Postblogging Technology, January, II: Newer, Better Bombs

Mr. R_. C_.,

Chateau Laurier,

Ottawa, Canada.

Dearest Father:

First things first: you asked to hear at the earliest date, about my appointment with Dr. Rivers. Since we are sending this on, via yourself, with the courier carrying the material for the General, this is the earliest date. So, rest assured that I am quite fully recovered, and cleared to resume all my normal activities. I can climb hills, ride horse, and, of course, sit at my desk and write. I can also clean house, not that I wanted to be cleared for that, but there is no help for it, with my girl back in college, and Fanny and Judith with their hands full.

If you miss your son, you may jump to the bottom, where my husband attaches a personal note.

So, that urgent matter taken care of, let me be more conventional, and say that I hope this letter finds you well. Or more than conventional, since you have my most profound and solicitous concern over your cough. Please, please say that it is on the mend! Being called across the continent so, and on a fool's errand, at that, is, well, when King and Country calls . . But still! I had so hoped to have you through the Lunar New Year, and now instead you must be off in Ottawa holding the hands of nervous civil servants who do not understand radioactivity.

If it is any consolation, "Mrs. Chow" says that the FBI's own live lead seems to be falling apart in their hands. They have more than a hundred named Red agents to follow, a number of them named by multiple sources, and none have been caught out yet. The Bureau is still optimistic, but Mrs. Chow has flatly told her "handler" that there is a leak, somewhere. (She says that it reminds her of the hunt for "Lucy.") Please, please let it be Hoover!

No, too much to hope for. Unless the Russians do not keep track of their cipher clerks, they  must be aware that their North American networks are compromised, and who knows who might be connected with whom?

On the matter of radioactivity, I pass on some information from Ensign Wong. The Americans have found more isotopes in New Mexico and Japan, and are increasingly confident that they may be able to reconstruct any Russian atom bomb from the isotope ratios --at least after the imminent trials in the South Seas. Just tell the Canadians to make sure that Chalk River doesn't vent into the air. It seems as though it would be good atomic hygiene, atomic spying or no.  

"Mrs. Chow" is resisting some pressure to move to Virginia. She is enjoying teaching, and is not sure that her connections would pass a background check. Besides, does the Bureau, or the Army and Navy really want to admit that they are taking pointers from the old enemy, no matter how well sanitised? And besides some more, with Queenie's translation work still coming in, there is the hope that whatever combined military intelligence bureau emerges in Washington, it will operate West Coast intercept stations. It would help if the Russians take up with the Chinese communists, though. 

We have a letter from your youngest, who reports that he is lonely at MIT. I am not quite sure what to make of it --I know that you will take it as a secret message to "Miss V.C.," but I remain unconvinced. She, for her part, has thrown herself into the archives. I had her along to lunch with the Fathers the other day, and she put searching questions to the old men about the Oregon Scandal. I wonder what she has in mind? I could ask her, of course, but it is more fun, for now, to speculate. 

Your son has an invitation to L.A. to show Uncle George's friend the finished product, again. Our show for the network went amazingly well --a full hour-and-a-half of recorded material, as good as from a disc. Whether it had any effect on the outcome or not, the friend has settled with Columbia. He will come back to his show for the last half of the season, and then be shut of his contract and free to move on. The new show will be pre-recorded. That being settled, the means of recording it counts for less, although he has insisted on taking a financial interest. Now he has money in tape-recorders and frozen orange juice. It is like he truly is a family friend! The point is, you can now assure the Earl that we will get the money sunk into magnetic tape recorders back, with every chance of good profits on top. Better than if we had invested in Fontana!

"GRACE."

Postblogging Technology, January 1946, I: No Pessimism, Please. We're British

A fortunate 1946 to all!

My Lord:

The seasons have come  around again, at least insofar as they do in Santa Clara. (It is not hot, so it must be winter!) Now it is orange harvest. As I sit in the study, overlooking the guest house and the back, Michael yells hoarse orders in Spanish, the smell of boiling  marmalade is everywhere, and the sound of hammers on packing crates makes it very hard to read dry, boring technical journals. Fortunately, as I have learned from the Luce press, when you are not in a mood to produce serious copy, you can write a rambly introduction full of purple prose and references to the turning seasons. (If you are wondering, and care, your allotment of marmalade is coming by sea, via Montreal, in March.) 

With orange boxes rattling away to Chinese groceries on bare-tired Model Ts. one's mind turns to preparations for Lunar New Year, and the sad moment when we must say goodbye to my step-mother. Father has been called away to Ottawa to explain once again that nothing the Russians can detect from their embassy there will tell them anything about what is going on at Chalk River. Everyone is archly mysterious about it all, but I gather that a secretary from the embassy has sought protection from the Canadians, and has passed on some information to the effect of nefarious Red spies ferreting out secrets entrusted to Canada by London and Washington. We are informed that a parallel case is progressing in Washington, and there is a fever in Virginia to have the sense wrung out of the Russian ciphers. 

We will be celebrating with Uncle Henry this year. Aunt Beth's condition is progressing rapidly, and her doctors will not be able to keep her comfortable for much longer. She had a heart attack in October, which, I am told, is a common symptom if her condition, as is her increasing confusion. So her son is bringing his wife, and his little daughter. This means that we will celebrate it as a "Late Robbie Burns Day," in tribute to Great-Grandfather's little joke.  What Mrs. Edgar will make of it all, I can scarcely guess. She is aware that she is not to talk about Aunt Beth's side of the family, but, hopefully, supposes it to be about the touch of the sagebrush and, behind it, the hint of assorted land scandals.  A family bound in secrets is a family united. One hopes. 

Speaking of old secrets, I have now made my rather sticky visit to the "Junior College." Donald was down-at-mouth at the idea of owing us a favour, but our condition was met, and "Miss V.C." will be permitted unrestricted access to the library and university archives, ostensibly to get a headstart on her senior thesis. Donald tells me that much of the money will be used as an investment, to support a "West Coast research institute," which will in turn support the university with its profits. I tried to talk him out of the idea --he frankly sounds like a confidence artist's dupe on the subject-- and the conversation ended in some heat. 

Forties tie!

Still, we have what we came for. Hopefully it will not all be rendered moot when we are allowed to buy the entire archives as scrap paper in the liquidation sale! As to what, exactly, "Miss V.C." is to find, that is another matter. Whatever dark secrets might have been suppressed, as between Bancroft's agents and Great-Grandfather's, they are hardly actionable today! But Grace is convinced that there would not have been so much effort spent on keeping them secret if they did not still matter. 

I did not task Donald with keeping the arrangement secret from the Engineer, as I did not expect him to honour the agreement even before harsh words were uttered on the chances of the university making good on something Lockheed has already given up on. Consequently, while I expect difficult moments with him when I see him next, at least he will not be under the impression that I was trying to keep secrets from him. (Just trying to implicate him in the Oregon Land Scanndal. That is so much better!) 

Ah, well. The Engineer is hardly happy anyway unless he is in a state of priggish outrage. At least with respect to his bastard, how far the apple falls from the tree! What I fear  is that he will throw over punctiliousness and secure the assistance of Koumintang assassins. I hope we have protected ourselves enough that I do not have to worry about a White Russian psychopath dismembering "Miss V.C." in the bath. The poor girl has been down-at-mouth enough since my brother left  (could it be?), and I do not want to be the one telling her that Wong Lee must accompany her to campus. Not to mention that Wong Lee has quite enough to do keeping up his business and his family life, especially with a granddaughter under foot, and now another child on the way. 

Pardon me, I do not wish to be indiscreet, but I thought, after dire talk of torso murders, that it would be better to end on a positive note, of new beginnings and good fortune at the turn of the Year of the Dog. I wish you and yours, therefore, luck and prosperity in the year to come.

Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant,

James.

The Bishop's Sea: Valhalla

Samosas --from Lovely's Kitchen

Deep-fried nuggets of joy. The historian of the Columbian Exchange chooses to emphasise the potatoes which often fill a samosa, and the sunflower or peanut oil in which they might be fried. If you go to the linked video, though, it will be the spicing that gets the priority. Because it's Indian cooking, and I thought I should mention what the actual cook thinks is important.  

You know, in the way of a little pause before I resume diving down my own navel.

A Cosmically Aware Technical Appendix

I honestly don't know how I came to the idea that cosmic rays were boring. It's a tribute to an undergraduate education, maybe? High energy photons are emitted from your mundane spinning galactic cores, supernovas, and the odd black hole, impact the Earth's atmosphere, lock free some subatomic particles, including a few with goofy names like "muon" and "meson," which kind of have to be fake, considering that there are guns in Traveller that shoot them, and that, anyway, you don't need to know about for chemistry class. (Or Physics 420, come to that.)

And then there's this:

 I don't know if you're following Agent Carter  or not. I mean, Bench Grass obviously isn't. Like the back pages of Whittaker Chamber's Time, we may seem unusually interested in physical culturalists and Gypsy Rose Lee, but, in fact, we concern ourselves with Great Art and Fine Literature. However, we hear that it is a fun television show. 

More importantly, the premise is that, in the summer of 1947, defence contractor Isodyne has done its own run of atomic bomb testing (as if), and, unexpectedly, discovered a goopy, black stuff that recalls episodes of Agents of Shield and characters such as Darkstar and Cloak and Dagger. Instead of calling it "the dark force," though, because that would be silly, they're calling it "zero matter," and it is something with enormous potential to blah blah. Cloak, notably, uses his dark stuff to teleport, which could be a link with Agents of Shield. Someone who watches that show might find out. And have age-inappropriate reactions to Chloe Bennett. 

And now for a completely irrelevant thumbnail photo to illustrate the post before the jump.

Postblogging Technology, December 1945, II: Journey to the West

My Lord:

Our best wishes, and profound gratitude to you this Christmas, or, rather this Twelfth Day. "Miss V.C." has given me a full account of the Berlin negotiations, and your handsome letter, signed by the General (and Mr. H., in advance!) So the mortgage is extended, and I shall take the good news up to the "junior college" as soon as American academia awakens itself from its Christmas nap. I am sure that they will be glad enough to have a budget for next year that there will be no problem with discrete archival access.

I honestly still have my doubts that the arrangement. The University's reputation will be as badly damaged as the Engineer's if any details of his father's arrangements emerge, and those details are what Grace expects to find. I know that she wants to tiptoe around this, simply hold it over his head; but we have already been visited by assassins. The Soongs do not play the game like gentlemen! However, with civil war in the offing in China, we cannot spare a weapon. 

As I say, Twelfth Night, which I mention because of your telegram of concern, which I have passed on to "Miss V.C.," who has written you a thank you note, which, since it goes by surface mail, will probably reach you with the first swallow of spring. The reason we celebrate the Nativity so late, as you guessed, is that she was caught in the storm that shut the railroads down in the East on the 18th.  

I do not know if "Miss V.C." told you, however, but there is more to the story. It was not just the young lady stranded by the road, but a full house for Christmas Eve in Cleveland Central Station.

Very well, the details.  The original plan was for her to fly to California, joining her parents in San Francisco for Christmas, and then to visit with us. She would be accompanied by my half-brother, who is in college in Boston, who would take the train up to Montreal and fly back with her. Her parents found the idea of winter flying to be ridiculously dangerous, although, given the state of the trains, an argument could be made either way. So, just to be safe, they asked the young man that Grace likes to refer to as "Lieutenant A." to escort her. As I am sure she told you, she and the young lieutenant are all but formally engaged, though this does not dim my brother's hopeless attraction to her a wit. 

The odd thing about this is, even though "Miss V.C." treats my brother with the utmost propriety, and assures all that she has no feelings for him, her parents still seem concerned. A family marriage --even though they are only third cousins!-- is out of the question. An admiral's son is just the sort they are looking for, especially as his career seems to be flourishing in Washington. (Oddly enough, given that Admiral Nimitz detests him, and for good reason, I have to say.) 

So, "Miss V.C." the young lieutenant, who was to turn around for Texas as soon as he saw his almost-intended safely to San Francisco, and my brother as third wheel. Put that way, it sounds worse than a storm! But it was at this point in the planning that the Engineer's youngest got involved. As you will have heard, he is a minor Hollywood star, and somewhat at loose ends after leaving the Army, as his studio has not offered him anything but a supporting role in a "comeback" film for one its stars next year. So he conceived a plan to visit the Canadian film board in Montreal, and to earn a little cash by conducting a tour for the 4H-Club at Santa Clara, which I cannot even begin to imagine explaining to you --the salient point being that our former housekeeper is a member, and was one of the teen companions in their late adventures here in California. 

Now, I have to admit that I am at a loss to explain all of this. My father has a simple explanation. He has somehow convinced himself that not only does "Miss V.C." carry a secret torch for my brother, but that the lieutenant only keeps up his end because it gives him an excuse to visit with our former housekeeper, who really is the prettiest thing, in that blonde Californian way, but of rather too low a stock for his mother's ambitions. (At least, as long as "Miss V.C." is in play.)

That's the theory. I don't believe a word of it. But the important point is that the Engineer's son may. Grace is convinced that, although he is charming and convivial to the bone, he is repressing some malicious impulses. My father takes this on board, and adds one last flourish to his theory. It is all deliberate. Our B-movie actor friend is trying to throw a wrench in our Chicago relatives' carefully-laid matrimonial plans for their daughter. 

I worry about my father. Uncle George has been expecting him to have a breakdown under the press of the war for years now, but he has not needed a rest cure since 1939. Perhaps his next spell is at hand?

It is far too late to say that I will be brief, but I do leave to your imagination a gaggle of young folk celebrating Christmas Eve with what they could find at the Harveys Restaurant in the Central Station.  

And that was the Christmas adventure that you sent "Miss V.C." into. If now I were to say that I would be brief, it would be end by saying that you should have no regrets, that all is well that ends well, and that it all makes me wish that I were young again. 

Your Humble & Obedient Servant,
James.

Postblogging Technology, December 19454, I: A Little Bit of Sugar

My Lord:

Merry Christmas, and best wishes for the New Year! You are probably wondering why you are receiving this, in lieu of a card or whatnot, and especially about all the deciphering being demanded of you in this season of celebration. Well, with my father on his way from Vancouver to join us for the holidays, we were not going to produce one of these notes. But it was represented to us that you took some pleasure from them, and now that I have been able to go to Davao, you are certainly owed some kind of casting of accounts. We certainly do not wish to offend you, not when you have taken the German matter in hand!

Since you have seen the others, you will know that they have been the hobby of my Uncle George and my wife, Grace. Uncle George is still refusing to do anything that smacks of work, and my wife is only a week past her surgery, still on powerfull pain medication, and in no condition to do anything requiring sitting.

This also raises a rather sensitive matter. My father has dropped some hints, and I cannot find a way of politely disabusing him of the notion that I will need to make provisions, now that my wife has, well, suffice it to say that Victoria Claire's delivery was unfortunately abrupt. Someone needs to put his mind to rest! Dr. Rivers is a very good surgeon, and assures that me that no marital difficulties will ensue.

You will probably be disappointed by the scantiness of the accounts. The problem is that I am looking into an extremely unclear crystal ball. In the matter of real estate, we have already disposed of the old feedlot. Uncle Henry is developing it according to his own schemes. The land in Palo Alto has not attracted the same kind of attention. Frankly, I hope to see it as some kind of commuter's suburb, too, but one not entangled with Kaiser-style schemes. The orchards south of oSanta Clara will probably have to go, eventually, too, but I want to see the land around them start to move, first, as this will bid the price up. With the exception of the houselots which Grace has already carved out. Who knows? They may even get the ball rolling. I can visualise trailer homes on the Spokane lands --if there is enough population growth to encourage it, but in Couer d'Alene and the lower bend of the river in Canada, I think we can safely abandon hope of anything more than expropriation if the dam ever goes through. 

As for the money we have invested "on the water," we will have a better sense of its value when our friends finally get around to incorporating. Unfortunately, no-one is in a hurry to launch stock issues in America right now --there is just not the need. If the tape-recording machine were ready for consumer use, then perhaps Bill and David, or their assignees (the preferred scheme) would hurry to the market, but it is not, and we continue to have misgivings about associating them with it, anyway. If it is not to be their "breakthrough" product, then we are back to their original schemes, according to which incorporation might be a decade(!) away. Hopefully, the Russian will before that.

Obviously, assessing the value of our stock portfolio is just a matter of subscribing to the business press. We stand ready to help you repatriate the money if you need it, but I hope you do not, as the end of exchange controls are imminent. 

As for the Davao visit, the news is not the worst that can be imagined, but it is not good, either. The effect of heat and humidity on the papers is very noticeable. When I imagine what it must have been like to take them down the river, under the eyes of the Five Banners and the British alike, one can well appreciate why so many of the other Hongs burned their family documents, instead. And now they are rotting in the tropical air. I know we had always hoped that if ever family ties frayed to the point where we had need of a magistrate, it would be in Canton, where the bench could be trusted not to inquire as to what other names might attach to someone appearing before them "in their own proper person." 

Looking at the situation in China now, I do not think that that is not going to be possible for a very long time. And, obviously, there should be no question of, for example, the original capitulation between the Admiral and the Lady being produced before a British judge. But if the papers are to be left in Davao for another century, something must be done about the climate. I am inquiring, very carefully, inquiring about air conditioning. We shall have to see. I have no idea how we would keep that secret from the neighbours and avoid gossip, but I am going to see what some Californian rice (as see below) might secure. Besides a bizarre story, related to me with a straight face by a Delta grower, to the effect that American agronomists discovered the best way to grow rice twenty years ago! 

And so I leave off with one more round of best wishes of the season, feeling more than a little queer in pivoting from tropical heat to a Merry Christmas, even here in sunny California!

Your Humble & Obedient Servant,

James.

Walrus Ranching: Early Settlement of the Norse High Atlantic?

Well, finally dragged myself into the library at 3PM the other day, and that's just not going to cut it when I'm working morning shifts. I am pleased to report that I've got probably the most egregious single defence of high unemployment yet uttered by Geoffrey Crowther* of The Economist lined up for you when December, I, goes live, but that'll be next week, hopefully.

After the jump, the headline graphic is a boring table, which is boring, so I'm going to introduce this piece

 --Wait. Actually, I'm going to introduce it with an apology to Christian Keller of the University of Oslo, who has been pushing the "walrus hunters settled Iceland, Greenland and Vinland" angle since at least 2008--

Okay, I'm going to introduce this piece, as far as Google search image results goes, with some nice scenery very tenuously linked to the actual subject. Which, in case you are wondering, is the possibility of pre-871 settlement of Iceland, either a live issue in Icelandic archaeology, per the indefatigable Margret Hermanns-Audardottir, or something almost too gauche to be discussed, per everyone else, although the taboo may be breaking down. 

Look! It's the Pemberton Valley, courtesy of Pemberton Valley Lodge. It's twenty minutes past Whistler, Vancouver's favourite snow-and-snow destination (think Aspen, only more provincial), and cheaper to stay in.

The relevance here is --Okay, let's see if I can make this brief. Back in the day, people wanted to build railways across North America from the East Coast, where all the people were, to the West Coast, which is a good place to catch a boat to China. Meanwhile, on the West Coast,  people were alert to the fact that there weren't all that many good places in the mountain country that faces the North American Pacific where you can build cities and there supporting hinterlands. Yet, nevertheless, there were more prospects than railways likely to be built. So how do you make a killing on real estate? by influencing the route so that it goes through, say, Reno instead of Spokane, then buying land, not only in Reno versus Spokane, but San Francisco versus Tacoma. This is an American example, of course: for the Pemberton Valley, the issue is Vancouver on the one hand, and, ultimately, Regina versus Saskatoon --towns in Saskatchewan, if you were wondering-- on the other. (No, I'm not going to explain here: brevity.) 

So here's Google Maps.

The route traced here shows the Cariboo Road, built by Governor James Douglas of British Columbia, to service a gold rush off the map to the north. It later became the route of the first two Canadian intercontinental railways. However, I've centred the map to show an alternate route, which follows the course of the Lillooet River from the head of Harrison Lake --actually a widening of that river-- and over a mountain pass to the upper Fraser River, passing through the Pemberton Valley portion of the Lillooet on the way. This was actually Douglas' originally preferred route. built in 1862, it was quickly abandoned as impractical and replaced with the route shown, which goes up the stupendous gorge cut through the coastal mountains by the Fraser River. 

So, uhm, you gently prod me --relevance? It's simply that Douglas may have been less nuts than he seems. The early history of the Pemberton Valley is a bit obscure, but we do know that Squamish medicine women brought potatoes to the Valley, perhaps in the 1820s, and established farms there that were flourishing in 1860. Given that it was the cost of provisions in the gold fields that was driving agitation for a wagon road, it might have seemed logical to Douglas that a road connecting them with the coast should run through the largest active farming area of the period on the mainland. I'm saying "may" because, of course, this runs into the race issue. We generally don't like our First Nations actors jumping out of the box marked "noble savage" and into the one marked "early settler," a running theme on this blog that I won't pursue here because the same issues are going to come up after the jump. Douglas, embarrassed though his descendants may be to admit it, was mixed-race himself, and married a high status First Nations woman. She wasn't a Squamish --that would have been too on-the-nose-- but we shouldn't entirely exclude the possibility that someone in Douglas' circle had an interest in the Pemberton Valley. 

The question remains, on this theory, "Why Pemberton?" The answer, I think, is clear enough. Go to Google Maps yourself and zoom in, and you'll see that the valley's farmland was formed by the internal estuary of the Lillooet at the head of Lillooet Lake. This means that it was probably meadow land, and did not need to be cleared before it could be farmed. Later generations would realise that the amount of farmland in the Valley was utterly dwarfed by that in the Fraser Valley along the later route: but most of that land had to be logged, first. It's this logic, the difference between the value of forested farm land once cleared, and marginal, flooding land kept naturally unforested, which is going to play a part in the settlement-of-Iceland question.