of my personal acquaintance; to wit, the title should be "Farewell, Atlantis." The comma is not option, it is essential for the phrase to have a clear meaning.

Samstag, 6 August
Super Boat Warp, "Breaker of Hearts, Destroyer of Worlds" (live) courtesy of K. Steeze (T.L.A.M.)

Freitag, 5 August
Super Boat Warp, "The Best I've Ever Done" (live) courtesy of K. Steeze (T.L.A.M.)

The Queue
More from John le Carré is definitely in the offing now that I've finished the "Karla trilogy;" my sense is that I'll go back to the beginning with his debut novel, Call for the Dead, though my experience with the early work of Len Deighton—the unfortunate Horse Under Water—stands as a reminder that novelists sometimes need seasoning before their talent is manifested on the page.

Steve Matchett's first book, Life in the Fast Lane, has jumped the queue ahead of Dr. Soderstrom's The Big House not because my affection for Formula One racing is greater than my affection for Michigan football—those words, were they leveled as an accusation, would indeed be fighting words—but because F1 returns from its August break the weekend before Michigan's opener. I've simply got more time to read The Big House before the valiant Wolverines take the field than to read Life in the Fast Lane before the F1 circus alights on the Ardennes. That said…

Go Blue!

I am now № 16 in the queue for Carte Blanche; do not trouble yourself on my account, The Guy, I find succor in the old saw that good things come to those who wait.

Recently
John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy
Charles Cumming, A Spy by Nature
John le Carré, Smiley's People

Currently
Steve Matchett, Life in the Fast Lane: The Inside Story of Benetton's First World Championship

Presently
Robert M. Soderstrom, The Big House: Fielding H. Yost and the Building of Michigan Stadium
John Buchan, The Thirty-nine Steps
Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of M.I.6: 1909-1949
Allen Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence
William F. Buckley, Jr., Saving the Queen
...
Jeffery Deaver, Carte Blanche

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Super Boat Warp, "This Epic Adventure" (live) courtesy of K. Steeze (T.L.A.M.)

Mittwoch, 3 August
Super Boat Warp, "Threshold" (live) courtesy of K. Steeze (T.L.A.M.)

This Week in Motorsport
Formula Fun!
Großer Preis von Deutschland
Round 10 (of 19)
24 July 2011

Two unprecedented things happened at the Nürburgring, neither of those things was a feat—a positive occurrence—, they were both the absence of something expected—a negative occurrence—: reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull (Renault) didn't start the race from the front row as he had every previous grand prix of the year, nor did Vettel finish first or second in race, also as he had at every previous grand prix. Much was the same as it had been: a Red Bull, that of Mark Webber, started from pole position, as a Red Bull RB7 has every single grand prix of the year; & Vettel finished fourth, continuing the streak of both Red Bull drivers finished every grand prix of the year in the points (the first ten finishing positions), the only two drivers to do so (contributing mightily to Red Bull's massive points lead in the Constructor's Championship). Nevertheless, the first ten grands prix of the year had seen Vettel win six & finish no worse than second in the other four; so, Germany marked a relatively significant change in the F1 balance of power. The Großer Preis von Deutschland was won by '08 World Champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren (Mercedes), the first man besides Vettel to win more than one grand prix in '11.

Magyar Nagydíj (Hungarian Grand Prix)
Round 11 (of 19)
31 July 2011

The order of things was to some measure restored at the Hungaroring, with Vettel starting the grand prix from pole position & finishing second. Nevertheless, Vettel was passed on track by both McLarens, those of Hamilton & '09 World Champion Jenson Button, the eventual race champion. Vettel won five of the first six grands prix of the year, but he has only one victory in the last five (finishing second in three of the grand prix he didn't win & fourth in the fourth). At both Germany & Hungary Vettel committed on-track errors, spinning out of control, though avoiding inflicting any collision damage to his RB7. There has been much celebration by Ferrari & especially by McLaren of their having closed the early season performance gap to Red Bull, & much has been made of this in the Formula One press. As a Red Bull partisan, I must draw your attention to what's going on behind the headlines. Button won the Magyar Nagydíj, but he failed to finish either of the two previous rounds of the World Championship, the British Grand Prix & the Großer Preis von Deutschland, scoring zero points. Double World Champion (in '05 & "06 with Renault) Fernando Alonso of Ferrari won the British Grand Prix, & his teammate Felipe Massa finished fifth, scoring two more points than Vettel & Webber of Red Bull managed in second & third; Alonso & Massa finished second & fifth at the Nürburgring, scoring one point more than Webber & Vettel in third & fourth. At the Hungaroring Vettel 7 Webber finished second & fifth, scoring five more points than Alonso & Massa in third & sixth. In the last three grands prix—Great Britain, Germany, & Hungary—, none of them won by Red Bull, Red Bull has widened its lead in the World Championship standings, Red Bull 88-86 Ferrari & Red Bull 88-74 McLaren. Despite all the triumphal crowing about McLaren & Ferrari having "caught up" to Red Bull, Red Bull continues to pull further & further ahead of its rivals in the Constructors' Championship. Vettel's lead for the Drivers' Championship has grown to eighty-five points, greater than at any other point in the season; in second place is Webber, not Hamilton or Button or Alonso. The rumors of Red Bull's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

The next grand prix of the year won't be for nearly a month, the Belgian Grand Prix* on 28 August at the immortal Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, or simply Spa, my very favorite circuit in the world, above even the Circuit de le Sarthe around which is run the 24 Heures du Mans.

By Endurance We Conquer
I attempted to watch the last American Le Mans Series (A.L.M.S.) race, the Grand Prix of Mosport, on the espn3.com website, but suffered the same frustrations that blighted my previous experience of watching a race via espn3.com, the Long Beach race in April: espn3.com doesn't work worth a wooden nickel. The Northeast Grand Prix from Lime Rock demonstrated that the abridged race broadcasts on E.S.P.N. 2 are not tolerable, & twice now espn3.com has proved to be insufficient to the task. There's no other way to see the A.L.M.S. races without being in attendance at the circuits. This is what I feared when I learned the American Le Mans Series had sold its soul to the Entertainment & Sports Programming Network (Wayback Machine, scroll down to "American Le Mans Series"). Curses! I hate it when my dark mutterings of doom & gloom turn out to be right.

This is the Kobayashi Maru, this is the no-win scenario.

Code Name CHAOS
The shall not be any more "By Endurance We Conquer" posts until I can figure out some way to change the rules of the game. (Or in the unlikely event of Intercontinental Le Mans Cup/World Endurance Championship television coverage coming to these shores.) To the extremely limited extent that I comment on the A.L.M.S. those remarks will be branded "Kobayashi Maru."

I still eagerly await the day when the monster Bertuzzi is no longer a Red Wing & "The Winged Wheel" once again gives way to "Believe." I miss hockey, but it's difficult to given a tinker's damn about the N.H.L. when I can't root for the Red Wings. Maybe the E.S.P.N. would be interested in hiring the monster Bertuzzi? That sounds like a match made in Perdition.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Sleeper Agent, "Get It Daddy" via iTunes, Free Single of the Week (T.L.A.M.)

*I suspect the Belgian Grand Prix's name is rendered the English in part to avoid having to rendering it twice on all racing publications, in French for the Walloons & Dutch for the Flemings. There is no such issue with the name of the Grand Prix du Canada in bilingual Canada because the Anglophone Canadians tremble in fear of & kowtow to the Francophone Canadiens.

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
"Weird Al" Yankovic, "Polka Face" from Alpocalypse (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: With every passing "Weird Al" album I know fewer & fewer of the songs comprising the polka medley. Having read the liner notes, my question to you is, Who is Ke$ha? This is a contemporary musician? The world has passed me by & that's A-OK by your humble narrator.

Sonntag, 31 Juli
The Proclaimers, "Scotland's Story" from Persevere (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: I must say, there are not enough songs in my music library with lyrics that reference fighting the Afrika Korps.

Samstag, 30 Juli
They Might Be Giants, "When Will You Die" from Join Us (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "When Will You Die" is exactly the song you'd think it is based on the title.

Freitag, 29 Juli
They Might Be Giants, "Can't Keep Johnny Down" from Join Us (T.L.A.M.)