The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O'Brian: A review

The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O'Brian
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Patrick O'Brian's long-running naval history series takes place mostly, and naturally, on board ships at sea, but ships must occasionally touch shore and their captains and crew must live, at least for a time, on land. Readers who have followed this series throughout its development know that time ashore invariably means disaster for Jack Aubrey. The sea is his natural habitat and when he steps ashore he becomes, almost literally, like a fish out of water.

The action of The Yellow Admiral takes place mostly on land and Aubrey is gasping for air and a way to survive professionally and in his personal life throughout.

This book follows The Commodore which saw the successful conclusion to the long, long voyage of Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin in the Pacific. We find Aubrey with substantial land holdings but hardly a penny to his name. 

Impoverishment is not a new and unknown country for him; he's been there before many times. But now his land holdings make him a voting member of Parliament, and, unfortunately, as far as the Admiralty is concerned, he persists in voting the wrong way.

Moreover, he engages in a feud with his neighbor, who has strong ties to the Admiralty. The neighbor wants to enclose the common land between their two estates, but Jack is implacably against enclosure. This makes him popular with the common people in his district but distinctly unpopular with the elites.

More trouble comes when Jack is sent to participate in a blockade of Brest. In stormy waters there, he captures a French privateer but is accused of missing a signal and deserting a post to do so.

While he is away on blockade, his mother-in-law comes to stay at his home with his wife, Sophie. She rummages around in Jack's papers and finds letters which seem to incontrovertibly expose his adultery. Of course, she gleefully shows them to Sophie who is devastated and ready to "take advice" from a solicitor.

Then the worst possible thing in Aubrey's world happens: Peace breaks out in 1814. Napoleon is sent to Elba and the British navy stands down. No more chance for glory. Jack fears that his naval career will end with a whimper rather than a bang. He faces the ignominious prospect of being "yellowed," meaning that he would be nominally promoted to the rank of admiral but without any squadron to command.

Riding to his rescue once again is his particular friend, Dr. Stephen Maturin.

Maturin has been happily reunited with his beloved Diana, and their daughter, Brigid, once feared to be developmentally challenged, has blossomed under the care of Maturin's loblolly boy, Padeen, and his friend, Clarissa Oakes. She has become an active chatterbox of a child, a delight to her parents. Stephen's fortune has been restored and, in fact, everything seems to be coming up Maturin.

Stephen returns from an intelligence mission in France where he made contact with some of the people he had met in South America when he was trying to foment a revolution in Peru. His contacts are Chilean and they are interested in securing their country's independence from Spain. To accomplish this, they require a navy and the help of English officers. 

If Jack agrees to aid them, it will mean taking his name off the List, the sacred Admiralty document that determines the progress of a naval man's career. He is at first reluctant to accept the assignment but on the assurance that he can be restored to the List with no loss of rank if England goes to war again or upon the completion of his employment by Chile, he agrees to the terms.

It's all signed, sealed, and delivered. Aubrey takes the Surprise, their refurbished privateer, and heads out to Chile with Stephen and with both of their families aboard. The families are to go as far as Madeira for a vacation there and the Surprise will continue on its mission.

But while in Madeira, Aubrey receives a letter from the Admiral, apologizing for a perceived slight, and calling him back to duty. Napoleon has escaped Elba!

These books have been a joy to read throughout, and, as we get near the end of the series, they just seem to get better. I started the series with some trepidation because of the authentic technical naval vocabulary the author employs in telling his stories, but I soon learned to allow that vocabulary (that I was not really interested in learning) to simply wash over me and become a kind of background noise that did lend authenticity but did not distract from the development of the characters and their relationships which is the real meat of the stories. 

Also, the characters are mostly male and that might seem to make them difficult to relate to for someone of my sex. But, in fact, their gender doesn't matter. They are simply fully realized human beings and I love the time that I spend with them.

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Throwback Thursday: The American Taliban

Here's a post that I wrote five years ago in August 2010. Reading it again today, it occurred to me that I might have written it yesterday. Extremist theocrats are still a cancer in this country and in the world. Five years from now, will anything have changed?

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The American Taliban

The Taliban first came to my notice, and that of most Westerners I suspect, when they were doing their best to destroy the culture of Afghanistan, particularly as it allowed any freedom and independence at all for women. Then, of course, there was the episode of them destroying the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan because they could not tolerate such a concrete expression of another faith or way of thinking. Later, much later, I read Khaled Hosseini's novels about that period in his homeland and shed tears for the stupidity and injustice that ruled that society and especially that made women's lives as hard as possible.

In recent years, I've been appalled as I've watched the growth of the radical right in my own country and have recognized in them much the same attitudes as observed and read about from afar in Afganistan. And now, Markos Moulitsas, the proprietor of the political website, Daily Kos, has written a book which details some of the similarities between the two movements. He calls his book American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin and Power bind Jihadists and the Radical Right. The title just about says it all.

I admit that I haven't read the book, but I have seen some commentary about it and I think I have the flavor of it. Markos makes comparisons of the two Taliban movements in seven broad categories.

1. Fetishization of violence. The violence of the Afghani Taliban has been well-documented on television and the media for the last 20 years or so. The violence of the American Taliban has been seen most notably in the attack on the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, but also in the countless attacks on abortion clinics and the occasional murders of abortion providers, in the open carrying of guns to political events, in the speech of some of their candidates for office advocating what one called "Second Amendment solutions", even in the signs with violent imagery and words that are carried at political rallies. It's also evident in their every day political speech in which they constantly refer to Democrats "ramming things down the throats" of Republicans and right-thinkers. There's zero acknowledgement that the Democrats won the election and that they were chosen by the people to lead the country.

2. Theocratic tendencies. The tendencies of the Afghani Taliban are well-known, but they are matched by the religious right in this country, who would if they could throw out the Constitution and institute Biblical law as the law of the land. Some of them will even publically acknowledge that. Tell me, how is that different from the institution of Sharia?

3. Disrespect for women. The Taliban of both countries do not believe that women should be allowed to control their own bodies or their own lives. They see the only role of women to be "barefoot and pregnant" and to cater to the needs and desires of their lords and masters. There are actually women in this country who are a part of the Taliban movement here and would acquiesce in this. The women of Afghanistan who have actually experienced it would not.

4. Hatred of gays. Both movements believe that homosexuality is a choice and that homosexuals should be indoctrinated into being heterosexual in the most benevolent applications of their philosophy or tortured and killed in their most extreme expressions. What makes this particularly sad is that, in many cases, this is an expression of self-hatred.

5. Fear of the "other". In our country, this is seen in the angry rhetoric and political actions against immigrants and people from other religions. There is no recognition of the fact that the greatest strength of this country is that we are a land of immigrants, many voices, many languages, many religions, many cultures. Those who come here, both legally and illegally, overwhelmingly come to work and contribute and to make better lives for themselves and their families. They have no wish and no time to do us or the country harm.

6. Defiance of scientific progress and education. Anti-evolutionists, deniers of global warming, if you name almost any scientific discovery or advance in recent human history, you will find the American Taliban standing with their fingers in their ears yelling, "La, la, la, la, la!" Just like the Afghani Taliban.

7. Attempts to hijack popular culture. This may be seen in our country in popular media which shamelessly promote the American Taliban point of view and in actions which attempt to silence any contrary point of view. The book banners, film boycotters, and those who would remove any works of art from view if they don't coincide with their idea of art are among those who are a danger to our country. More dangerous than any jihadist.

As I read the news of the day, I am often in despair that the American Taliban seems to be gaining in strength and that even in my lifetime I might see a government composed of their supporters in power. It is easy to give way to such thoughts in the heat of summer. Let us hope that autumn cools things down and returns the nation to its senses once again.

Wordless Wednesday: Let's cool off

The Forsaken by Ace Atkins: A review

The Forsaken by Ace Atkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Continuing with the Mississippi theme in my summer reading, I turned to Ace Atkins' Southern noir series featuring former Army Ranger, now county sheriff, Quinn Colson.

Colson is the sheriff of fictional Tibbehah County in Northeast Mississippi, a place somewhere near Tupelo, birthplace of King Elvis. He heads a seven person police force, aided by his chief deputy, Lillie Virgil. From the county seat of Jericho, they do battle with the forces of evil in Tibbehah County, which seems to be a hotbed of sin and moral turpitude, not to mention political corruption.

Jericho and Tibbehah County are still recovering from a recent killer tornado that came close to leveling the town, but progress is being made, and, in some cases, the new Jericho being built is a great improvement over the old destroyed town.

Much of that improvement has come through the efforts of Johnny Stagg, District Supervisor and local businessman and, not incidentally, redneck crime lord. Stagg is behind much of that aforementioned sin, moral turpitude, and political corruption. But it can't be denied that he has aided in the rebuilding of the town.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Colson and Deputy Virgil are being investigated because of a big shootout that occurred at the end of the last book. (It does pay to read these books in order.) Colson's enemies see this as a chance to either get him out of office or to control him while he's in office, and there's another election coming up. It's all politics, but that doesn't make it any more palatable.

Into this frothy mix of disaster recovery and political intrigue comes news that a very bad guy, leader of a motorcycle club that created havoc in the town thirty years before, is about to be released from federal prison after serving his time. This is especially bad news for Johnny Stagg who sees the man as a mortal enemy and fears that when he returns to town he will try to take over from the current redneck crime lord.

Thirty years before, in 1977, something terrible happened in Jericho. Two young teenage girls were abducted along a county road. One was raped and both of them were shot. The younger of the two died. Law enforcement did not catch the man who did it, but shortly afterward, a black man, a stranger in town who had been living rough in the nearby national forest, was taken up by vigilantes, beaten and lynched. He was unknown. His name was never discovered. The vigilantes had convicted him of the abduction, rape, and murder. 

Later, the surviving victim saw the man who had actually committed the crime in town. The vigilantes had murdered an innocent man.

At the time of these crimes, the sheriff's office only did a half-hearted investigation, but now, the whole thing has been brought to light again because the surviving victim has talked to Sheriff Colson. He and Deputy Virgil are determined to get to the bottom of these very cold cases.

Johnny Stagg has become one of the most interesting characters in this series. He runs a "family restaurant" with a notorious strip club and truck stop located out back. He's trying to build up a drug pipeline, working with some of the Memphis mafia, and he has his fingers in every pie being baked in Tibbehah County. He's a sleazebag and a small town manipulator, masquerading as just another "good ole boy." He keeps looking for the key that will allow him to lock up control of the sheriff and his staff. If he can find it, he will have a totally free hand in building his crime empire.

Locking up Quinn Colson won't be easy though. He lives by the code he learned as an Army Ranger. He is the epitome of incorruptibility and morality. He has a lot of frustrations with the nuances of police work, but fortunately his excellent deputy has his back there. They make a good team.

Ace Atkins writes very knowledgeably about the area where these stories are set. It's an area I know well and I can attest that the language used by his characters and the opinions and attitudes expressed here are spot on. It all makes for a very noirish mix and an entertaining summer read.

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Crossed Bones by Carolyn Haines: A review

Crossed Bones by Carolyn Haines
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sarah Booth Delaney lays claim to being a non-traditional Southern woman. She is in her thirties, a time by which any self-respecting Southern Belle would be long married and raising a family. This is certainly the path that would have been chosen for her by Jitty, the ghost of her great-great-grandmother's nanny with whom she shares her home, Dahlia House, in Zinnia, Mississippi. Jitty watches over her and bosses and nags her, but Sarah Booth continues to go her own way.

She has eschewed marriage and is trying to establish a private investigation business with her best friend, Tinkie. The aim of the business is to provide enough money to save the family plantation home and support Sarah Booth in the style to which she is accustomed. So, yes, she is a bit non-traditional perhaps, but in one respect she is VERY traditional: She is always called by her double name Sarah Booth, never just Sarah. It's a Southern thang, dontcha know.

Sarah Booth has had some success on the few cases that she's had. She has shown a flair and an instinct for investigating. She will need all of that flair and instinct to bring her latest case to a successful conclusion.

A respected man of the community, a talented blues musician and owner of a blues club in Zinnia, has been brutally murdered in that club late one night. He was stabbed and some money was taken from the till. Later the murder weapon and blood-stained money are found in the motorcycle saddlebags of the club's guitarist and singer, the star attraction who brings the people in. He was also a friend of the man who was killed - a man he had first met when they were both in prison in Michigan.

On the basis of the circumstantial evidence, the guitarist/singer, Scott, is arrested and charged with murder. There is a racial component to the crime since the man who was killed was black and the man charged with the killing is white. This raises specters of past crimes and threatens to tear the little town and the county apart along racial lines.

The murdered man's wife, Ida Mae Keys, is convinced that Scott is not guilty and she hires Sarah Booth to prove it. Sarah Booth and Tinkie soon find that there are multiple complications to the case. The Keyses' grown son, Emanuel, is a highly educated and successful businessman who resented his father because he always felt that he took second place to the music with him. He is also a race warrior who believes in strict separation between black and white.

Two motorcycle-riding thugs who are friends of Scott's are in town and would agree with Emanuel on that point. They spout their white supremacist, racist rhetoric to anyone who will listen. It looks like the two extreme sides may be headed for a clash.

Meanwhile, a psychotic groupie/stalker of Scott's further muddies the waters and makes Sarah Booth's and Tinkie's investigations even more complicated.

The main conundrum, though, is why anyone would have wanted to kill the murdered man. He was highly respected, a man of peace who believed in the power of music to bring people together, but he wasn't a rich man and there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason for wanting him dead. Finally, perhaps two-thirds of the way through the book, Sarah Booth stumbles upon the motive and things begin to come together for the investigators.

As usual in these books, we are treated to some hot and toe-curling sex - at least we are told by Sarah Booth that it was hot and toe-curling. Of course, a lady never reveals the details. This time her partner is Scott, once he is bailed out of jail, of course. Jitty, who is usually quite anxious for Sarah Booth to jump in the sack and get on with producing a Delaney heir, does not approve.

Sarah Booth has another suitor this time, as well; a wealthy Memphis businessman with whom Tinkie and her husband Oscar set her up. He's everything that Jitty would approve of in a suitor, but, in the end, he doesn't ring Sarah Booth's chimes.

Maybe that's because she's really in love with a THIRD man, the local sheriff, Coleman Peters. Unfortunately, Peters is already married and both he and Sarah Booth are much too noble to violate his marriage vows.

Poor Sarah Booth and poor Jitty. It looks like they are never going to get that necessary and fully sanctioned bed partner for Sarah Booth. She may indeed be the end of the line for the Delaneys.

Never mind. There'll always be another mystery to solve.   

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Poetry Sunday: In August

Paul Laurence Dunbar lived from 1872 until 1906. He was the first really influential African-American poet and playwright in American literature. He enjoyed his greatest popularity in the early 20th century. During those same years, he suffered several illnesses, including recurring bouts of pneumonia which left him with a persistent cough. Unfortunately, he used alcohol as a self-medication to combat the cough, but this caused further deterioration of his physical condition and he died much too soon at the age of thirty-three.

His poem In August speaks of lazy days spent fishing and reading "easily digested books." Somewhat poignantly, in view of what happened to him, he also writes of taking along "one little flask" and of getting his bottle "(on the sly)." 

I like the rhythm of this poem and the images it evokes of hot and dry August days. Just like the ones we are having now.

IN AUGUST

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

When August days are hot an' dry,

When burning copper is the sky,

I 'd rather fish than feast or fly

In airy realms serene and high.

I 'd take a suit not made for looks,

Some easily digested books,

Some flies, some lines, some bait, some hooks,

Then would I seek the bays and brooks.

I would eschew mine every task,

In Nature's smiles my soul should bask,

And I methinks no more could ask,

Except—perhaps—one little flask.

In case of accident, you know,

Or should the wind come on to blow,

Or I be chilled or capsized, so,

A flask would be the only go.

Then could I spend a happy time,—

A bit of sport, a bit of rhyme

(A bit of lemon, or of lime,

To make my bottle's contents prime).

When August days are hot an' dry,

I won't sit by an' sigh or die,

I 'll get my bottle (on the sly)

And go ahead, and fish, and lie! 

This week in birds - #167

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

A Common Gallinule, formerly known as Common Moorhen, preens among the aquatic weeds at Brazos Bend State Park. These birds are indeed common here in wetland environments especially at this time of year. Visiting any such area will generally give you an opportunity to see one, or, more likely, several.

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Feral cats and pets that are allowed to roam freely are a huge problem for wildlife because cats are efficient and highly successful hunters. They take an enormous toll on wildlife each year, but study after study has found that cat owners are generally in denial about the outdoor activities of their pets. A new study published recently in the journal Ecology and Evolution confirms this once again. Owners of cats who roam do not believe their animals pose great harm to wildlife and they are resistant to the idea of keeping cats indoors to protect wildlife. As a cat owner and lover, as well as a habitat gardener, I know that the safest place for cats is indoors and keeping cats indoors also protects the habitat. If you own cats, please have them spayed or neutered and keep them indoors. They, you, and the wildlife in your neighborhood will be much happier.  

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One of the strongest El Nino events of the last sixty years is building in the Pacific and will be affecting North America's weather in coming months. The good news is that there is likely to be some relief for the drought-stricken West in this weather - likely but not certain. The outlook for the area where I live, along the Gulf Coast, is rainy and cool. That would be a change from our present daily 100+ degrees Fahrenheit and no rain in sight. 

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North American bumblebees are in serious trouble. Analysis of the latest reports from citizen scientists across the continent indicate that of the 46 recognized species of bumblebees fully one-quarter of them are facing extinction.

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Australia is implementing its first threatened species strategy which conservationists there hope will be sufficient to save the continent's most critically endangered bird, the ground-dwelling Plains Wanderer.

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Each year, Earth's forests absorb about one-quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted by human beings, thus helping to slow the speed and severity of global warming. But in a study of the impact of drought on trees, it was found that these excessively dry conditions make it harder for trees to take up the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As droughts increase around the planet, this is very bad news for a world where carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase.  

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We've long known of the deadly effects of fungal outbreaks on frogs and toads. Perhaps we should not be surprised to learn that the effects are just as deadly on salamanders. The problem is made worse by the import of certain salamanders in the pet trade. The animals often wind up being released into the wild and spread the fungus to wild populations.  

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A large comparative genomic study of the olfactory genes tied to a bird's sense of smell has revealed important differences that correlate with their ecological niches and specific behaviors. In a nutshell, the study says that the ability of the bird to smell things is related to the ecological niche it fills; if it is important for a bird to be able to smell in order to survive, then it will have a stronger olfactory sense. Vultures, for example, generally have a more well-developed sense of smell than sparrows.

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Abruptly warming climate events between 12,000 and 60,000 years ago triggered a revolution in the development of megabeasts like woolly mammoths. Some went extinct while others managed to evolve to cope with the changing climate.

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The Wilson's Storm-Petrel is one of the most abundant birds in the world and you will probably never see one. The pelagic bird is almost never seen on land. It lives its life in the air over the world's oceans.   

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When I was a child, I was fascinated by the story of the Chincoteague ponies of Assateague Island National Seashore. On the last Wednesday and Thursday in July, the Saltwater Cowboys of the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department wrangle up the herd of feral ponies on the island and send them on a 4-minute swim across the Chincoteague Channel into Virginia where they are auctioned off. This is their method of population control; otherwise, the ponies would overrun and overgraze the island. (Off course, on the Maryland side of the island, they just give the ponies birth control pills!)

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In areas where mosquitoes pose a significant health problem, local governments often spray with pesticides in order to control the bloodsuckers. The problem with this strategy, of course, is that the pesticides don't only affect the mosquitoes. In Florida, government entities are attempting to adjust their spraying policies so that they will cause less harm to other insects, particularly butterflies and pollinators, and to the environment in general.

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Regent Honeyeaters are another endangered Australian bird. Only about 400 of them still exist in the wild. Conservationists there are calling for help from the public to protect and preserve the species. 

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In other news of an endangered species, eight captive-reared Mangrove Finches fledglings, one of the famous "Darwin's finches," were recently released on Isabela Island in the Galapagos in an attempt to increase the population of the species there. 

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Another of the few Northern white rhinos left on the planet has died of natural causes. This leaves only four of the animals in the world.

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The final version of President Obama’s signature climate change policy is expected to extend an earlier timeline for states to significantly cut planet-warming pollution from power plants. The plan will be announced in this coming week.