Showing posts with label Leigh Lundin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leigh Lundin. Show all posts

05 January 2020

New Year's Punch


It’s been a weird New Year from the go. Before digging into Floridians shooting one another, I present a shooting puzzle you will likely know, but stumped the director of the Father Brown mystery series.

In Season 5, Episode 6 (S05E06), ’The Eagle and the Daw’, Inspector Mallory picks up a revolver and sniffs it. He pronounces it recently fired. He flips open the cylinder to the scene here and says, “One shot fired.”

Father Brown (S05E06) revolver scene
Father Brown (S05E06) revolver inspection scene

What, pray tell, is wrong with this picture? Find the answer below.

Getting a Bang out of Holiday Celebrations

I thought I lived in a reasonably safe neighborhood, but in Florida, guns, alcohol, and celebrations don’t mix. I can’t get used to Floridians firing off guns and firecrackers to honor the birth of the Christ child.
42 Lo, in the East, rose a light.  43 Three wise men gazed at the brightness in the sky.  44 One said, “My comrades, hark! Shooting stars!”

45 “Nay,” said the second Maji.   46 “Tis shooting.”

47 “Verily. Let us ride,” said the third man.  48 “Let us take our gold and thou that… that… that weird stuff you have and let us celebrate peace and holiness by shooting lots of guns and ammo as we eat, drink, and be merry.”
Many years ago, a Floridian died from a bullet fired into the air. Do people learn? At midnight, a bullet took out a sizeable chunk of plaster above the television a neighbor was watching. Nothing rings in Sunshine State holidays like celebratory shooting.

Maximum Bang

As for current Florida New Year weirdness, another contributing factor has been a double murder bare hours into the year at a nightclub a mere stroll from my house. Did I say I thought my neighborhood safe?

And More…

A close scrape rattled me. I agreed to install a laser sight on an automatic pistol for friends. When I pulled it from its holster, I was chilled to find both Phoenix Arms safeties off. I set the safeties, removed the magazine, and installed the sight.

I grew up with revolvers and rifles, not automatics. We were strictly taught to leave the revolver slot under the hammer empty to avoid accidents. Don’t chamber a cartridge unless you intend to shoot. And always unload when not in use. As R.T. and I once discussed… guns are tools, not toys.

I suddenly realized that in my surprise when handed a ready-to-fire weapon, I hadn’t checked the breech. The hair on my neck rose.

I belatedly inspected. Damn, there lay a chambered cartridge. I said some strong words, including a lecture of how many Americans get themselves killed. My words meant zilch: Common knowledge has it bad guys with disdain for safeties always carry fully chambered rounds.

O’Neil wrote me about his police training. His conservative instincts were similar to mine, but NOPD policing is not a casual profession. New Orleans police were taught to always be ready to shoot.

My uncle believed that. His young son put a bullet through their dining room ceiling.

Still Puzzled?

closeup of revolver cylinder
Closeup of revolver cylinder (Father Brown)

As you already spotted, no shots had been fired. The inspector, or rather the episode director, mistook the empty chamber (deliberately left vacant for safety reasons described above) for a fired chamber.

cartridges with live and fired caps
unfired round — fired cartridge
As shown in the photos here, ammunition contain ‘caps’ that hold a primer charge. When the hammer strikes the cap, the primer explodes causing the powder to discharge. The hammer leaves a dent in the fired cap, unique to each gun.

The inspector could have said one bullet was missing, but he couldn’t say one bullet had been fired.

Please, have a safe new year!

22 December 2019

Jefferson's Love Letter


Apologies up front: This isn’t a Hallmark Christmassy article. Begun last week, it happened to occur where the schedule fell. Think of it as a Christmas love story, one involving a founding father— author of the Declaration of Independence, future Secretary of State for George Washington, Vice President, and our third President. In Paris, Thomas Jefferson fell in love with a European beauty: English, raised in Tuscany, brilliant, talented, artistic, musical, and a great motivator. And, uh, married.

Not sure about friction, as the French say, but emotional sparks had definitely ignited.

The letter is strong but circumspect. It bears meaning to those who understand. Jefferson even managed to slip in a not-quite-subliminal “I love you,” en français near the end.

Speaking of… the sources I found contained transliteration anomalies of one sort or another. These included transcription errors, a misunderstanding of French, and differences between original and modern spelling. For example, the word ‘shewed’ (meaning showed) was transcribed as ‘skewed’. Mine isn’t a perfect rendering, merely an effort to reduce copy errors.

Settle in with hot chocolate and enjoy a long read. Happy Christmas!

— Leigh

To Maria Cosway, Paris, 12 October 1786


Maria Cosway, 1760-1838
Maria Cosway, 1760-1838
My Dear Madam,

Having performed the last sad office of handing you into your carriage at the pavilion de St. Denis, and seen the wheels get actually into motion, I turned on my heel & walked, more dead than alive, to the opposite door, where my own was awaiting me. Mr. Danquerville was missing. He was sought for, found, & dragged down stairs. WE were crammed into the carriage, like recruits for the Bastille, & not having soul enough to give orders to the coachman, he presumed Paris our destination, & drove off. After a considerable interval, silence was broke with a “Je suis vraiment affligé du depart de ces bons gens.” This was a signal for a mutual confession of distress. We began immediately to talk of Mr. & Mrs. Cosway, of their goodness, their talents, their amiability; & tho we spoke of nothing else, we seemed hardly to have entered into matter when the coachman announced the rue St. Denis, & that we were opposite Mr. Danquerville’s. He insisted on descending there & traversing a short passage to his lodgings. I was carried home. Seated by my fireside, solitary & sad, the following dialogue took place between my Head & my Heart:

Head. Well, friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim.

Heart. I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings. Overwhelmed with grief, every fibre of my frame distended beyond its natural powers to bear, I would willingly meet whatever catastrophe should leave me no more to feel or to fear.

Head. These are the eternal consequences of your warmth & precipitation. This is one of the scrapes into which you are ever leading us. You confess your follies indeed; but still you hug & cherish them; & no reformation can be hoped, where there is no repentance.

Heart. Oh, my friend! This is no moment to upbraid my foibles. I am rent into fragments by the force of my grief! If you have any balm, pour it into my wounds; if none, do not harrow them by new torments. Spare me in this awful moment! At any other I will attend with patience to your admonitions.

Head. On the contrary I never found that the moment of triumph with you was the moment of attention to my admonitions. While suffering under your follies, you may perhaps be made sensible of them, but, the paroxysms over, you fancy it can never return. Harsh therefore as the medicine may be, it is my office to administer it. You will be pleased to remember that when our friend Trumbull used to be telling us of the merits & talents of these good people, I never ceased whispering to you that we had no occasion for new acquaintance; that the greater their merits & talents, the more dangerous their friendship to our tranquillity, because the regret at parting would be greater.

Heart. Accordingly, Sir, this acquaintance was not the consequence of my doings. It was one of your projects which threw us in the way of it. It was you, remember, & not I, who desired the meeting at Legrand & Molinos. I never trouble myself with domes nor arches. The Halle aux blés might have rotted down before I should have gone to see it. But you, forsooth, who are eternally getting us to sleep with your diagrams & crotchets, must go & examine this wonderful piece of architecture. And when you had seen it, oh! It was the most superb thing on earth. What you had seen there was worth all you had yet seen in Paris! I thought so too. But I meant it of the lady & gentleman to whom we had been presented; & not of a parcel of sticks & chips put together in pens. You then, Sir, & not I, have been the cause of the present distress.

Head. It would have been happy for you if my diagrams & crotchets had gotten you to sleep on that day, as you are pleased to say they eternally do. My visit to Legrand & Molinos had publick utility for its object. A market is to be built in Richmond. What a commodious plan is that of Legrand & Molinos; especially if we put on it the noble dome of the Halle aux blés. If such a bridge as they shewed us can be thrown across the Schuylkill at Philadelphia, the floating bridges taken up & the navigation of that river opened, what a copious resource will be added, of wood & provisions, to warm & feed the poor of that city? While I was occupied with these objects, you were dilating with your new acquaintances, & contriving how to prevent a separation from them. Every soul of you had an engagement for the day. Yet all these were to be sacrificed, that you might dine together. Lying messengers were to be despatched into every quarter of the city, with apologies for your breach of engagement. You particularly had the effrontery to send word to the Duchess Danville that, on the moment we were setting out to dine with her, despatches came to hand which required immediate attention. You wanted me to invent a more ingenious excuse; but I knew you were getting into a scrape, & I would have nothing to do with it. Well, after dinner to St. Cloud, from St. Cloud to Ruggieris, from Ruggieri to Krumfoltz, & if the day had been as long as a Lapland summer day, you would still have contrived means among you to have filled it.

Heart. Oh! My dear friend, how you have revived me by recalling to my mind the transactions of that day! How well I remember them all, & that when I came home at night & looked back to the morning, it seemed to have been a month agone. Go on then, like a kind comforter & paint to me the day we went to St. Germains. How beautiful was every object! The Port de Reuilly, the hills along the Seine, the rainbows of the machine of Marly, the terrace of St. Germains, the chateaux, the gardens, the statues of Marly, the pavilion of Lucienne. Recollect too Madrid, Bagatelle, the Kings garden, the Dessert. How grand the idea excited by the remains of such a column! The spiral staircase too was beautiful. Every moment was filled with something agreeable. The wheels of time moved on with a rapidity of which those of our carriage gave but a faint idea. And yet in the evening when one took a retrospect of the day, what a mass of happiness had we travelled over! Retrace all those scenes to me, my good companion, & I will forgive the unkindness with which you were chiding me. The day we went to St. Germains was a little too warm, I think; was it not?

Head. Thou art the most incorrigible of all the beings that ever sinned! I reminded you of the follies of the first day, intending to deduce from thence some useful lessons for you, but instead of listening to these, you kindle at the recollection, you retrace the whole series with a fondness which shews you want nothing but the opportunity to act it over again. I often told you during its course that you were imprudently engaging your affections under circumstances that must have cost you a great deal of pain: that the persons indeed were of the greatest merit, possessing good sense, good humour, honest hearts, honest manners, & eminence in a lovely art; that the lady had moreover qualities & accomplishments, belonging to her sex, which might form a chapter apart for her: such as music, modesty, beauty, & that softness of disposition which is the ornament of her sex & charm of ours, but that all these considerations would increase the pang of separation: that their stay here was to be short: that you wrack our whole system when you are parted from those you love, complaining that such a separation is worse than death, inasmuch as this ends our sufferings, whereas that only begins them: & that the separation would in this instance be the more severe as you would probably never see them again.

Heart. But they told me they would come back again the next year.

Head. But in the meantime see what you suffer: & their return too depends on so many circumstances that if you had a grain of prudence you would not count upon it. Upon the whole it is improbable & therefore you should abandon the idea of ever seeing them again.

Heart. May heaven abandon me if I do!

Head. Very well. Suppose then they come back. They are to stay two months, & when these are expired, what is to follow? Perhaps you flatter yourself they may come to America?

Heart. God only knows what is to happen. I see nothing impossible in that supposition. And I see things wonderfully contrived sometimes to make us happy. Where could they find such objects as in America for the exercise of their enchanting art? especially the lady, who paints landscapes so inimitably. She wants only subjects worthy of immortality to render her pencil immortal. The Failing Spring, the Cascade of Niagara, the Passage of the Potomac through the Blue Mountains, the Natural Bridge. It is worth a voyage across the Atlantic to see these objects; much more to paint, and make them, & thereby ourselves, known to all ages. And our own dear Monticello, where has nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye? Mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. With what majesty do we there ride above the storms! How sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet! And the glorious sun when rising as if out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains, & giving life to all nature? I hope in God no circumstance may ever make either seek an asylum from grief! With what sincere sympathy I would open every cell of my composition to receive the effusion of their woes! I would pour my tears into their wounds: & if a drop of balm could be found on the top of the Cordilleras, or at the remotest sources of the Missouri, I would go thither myself to seek & to bring it. Deeply practised in the school of affliction, the human heart knows no joy which I have not lost, no sorrow of which I have not drunk! Fortune can present no grief of unknown form to me! Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself? But Heaven forbid they should ever know a sorrow! Let us turn over another leaf, for this has distracted me.

Head. Well. Let us put this possibility to trial then on another point. When you consider the character which is given of our country by the lying newspapers of London, & their credulous copyers in other countries; when you reflect that all Europe is made to believe we are a lawless banditti, in a state of absolute anarchy, cutting one another’s throats, & plundering without distinction, how can you expect that any reasonable creature would venture among us?

Heart. But you & I know that all this is false: that there is not a country on earth where there is greater tranquillity, where the laws are milder, or better obeyed: where every one is more attentive to his own business, or meddles less with that of others: where strangers are better received, more hospitably treated, & with a more sacred respect.

Head. True, you & I know this, but your friends do not know it.

Heart. But they are sensible people who think for themselves. They will ask of impartial foreigners who have been among us, whether they saw or heard on the spot any instances of anarchy. They will judge too that a people occupied as we are in opening rivers, digging navigable canals, making roads, building public schools, establishing academies, erecting busts & statues to our great men, protecting religious freedom, abolishing sanguinary punishments, reforming & improving our laws in general, they will judge I say for themselves whether these are not the occupations of a people at their ease, whether this is not better evidence of our true state than a London newspaper, hired to lie, & from which no truth can ever be extracted but by reversing everything it says.

Jefferson ☞ Cosway letter, page 1
Jefferson ☞ Cosway letter, page 1
Head. I did not begin this lecture my friend with a view to learn from you what America is doing. Let us return then to our point. I wished to make you sensible how imprudent it is to place your affections, without reserve, on objects you must so soon lose, & whose loss when it comes must cost you such severe pangs. Remember that last night. You knew your friends were to leave Paris to-day. This was enough to throw you into agonies. All night you tossed us from one side of the bed to the other. No sleep, no rest. The poor crippled wrist too, never left one moment in the same position, now up, now down, now here, now there; was it to be wondered at if its pains returned? The Surgeon then was to be called, & to be rated as an ignoramus because he could not divine the cause of this extraordinary change. In fine, my friend, you must mend your manners. This is not a world to live at random in as you do. To avoid those eternal distresses, to which you are forever exposing us, you must learn to look forward before you take a step which may interest our peace. Everything in this world is a matter of calculation. Advance then with caution, the balance in your hand. Put into one scale the pleasures which any object may offer; but put fairly into the other the pains which are to follow, & see which preponderates. The making an acquaintance is not a matter of indifference. When a new one is proposed to you, view it all round. Consider what advantages it presents, & to what inconveniences it may expose you. Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it. The art of life is the art of avoiding pain: & he is the best pilot who steers clearest of the rocks & shoals with which he is beset. Pleasure is always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after that, this arrests us. The most effectual means of being secure against pain is to retire within ourselves, & to suffice for our own happiness. Those, which depend on ourselves, are the only pleasures a wise man will count on: for nothing is ours which another may deprive us of. Hence the inestimable value of intellectual pleasures. Even in our power, always leading us to something new, never cloying, we ride serene & sublime above the concerns of this mortal world, contemplating truth & nature, matter & motion, the laws which bind up their existence, & that eternal being who made & bound them up by those laws. Let this be our employ. Leave the bustle & tumult of society to those who have not talents to occupy themselves without them. Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies & the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another? Is there so little gall poured into our cup that we must needs help to drink that of our neighbor? A friend dies or leaves us: we feel as if a limb was cut off. He is sick: we must watch over him, & participate of his pains. His fortune is shipwrecked; ours must be laid under contribution. He loses a child, a parent, or a partner: we must mourn the loss as if it were our own.

Heart. And what more sublime delight than to mingle tears with one whom the hand of heaven hath smitten! To watch over the bed of sickness, & to beguile its tedious & its painful moments! To share our bread with one to whom misfortune has left none! This world abounds indeed with misery: to lighten its burthen we must divide it with one another. But let us now try the virtues of your mathematical balance, & as you have put into one scale the burthen of friendship, let me put its comforts into the other. When languishing then under disease, how grateful is the solace of our friends! How are we penetrated with their assiduities & attentions! How much are we supported by their encouragements & kind offices! When heaven has taken from us some object of our love, how sweet is it to have a bosom whereon to recline our heads, & into which we may pour the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is almost a luxury! In a life where we are perpetually exposed to want & accident, yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves, to retire from all aid, & to wrap ourselves in the mantle of self-sufficiency! For assuredly nobody will care for him who care for nobody. But friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life; & thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these indeed the sun shone brightly. How gay did the face of nature appear! Hills, valleys, chateaux, gardens, rivers, every object wore its liveliest hue! Whence did they borrow it? From the presence of our charming companion. They were pleasing, because she seemed pleased. Alone, the scene would have been dull & insipid: the participation of it with her gave it relish. Let the gloomy monk, sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! Their supreme wisdom is supreme folly; & they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their lives, which you have been vaunting in such elevated terms. Believe me then my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic which, could estimate friendship at nothing, or at less than nothing. Respect for you has induced me to enter into this discussion, & to hear principles uttered which I detest & abjure. Respect for myself now obliges me to recall you into the proper limits of your office. When nature assigned us the same habitation, she gave us over it a divided empire. To you she allotted the field of science; to me that of morals. When the circle is to be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced; when the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance is to be investigated, take up the problem; it is yours; nature has given me no cognisance of it. In like manner, in denying to you the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, of justice, of love, of friendship, she has excluded you from their control. To these she has adapted the mechanism of the heart. Morals were too essential to the happiness of man to be risked on the incertain combinations of the head. She laid their foundation therefore in sentiment, not in science. That she gave to all, as necessary to all: this to a few only, as sufficing with a few. I know indeed that you pretend authority to the sovereign control of our conduct in all its parts: & a respect for your grave saws & maxims, a desire to do what is right, has sometimes induced me to conform to your counsels. A few facts however which I can readily recall to your memory, will suffice to prove to you that nature has not organised you for our moral direction. When the poor wearied soldier whom we overtook at Chickahomony with his pack on his back, begged us to let him get up behind our chariot, you began to calculate that the road was full of soldiers, & that if all should be taken up our horses would fail in their journey. We drove on therefore. But soon becoming sensible you had made me do wrong, that tho we cannot relieve all the distressed we should relieve as many as we can, I turned about to take up the soldier; but he had entered a by-path, & was no more to be found; & from that moment to this I could never find him out to ask his forgiveness. Again, when the poor woman came to ask a charity in Philadelphia, you whispered that she looked like a drunkard, & that half a dollar was enough to give her for the ale-house. Those who want the dispositions to give, easily find reasons why they ought not to give. When I sought her out afterwards, & did what I should have done at first, you know that she employed the money immediately towards placing her child at school. If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Hamans. You began to calculate & to compare wealth and numbers: we threw up a few pulsations of our warmest blood; we supplied enthusiasm against wealth and numbers; we put our existence to the hazard when the hazard seemed against us, and we saved our country: justifying at the same time the ways of Providence, whose precept is to do always what is right, and leave the issue to him. In short, my friend, as far as my recollection serves me, I do not know that I ever did a good thing on your suggestion, or a dirty one without it. I do forever then disclaim your interference in my province. Fill papers as you please with triangles & squares: try how many ways you can hang & combine them together. I shall never envy nor control your sublime delights. But leave me to decide when & where friendships are to be contracted. You say I contract them at random. So you said the woman at Philadelphia was a drunkard. I receive no one into my esteem till I know they are worthy of it. Wealth, title, office, are no recommendations to my friendship. On the contrary, great good qualities are requisite to make amends for their having wealth, title, & office. You confess that in the present case I could not have made a worthier choice. You only object that I was so soon to lose them. We are not immortal ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence; & we must acquiesce. It is the condition annexed to all our pleasures, not by us who receive, but by him who gives them. True, this condition is pressing cruelly on me at this moment. I feel more fit for death than life. But when I look back on the pleasures of which it is the consequence, I am conscious they were worth the price I am paying. Notwithstanding your endeavours too to damp my hopes, I comfort myself with expectations of their promised return. Hope is sweeter than despair, & they were too good to mean to deceive me. In the summer, said the gentleman; but in the spring, said the lady: & I should love her forever, were it only for that! Know then, my friend, that I have taken these good people into my bosom; that I have lodged them in the warmest cell I could find: that I love them, & will continue to love them through life: that if fortune should dispose them on one side the globe, & me on the other, my affections shall pervade its whole mass to reach them. Knowing then my determination, attempt not to disturb it. If you can at any time furnish matter for their amusement, it will be the office of a good neighbor to do it. I will in like manner seize any occasion which may offer to do the like good turn for you with Condorcet, Rittenhouse, Madison, La Cretelle, or any other of those worthy sons of science whom you so justly prize.



I thought this a favorable proposition whereon to rest the issue of the dialogue. So I put an end to it by calling for my night-cap. Methinks I hear you wish to heaven I had called a little sooner, & so spared you the ennui of such a sermon. I did not interrupt them sooner because I was in a mood for hearing sermons. You too were the subject; & on such a thesis I never think the theme long; not even if I am to write it, and that slowly & awkwardly, as now, with the left hand. But that you may not be discouraged from a correspondence which begins so formidably, I will promise you on my honour that my future letters shall be of a reasonable length. I will even agree to express but half my esteem for you, for fear of cloying you with too full a dose. But, on your part, no curtailing. If your letters are as long as the bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brimful of affection. I shall read them with the dispositions with which Arlequin, in Les deux billets spelt the words “je taime,” and wished that the whole alphabet had entered into their composition.

We have had incessant rains since your departure. These make me fear for your health, as well as that you had an uncomfortable journey. The same cause has prevented me from being able to give you any account of your friends here. This voyage to Fontainebleau will probably send the Count de Moustier & the Marquise de Brehan to America. Danquerville promised to visit me, but has not done it as yet. De la Tude comes sometimes to take family soup with me, & entertains me with anecdotes of his five & thirty years imprisonment. How fertile is the mind of man which can make the Bastile & Dungeon of Vincennes yield interesting anecdotes! You know this was for making four verses on Mme de Pompadour. But I think you told me you did not know the verses. They were these: “Sans esprit, sans sentiment, Sans etre belle, ni neuve, En France on peut avoir ie premier amant: Pontpadour en es l epreuve.” I have read the memoir of his three escapes.

Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
As to myself my health is good, except my wrist which mends slowly, & my mind which mends not at all, but broods constantly over your departure. The lateness of the season obliges me to decline my journey into the south of France. Present me in the most friendly terms to Mr. Cosway, & receive me into your own recollection with a partiality & a warmth, proportioned, not to my own poor merit, but to the sentiments of sincere affection & esteem with which I have the honour to be, my dear Madam, your most obedient humble servant.
Thomas Jefferson signature
[Th÷Jefferson]

15 December 2019

Jefferson in Love


Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
Benjamin Franklin may have been a young America’s philosophical sensualist, the ladies’s man of our founding fathers, but Thomas Jefferson had his moments. One of them occurred– where else– but France. In 1784, Franklin tugged Jefferson to Europe as a newly minted diplomat of a fledgling nation reaching out to skeptical countries with hundreds of years of history behind them.

Jefferson was suffering trying times. He recently lost his wife Martha and another daughter and would soon lose yet another. In all, Jefferson fathered eight daughters and two sons, but death took its toll upon his children. Throwing himself into duties of state brought a welcome respite from personal woes.

In France, Jefferson fell in love with its people, the arts, the architecture, and the land. And then he fell in love.

Less than two years into his stay, Jefferson met 27-year-old Maria Cosway. English although Italian born, she was smart, witty, pretty, an accomplished musician and artist, multilingual with a Tuscan accent, supremely talented… and… married. A marriage of convenience, as it turned out, but still married.

Richard Cosway, 1742-1821
Richard Cosway, 1742-1821
She’d wedded English portrait artist Richard Cosway, quite the roué, reputedly a libertine in his younger days and a lecher in elder years. In an artistic sideline, he painted erotic miniatures. Their marriage was not one of romantic delight; far from it.

On an extended holiday in Paris, she was ripe, as the gossips declaim, as was he. Jefferson fell for her hard, and she tumbled for him. How physically far the relationship went that season remains a private mystery of history.

The feelings certainly ran emotionally deep. Even as Jefferson succumbed to his duties as envoy, then Secretary of State, Vice President, President, and numerous post-political accomplishments, Cosway never let the flame she carried flicker out.

After they parted in October 1786, Jefferson wrote a lengthy letter of love. Next time we’ll publish this four-thousand word tome of emotion, his now famous ‘Dialogue Between his Head and his Heart’.

Maria Cosway, 1760-1838
Maria Cosway, 1760-1838
Maria, already smitten, wrote she spent “an hour to consider every word, to every sentence [she] could write a volume.”

In 1789, Jefferson returned to the struggling United States to serve as Washington’s Secretary of State, before being elected to office. Cosway continued gathering renown for her accomplishments. They continued writing one another across the miles and years.

Still corresponding thirty-five years later, Maria was 62 and Jefferson 78. She wrote of their unfulfilled love for one another. “In your Dialogue, your head would tell me, ‘That is enough,’ [but] your heart perhaps will understand, I might wish for more.”

Next week, Jefferson’s famous letter– it’s dense to modern ADD readers, but worth learning the most personal thoughts of the man who would become our third President of the United States.

01 December 2019

A Few Words about A Few Words


Leigh Lundin
Death & Dismemberment

I grew up among men of few words– farmers and ranchers– solitary, largely silent men who spent dawn to dark alone, feeding, farrowing, calving, cultivating, plowing, planting, harvesting and husking alone in utter quiet. They practiced what OSHA considers one of the most dangerous careers in this country.

In a profession with lots of moving machinery, injury or death could strike at any time. Even if it didn’t, exposure to toxic chemicals often meant a slow, agonizing demise.

A schoolboy and men I’ve known died under overturned tractors. Neighbors lost limbs in combines and corn pickers. One man lost both hands. A shattered transmission tore off a man’s foot. A ruptured hydraulic line sliced through the chest of another.

One time, a worker severed a hand. My grandfather ripped open his shirt. He jammed the forearm stump into the man’s bare stomach creating sort of a gasket. It bought time until he could further stem blood flow with a binder twine tourniquet.

If that’s not sufficient, airborne chaff and flour are extremely explosive. A grain dust explosion leveled an industrial railroad area in Minneapolis.

The Hits Keep on Coming

Those who worked the land could die a hundred imaginative ways– gored by an ox, trampled by cattle, thrown from a horse, kicked by a mule, attacked by a wild boar. A worker could literally drown on dry land, not in water, but in sugar.

As a toddler, I developed firsthand knowledge of georgic dangers. When adults were distracted, I nearly drowned falling through the ice of a pond. I lost my little finger in a pump accident, a mere triviality taken in stride.

As hard as the life was for men, it had to be worse for women. Men could  choose solitude or danger, choose to ignore it, accept it, or madly welcome it. For wives left alone, a tunnel of crushing boredom darkly loomed.

So I say this with some conviction:

Most writers don’t fully appreciate the word ‘laconic’.

John Deere tractor and 1-finger wave
One-Finger Wave
Greetings & Salutations

On a country lane or the lane of a state highway, one could encounter farmers atop heavy machinery, driving to where it’s next needed. With wheels 0.003 inches from sliding off the shoulder, passers-by greeted one another. They didn’t wave “Howdy,” doff the hat or make a sweeping bow.

They nodded.

If they felt particularly chatty, they raised a single finger from the steering wheel.

No, not that one. They simply lifted an index finger.

That meant, “Hi, how are you, Burt? Glad to see you. Fine, fine day for field work. Might see you later when the farrier shoes Thunderbolt. Best to Lacy.”

Melodie, Eve, and I recently discussed small towns. A fixture in many Midwestern villages was the ‘elevator’. This word could mean many things in rural areas. Farmside, it implied the conveyor that shuttled bales of hay and straw into mows, or corn into silos.

In-town, it meant the grain elevator where wagons and truckloads of corn, oats, wheat, barley, sorghum, soy beans, and rye gathered to be weighed and tested for moisture, tilted into the air and emptied into bins or rail cars.

In the city, it meant the lift in fancy-ass department stores. The term could’ve also referred to Congressman Numnutz’s shoes.

The Conversationalists

In a hardware or feed store, two friends bump into each other. Their dialogue might unfold like this:

Nod. “Burt.”
Nod. “Ed.”
A Paul-Harvey pause.
“Beaut day.”
Pause.
“Yep.”
Pause.
“Sorry, I heard about…”
Nod. “Thanks.”
Silence.
“The co-op.”
“I know, goddamn it.”
Silence.
“Bessie…”
“Couldn’t be helped.”
“Nope.”
Pause before fulsome burst of conversation.
“Market’s down.”
“Called loan, I reckon.”
“Shame.”
Sigh.
“Economy.”
“Goddamn Democrats.”
“Numnutz’s a Republican.”
“Oh. Goddamn Republicans.”
Lengthy rest from excessive blathering.
“Heard Ellie…”
“Don’t go spreading that.”
“Deserves sympathy.”
“Welp, wagons unloaded.”
“Sunday.”
“’Kay.”
“Give Lacy…”
Nod.
“Yep. You too.”


The one man in town who did talk couldn’t be understood… by adults. Orrie’s severe speech impediment didn’t slow his chattering one wit. Kids learned what he was saying, and Orrie-talk became a secret language.

Townsmen didn’t entirely refrain from gossip. Cutting hair caused a Samson-like weakness of tongue-loosening, but even in the barbershop, rumors were contained.

The town women, my mother and grandmother among them, marveled with the wives of the barbershop and elevator owners. Mrs Unger told Mrs Callahan, “I don’t understand Dick. Three weeks ago he hears Pauline’s running off with Art Dodger and Dick doesn’t tell me. Three weeks! I ask him why, why? He just hunches over his plate and says it wasn’t his business. Well if not our business, whose is it? Why me?”

Show, Not Tell

Life on the most remote homesteads had to be terribly trying for pioneering women of any era. Alone home all day without healthy human interaction, some had to wonder if the term of solitary confinement was a life sentence.

A few husbands mastered the art of showing, not telling. On cold winter days after milking and mucking, a rancher might retire to his workshop. On their anniversary, he might emerge all tongue-tied with an inlaid jewelry box. It couldn’t offset a difficult, lonely life, but it refilled the hearts who remembered the promises of younger days.

And So It Goes


In traffic, if you see a familiar and devastatingly good-looking guy raise a single finger in greeting, you can pretty well guess who it is.

Just wave back. As Red October’s Captain Ramius might say, one finger only.

17 November 2019

Plussed (or Non)


Belie – An Ambidextrous Word

Last week I found myself using ‘belie’ in a story. A check for nuances compelled to look it up. Alice tumbled into the rabbit hole.

In the following, let’s use common English sentence structure:
    subject verb object

A sentence might read,
    A belies B.
    Her eyes belied her motives.

I had assumed belie implied (A) put the lie to (B), the subject is true and the object is false. Surely the verb exhibited a grammatical positive and negative polarity.

Not that simple, said my New Oxford American Dictionary. It offered examples both ways. In other words, sometimes (A) was true and sometimes it wasn’t. Polarity wasn’t constant.

Example 1   A ⇉ B
Example 2   B ⇉ A
Her cruelty belies her kind words.
His smile belies his viciousness.
    B is false (the object).
    A is false (the subject).

Logic (to me) says the subject (A) gives lie to or proves false (B). My beloved 3-volume OED long ago became landfill, so I turned to half a dozen internet dictionaries. A search turned up similar conflicting results. They all agreed about disagreement: Sometimes the subject made a liar of the object and sometimes the object made a liar of the subject.

At that point, I needed to deploy the big guns.

James Lincoln Warren
The legendary
James Lincoln Warren
James Lincoln Warren.

James’ house, a full-scale reproduction of the HMS Hotspur, contains a brass spyglass and a sixteenth century oak podium with the complete Oxford English Dictionary. At least that’s how I imagine it because I’m envious.

James kindly looked up belie for me and lo, it was as lesser dictionaries indicated. Belie cuts both ways. It doesn’t observe polarity. Sometimes the subject is true, sometimes the object.

James said no context beyond the contrast between the subject and object is necessary for them to be easily understood. Which is capable of deception?

Such amorphism disturbs me a bit. Offhand, I can’t think of another word in which, say, the subject sometimes trumps the object and other times the opposite can happen.

Nonplussed – or Not

Once upon a time in the New Oxford American Dictionary, I stumbled upon the following note:
In standard use, ‘nonplussed’ means ‘surprised and confused’: The hostility of the new neighbor's refusal left Mrs. Walker nonplussed.

In North American English, a new use has developed in recent years, meaning ‘unperturbed’— more or less the opposite of its traditional meaning: Hoping to disguise his confusion, he tried to appear nonplussed.

This new use probably arose on the assumption that non- is the normal negative prefix and must therefore have a negative meaning. Although commonly encountered, this modern use of nonplussed is not considered part of standard English, and is better replaced by unperturbed, unruffled, unfazed, or composed.
Never, ever had I heard the second ‘American’ meaning. I conducted a local poll of four dozen or so people. Out of nearly fifty responses, only one thought the second might be valid, but self-admittedly from a verbal standpoint, the word nonplussed was ‘not in his wheelhouse’.

I would have argued the point with Oxford, but I wondered if they had fallen victim to what I think of as the Wikipedia Effect or the Google Effect. If you watch Wikipedia, sometimes public content and wording depends on the loudest, most intimidating bully in the room. Higher level editors can often work these issues out, but when the bully is a higher level editor, the point becomes moot– or deleted along with embarrassing history.

If you haven’t experienced the Google Effect, imagine your long-time neighborhood suddenly called a name you never heard of. You enquire: whence did this come into existence? A van driver might hold the key.

Google Street View Mapping Vehicle + Dalek
Google Street View Mapping Vehicle
The Google Effect refers to Google mapping. You may have seen their vehicles driving the streets. Early versions featured cameras on roof-mounted tripods like Disney World used for its old Circle-Vision theatre in TomorrowLand. The latest cars recently spotted in Winter Park are driven by Daleks.

It turns out Google occasionally didn’t know how to name an area. If they couldn’t find a listing, worker bees exercised various options. Sometimes they asked a random resident, “What do you call this place?” Reportedly one label emerged from an erroneous realtor’s sign. It appears the new name for my old neighborhood came from an obscure street a few feet long called Fairview Shores.

In my selective sampling, all of my victims understood the standard meaning of ‘nonplussed’, except for the unsure guy who didn’t use the word at all. I’d like to ask Oxford how they came up with such a notice? What region in this vast country stands accused of this heresy?

An image sticks in my head, one of Oxford University sending a bored post-grad student to New York to document language abominations. He spends his research time in bars and picking up dates on West End Avenue.

Then on 42nd street, he invites for a romantic rendezvous a certain lady, called ‘Bam-Bam’ by her friends and another name entirely by the NYPD. When she sharply turns him down, he says, “You don’t have to act so negative.”

“I’m not negative, I’m non-plussed,” she replies, whereupon he pulls out his 80p Marks & Spencer notebook and starts jotting a new entry.

That’s how it happened. I’m sure of it.



Curious note: During the impeachment hearings, Fox or one of the righter outlets flashed a headline: Dems Seek Heresy Evidence. I’m nonplussed.

03 November 2019

History and Mystery


Leigh Lundin
Perhaps I've always enjoyed historicals without fully realizing it. To pose a question, are Agatha Christie novels historical? What about the novels of Arthur Conan Doyle?

Generally, we don’t call fiction written in and about the author’s own time as historical novels. Yet modern readers can consider them a slice of history. Who better to fill us in on fine details of the day than someone living then and there?

I don’t find the tales of Edward Marston as smoothly written as, say, Ellis Peters or the wonderful Lindsey Davis. But that lack of ‘smoothinity’ (I’m aware of ‘smoothness’ but this suits my purpose) lends additional verisimilitude. The reader can feel the dirt in roadside food, the pinch of the cobbler’s shoes, the stench of an outhouse.

We live in a politically correct ‘woke’ atmosphere. We foster a supercilious attitude where we think we’re some way superior to those who’ve come before. Novels set in ancient Egypt or Imperial Rome remind us we’re not so different, not different at all.

Many of us, R.T. Lawton and Janice Law, David Edgerley Gates and Eve Fisher, to name a few colleagues, love the research as much as the writing… and reading.

For your pleasure, following are a dozen historical novels, new and old, you might want to nab.


The Alienist first appeared in 1994, the first in a short series. Who can resist New York City Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt?


The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco’s first novel published in 1980, is one of my all time favorites. Monesteries aren’t all peace and quiet.


I loved the virtually vanished Jewish Alps, the Borscht Belt Catskills in upstate New York. Think The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel entertains The Hotel Neversink.


Thanks to Tirzah Price at Book Riot for many of these suggestions and further details.

What are your favorite historical novels or series?

20 October 2019

Viola doesn't play the Viola


Nat King Cole
O’Neil wrote about the blah saccharine music of the 1940s and early 50s. I suffered some of the same issues he touched upon. We chatted about his music-loving private eye in that period.

My parents allowed no television, so we didn’t endure dreck as much as some ruining their televisions with Lawrence dullest-of-the-big-bands Welk. At least nuclear families could participate with Sing Along with Mitch Miller.

In the 1940s, the war hit hard. Less than creative but happy, treacly songs helped people feel a bit better. Sadly, many of the best talents were killed off, most notably Glenn Miller. This resulted in the least significant digits surviving awash in bland, washed-out numbers by Lawrence uh-one-uh-two Welk whose claim to fame was outliving all the greats.

One day I started listening to recordings of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. The 1920s were pretty interesting, ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ for example, but the 1930s blew me away. Everyone knows Glenn Miller’s great ‘In the Mood’, but Louis Prima and Benny Goodman’s ‘Sing, Sing, Sing!’ (all 6-zillion versions) blew me away. Arguably, the 1930s proved as creative as the 1960s. Unlike Lawrence God-spare-us Welk, these sounds vibrantly lived.

Chattanooga Choo-Choo’ was written on the cusp of the 1930s/1940s as WW-II geared up. Superficially, it seemed a trivial song with insipid covers and uninspired remakes. But the original, what a tune! Glenn Miller made it playful (as did gorgeous Dorothy Dandridge and the wing-footed Nicholas brothers), but underneath it was musically brilliant, embedding one of the most ingenious transitions ever. I’m grateful Lawrence put-me-out-of-my-misery Welk hadn’t ruined it for me.

As it turns out, the 1940s weren’t at all devoid of good music. Radio fans weren’t looking (or listening) in the right places– Darktown! Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, Billy Eckstine, Count Basie, Duke Ellington. Thank God they weren’t into the Champagne bubble music of Lawrence just-shoot-me Welk.

And there was Viola Smith. Never has the world seen such a drummer. Tom-toms, snares, kettles… She featured in girl bands, she featured in boy bands. She's amazing. Currently at age 106, she’s even outlived Lawrence gag-me-with-a-pitchfork Welk.


22 September 2019

Florida News – Boobs, Bars, and T-Shirts


by Leigh Lundin

Florida postcard
An Eagle, a Fish, and a Dolphin walk into a sandbar

There’s this baseball game, see, and an osprey carrying a fish– ospreys look quite a bit like bald eagles– but, well, and this Dolphin catches the fish…

Wait. I’m way behind bringing news of the nation’s craziest state, stories both current and of recent history. Amaze your friends at your foresight not living in the land of the loony. Better read it for yourself.

To ride, you must be this high.

An out-of-state great-granny saves her shekels to vacation with her family at Walt Disney World. Like others her age, she suffers various aches and pains, shrugged off in a nation that hates to hand out pain medication. Fortunately, her home state of North Carolina allows her to medicate with CBD oil, an extract of cannabis, the hemp plant. Unfortunately, Florida forbids. A Disney security guard spots the bottle with tincture of THC and arrests the dangerous felon. The good news: our local controversial assistant state attorney, Aramis Ayala, refuses to prosecute.

Flintstone car © Hanna-Barbera
Yabba-Dabba-Doofus

Not just grandmothers. What other place would arrest Fred Flintstone for speeding? (Check the photos. I love the guy’s imagination, I really do.)

Battling Boobs

Waddya do when you think another mother dresses too sexily? You expose her, of course… literally.

Bouncing Boobs

Bouncing off the pavement, in fact. In the early morning hours, a drunk guy leaves strip bar and falls from his truck. Truck continues without driver, not good news.

And Still More Boobs

In the back of a police car, no less. Lordy, lordy, how drunk must one be. Thanks to Sharon for this one.

Revenge, a Dish best served with a Tip

Girl-boy argue. Girl takes boy’s credit card. Girl dines alone. Girl leaves tip. Girl arrested.

Facebook, I keep warning you!


Dummy burglars steal a safe. They can’t resist bragging on Facebook. Helpful hint: Cops visit Facebook too.

@ University of Tennesee T-shirt by Florida 4th grader
Volunteers

We go all the way to Tennessee to find a Florida feel-good story. A 4th grader who makes his own fan T-shirt finds himself derided by the mean girls. When the University of Tennessee hears about the bullying, they buy the design and offer the child a free scholarship eight years from now. Got to love my new favorite university.

01 September 2019

Helpful Hurricane Guide


At times I live my life around hurricanes, which is far better than dying by hurricane and not quite the same as living with a certain Gale. For the moment, powerful Dorian is presently confounding predictions but, with luck, may spare Florida and most of the North American east coast.

In honor of the moment, I promise not to be long-winded. For those who suffer mere tornadoes, here are actual tracking maps followed by what the hurricane categories mean.

Hurricane Tracking Charts
Hurricane v Florida size comparison
Florida Hurricane tracks
‘Smallish’ Hurricane Fran Hurricane Tracking Example

Hurricane Meanings and Actions
Category 1     119kmph • 74mph • 64knots
When cooking on the grill, you switch from paper plates to weightier melamine. You’re careful your new drone doesn't drift too far off course.

Category 2     154kmph • 96mph • 83knots
You bring beach towels in from the clothes line, assuming you live in a community that permits clothes lines. Peculiarly, many Florida towns and homeowners associations ban drying laundry outdoors in the Sunshine State.

Category 3     178kmph • 111mph • 96knots
Mow the yard. Think briefly about purchasing extra water, food, propane, and gas for your generator and your car… then decide to buy if the storm makes Cat 4. Chuckle about your timid neighbor who packs his SUV full of supplies and family and heads for Georgia or Alabama.

Category 4     209kmph • 130mph • 113knots
Reluctantly head to Costco for 400 gallons of water and discover the wretch before you bought the last three litres. Decide queue for gasoline looks too long. Buy beer.

Category 5     252kmph • 157mph • 137knots
Damn. Governor calls for evacuation. Your car’s tank reads ⅜ and your wife’s Volvo reads a quarter. Find the lawnmower where you left it in the back yard. Empty the fuel cans for mowing and then the mower’s tank itself into your car. Drain fuel from your motorcycle, your kid’s go-kart, weed-whacker, and chainsaw. Siphon wife’s vehicle. Your gas gauge now reads ¾, thanks to discovery of a gas can your neighbor left when they packed up and ran two days ago. Whoops! Electrical power goes out. You scramble to find your flashlights and then realize why batteries were on the shopping list. By candlelight, you grab a forgotten bottle of Zephyrhills someone opened and stuck in the fridge. Way in the back your wife retrieves a can of Tab she’s been hoarding. You load the unrefrigerated beer and depart with wife and child. The gate at the guard shack has blown shut, wrapping itself around a post. You squeeze past as it scrapes your car. Child wants to stop for restroom and food. Thanks to buffeting headwinds, your mileage drops to 14mpg. Every gas station has closed. Screaming child wants McBurgers. No restaurants remain open. Dodging debris, uprooted trees, and a sailboat in the road, you’ll make Gainesville and perhaps a little farther. And then you encounter a flying cow…

Category 6     285kmph • 178mph • 155knots ?
No such thing… yet. However, as climate change accelerates, so does the violence of cyclonic winds. The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale (actually a peculiarly numbered damage scale) does not define anything above a Cat 5 storm. Many experts believe it’s merely a matter of time before meteorologists are forced to include at least a Category 6 and possibly 7 if not switch to another scale entirely.
Stay safe!

18 August 2019

Assisted Suicide


“Officer Ferguson, you got one job, keep the damn prisoner alive. No ganging, no hanging, okay? Don’t let no miscreant get to him. That means no bad guys, see? No corrupt guards, no homicidal convicts, no vicious visitors. Also no shivs, no slit wrists, no sliced throat, no shredded sheets, no seppuku. Shouldn’t be hard, right?”
Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein
From published autopsy revelations about Jeffrey Epstein’s death, statistical probabilities alone suggest a 95% confidence of strangulation. Add in death threats and the fact he appeared facially battered and bruised at his most recent court appearance, the odds he wasn’t murdered is extremely small.

But wait. Commentators have seized upon the notion Epstein might have hanged himself with bed sheets. That’s soooo 19th century.

Some time back, a prison matron explained inmates on suicide watch aren’t given standard bedding. Penitentiaries issue hospital style paper sheets precisely so they can’t be used for hanging. Clothing resembles a tear-resistant hospital gown with velcro closures, no buttons, zippers, or ties. Footwear includes heavy socks and sort of felt slippers, rather than prison-issue flip-flops.

In Eve Fisher’s part of the country, prisoners on suicide watch are stripped naked and given a blanket, or issued a paper uniform and bed sheets. Like their East Coast counterparts, at-risk incarcerated are checked every fifteen minutes and recorded on camera 24/7. Like most who have a working knowledge of prison life, Eve says suicide while under observation is nigh impossible, but once off suicide watch, death for the determined isn’t that difficult.

The prison kitchen provides food in paper bowls without utensils, issued randomly so preparers cannot target an individual inmate. Feed is deliberately bland with virtually no seasoning.

Typically in modern prisons, the bed is poured from concrete as is a tiny seat, shelf, and 1st grader-size desktop. Epstein’s assigned cell reportedly contains a shower. Toilets are usually cold stainless steel devices with neither hinged seat nor lid.

prison toilet
cell toilet © New York Daily News
Cameras remain trained on inmates at all times, even when using the toilet. Cell checks occur about four times an hour, but not precisely at quarter-hour intervals. Reports would have us believe Epstein was not looked in upon for several hours.

In late June and early July, Jeffrey Epstein reported his life had been threatened. On 24 July, a supervisor found him mauled and barely conscious on his cell floor.

Epstein expressed fear for his life. Usually that would call for extra protection, not less.

Two guards have been suspended for dereliction. Their warden has been reassigned. A befuddled William Barr has yet to resign.

Meanwhile, Back at the Raunch

People accused – I emphasize ‘accused’, not convicted – include a number of famous men, at least three women, a senator, a governor, and Epstein’s own lawyer, celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz, ironically scheduled for a child trafficking mock trial. He has claimed documents ‘prove’ his non-involvement. Whether or not he’s guilty, Dershowitz should know better. Said documents prove no such thing.

The swirling waters have been further muddied by three names linked to the White House, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and– yes, it had to happen– Hillary Clinton. The mention of Hillary is a fevered fantasy of the rabid right just as Trump involvement titillates the ludicrous left.

Despite young women being recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein at Mar-a-Lago, available evidence suggests both Clinton and Trump prefer fully-formed women, not teen girls. One president dragging another’s name into the mud epitomizes dirty politics.

And the Verdict is

Inexplicably, the Associated Press has dug in taking a position Epstein’s death is suicide. The alternative apparently appears unthinkable. Likewise, normally conspiracy-loving radio talk hosts are unexpectedly warning about unwarranted conspiracy theories, as if they fear further news will undermine some favored position.

The cleverest conclusion I’ve heard regarding Jeffrey Epstein’s death comes from my friend Darlene. Got to appreciate the irony. She calls it…
Assisted Suicide

What’s your take?