Deonte Murray's criminal history

Deonte Lee Murray, born June 2, 1984, was arrested in September 2020 and charged with shooting two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies. 

Here is Murray's criminal case history based on records from Los Angeles Superior Court. Note that in cases where a defendant is sentenced to jail, court records do not indicate how long the person spent incarcerated.

Aug. 19, 2002 (age 18): Murray pleads no contest to car theft and is sentenced to five days in Los Angeles County jail, 10 days of community service and 26 months of "summary probation" (this is also known as "informal" probation and does not require supervision by a probation officer). 

April 25, 2003 (age 18): Murray is charged with possession of methamphetamines with the intent to sell. He pleads no contest. The next month he is sentenced to 120 days in L.A. County Jail and formal probation for three years.

Jan. 12, 2004 (age 19): He is charged with petty theft. He pleads not guilty. The charges are later dismissed without a trial.

Feb. 10, 2006 (age 21): Murray is charged with transporting or selling marijuana, possession of marijuana, and possession of a gun while committing a "street gang crime." The possession charge is dismissed while he pleads no contest to the other two. He is sentenced to two years in state prison for each of the two convictions.

Dec. 27, 2007 (age 23): He is charged with being a felon in possession of a gun and pleads no contest. A charge of "obliteration of identification marks" on a firearm is dismissed. He is sentenced to two years in prison.

Jan. 26, 2010 (age 25): Murray is charged with receiving stolen property, later pleads no contest, and is sentenced to two years in prison. He pleads not guilty to a charge of "petty theft with a prior." That charge is dismissed.

June 28, 2011 (age 27): He is charged with possession of methamphetamine, pleads no contest and is sentenced to one year of formal probation. 

Sept. 11, 2011 (age 27): Murray is charged with receiving stolen property, later pleads no contest and is sentenced to two years in prison. Two other charges of burglary and possession of burglary tools with criminal intent are dismissed.

March 5, 2013 (age 28): Online court records show that a criminal case was filed in Los Angeles' Central Arraignment Courthouse on this date against Murray for a "violation" on Oct. 30, 2012. But the record indicates only two court proceedings in the case and no charges or sentencing details are shown.

July 11, 2013 (age 29): Murray is charged with possession of methamphetamine. He pleads no contest and is sentenced to 16 months in county jail. 

July 26, 2013 (age 29): Online court records show that a criminal case was filed in Central Arraignment Courthouse on this date against Murray for a "violation" on July 17, 2013. But the record indicates only two court proceedings in the case and says "There are no charges for this case."

Aug. 16, 2013 (age 29): He is charged with four crimes on this date. Two counts of robbery and one of burglary are ultimately dismissed, but he pleads guilty to a different burglary charge. He is sentenced to 40 months in county jail.

Aug. 23, 2013 (age 29): Online court records show that a criminal case was filed in Central Arraignment Courthouse on this date against Murray for a "violation" on June 23, 2013. But the record says "There are no charges for this case" and offers no further details. 

June 10, 2015 (age 31): Murray is charged with domestic violence. He pleads no contest and is sentenced to 60 days in county jail.

July 20, 2015 (age 31): Murray is charged with three crimes from a "violation" eight days earlier. He pleads not guilty to one count of domestic violence that is ultimately dismissed. He pleads no contest to charges of making criminal threats and disobeying a court order and is sentenced to 180 days in jail for each charge, plus five years of formal probation.

Oct. 26, 2016 (age 32): He is charged with being a felon in possession of a gun and assault with a firearm stemming from an arrest on Oct. 7. He pleads guilty to the possession charge; the other count is dismissed. On Jan. 6, 2017, he is sentenced to 32 months in prison.

Dec. 12, 2016 (age 32): He is charged with possession of methamphetamine and the next month pleads no contest. On Jan. 11, 2017, he is sentenced to 60 days in jail.

Oct. 3, 2018 (age 34): Online court records show that a criminal case was filed in Central Arraignment Courthouse on this date against Murray for a "violation" the day before. But the record says "There are no charges for this case" and offers no further details. 

Jan. 30, 2019 (age 34): He is charged with possession of methamphetamine and later pleads no contest. The next month he is sentenced to 364 days in jail.

Feb. 1, 2019 (age 34): Online court records show that a criminal case was filed in Central Arraignment Courthouse on this date against Murray for a "violation" four days earlier. But the record says "There are no charges for this case" and offers no further details. 

Feb. 18, 2019 (age 34): Online court records show that a criminal case was filed in Central Arraignment Courthouse on this date against Murray for a "violation" eight days earlier. But the record says "There are no charges for this case" and offers no further details.

March 16, 2020 (age 35): Murray is charged with possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, and driving without a license. All charges are dismissed on July 22.

Sept. 17, 2020 (age 36): Murray pleads not guilty to carjacking and robbery in connection with a Sept. 1 event. While in jail, police identify him as the suspect in the shooting of two sheriff's deputies on Sept. 12. He is charged with two more counts of attempted murder, assault with a semiautomatic firearm, and three counts of possession of a gun by a felon. He pleads not guilty to all the charges. 

Summary: In the 18 years he has been an adult, Deonte Murray has been convicted of at least 16 crimes and been sentenced to nearly 20 years in jail.

 

    

Why did proposition 20 fail?

Proposition 20 got little attention on a California November 2020 ballot that was dominated by the presidential race and cluttered with 11 other state measures and numerous local issues. Voters just didn't have the bandwidth to recognize the common sense reforms offered by Prop. 20 — and the ballot itself actually made things worse. The measure failed.

Proposition 20 was aimed at fixing flaws in two earlier measures (propositions 47 and 57) that aimed to reduce California's prison population by releasing "non-violent" criminals and changing some crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.

These changes were well-intended, but the laws were imperfectly designed. First, 2014's Proposition 47 defined all crimes as "non-violent" unless the law specifically called them violent. This might seem fine, but in reality, there has been no consistent use of the term "violent" in California law.

This means that many clearly violent crimes are classified as "non-violent," including assault with a deadly weapon, exploding a bomb, rape of an unconscious person, assaulting a peace office, felony domestic violence, shooting into an inhabited building, and assault by a caregiver on a child under 8 that could result in death or coma. 

In one Ventura County case, a man convicted of 86 counts of poisoning, sexual battery and rape of an unconscious or intoxicated person was not considered a violent criminal under California law, making him eligible for early release from prison.

Prop. 20 would have fixed this by defining all of the above crimes as violent (also on the list is the crime of selling a child for sex), preventing those offenders from getting a get-out-of-jail-free card.

The second major provision of Prop. 20 would have addressed a problem created by Prop. 47, which increased the dollar threshold for felony theft from $450 to $950 in stolen goods. As a result, retail stores have seen a surge in brazen and repeated thefts, with some thieves carefully tallying their haul to stay under $950. The thieves understand that police will not hurry to the scene of misdemeanor and, even at worst, they might get a ticket. 

Prop. 20 would have created a new felony of "serial theft" that applies to anyone who steals over $250 three times, helping to send repeat thieves to prison.

As you can see, these changes are hardly controversial. So why did Prop. 20 lose?

The answer is all in the ballot summary.

In an election like this one, 98% of voters' attention was on the Trump-Biden presidential race. A little room was left over for high-profile contests like Prop. 22, involving the treatment of rideshare drivers (this measure drew the highest advocacy spending of any in state history), and a couple battles over property taxes.

Prop. 20 got little attention and when that happens, the description of the measure that appears on the ballot becomes all-important. In California, the ballot summary is written by the attorney general and currently that is Democrat Xavier Becerra, who uses the role to advance his own political ideology. 

The first sentence of Prop. 20 ballot summary reads "Restricts parole for certain offenses currently considered to be non-violent." To say this twists the truth is an understatement. Who considers assault with a deadly weapon, felony domestic violence or setting off a bomb to be non-violent? 

A much better, and impartial, sentence would be "Changes classification of certain crimes from 'non-violent' to violent.'"

The second sentence of the ballot summary reads: "Authorizes felony sentences for certain offenses currently treated only as misdemeanors." The vagueness of this is astonishing. Given no details and no context, voters could hardly be blamed for reading this and questioning why felony sentences would apply to any misdemeanor.

A much-better, and fairer, sentence would be: "Creates new felony crime of serial theft for three or more convictions of stealing items of at least $250 in value."

The third sentence of the ballot summary says: "Limits access to parole program established for non-violent offenders who have completed the full term of their primary offense by eliminating eligibility for certain offenses."

Again, this is hugely misleading, suggesting the bill only relates to non-violent criminals and deliberately obscuring the fact that violent offenders are being released early from prison.

A better sentence would be, "Bars those convicted of offenses reclassified as violent from program for early prison release."

Dijon Kizzee's criminal case history

Here is the criminal case history of Dijon Kizzee, born Feb. 5, 1991, according to records in Los Angeles County and Kern County superior courts:

Oct. 18, 2011 (Los Angeles County): Kizzee is charged with six crimes stemming from a Sept. 21 arrest. On June 22, 2012, he pleads no contest to selling or transporting methamphetamine for sale and to resisting an officer. He is sentenced to four years and 40 days in county jail, 40 days of community labor and five years of probation.

The other charges are dismissed — possession of methamphetamine for sale, possession of marijuana for sale, making criminal threats, and driving without a license. 

March 28, 2012 (L.A.): He is charged with domestic violence and false imprisonment stemming from an arrest on March 22.  On June 22, both charges are dismissed.

Jan. 20, 2016 (L.A.): He is charged with "reckless evading of a peace officer" and being a felon in possession of a firearm stemming from an incident four days earlier. He pleads no contest to both and is sentenced to 16 months in state prison.

Jan. 21, 2016 (L.A.): Kizzee is charged with two traffic code violations stemming from a incident on Sept. 23, 2015. He pleads no contest on Jan. 28 to driving while under the influence of drugs, while a charge of driving without a license is dismissed. He is sentenced to 13 days in Los Angeles County jail, fined $390 and ordered to complete an alcohol counseling program.

Jan 16, 2018 (L.A.): A criminal case is filed against Kizzee in the Antelope Valley courthouse of the Los Angeles Superior Court system. The case lists a "violation date" of Oct. 14, 2017, but the online court listing does not show what Kizzee was charged with, nor the outcome. The last event shown for the case is a pre-trial hearing held May 30, 2018

March 12, 2018 (L.A.): Kizzee is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm stemming from a Jan. 3 arrest. He pleads no contest and is sentenced on July 20, 2018, to 28 months in prison. 

May 24, 2018 (L.A.): He is charged with felony domestic violence stemming from a March 23 arrest. He pleads no contest on Aug. 7 and is sentenced to 180 days in Los Angeles County Jail.

July 10, 2018 (L.A.): Kizzee is charged with three violations of the vehicle code date from a May 30 incident. He pleads no contest on Aug. 7 to leaving the scene of accident involving property damage only (no one was injured), Charges of driving with a suspended license and driving a vehicle without an ignition interlock device while having restricted license after a DUI were dismissed.

He is sentenced to 37 days in Los Angeles County Jail.

Nov. 8, 2019 (Kern): He is arrested and charged with 11 crimes. On Jan. 22, 2020, he pleads no contest to three of them -- transporting an illegal drug, driving while drunk, and driving with a suspended license.  He is sentenced to two years in jail.

The other charges are dismissed — possession of an illegal drug for sale (two charges), a second charge of transporting an illegal drug, another DUI charge, a restricted driver operating a vehicle without an interlock device, possessing an open container of alcohol while driving, no proof of insurance, and possessing an open container of marijuana while driving. 

Jan. 9, 2020 (Kern County): Kizzee is arrested and charged with driving without a license. The charge is dismissed on Jan. 22.

Jan. 13, 2020 (Kern): Kizzee is arrested and charged with "violation of post release supervision." He pleads guilty two days later and is fined $300.

June 18, 2020 (Kern): Kizzee is charged in Los Angeles Superior Court with possession of illegal drugs while in a state prison facility and battery of a peace officer stemming from an incident two days earlier. He pleads not guilty to both charges, which are still pending at the time of his death.

June 24, 2020 (Kern): He is charged with "violation of post release supervision." Court records show no further action in this case.

Aug. 31, 2020: Dijon Kizzee is shot to death by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies. He was 29.

Summary: In his adult life, Dijon Kizzee was convicted of 12 crimes and sentenced to a total of 10 years, seven months and 20 days in jail or prison. 

Book review: "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee (1st half)

Normally, I wait to finish a book before I do a review. But I'm midway through "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee, a book that is both long and densely packed with information, and if I wait until the end to write my review, I'll have forgotten everything I wanted to say about the first half. 

So, I'll review the first 235 pages now, the rest later.

I had feared this would be dry science book, but "The Gene" is impressively readable, largely because Mukherjee focuses on the people at each stage of the story. He engages us in the lives of scientists, researchers and theorists struggling and competing to understand the secrets of heredity and genetics.

That said, this 2016 book is a slow read.  This is partly because Mukherjee fills each page — each sentence, really — with important details. I don't want to rush through and miss something.

Mukherjee builds the book in steps, starting with a section on  primitive ideas about genetics (some people once thought that an entire miniature human was inside every sperm), moving to Charles Darwin's breakthrough model of evolution, then to Gregor Mendel's landmark research on heredity. From there we see scientists developing the first models the gene.

It isn't all about the triumph of science. Mukherjee outlines the disturbing growth of the eugenics movement, which  resulted in horrific practices by the Nazis and others,.

The author notes that DNA was considered a "stupid molecule" with a little value until the 1940s, when, by process of elimination, scientists realized that it was where genes were stored. He then describes the race by James Watson, Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin to determine the structure of DNA, an intense competition that ended with the discovery of the double helix.

At each step, news issues and mysteries arose. Research on DNA soon led to ethical and moral questions about the potential to alter genes and transfer them between species.

Mukherjee describes a point in 1973 where scientists in a California lab quietly took the first step to mix genetic material between two organisms. "The birth of a new world was announced with no more noise than the mechanical tick-tick-tick of a bacterial incubator rocking through the night."

While I give Mukherjee much credit for making a daunting topic readable, the lack of continuing characters keeps the book from being compelling. You can get engaged with characters of the moment, but they will be gone in a chapter or two. Each section stands on its own. 

I also have a couple small quibbles. First, Mukherjee tries to frame the whole story by periodically describing the mental health issues of members of his own extended family. Frankly, it just doesn't work; there's not enough connection. Still, these sections are short and you can easily skip them.

I also wish the author would do more to describe the literal work of the scientists. He writes about "splicing," "splitting," and even "snapping" proteins and genes, but as a layman, I'd like to know, in real terms, how is that actually done? 

"Shocking" interpretation of Holocaust survey is misleading

 You may have seen the alarming headlines recently:

"Almost two-thirds of millennials, Gen Z don't know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, survey finds" (USA Today)

"Survey finds 'shocking' lack of Holocaust knowledge among millennials and Gen Z" (NBC News)

"Nearly two-thirds of US young adults unaware 6m Jews killed in the Holocaust" (The Guardian)

The suggestion that two-thirds of young Americans are "unaware" of the Holocaust would be shocking — if it were true. But a closer look at the survey results shows these reports to be extremely misleading and, in some ways, flat inaccurate.

The survey, sponsored by the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany, asked 1,000 Americans ages 18 to 39 a series of questions about the Holocaust. In announcing the survey results, the organization not only described them as "shocking," but also as "disturbing" (four times) and "disquieting."

But an examination of the actual survey questions and responses shows a much more nuanced picture than the alarmist adjectives suggest.

Let's start with the sponsors' main assertion: "63 percent of all national survey respondents do not know that six million Jews were murdered." 

The study asked "Approximately how many Jews were killed during the Holocaust?" and gave six possible numerical answers, from 25,000 to 20 million, to choose from. Thirty-seven percent said "6 million," an estimate that most historians agree is close to accurate. Another 17% said "Don't know," while the rest gave other numerical answers.

Just because most respondents didn't say "6 million" hardly means they are unaware of the Holocaust or dismiss its importance. They just didn't have that particular number memorized.  If you asked any group how many people died in the Vietnam War, or the Civil War, or 9/11, you'd get a bunch of answers all over the board, most of them wrong. Still, nearly everyone would acknowledge that those were hugely important events. 

Not only is it misleading to say that 63% don't know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.  , the survey itself shows it to be untrue. A total of 37% of respondents said 6 million died, and another 10% said 20 million died. Put those together and you find that 47% said that at least 6 million people died in the Holocaust. It was 53%, not two-thirds, of respondents who gave answers lower than 6 million or said "Don't know."

A separate question on the survey shows 8% of respondents were "not sure" the Holocaust happened and 3% consider it a myth. While those two numbers can certainly be disturbing, the results show that 89% of respondents are aware of the Holocaust and don't doubt that it happened, far more than the one-third suggested by the study sponsors. 

It's troubling how so many news outlets blindly accepted the interpretation of the results from its sponsor,  the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany. In judging the credibility of any study, one of the first things to look at is: Who paid for it and what is their agenda?

A study that says meat is great for you wouldn't get much traction if it was funded by the cattle industry. A survey that concluded people oppose gun control would be laughed at if it was paid for by the National Rifle Associaton.

The Conference on Material Claims Against Germany is an organization that continues to seek financial compensation from Germany for survivors of the Holocaust. It is in the group's interest to maintain a high level of public outrage over Holocaust. Alarmist announcements, even if not supported by the facts, serve this purpose. 

Some of the group's recent survey headlines have been:

• "Stunning Survey of French Adults Reveals Critical Gaps in Holocaust Knowledge"
• "New Survey by the Claims Conference Finds Critical Gaps in Holocaust Knowledge in Austria"
• "New Survey by Claims Conference Finds Significant Lack of Holocaust Knowledge in the United States"

When a group has such a clear agenda, journalists need to approach with caution.

Book review: "Brainiac" by Ken Jennings

It's just not fair. Not only did Ken Jennings win 74 straight games on "Jeopardy," bringing home millions of dollars from those shows and subsequent tournaments, but in his 2006 book "Brainiac," he proves to be a deft writer and a darn capable reporter. Sure, you want to hate him, but the self-effacing tone of the book reinforces what he's shown on TV: He's a really likable guy.

Like I said, It's just not fair. 

In "Brainiac," Jennings weaves together two storylines. In one, he gives the back story on his record-breaking 2004 run on "Jeopardy," taking us from his initial tryout all the way through to his defeat in game number 75. I'm a big "Jeopardy" fan, so I found this behind-the-scenes view fascinating.

One of the biggest challenges Jennings faced during his run was keeping it a secret. He was contractually forbidden from telling anyone the results of his shows — which didn't air for months after the tapings — so he had to invent excuses to explain his frequent absences from work and didn't tell his dad why he kept borrowing suits. 

"I start to feel a little like Clark Kent at the Daily Planet, keeping up bland appearances to all his friends, who of course have no idea about bullet-stopping adventures in his double life," he writes.

Intertwined with Jennings' personal "Jeopardy" story is a parallel look at, as the book's subtitle says, the "Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs." I can't say I liked this second storyline as much as the first, but it's still pretty good. 

Jennings delves deep into the history of trivia, and traces the development of general knowledge quizzes back to an 1830 book called "A Million of Facts." He described the emergence of quiz shows in the 20th century, first on radio, and then TV. He wonders whether trivia contests measure intelligence or only offer "the illusion of real intellectual mastery."

Jennings proves to be a solid writer, but what impressed me more is that he was willing to put on a journalist's hat and buzz around the country talking to people who have made trivia a big part of their lives. He visits a college quiz bowl team in Minnesota, a freelance trivia writer in California, a college student in Louisiana who talks about gender imbalance in trivia competitions, and the "World's Largest Trivia Contest" in Wisconsin. He's not above having some fun along the way: In Massachusetts, he puts on a modest disguise and helps a bar trivia team win a match.

The research brings him something of an epiphany: "It's rewarding to know a lot of great facts, but that knowledge is almost pointless if those facts don't help you get to know a lot of great people as well."

Many might think of Ken Jennings as the ultimate nerd, but when you see some of the people he interviews —  people whose bookshelves groan under the weight of binders and folders filled with obscure bits of information — you realize there's a whole another world out there. 

Helping make the book fun is that Jennings plants 10 trivia questions cleverly in the text of each chapter. As a little bonus, he sneaks in an interesting note at the very back of the book that describes the font used in the book. 

In the end, Jennings comes away with a renewed belief that trivia can be a valuable educational building block.

"Trivia can serve as a gateway drug to more substantive learning," he writes. "Life is full of subjects too intimidating to dive into headlong, from quantum physics to Russian cinema. But trivia can provide an easy, intriguing introduction to any topic you feared might bore you silly."

Book review: "Just the Right Size" by Nicola Davies

"Just the Right Size" is an enjoyable and educational 58-page book that helps explain, according to the subtitle, "Why Big Animals Are Big and Little Animals Are Little."

Nicola Davies' book is aimed at kids but I'm sure that plenty of adults like me can learn something. I certainly did. 

The book shows why the "superpowers" of tiny animals —  the rhinoceros beetle can lift 850 times its own weight, for instance —  can't simply be transferred to larger animals. It explains how larger animals have advantages in retaining heat and storing food for later use. It looks at clever animal adaptions such as fish gills, which pack oxygen-grabbing folds of skin into a tight space. 

Clever and fun graphics help accentuate points. The book even has index, which could prove helpful to anyone using this as a teaching tool. 

Book review: "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown

 Note: This review contains spoilers!

"The Da Vinci Code" is a book overflowing with plot twists, and nearly all of them are set up smartly to deliver maximum surprise ("Why didn't I see that coming?," I wondered more than once). But one of the plot twists — the biggest, in fact —  is a real head scratcher.

Near the end of the book, a character named Leigh Teabing, a wealthy religious scholar, suddenly turns against the two main characters in the book, Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu. He pulls out a gun and orders them to help him find the Holy Grail, which in this book is described as a treasure of relics and documents related to the founding of Christianity.

But here's the thing: Robert and Sophie had been helping Teabing on the hunt for the Holy Grail. The three of them had been working together. Much of the book followed them as they tracked down clues and solve riddles scattered across France and the United Kingdom. So what was the point of suddenly using a gun to order Robert and Sophie to do what they were already doing? It just doesn't make sense.

Sure, if Teabing wanted to keep the "treasure" to himself, he might turn on his companions — but only after they'd actually found the Holy Grail. 

There's a hint from author Dan Brown that Teabing was worried about the fact that his manservant, Remy, had been revealed to be a traitor. Maybe this would cause Robert and Sophie to suspect Teabing's motives, too? But that would be a weak justification for pulling the gun. Robert and Sophie, in fact, had no suspicions about Teabing, and he should have known that.   

It pains me to focus on this plot flaw, because the rest of "The Da Vinci Code" is a brilliantly conceived and elaborately designed story. Brown weaves layer upon layer into the plot, vividly embellishing a tale that sprouts from a single murder into an international scheme that somehow manages to involve Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, multiple popes, Francois Mitterand, the entire Catholic church and much more.

Puzzle lovers will love the story for the many coded clues that the characters must crack to keep the story moving forward. 

Brown outlines a centuries-old conspiracy by the Catholic Church to support the concept of a divine Jesus, while attempting to obliterate all evidence that he was simply human. Jesus was, in Brown's telling, married to Mary Magdalene and had children, and some of his offspring live among us today. The church, according to the author, has gone to extraordinary lengths to suppress this history, as it would undermine much of the foundation of the faith.

Brown, in the opening of the book, says that it is all true. I don't know if it is, but the way he tells it, it sure seems to make sense.

Still, "The Da Vinci Code" has a plausibility problem and it has nothing to do with Brown's elaborate conspiracy theory. The problem is that Brown wants us to believe that almost all the events in the book happen in less than half a day. In fact, about 80% of the action supposedly happens within about a five-and-half-hour period.

This includes the Paris police rousing Robert in the middle of the night, bringing him to the murder scene in the Louvre where he tries to help the police crack the extensive and puzzling clues left there. Sophie, a cryptologist, enters, adds more to the discussion, tells Robert his life is danger, then sneaks away and meets him the men's room for more discussion. They start to flee the museum, but then return to sneak around looking for more clues, are almost caught by police, but cleverly get away. Robert and Sophie flee in a taxi, try to reach the U.S. embassy but find it's blocked by police, go to a train station and buy fake tickets to throw off authorities, get back in the cab, drive out of town, then change directions. Then they hijack the cab after the driver gets suspicious, drive to a Swiss bank, crack a code to get inside a vault, sneak out of the bank, fight with a bank director who points a gun at them, take an armored car, then drive to Teabing's elaborate estate. 

There, they engage in long discussions about the history of the Holy Grail, which themselves would probably require two or three hours, then fight with an intruder named Silas and tie him up, flee the police by driving through the woods in the dark, go to a private airport, climb on board Teabing's private plane, and fly to England where the odyssey can continue. All, supposedly in just five and half hours. 

Give me a break. 

In all, there's a lot to like about this book. And two things not to like. 

Words With Friends 2: When bad things happen to good games

I have long enjoyed playing Scrabble, so when my friend Ulysses suggested I try the online game Words With Friends, I gave it a try. 

Logging into Facebook, I opened the game and connected with Ulysses to play. Though Words With Friends is not identical to Scrabble, it's pretty close and pretty fun. 

After a few months, I found a new WWF partner: Carolyn, a friend of my wife's. We played about three times before Carolyn suggested that we try Words With Friends 2.

I didn't even realize there was more than one way to play Words With Friends, but I was willing to give it a try. I downloaded the app, then started games with Carolyn and, soon after, two strangers. 

And ... I hated it.  Let me count the problems with WWF2.

1. The app interrupts periodically to tell you've earned 25 gold coins or some such. "You've met your daily goal" is one message, accompanied by more gold coins. Huh? Who cares? I just want to play.

2. After every play, an ad appears and you often can't close it for at least 30 seconds. These are usually particularly annoying ads with cartoon characters running back and forth on the screen. 

3. WWF2 allows players to swap tiles without losing a turn. This is an extraordinary departure from the rules of both Scrabble and the Facebook-based Words With Friends. The ethos of the game has always been that you play the tiles you get. If you're totally stuck, you can swap some of your tiles, but you lose your turn in the process. This new feature — called "Swap+" — completely undermines that. 

I tried "Swap+" a couple times in WWF2, but it felt like cheating. And then I realized it was even worse than that. While the game allowed me to use Swap+ it a couple times for free, it soon became clear that if you wanted to use it regularly you would have to pay for each use. In other words, players with money can buy a competitive advantage. Yuck.

4. WWF2 also has a feature called "Word Radar" that shows you on the board where you can play. Again, this feels like cheating. The challenge of the game is to find the best place to play on your own. And while I only tried Word Radar once, I see that continued use will —   sure enough — cost cash. Yuck II.

5. The board in WWF2 is 15 by 15, a total of 225 squares, almost twice that of the 11x11 (121 squares) board in Words With Friends. At first I thought this was exciting because it seemed to open the potential for a lot more play. But now, frankly, the games just go on too long. Words With Friends is a nice compact competition. WWF2, by comparison, seems like a marathon trudge.

6. In Words With Friends, when you play a tile that creates two invalid words (one vertical and one horizontal), it tells that both are wrong. That's helpful and you can move on to find correct words. WWF2, however, will only tell you one of the two words is wrong; only through more trial will you discover the other word is invalid too. This is a step backward.

7. In Words With Friends, if you want to move a tile back to your rack you just click on it. WWF2 requires you to drag it back. Again, this is a downgrade.

8. You can play Words With Friends on your phone or on a computer. But WWF2 can only be played on a phone. 

This is the last you'll hear me complaining about WWF2. Once I finished my three games — I won two and lost one — I deleted the app.

Book review: "Alone on the Ice" by David Roberts

Warning: This review has spoilers

In the field of great Antarctic explorers, the name Douglas Mawson is rarely mentioned alongside the much-heralded figures of Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton. But in "Alone on the Ice," author David Roberts makes a compelling case that it should be.

"Alone on the Ice" tells the story of the 1911-1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, an ambitious undertaking led by Mawson to reach into vast unexplored portions of the frozen continent. Seven different teams, each with three or four men, were sent out on separate journeys by foot and dogsled to explore areas never before seen by human eyes.

The dramatic heart of the story involves the three-man party led by Mawson himself, The men are 315 miles out from base when one man, Belgrave Ninnis, falls to his death in a crevasse, along the team's best dogs and a sledge filled with food and supplies. Mawson and his remaining teammate, Xavier Mertz, are suddenly left in a desperate situation with insufficient food and no tent. 

The two men head for base, but Mertz dies of hunger and exposure, leaving Mawson to slog the last 150 miles alone. The subtitle of the book calls it "The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration," a phrase used by Mt. Everest conquerer Sir Edmund Hillary to describe Mawson's journey home.

At one point, the solitary Mawson, already weakened by hunger and freezing temperatures, falls into a crevasse. His sledge catches him, leaving him dangling by a rope 14 feet down an icy hole.  Fortuitously, he had earlier tied knots at intervals in the rope, giving him something to grip on his slow, agonizing climb up.  Just as he reaches the surface, the snow at the lip of the opening gave out and he fell in again. 

It is a compelling story, but still only one part of the expedition that is well-told in this 2013 book. Roberts touches on all aspects of the venture to various depths, relying on the men's diaries and other historical accounts to produce a remarkably complete tale. I particularly liked how he gradually introduced the many characters, allowing the reader time to learn each man's personality one a time. 

Roberts also smartly gives the story historical context. The second chapter tells the story of an earlier expedition, in 1908-09, in which Mawson and two companions attempted to reach the magnetic South Pole. Much like the later trip, this one turned into a desperate race for survival and was nearly every bit as much of a page-turner.

I previously read Roberts' 2011 book "Finding Everett Ruess," and enjoyed it. But "Alone on the Ice" is a much better story

The weak points in the book come near the end and the beginning.  In the first chapter, in which Roberts tells the first part of the Mawson-Ninnis-Mertz trek, the story is slowed by overly detailed descriptions of similar days. I skimmed through parts.

Similarly, Roberts goes on too long in the last chapter (before the epilogue), recounting the team's final overwintering at its base camp. The only notable part of this final winter is that one of the team members goes essentially insane. This is notable to be sure, but Roberts offers an excessive number of examples to make the point. 

One the more intriguing questions offered up by this book is the assertion of the subtitle, that it is "The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration." Mawson's desperate trek, first with Mertz, and then alone, is certainly an amazing accomplishment. But to call it the "greatest" invites comparisons with other stories that also have compelling cases.

This could be a great bar argument. Is it a greater story than the Antarctic odyssey of Shackleton and his men in 1915-16? How about the six men in the book "The Long Walk" who trekked 4,000 across Asia deserts and mountains after escaping a Soviet prison camp? Or what about the amazing stories described in "Miracle in the Andes," "In the Heart of the Sea," "Skeletons on the Zahara," or "Unbroken"?

I could go on with more examples. For now, I'm comfortable with calling Mawson's trek one of the greatest survival stories.

Book review: "You Can Date Boys When You're Forty" by Dave Barry

Dave Barry has written books on home repair, Jews, the U.S. government, money, traveling in Japan, the quirky state of Florida, men, and "Marriage and/or Sex." And each one is hilarious.

But he's never before written a book taking a sober and intimate look at quantum mechanics.

And he still hasn't.


Until he does, we'll have to be content with Dave Barry books like "You Can Date Boys When You're Forty," which I just finished reading.

The subtitle on this book is "Dave Barry on Parenting and Other Topics He Knows Very Little About," but don't let that deceive you. As Barry acknowledges at the outset, his editors just wanted some catchy title. Yes, part of the book is about parenting, but it also covers a lot more.

With all his usual wit, sarcasm and self-deprecation, Barry describes attending a Justin Bieber concert, lists "Things a Man Should Know How to Do," analyzes the plot of "Fifty Shades of Grey," outlines the program for his own funeral, deconstructs the rules of grammar and much more.

Dave Barry fans will not be disappointed -- except by one part. Late in the book, Barry describes his family's trip to Israel, and  the first half of this chapter isn't very funny. 

Not only is this section lacking in the humor department, Barry get's a little preachy. At one point, noting the presence of armed soldiers everywhere in Israel, he says, "It's a reminder that Israel has to always be ready. Always."

 It's as if the Mossad feared that this American humorist would say something offensive about Israel and managed to replace him with a less-funny look-alike for this chapter.  If that's what  happened, though, Dave Barry must have wiggled out of his bonds and escaped his captors midway through the section, because by the end he's back to himself, making pointed fun of Middle East leaders, American tourists and Roman latrines.

Book review: "Real Boys" by William Pollack

I didn't read all of "Real Boys," a 1998 book by William Pollack; I quit after about 110 pages because the book was awfully repetitive. The author kept making the same points over and over and over. A lot of it was redundant. And repetitive.

I think you get my point.

That is not to say there's nothing in this book that's worthwhile. Pollack's main theme is that boys are more vulnerable and sensitive than we realize, and we need to find ways to reach them. In Pollack's view, today's parents are doing it all wrong.

To connect with boys, Pollack recommends:

• At least once a day, give your boy your undivided attention
• Encourage your boy to express a full range of emotions
• When a boy expresses vulnerable feelings, avoid teasing or taunting him
• Avoid shaming language (e.g. "What happened?" is better than "How could you do that?")
• Look behind a boy's anger to find out how he needs help
• Express your love and empathy openly and generously

There you go, I just saved you from reading 400 pages.

It's hard to argue with a message to be more caring and loving, but sometimes Pollack goes too far. At one point, he says, "You simply can't give your boy too much positive reinforcement."

Really? I was just reading a different book that said you absolutely can give too much positive reinforcement. It's not too hard to come up with examples of over-praise. Would Pollack support this?: "Hey son, way to go spending all day long in your darkened room playing misogynist video games. I'm proud of you!"

Book review: "Hillbilly Elegy"

J.D. Vance makes it quite clear that he comes from a long line of lunatics.

One great-uncle, after being called a "son of a bitch" by a delivery driver, beat the man senseless and cut him up with an electric saw (the driver lived, though it was close). Another uncle, taking an umbrage at a remark aimed at his sister, forced a man to eat a pair of girls underwear. At gunpoint.

Vance's grandmother, who he called Mamaw, once was so fed up with her husband's drinking that she poured gasoline on him and lit him on fire (he survived). Mamaw (pronounced "Ma'am-aw") commonly backed up her bad temper with a loaded gun in her hand.

"Mamaw came from a family that would shoot at you rather than argue with you," Vance writes in his 2016 book "Hillbilly Elegy."

But it was this same extended family who rescued Vance from a turbulent childhood. His father abandoned him early on, and his mother wrestled with depression and drug addiction. It seemed that Vance, like so many other children of Appalachia, would be trapped in the poverty of the southern Ohio town he grew up in.

But thanks largely to Mamaw -- as well as his grandfather and older sister -- Vance not only persevered but excelled. After high school, he spent four years in the Marines, then graduated from Ohio State University and, eventually, Yale Law School.

"Thinking about it now, about how close I was to the abyss, gives me chills. I am one lucky son of a bitch," Vance writes.

It seems a bit premature to write a memoir when you're only in your mid-30s, but I'm glad Vance did. "Hillbilly Elegy" is a fascinating story of an unconventional upbringing and a remarkable example of human perseverance.

If you liked "The Glass Castle," by Jeannette Walls and "Educated" by Tara Westover, you'll like "Hillbilly Elegy."  In each, the author shows amazing resilience amid a dysfunctional environment that most of us would have trouble imagining.

At one point, for instance, Vance recalls what he learned from his Mom and a stepfather (one of many he had) in "marital conflict resolution":

Here were the takeaways: Never speak at a reasonable volume when screaming will do; if the fight gets a little too intense, it's okay to slap and punch, so long as the man doesn't hit first; always express your feelings in a way that's insulting and hurtful to your partner; if all else fails, take the kids and the dog to a local motel, and don't tell your spouse where to find you.

The book is not perfect. The story occasionally clunks to a halt when Vance suddenly shifts from compelling memoir to stuffy op-ed, citing academic studies or dry statistics to illustrate the problems of Appalachia. A chapter on how the closing of Midwest factories has devastated small towns might have been a revealing read — in 1992.

I also wish Vance had included more on his stint in the Marines. He went to Iraq, but barely says anything about it.

Even with those flaws, the book is worth a read. While Vance did make it out of a difficult atmosphere, there are scores more young people who's hopes and dreams are crused by poverty, dysfunctional families and drug use.  He emphasizes that the solutions must come from within those communities.

He concludes: "We hillbillies must wake the hell up."

Book review: "Risk!" by Kevin Allison

I'm not a good poolside reader. Many a time when I go to a pool with family or friends, I bring along a book or a magazine, thinking I'll read while relaxing on a chaise lounge.

But it never works out that way. I might glance at a page or two of my reading material, but it never holds my interest. Instead, I swim, chat, eat, play games or snooze in the sun.  The book or magazine comes home with me, barely touched.

I tell you this to point out how unusual my experience was while on a family trip to Arizona. We stayed in two places, each with a pool. And the book I brought to the pool was "Risk!," a 2018 collection of personal stories based on a podcast of the same name.

After a swim in our hotel's pool, I sat down nearby and decided to start the book, To my amazement, once I started, I kept going, page after page, chapter after chapter. I was utterly engaged.

Each day we went to the pool, the same thing happened. By the time the vacation was over, I had covered over 200 pages in the book.

The stories in "Risk!" are all tales of personal trauma or turmoil. They're told genuinely from the heart, and you can't help but be hooked.

In one story, for instance, writer A.J. Jacobs describes the disturbing exchanges he had with men while posing on online dating sites (with consent) as his kids' gorgeous female babysitter. In another, Lili Taylor recalls the time her mentally ill father challenged her 15-year-old brother to a knife fight.

There are stories of rape, suicide, murder, family conflict, and relationships gone terribly wrong. Sex is a big topic, including kinky encounters with graphic descriptions. Gay sex is addressed more than straight. Three of the stories wrestle with the difficulties of being transgender.

Typically, collections of stories suffer from a disappointing lack of consistency. There might be some winners, but there are losers, too. But in "Risk!," all the stories are engaging. Impressively, almost none of them go on too long. The author tells the story and stops.

While all the stories are worth reading, If I could only pick a handful of stories to recommend, it would be these:

• "Dressing the Wound." A cop recalls being called to help out a young man who had been stabbed in the neck and the surprising events that followed.
• "Another Saturday Night." A transgender hooker describes being kidnapped.
• "Slave." A woman lives out a domination-submissive sexual fantasy that goes too far.
• "Chasing the Sunset." A husband describes the death of his wife shortly after giving birth to their fourth child. 

Encouraged by the book, I decided to check out the "Risk!" podcast. I downloaded an episode and started listening. The host listed four or five storytellers that would be featured. Cool — I was eager for some good stories like the ones in the book.

Then the host started talking, first about the show's financial problems, then asking for donations, then discussing how amazing it was that this was the show's 500th episode. Soon, I realized I was 4 minutes into the show and we still hadn't started a story. He kept talking, rambling disjointedly into any topic that popped into his head.. Six minutes, eight, then 10. At 11 minutes he was still talking and I gave up.

I can't recommend the podcast, but i do recommend the book.

Road to a Covid test in Long Beach is filled with potholes

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the City of Long Beach, California, set up five drive-through testing sites across the city. 

In May, Mayor Robert Garcia gushed about the importance of the sites: “Having a robust testing capacity is crucial to keeping people safe and gradually reopening the Long Beach economy,” he said.

But when my son and I attempted to actually get a test at one of the Long Beach sites, we found the process so frustrating that we nearly gave up.

My son needed a Covid-19 test before starting his summer job as a camp counselor. The city encouraged people wanting a test to make an appointment, but on my first try there were zero time slots available. That was partly because the scheduling only seemed to allow appointments about a week ahead of time. 

I had better luck on my second try, a few days later. I was able to schedule an appointment on June 27 at 3:30 p.m. at Jordan High School. I received a confirmation email with a reservation number. 

The day before the appointment, we received a voicemail saying our tests had been moved to Veterans Stadium, at the same time. This was good, because the site was closer to us.

When we arrived at Veterans Stadium the next day, about 3:15, the parking lot was dotted with orange cones marking driving lanes and a few pop-up tents. But something was amiss: There were no people there and the gate was locked.

We did see six other occupied cars lined up at the gate and took our place in line. We were confused, but hopeful that somebody would show up soon to do tests.

After about 10 minutes, a man drove up and told all of us that our tests had been moved to a different site, the Long Beach Community College campus on Pacific Coast Highway. We headed off and arrived at the other site in about 10 minutes.

But the scene there was disturbingly reminiscent of the one at Veterans Stadium: Lines of traffic cones and a few tents, but no people. We saw a security guard and asked where the testers were.

"They closed up at 2 o'clock," he said.

Frustrated, we wondered if this test -- even though free -- was worth the trouble.

Still, we returned the Long Beach City College site the next morning, encountering a long line of cars snaking through the lot. I'd estimate there were about 80 cars there.

When we pulled in at about 9:45 a.m., a woman worker asked if we had an appointment and I told her, "Yes — yesterday. But there was no one here." This puzzled her, but after we explained, she directed us into a line.

We sat still for about a half hour, then our line started to move and at about 10:25, we got to the check-in station. I showed the woman there our appointment confirmation number and she was confused, and sought help. Soon a man arrived and tried to tell us we had to go to Jordan High. I explained what had happened, and he said they would have to enter my son's info "manually."

To be clear, all the workers there were super nice and did their best to help us. Still, I was surprised they had no way to access my son's information, which I'd entered online.

So we had to pull out of line, and a different man wrote down my son's information. This delayed us about 10 minutes.

Then we pulled ahead to the testing station. A woman came to our window and gave my son a testing kit. This revealed another confusing part of the process. Our email confirmation had included a link to a video showing how to do the test. It instructed you to rub the test swab inside both cheeks, inside the bottom and top of your lips, underneath and the top of your tongue, and finally, the roof of your mouth.

But the woman at the site instructed my son differently: He was to put the swab up his nose as deep as he could without pain, and rub it around for 10 seconds in each nostril. So that's what he did.

He described it as very uncomfortable —  his eyes watered — but not painful. Then he placed the swab in a test vial as instructed, place the cap on, and returned it to the woman.  We were done about 10:40, slightly less than an hour after arriving.

Now we wait for the results, which are supposed to arrive in about 72 hours.

Book review: "In the Wake of Madness" by Joan Druett

It says a lot about the job options available to young American men in the first half of the 19th century that so many of them opted to work on a whaling ship. Sure, you would get to travel the world and visit idyllic South Seas islands, but, as Joan Druett illustrates in "In the Wake of Madness" it would have been a grim career path, and possibly a hellish one.

In this 2003 book, Druett tells the story of the whaleship Sharon, and its seemingly cursed voyage of 1841 to 1845. Two men were brutally murdered on the trip, while other men died in accidents. The captain harshly put down an attempted mutiny, and most of the crew eventually deserted the ship at various ports of call.

Sound like a downer? Far from it: It is a fascinating story of life on a whaleship and the varied men — some brave, some cowardly, some cruel — that inhabited it.

While "In the Wake of Madness" revolves around the two murders, that's not the key to its compelling story. After all, if you're interested in homicide, there are countless true crime books to choose from. What sets Druett's book apart is that she places you on the whaleboat, amid the salty air, the dank smells of the cramped cabins, the sweat and blood of the men who lived and worked together without break.

Druett does this even while acknowledging that her primary sources are flawed and fragmented.  She relied on the diaries of sailors as key sources of information, but at times they were are cryptic or mute. To fill in the spaces, she pulls from documents from other whaleships, news reports of the time, and accounts from authors like Herman Melville.

Druett makes it clear that while the trip of Sharon was particularly snakebitten, the work on any whaleship was often miserable and conflict-ridden. I suppose that's not too surprising when you have men living in close contact for years, never getting a full night's sleep (they swapped shifts every four hours around the clock), and pushed to the brink in extreme conditions.

No one asked me, but I've got to wonder how much trouble could have been avoided if the owners of the Sharon and the other whaleships would have put more time into selecting and training their men before the voyage even began. As Druett describes it, it was common at the time to take virtually any man with a pulse on board, regardless of whether he had any experience at sea or any skills at all.

So suddenly you're deep into a three- or four-year voyage and you realize that your crew is unqualified and possibly unwilling. It's also possible, as with the Sharon, that the captain himself was not up to the task.

One of the biggest problems on the Sharon was that the harpooners repeatedly missed the whale or threw so weakly the implement easily fell out of the target. Here's an idea: Hire better harpooners, or train them before you leave home. It might cost you a bit more upfront but it would have greatly increased the success of the journey and your ship would return more quickly with a full load of whale oil.

If you like this book, I would recommend,  "In the Heart of the Sea" by Nathaniel Philbrick, another story of a whaleboat trip that went very wrong.

Book review: "After Further Review" by Mike Pereira

There are a lot of things wrong with the book "After Further Review" — it's poorly organized and the writing is amateurish, just to name a couple. Still, I really liked it.

"After Further Review" is the autobiography (mostly) of former National Football League reffing czar Mike Pereira, a man many know from his appearances as the rules expert on Fox NFL broadcasts. I'm almost the perfect target market for this book because I have a lot of interest in both football and refereeing.

Pereira brings us inside the tent of a couple notably closed worlds — the NFL and the reffing community. He tells stories of good refs and bad ones, of difficult times in his personal life, and of off-the-field battles he had with various NFL executives and coaches. Wonderfully, he's not afraid to name names.

The book succeeds largely because Pereira comes off as a likeable guy with a lot of good stories to tell. Many of these are the kind of tales a guy would tell in the bar — rough and unpolished, but told with conviction.

He recalls  a crucial call — plus a missed non-call — he made in a 1998 playoff game. He describes fighting to get replay review made a permanent part of the NFL. And he tells of fighting cancer not just once, but twice.

Still, if you don't love the subject so much, the flaws of the book may drive you crazy. First, the book is maddeningly disorganized. The first quarter of the book starts straightforwardly enough as Pereira tells the story of his boyhood and early adult life, his mind focused on his ultimate goal: Joining the NFL.

But at this point — just when you're eager to hear about his first years in the league — Pereira abandons the chronological format and starts jumping all over place. Jarringly, he throws in a chapter on how much referees are paid. I actually enjoyed it, but it is completely out of place.  The same can be said about another chapter in which he analyzes key referee decisions from the NFL's past (of which he had no part).

I guess Pereira and his co-writer Rick Jaffe must have had some method to this madness, but the constant back and forth in time is confusing. A chronological approach would have been better. For example, instead of separating Pereira's battles for rule changes and his experience fighting cancer into separate chapters, putting them in context with each other would have given us a more well-rounded picture.

It's a little hard to believe that Pereira had a co-writer on this because the book it is written like Pereira dictated it all over several nights while holding a vodka tonic. Phrases like "So you can guess what happened next," "You should have heard the response," and "I fell for it, hook, line and sinker" give you some idea of the casualness of the writing.

For all the interesting stories Pereira has to tell, he sometimes skips away just when things are getting intriguing. Early in the book, for example, he says that when he first reffed football (a kids game) he realized, "I had found my passion." What was it about the experience that excited him? He doesn't explain.

Later, when he was supervising officials in the Western Athletic Conference he describes catching a bunch of referees cheating on their annual rules test. This would seem to be a big deal, but he laughs it off with a chuckle and moves on.

Those are forgivable flaws, though. If you like football — and especially if you like football and refereeing — you will find "After Further Review" an enjoyable read.

Book review: "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain

It's always exciting to come upon the work of a promising young author. Case in point: The novel "Tom Sawyer," by a Missouri-based writer named Mark Twain, which I just finished reading. While Twain wrote one previous novel with a co-author, "Tom Sawyer" is his first as sole author.

"Tom Sawyer" is a nostalgia-tinted tale of a mischievous boy — about 12 or 13, though Twain never specifies — living in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri. Tom, the main character, is a too-smart-for-his-own-good kid who can trick his friends into doing his chores, sweet talk the girls, and lead his buddies on days-long adventures as imaginary pirates and robbers.

The book braids several storylines together — Tom witnesses a murder, he pursues the winsome  Becky Thatcher, he and Huckleberry Finn go looking for buried treasure — and eventually it all comes together for an engaging finish.

Twain makes it clear in the preface that "Tom Sawyer" is based in fact:

"Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine."

While the stories are fun, the writing is imperfect. For starters, Twain primarily tells the story from the "limited" third-person perspective — that is, from the point of view of Tom Sawyer. But, jarringly, he sometimes switches to the omniscient third person. In fact, one crucial section is told entirely from the point of view of Huck Finn.

My second criticism, I admit, is not very fair to Twain. But to read this book, published in 1872, in the twenty-first century is to encounter some antiquated vocabulary and colloquialisms that no longer are familiar. I'm not sure what Huck Finn meant when he said Robin Hood "must a ben a brick," for example, and there are several uses of the old word "stile," a term I was not familiar with.

It's too bad, because Twain also showsa great talent for colloquial dialogue, especially in the frequent rat-a-tat exchanges among adolescents. Here's one good section that starts with a question from Huck Finn.

"What does pirates have to do?"

Tom said:

"Oh, they have just a bully time -- take ships and burn them, and get the money and bury it in awful places in their island where there's ghosts and things to watch it, and kill everybody in the ships -- make 'em walk a plank."

"And they carry the women to the island," said Joe; "they don't kill the women."

"No," assented Tom, "they don't kill the women -- they're too noble. And the women's always beautiful, too."

"And don't they wear the bulliest clothes! Oh no! All gold and silver and di'monds," said Joe, with enthusiasm.

"Who?" said Huck.

"Why, the pirates."

Huck scanned his own clothing forlornly.

"I reckon I ain't dressed fitten for a pirate," said he, with a regretful pathos in his voice; "but I ain't got none but these."

It is, despite it's occasional flaws, an enjoyable read. I can't wait to see what Mr. Twain will produce next.

Book review: "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau

I tried to finish "Walden," I really did. I made it all the way to page 368, prodding myself to keep going, reading a little, skimming a little. But even after many days of this I had another 140 pages to go and I realized I couldn't take more of this masochism.

Yes, I know that "Walden," first published in 1854, is considered a classic by many.

Some people revere the book, which is partly based on the two years Henry David Thoreau lived alone in a  cabin by Walden Pond outside Boston. Thoreau's philosophy of rejecting frivolous trappings of modern life and returning to a spartan life close to nature strikes home with many people.

"Simplify, simplify, simplify," Thoreau famously says. At another point, he commands, "Live free and uncommitted."  And he notes:  "There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still."

But for every nugget of wisdom Thoreau offers up, there are a dozen other sentences that go off the rails. They start intriguingly and you wonder where he's going, then the sentence twists and bends and soon becomes so tangled as to be indecipherable.

One of his sentences -- I'm not making this up -- clocks in at 248 words. At another point he throws in a 173-word sentence about pine groves. immediately followed by a 194-word sentence. Were there no editors in the 19th century? I love a good puzzle, but no amount of reverse engineering can make sense of some of the writing.

Thoreau can write lyrically, even beautifully, but he doesn't know when to stop. At one point, for example, he describes the glassy surface of Walden Pond like this, "When you invert your head, it looks like the finest gossamer stretched across the valley, and gleaming against the distant pine woods, separating one stratum of the atmosphere from another." Nice, right? Yes, except Thoreau keeps restating the same point -- the pond is smooth as glass -- for six more pages.

Thoreau lectures readers on the failings of their lives ("Men live lives of quiet desperation"), while exhibiting exceptional arrogance. "I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and have yet to hear the first syllable or even earnest advice from my seniors."

"Walden" has no real story, no compelling direction, and the chapters are arranged in no particular order.

Then there are the contradictions. At one point Thoreau says, "I dearly love to talk," but later he says "I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude." Just eight pages later he says, "I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way."  Yet, throughout the book he ridicules most people as shallow and shortsighted.

I understand that Thoreau's philosophy strikes a nerve. I think we all recognize ourselves, even today, when he says, "Our life is frittered away by detail." We think of our phones and other gadgets when he says, "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys which distract our attention from serious things."

And I'm sure many readers like that Thoreau encourages a lifestyle of working as little as possible.

But just when you start to think, "Hey, this guy Thoreau knows what he's talking about" he'll throw in a passage that makes you question his grasp of reality. Like this one:

"A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil."

Let's break that down. First, a man who brags that he barely works doesn't have time to shake out a mat? And second, a mat to wipe his feet is the beginning of evil? What would happen if -- gasp! -- someone offered him a towel?

Many people are fascinated by the idea of breaking free from the bonds of civilized society and living independently with few responsibilities or commitments. While few of us are willing to drop our jobs and leave behind our modern comforts, the idea that it might be possible to do so is an entrancing thought.

For those people, Thoreau is a shining light of possibility. But a small collection of Thoreau quotes will do you quite nicely; you don't need to read the whole book.

Book review: "The Flame Trees of Thika" by Elspeth Huxley

My family and I have many fond memories of our 2013 trip to Kenya. The people were friendly, the wild animals amazing, the country full of surprises.

Many of these memories came rushing back to me as I read "The Flame Trees of Thika," Elspeth Huxley's 1957 memoir of her life as a young girl growing up in what was then British East Africa, and is Kenya today.

Huxley's parents brought her from Britain to East Africa in 1913 as they sought, like many young Britons of the time, to seek their fortune farming in "unspoiled" lands. They were told the land was fertile and growing coffee would be easy.

 In fact, no part of the experience was easy -- a fact that helps make "The Flame Trees of Thika" so fascinating.

Much of the book deals with the relations between the white settlers and African tribes people who were often hired as laborers. There are some cringy parts in the way the white adults look down on the Africans. But Huxley isn't here to defend colonialism, just to describe the world as it was to a 6- to 9-year-old discovering life in a harsh land.

There are tales of dangerous leopards, snakes and one notable wounded buffalo. There is a murder investigation. There is the angst of a fellow settler caught in a love triangle. There is a boisterous New Year's Eve party that gets a little out of hand.

In all, it is an affectionate and gentle memoir, and an enjoyable read. Huxley does well drawing out the individual personalities of both black and white characters.

For me, the descriptions of the rolling grasslands, gnarled trees, rutted roads and the diverse wildlife  of Kenya brought back mental images of our 2013 visit. I was surprised how even minor details evoked memories.

For instance, at one point the author mentions how thrilled one of the black laborers was when Huxley's father gave him a watch as a gift. That reminded me -- I had forgotten -- that during our visit two or three Kenyans had separately offered to trade goods for my watch. Later, Huxley mentioned sleeping under a mosquito net, and I was brought back to the two nights in a safari camp we'd spent sleeping under them (and how awkward it was to get in and out to go to the bathroom).

Speaking of mosquitoes, I was taken back to a night in Kenya where a mosquito buzzed in my ear as I tried to sleep after I read this line from Huxley: "No sound concentrates so much spitefulness and malice into a very small volume as the pinging of mosquitoes, as if needles tipped with poison were vibrating in a persistent tattoo."

Note the use of a simile in that line. In "The Flame Trees of Thika," Huxley is the master of all things simile, metaphor and analogy.  Aspiring writers should pay attention.

Here are some that grabbed me:

• Kupanya emerged from a hut as reluctantly as a very tight cork drawn from the neck of a bottle. 

• Their voices slid like a stream over smooth rocks, and gurgled into little pools.

• It was the time of day when heat presses down upon the earth and squeezes out the energy, when men idle in the shade like trout lying nose-to-current on the bed of a stream, when even doves can barely muster the desire to coo.

• A cold wind shook the trees like a vicious cavalcade of ghostly horsemen riding the air.

•  When he spoke they greeted him politely but with a wary, almost shifty look, behaving a little like wildebeeste that smell a lion about; they do not panic and gallop off, but tend rather to huddle together, stop grazing and stand ready for action, although uncertain what to do.

• I picked up the bracelet feeling dazed, as perhaps a beetle feels when, all but scorched against burning lamp-glass, he tumbles out of range and lies there, half stunned to recover. 

mosquito net, , mosquito buzzingN

Can renting a car save you money?

Dedicated readers of this blog will recall that about eight months ago, I calculated the cost-per-mile of driving my car. In the end, I concluded that it cost me 40.2 cents per mile to drive my car at that time (the cost will always vary because of the changing price of gas).

Today I'm wondering if -- given the costs of driving your car -- it can be cheaper to drive a rental car in certain situations.

First, let's break down the cost of driving per mile, as I calculated them: 16 cents for gas, 8.6 for maintenance, 15.6 cents for depreciation. When you rent a car, you still have to pay for gas, but not for maintenance and depreciation. So, with a rental, I'm saving 24.2 cents per mile (8.6 + 15.6) in the latter two categories.

But that doesn't count the cost of the rental itself, and that's a key element in this equation. If I rent a car for one day and drive 100 miles, I've saved $24.20 in maintenance and depreciation costs. But almost all rental cars cost more than $24 for a day, so renting isn't saving you money. 

On the other hand, let's say if I drive 200 miles with a one-day rental that costs a plausible $40. Then I've saved $8.40 ($48.40 - $40) by not driving my own car.

Let's take a "real world" example. Say I want to drive from Long Beach, California, to Santa Cruz, California, spend one day there and then drive back. A total of three days. It's 369 miles each way, according to Google, for a round trip of 738 miles. 

Multiply .242 by 738 finds that I would save $179 in depreciation and maintenance costs for that trip. But how much would a rental car cost?

A little online searching finds a bunch of low-priced rental car offers from sketchy companies I've never heard of. But renting from a reputable outfit like Enterprise for three days would be a total of $125 (and some persistent price hunting might find a lower price).

So yes! You can save money by renting a car. But do your calculations carefully. You're going to save most for a long-distance trip over a short period of time. Be sure the rental car comes with unlimited miles. 

Also, keep in mind the "hassle factor": How will you pick up and drop off the rental car? If it's a long way to get there and back, that's defeating the purpose. Can you park your car at, or near, the rental place? Will you have to pay for the parking? Or maybe you need a ride there and back?  Each situation is different.

One day at the Rose Parade

"It is imperative that you arrive at your parade seat location by 6:30 a.m. on January 1, 2020."

The sentence startled me. A friend had just kindly given my wife and I four bleacher tickets -- each with a face value of $110 -- for the next day's Rose Parade. We were excited by the chance to see the famous parade along with our two kids.

But included with the tickets was a small yellow piece of paper saying it was "imperative" that we be there by 6:30 a.m. Really? Even though the parade didn't start until 8 a.m.?

Getting there by 6:30 would mean we would have to get up no later than 5 a.m. And once we did get there, what would we do? Just sit in our bleacher seats for 90 minutes, on a cold January morning, waiting for the parade to start?

It was enough to make me question whether this was a good idea.

To be clear, you don't have to get tickets to see the Rose Parade. You can watch from the sidewalks for free. But to get a good spot on the curb to sit, someone from your group has to grab some curb space the day before, set out chairs or blankets, and spend the full night there to keep hold of the spot.

If you come in the morning, all the curb space will be gone, and you'll have to jostle with scores of others for some kind of standing space on the sidewalk. I did this once, 35 years ago, but even on my much-younger legs of the time, standing in one spot for three hours was taxing.

A float from the 2020 Rose Parade

Paying for reserved bleacher seats means you'll have a guaranteed spot to sit, and don't have to spend the night sleeping on the sidewalk. But the high price has always deterred me, so when these free tickets fell into our lap, I realized this was a great opportunity. We couldn't pass this up.

The yellow note didn't say what would happen if we didn't get there by 6:30. Would we be denied access? We didn't want to take the chance, so we set our alarms for 5 a.m. New Year's day.

There were other things on the yellow note that drew my attention. "Your seats may be within the boundaries of the Tournament of Roses security zone and you will need to have your tickets to gain access to this area... All patrons are subject to search."

A long list of "prohibited items" included such items as drones, laser pointers, hoverboards, selfie sticks, e-cigarettes, "any kind of noise makers," and "diaper bags unless accompanied by a child. "

Of particular concern to me was that one prohibited item was the strangely phrased "Beverages other than water (all factory sealed)." We were planning to bring water since it appeared we would be there for 4 to 5 hours, but this now seemed to say we could only bring sealed disposable water bottles. Yes, disposable water bottles, the container that has become Public Enemy No. 1 in the fight against plastic waste. Seriously?

It was already late on New Year's Eve at this point; unsure what to do, I slipped two small (non-sealed!) water bottles into my jacket pocket to sneak into bleachers. Would I get away with it? In my mind, I imagined burly security guards frisking parade-goers, eager to snatch away water, hoverboards and diaper bags.

We rose at 5 a.m. and stumbled out of our Long Beach home by 5:30. The freeways were gloriously free of traffic -- a sight so rare in Southern California that it alone nearly made the early start worthwhile.

I'd given quite some thought, the night before, to where we would park. You can attempt to drive into Pasadena and find paid parking, but it's unlikely to be easy or cheap. Hundreds of thousands of people descend on the city for the parade and the Rose Bowl game. So many streets are blocked off, and there are so many people roaming the city, that simply driving anywhere in Pasadena on the morning of the parade can result in extreme aggravation.

We opted, instead, for mass transit. And -- spoiler alert! -- it worked beautifully. We parked at the Monrovia Gold Line station at about 6 a.m. There were a small number of other people arriving around the same time, all clearly headed to the parade. There was plenty of parking.

I was disappointed that we had to pay $3 to park -- I thought the fee might not apply on a holiday -- but I was pleased that there was parking person on hand who gave me the correct information.

We did have to load up Metro Tap Cards with the proper fare, a small chore, but soon after that a train arrived and we were on our way. We exited five stops later at the Memorial Park station in the heart of downtown Pasadena and joined a throng of pedestrians heading to the parade. As we walked, I could see a line of motorists, looking miserable in their idling cars, stuck in the congestion while we strolled casually by.

We hustled as best we could to reach our seats by the supposed 6:30 deadline -- and didn't quite make it.  We got there around 6:40, and found the bleachers 95% empty.  What the?

What's more, there was zero security check and no one ever checked our tickets.

Our seats were not in the bleachers you see in on TV, but about a half-mile down the road, on an overpass overlooking a freeway.

To kill the time, we walked around a bit (the parade route was filled with pedestrians), bought some food and water, and used the porta-potties (hold your nose!).

You know that part about no banning "any kind of noise makers"?  You could buy vuvuzelas -- the plastic horns that can emit a loud annoying buzz -- from a vendor right in front our bleachers. Meanwhile, a set of Bible-thumpers strolled up and down the street before the parade, the "word of God" booming from their speakers. No one did a thing to stop them.

There was never the slightest indication why arriving early was "imperative." You could have walked up and taken your seat without any problem right up until parade time (after the parade started, it would be harder, but not impossible, because you could no longer walk in the street).

Despite the so-called ban on beverages, you could have brought any kind of drink you wanted.

Remember how no one checked our tickets? Once the parade began, there were a smattering of empty seats in the bleachers. It would have been easy for anyone to have come and sit down in the $110 seats. I'm just saying.

And the parade itself? It was great, filled with wonderful floats and exhilarating marching bands. I wouldn't have paid $440 for my family to see it, but it was definitely worth our 5 a.m. wake-up time.

The parade ended at our viewing spot about 10 a.m.  Afterwards, we walked back, amid a large crowd, to the train station. Many people were doing the same, but Metro employees did a good job funneling people into correct lines and keeping everything orderly. We only had to wait about five minutes for a train.

We were back home in Long Beach by 11:25 a.m. A good time to take a nap.