MaryPage, I Googled and what came up besides Disney's mediocre film that was poorly received, is that they are calling "The Jungle Book," theirs as adapted from the writings of Rudyard Kipling.

Kipling wrote in the imperialistic style of the time as in this article from Slate about the movie.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/04/19/how_disney_s_new_jungle_book_subverts_rudyard_kipling_s_racism.html

Thanks for the link Angel. Kipling's very popular stories have been the subject of book bans and such because of the ongoing campaigns to eradicate everything that appears racist and, I suspect, a few other things.

I get mighty irritated over what I view as revisionist history (even if it is fiction) that seeks to obliterate the true state of things and mindsets at any time in history. How do you learn, as a people or a nation, from mistakes of the past if those mistakes and missteps are obliterated from history and literature? Not many people will have the time or interest to go back to read the originals if they could.

Don't get me wrong, as far as history is concerned. I do not mind revisions that come from new evidence being found to support a change in a way of thinking about something. Also, we do need to recognize that some writers, whether of fiction or nonfiction, may have a hidden agenda, leave things out or exaggerate an event to persuade a reader to their view. We see that all the time now - lies, half-truths, convoluted twists, things out of contexts. Guess what! The ancients did the same.

Okay, I think I am going off on a tangent. I am starting to think about Plato's, perhaps unanswerable, questions 'What is Truth?' 'What is Real?' I disliked reading Plato, big time when I was in college.

Oh, we are identical twins in this!  I agree with every word you said.

The literature of a given period quite naturally reflects the thinking and feeling of the class, culture, race of the author.  And each author was RAISED with their outlook on life, and know no other way to think.  But we can scoop up the attitudes, smells, tastes, sounds and textures of those far off times IF we read the author in the original.  The writing is exquisite.  And remember this, about Rudyard Kipling:  while he ACCEPTED the racial and class divisions as the way things were, he is also the man who wrote:
"You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"  By the way, did you ever see that movie?  I am so old, I saw it WHEN IT CAME OUT!  One of Gary Grant's  best, and I'll bet it would be a great movie even today.
No, we will be ignorant of the past and, as Santayana famously said and I paraphrase, we will not have an understanding of how to avoid their mistakes.  Give us the clear, unchanged by so much as a syllable, text as they wrote it!

Hi everyone.  Today will be a repeat of yesterday and the last several days.  The daily chores are done.  As of this moment Pat is planning on attending her crafts group this morning.  I will drive her, take care of errands at the Credit Union and the Post Office and then go have coffee with my friends at the cafe.  Scott's schedule changed because his boss is on vacation so he has to work until 4 pm but plans on coming out to have dinner with us.  That will be out day.  We did get to COSTCO yesterday morning.

JeanneP, it sounds like the shooting was just too close for comfort.  I hope the police got their man. 

Patricia, do you have to be present in your apartment when when the fire department checks? 

MaryPage, it is sad that so much of our history, including authors and their works, is being lost.  I guess money will always be the driving force. 

MarsGal, rewriting and ignoring our past history, both the good parts and bad, really change nothing other than dumb us down.  I am so glad I got my education when I did and it wasn't based on trying not to offend me or anyone else.  We can change the future but we cannot change the past.  Revisions due to new evidence, as you indicate, is something entirely different. 

Marsgal, MaryPage and Larry.  It is really a shame that our kids and young folks don't have any idea, other than the PC version, of what people thought or how they lived, even in our early years.  My goodness when colleges and universities have to have safe zones where kids don't have to hear the bad things, well, how they going to cope in their adult years.

Life is a messy affair even in the best of times.

MarsGal, MaryPage, I so agree with that. May I add to it, the sanitation of our history and past. Have you heard about King Leopold and the Belgian Congo? About the US's invasion of the Philippines? Or noticed that the history we learned was all about white western men? While some go overboard on revisionist history, I would like to see both sides put together so to see for ourselves.

I have spent years enjoying history and reading and am now finding several instances of it being changed to reflect the then-popular beliefs. Have you heard of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cells were used around the world for research, entirely without her knowledge or consent? Or syphilis given to unknowing Black troops to test drugs? Nazi troops measuring people's noses to determine Jewish ancestry? And using that as a basis for death? Or that Walt Whitman, treasured poet, killed and enslaved American Indians?

There is a reason to write about these and other happenings such as when a mountain summit is conquered with nary a mention of the native guide who led them there? But there is a way to do it without taking on the same behavior and stance as those you're criticizing.

History is a passion of mine and so much I thought I knew, turned out that I didn't.

Larry, no you do not have to be there for either the housekeeping or the fire extinguishers' biyearly testing, but I like to be.

Regarding history, I have four paid for degrees that were dearly won, only to find out much of it was false, incomplete or slanted one way or another. While I appreciate the time, attention to detail and the professors, it surprises me that so much simply wasn't right or heavily biased.

While some of the later writings are  regrettably PC and further sanitized, I would much prefer the rough  truth as both ladies have earlier stated, and I paraphrase, "How can we learn from our mistakes if they are continuously perpetuated?"

Another 100 day today.  Not about to go out in it. 
We had inspections yesterday and all is well here in my place.  Just gonna replace one of my smoke alarms.

Have a good day all and Hugs all around,

I am not knowledgeable, nor do I read much, so I can't comment on what others have written.  I do know those things happened and I think people should realize that they happened.  In many cases it was the way many people acted.  I don't think history should be rewritten and I think  people today should read the "originals". 

Tom, Terry, Dot and I had lunch today.  Jan wasn't feeling well, so stayed home, as did her parents.  We were at The Score again, outside on the beach sand where we were warm, but a gentle breeze was blowing.  Tom and I were glad to get back here where the a/c was running.

I'm ready for a nap.

Mary Ann

Hi everyone.  It is going to be another 100 degree day here with no rain in sight.  I woke up at 4 am and could never go back to sleep.  The normal morning chores are done and the trash bin is at the street. 

Today I will pick up my friend at his new living place, which is an assisted living home very close by to go to coffee.  Our Minister is on a well earned weeks vacation.  His wife insisted they go out of the country and she planned the trip for St. Croix. After coffee I will stop at Chick-Fil-A to pick up a good meal.  I placed the order online last evening and when I get there I just have to click on "I'm Here" and the order will be filled.  After I get my friend back to his apartment I will stop at a Dollar Store and pick up some cards that Pat needs for the Sunday School card ministry.  If I am not too tired I may make a quick stop for a couple of items at Walmart.  That will be my exciting day, at least that I know of now.

Hal, I also wonder how young people, when they get out of college if they have been protected in "safe zones" will be able to function in the real world.  I sure don't want someone else deciding what my "safe zone" is but we are seeing more and more attempts to control speech because someone might be offended. 

Patricia, I have never heard of Henrietta Lacks but have heard of the testing of drugs with the Black troops.  What is your opinion of the writing of Historians David McCullogh and Doris Kerns Goowin?  I have found both to be fine authors.

Joan, always good when the inspections are over even when we know we will pass without difficulty. 

Mary Ann, those folks at "The Beach" restaurant are soon going to know you all.  It is nice to have favorite places to eat.   

Baby, it's HOT outside!  Just to step out of the door is to be enveloped in a moist furnace heat that has the effect of making you step back inside with record speed.
Our newspaper has been writing stories about our potential as a community to experience more and more of the flooding that has made our recent years tedious with the burdens such flooding has brought.  Today's editorial in The Capital is one I wanted to copy and paste for you, but I find my on line copy of the paper (which comes with the paper one I subscribe to) does not allow that.  It states, and I figure you will be interested in this little fact even though you don't live in this neck of the coastline: "The city has already seen the nation's largest recorded increase in nuisance flooding in recent decades."  They say the prospects are for a SIX FOOT increase in water in our low lying areas by the year 2100.  Apparently the Pentagon is more than a trifle agog at the vision of the United States Naval Academy being under water!  Ah well, say I, if it were the Army or the Air Force, even more alarm bells would go off, but I'm betting Mother Nature cannot sink our Navy!
I am spending a quiet day in the a/c resting up from the two days just spent house and dog sitting over at Debi's while the family went through the funeral home visitation hours and the next days funeral and luncheon.  At 87 I find that just a little effort takes a huge toll on my energy levels.  I could not have managed to attend those things, but at least could be of some little use.  Steve practiced his eulogy on me before he left to give it, and it was most excellent.  Maria gave a smaller eulogy, while Kathryn sang Ave Maria.  Debi tells me "she hit it out of the ball park for Nonni." 

101 here today

Hot but not too humid
here on the rocky coast of Maine.. 

Big night tonight in Philadelphia !


Everyone have a great day

Sandy

Good morning, back to an overcast day again. But Farrah is happy to see her canned food and some treats again.

"Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman who was the unwitting donor of cells from her cancerous tumor that was biopsied during treatment for cervical cancer at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.  In 1951, a doctor in Baltimore removed cancerous cells from Lacks. Cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, eventually helped lead to a multitude of medical treatments. But neither she nor her family gave consent.

Over the past six decades, huge medical advances have sprung from the cells of Henrietta Lacks, a poor, African-American mother of five who died in 1951 of cervical cancer. But Lacks never agreed that the cells from a biopsy before her death taken could be used for research. For years, her own family had no idea that her cells were still alive in petri dishes in scientists' labs. They eventually learned they had fueled a line called HeLa cells, which have generated billions of dollars, but they didn't realize until this spring that her genome had been sequenced and made public for anyone to see. "

I also would like to add the majority of "homeschooled children" to that safe zone list.

I am well aware of David McCullogh  and have read and enjoyed many of his books.  Doris Kerns Goodwin, is one I have never heard of but found this post upon Googling. It is important enough to note that both authors as we all do, cannot help but put their own biases in what and how they write.

"Chatterbox never intended to revisit the Doris Goodwin plagiarism case. She's paid her dues, however unwillingly, and her forthcoming book about Abraham Lincoln deserves to be judged on its merits. But when the New York Times publishes a letter denying Goodwin ever committed plagiarismâ€"signed by a pack of distinguished historians, including Arthur Schlesinger Jr., John Morton Blum, Robert Dallek, and Sean Wilentzâ€"the violence done to the truth is too much to bear silently. Historians, of all people, should know better than to rewrite history."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2003/11/historians_rewrite_history.html

I know them well (as authors, not as people) and have probably read most of their books.  McCullough is a great favorite of mine.  I like Goodwin the person more than her books.  I see her on television talk shows frequently.  McCullough has been on several times, and I believe there was a documentary on just him and his output a few years ago.  I enjoy his style a lot.

From reading the article by Slate magazine about Goodwin, it seems that she had in her words, "inadvertently used other writers and critics words in her work, without footnotes or accreditation."  She and her publishing company paid out a sum in one plagiarism case that was not publicized but in later editions, the plagiarism was still included. She has never spoken publicly or eluded other than her original, "inadvertent" statement, to plagiarism.

The writers and historians who wrote in her defense said in effect, "Plagiarism is a deliberate intent to purloin the words of another and to represent them as one's own.

Ms. Goodwin did not intentionally pass off someone else's words as her own. Her sources in her 1987 book, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, were elaborately credited and footnoted. Her errors resulted from inadvertence, not intent.

She did not, she does not, cheat or plagiarize. In fact, her character and work symbolize the highest standards of moral integrity."

However,( from the Slate article by Timothy Noah further states); "Let's break this down into three parts.

1) Inadvertent copying isn't plagiarism. False. The sixth (i.e., latest) edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, published by the Modern Language Association, has an entire section devoted to "unintentional plagiarism." The MLA is the nation's pre-eminent arbiter of proper and improper sourcing methods. "Plagiarism," saith the MLA Handbook,

sometimes happens because researchers do not keep precise records of their reading, and by the time they return to their notes, they have forgotten whether their summaries and paraphrases contain quoted material that is poorly marked or unmarked.

This is precisely what Goodwin says she did.

The American Historical Association's "Statement on Plagiarism" (which has also been adopted by the Organization of American Historians) similarly fails to recognize any exemption based on intent: The plagiarist's standard defenseâ€"that he or she was misled by hastily taken and imperfect notesâ€"is plausible only in the context of a wider tolerance of shoddy work. … Faced with charges of failing to acknowledge dependence on certain sources, a historian usually pleads that the lapse was inadvertent. This excuse will be easily disposed of if scholars take seriously the injunction to check their manuscripts against the underlying texts prior to publication."

I do not think I want to read any of her books without a very critical eye as she doesn't admit, apologize or accept that she may have or is in the wrong.

As a writer, I would grade her good, but not great.  As a personality, I would be honored to know her.  But to my dying day, I will remember a LOT of McCullough's books.  My favorite was the one about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.  I mean, WHO KNEW a book on THAT subject could be so fascinating?  It is a mind blowing experience, reading that book!  But you know what?  I have no sense of wanting to meet with the man!

Well I have misplaced my glasses. Did not take them with me shopping but have searched the house every area. Have lots of Drug store one but can only put those on for 5 min.  Never loose them but my $375 ones I have lost twice.
As luck would have it I have a Appt. for eye test on Monday so will have a new prescription and get a new pair.  But until then, no reading. Can use the computer without them for a short time.
Will be a TV. DVD weekend and will stay home.  90 deg. anyway to I don't need to be outside.  Was horrible today.. Went to buy a new Air Filter Machine. Now how to try to read how to get it going.

MaryPage, I was also amazed and aghast at that book in turn, and it made me want to read more about it, such as did they just leave the bodies of the men where they fell? They did, it was a different time then. It was an amazing feat to build that bridge, and he catches the reader's attention almost immediately.

Now my favorite one of his books is not the Great Bridge, but the Johnstown Flood. That is still talked about today by their descendants.

When Larry reports back in tomorrow, I'd like to know what he thinks of Goodwin's plagiarism, is it important and also which book of McCullough's, does he enjoy most?

Jenny, if you look in, NYC's Botanical Gardens has their own Corpse Flower due to bloom this week.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/features/trend/smelly_corpse_flower_about_to/59047799   

A little Johnstown Flood history. After at least four floods, the Commonwealth of PA passed the Johnstown Flood Tax in 1936, a 10% tax all bottles of alcohol sold in the state to pay for solve the flood problem in Johnstown and help rebuild the city. By 1942 the tax had generated enough money to ciomplete its goal.

That didn't mean, however, that the tax was dropped. Oh, no! Never ones to give up on a lucrative tax source, our state officials simply moved the tax to the general fund. The tax, built into the price price of each bottle we buy today means that we in Pennsylvania are being double taxed. We also pay a 6% sales tax on top of the price of the bottle.

Speaking of taxes, the state legislature recently passed the new budget which includes another $1.00 to be added to another, overtaxed product, tobacco products. Philadelphia has already added its own $1.00 tax to tobacco sold in its city.   

Hi everyone.  Another copycat day of the rest of this month.  I have completed my outside chores so hope to pretty much stay inside today unless we decide to go out for lunch as this is the morning for the Housekeeper to be here. 

I had a very good nights sleep last night, over 8 hours and woke up with my hips joints not aching, which they had all day yesterday and evening.  When I went to bed last night I applied some Aspercream to each hip where it was hurting.  I will certainly try that again. 

MaryPage, is your condo building in any danger from the rising waters in Annapolis?  I am sure your help house and dog sitting were greatly appreciated.  It really isn't safe to leave houses without anyone in them during a funeral.  My wife stayed at her Aunts home several years ago during the funeral of her Uncle and helped get things ready for the family when they returned home. 

Joan, we hit 100 or above yesterday also.  I am ready for fall but still another month of hot weather to go. 

Sandy, it sounds like you all have had some pretty mild weather this summer.  I am glad that someone is having it. 

Patricia, thanks for the further information regarding Henrietta Lacks.  I am surprised the information concerning the cells were ever released.  Regarding Doris Kerns Goodwin, I was not aware of the charges against her.  All I know is that the books about Lincoln and His Team of Rivals and the one Franklin and Elinor Roosevelt were very heavily foot noted.  In fact the one on the Roosevelt's had something like 200 to 300 pages of footnotes.  The book itself was over 700 pages plus the footnotes. At least her critics didn't dispute the facts she wrote about and I found her writing held my interest.  I have never read either the Great Bridge or the Johnstown Flood books but your comments whet my interest to do so.  The book by McCullough that has left the most lasting impression on me with the book Truman, which I read many years ago.

MarsGal, interesting information on the Flood Tax of 1936.  Very seldom does a tax, once passed and in place, ever get rescinded. 
   

JeanneP, sorry to hear of your missing glasses and hope you find them before you have to order another pair.

MaryPage, I also have enjoyed the programs with David McCullough on the C-Span programs that featured writers for one hour and was hosted by Brian Lamb.

I enjoyed the McCullough book about the Johnstown Flood MUCH more than the Brooklyn Bridge one.  It is just that the Bridge one haunts me, and will until the day I die.    But the Johnstown one grabbed my personal interest more, as I had dear friends from there.  The appalling thing in the long run about the Johnstown thing was that it could all have been avoided.  Again, it was history repeating itself, and it reminded me of nothing so much as the aristocrats of Ancient Rome and French Revolution times: these did not give a rap about what might happen to the hoi polloi, and immense numbers of people suffered and died due to their total lack of empathy and compassion.  If they had only put a little of their vast sums of money into that one earth dam, the catastrophe would have never taken place!
I loved the 1776 and the John Adams a lot.  Probably enjoyed them, in fact, DID actually enjoy them more than the bridge and the flood.  But Larry, if you read the bridge one you will be unable to get it out of your head.  Happens it is the ONLY book I have ever read about that bridge, but I have read every book I could find on the flood.

Larry, these 100's are really something.  Supposed to be 103 today

We are having a mild day so far - 74 degrees at 10:30 am.

I had a couple of interesting things happen yesterday, one was very complimentary, the other puzzling.  I received a new credit card and I had to activate it.  I had trouble, so called the 800 number and the man took care of it.  At the end, he asked, "are you really 92?"  I told him I was really 92 and he said my voice didn't sound that old.  I was told that a few weeks ago, too, when I made an appointment.

The puzzling thing - one neightbor has lived two doors down for several years.  Yesterday she brought a box to me, saying she had been expecting some books so opened the box to find medicines in it.  The parcel was not for me and the mailman had put the parcel key in the wrong mail box.  The recipient lives across the pond and the mailman put the key for 4517 in the box for 4417.  The last name began with T, but that was the only similarity.  I was just surprised that my neighbor didn't check.  Maybe because of the meds she thought I'd take a lot of them.  Anyway, I called the people across the pond and her husband came right after them. 

Tom is nursing a chest cold that he shouldn't have and he's supposed to go to a wedding in Traverse City tomorrow.  Sunday we are supposed to go to Lansing to see Norm's great-granddaughter and I hope it isn't too much for Tom.  I can't help him drive any more.  Dot has a very painful hip to thigh pain so said she would not go. 

Larry when my mother died in 1941, it was the custom to put addresses in the obits but by the time my dad died in 1970, addresses were no longer included.  I think now, with no residential phone books, home addresses of the deceased would be harder to find.  Even so, it's not a bad idea to have a friend stay at the home, just in case.

Mary Ann

Nope, easier to find.  You can find addresses and phone numbers on line in seconds.

MaryPage, I know that; that's how I've found people, but I think a criminal must really want to find a particular person to hunt them down on the Internet. 

Mary Ann

Criminal minds ain't coming from the uninformed masses in public housing these days.  Those masses are now technologically informed, as they've used computers from kindergarten and have Smart Phones!
A well organized group will check all of the local funeral homes on line.  They show listings of funerals they are conducting in any given week.  The group will have purchased special white pages apps and can find the homes of the bereaved even faster than you and I through normal use of the internet.  An unanswered phone during the hours listed for visitations or funeral services, and Bob's your uncle.
In case you might believe I am telling the crooks how to do it, hey, they are WAY ahead of me!

Good Afternoon from the warm an d
quite humid,  rocky coast of Maine.   

I just ordered a slew of McCullough  talking books, 
and really look forward to getting into them. 

Have a good job,  everyone!
Sandy

Good morning from another wet, soggy, day in the Interior. It amazes me that I am questioned by folks on the net about this having been another rainy summer. They have seen for weeks now, news about how dry and hot it is. Specifically noting the Alaskan town of Deadhorse, they quote the national news.

I finally had to put it in perspective for them. The Interior alone is only one of four separate geographical and climate areas of the state. The Interior covers an area about the same distance between Savannah, GA. and San Diego, CA. Fairbanks is 3000 miles from Seattle and Deadhorse is  450 miles further north from Fairbanks. And well within the
Arctic circle that we are barely into in Fairbanks. We are expected to be one and the same.

On climate change which has several folks still denying, (You can't be surprised, there are still folks who believe the earth is flat!). " Alaska's Perspective. The impacts of climate warming in Alaska are already occurring. These impacts include coastal erosion, increased storm effects, sea ice retreat and permafrost melt. The villages of Shishmaref, Kivalina, and Newtok have already begun relocation plans."

From last year, August 2015; " Long before the terms "global warming" and "climate change" became part of the national dialogue, Alaska's indigenous people noticed that things were going askew in the natural world.

"Ice cellars were sweating because we were losing the permafrost," said Patricia Cochran, an Inupiaq from Nome who is the executive director of the Alaska Native Science Commission. Berries were ripening two to three weeks earlier than normal, and beavers, once unknown in the treeless tundra regions, began showing up in rivers and streams as woody plants sprouted farther north, she said.

Elders in North Slope whaling communities also called attention to strange things happening at sea, said Edward Itta, a Barrow whaling captain and former mayor of the North Slope Borough.

"They had noticed 30, 35 years ago that the multiyear ice was getting different, and they didn't see the huge ivus anymore," said Itta, using the Inupiaq term for jumbled ice piles pushed to shore by currents or winds. "Sure enough, here I am, 35 years later, seeing now that these guys were way ahead of us. They knew things were changing, which is not surprising because they were masters of observation."

MaryPage, criminals have always sought the easier way and never seemed to mind taking effort and time to accomplish that goal, which does seem an oxymoron doesn't it?  Look at how well entrenched and knowledgeable the national crime syndicates are. Can you imagine your local crooks are any less in developing their careers?

Larry, the amazing part about Heneriita Lack's cells is that they didn't die off as regular cells do outside the body in time. "In 1951 a 31-year-old woman named Henrietta Lacks walked into John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA, complaining of a knot in her womb and abnormal bleeding.

On the same day she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and eight months later she was dead. This is a tragedy that has unfolded many times, but what distinguishes Henrietta Lacks's case is that cells taken from her tumour are still alive today in countless laboratories around the world.

These cells have generated an entirely new branch of scientific research, and have played a vital role in the development of new treatments for many medical conditions.

The story of Henrietta's ordinary life that became an extraordinary death has over the years received a number of twists, not least because while her cells have so profoundly benefited the lives of so many, her own family cannot afford medical insurance that would give them access to treatments her cells have helped to develop."

Also, in my opinion, it was totally unethical to treat a woman, poor and Black as if she was merely something to be harvested for others gain.

MaryAnn, I'm so grateful, not only for 24/7 maintenance and building security but also because all packages and mail are left in the main room just off the entrance. They have mailboxes within, but also a live person for accepting packages.

Sandy you will love McCullough! Enjoy!