moon traveller herald

  My hero (above) - The Preakness Stakes arrived this year with not a lot of build up. There is a one-year sojourn from Pimlico for the Preakness.  It was held at Laurel Park, which called for a new contour for the 1 3/16 th mile distance. The home stretch seemed long. The field of contestants generally is a bit lackluster. Derby winner Golden Tempo, passed it up. Like last year’s Derby Winner Sovereignty, the horse is skipping the second jewel in the Triple Crown and targeting the Belmont Stakes set  for Saratoga [Belmont’s re-build is still uncompleted. 9-5 says we'' say that about Pimlico's re-design one year from today.] Read more at my Epitomime Racing and Markets site.

Grandma couln't write. The kids took jobs.  A sister went to teachers' college. The baby My father went to BC.  Fashioned himself after Dick Powell. Read Milton and Shakespeare. He wanted to go into advertising. Was told you might have to go to New York for that - as this was Brahman   Boston. This was the mid 1930s and there was no job. Well, did some pipe fitting in the Navy Yard. Riding the subway in asbestos laced work clothes. The, promoting/selling Lucky Strikes, store to store and bar to bar up to Maine.  He gets an interview on Stillings St with Johnsons Wax. "Why should I hire a college man?" he's gruffly asked. He labors to field the rough query. Walks out and says to self "well I won't get that one.' But he gets hired. The boss was trying to see how he reacted under pressure. Now, a very long haul followed. Including 6 years in Army. But he always ready to sell the idea of a liberal education. Colleges increasingly are vocational. I don...

A great poem found. The tortuous and transforming time. We still don't understand what we are going through.

Why I like Shadow Ticket - For a Wisconsin guy who lived in Milwaukee for two years, the Wisconsin part of this book is a big treat. Been reading Thomas Pynchon since V [actually, before that, the short story Entropy] and this book is just a thrill. It starts with an explosion ["a pineapple" in the 20s dialect] near the Lake. Eventually, a submarine is discovered in the Lake - an WWI Austro-Hungarian job that is running rum]. It’s always back to the Lake, the beer, the cheese and the Mob. The Milwaukee Mob appears in the first words of this book. This mob was a Franchise Outlet for the more prestigious Chicago operation…but if they got you, that distinguishment on the pecking ladder of crime meant little difference.   I like what I will call word flow, somewhat like stream of consciousness, most vividly represented by the Irish Modernist James Joyce. Thomas Pynchon is among few authors capable of such composition; in his manner, a novel can b...

  NASA’s Artemis II Crew Launches to the Moon 6:30 pm EDT Apr 1 No kidding! dd   [April 2, 2026] - After a yearslong parade of missteps, the United States yesterday launched astronauts toward the Moon. In the first such mission since December 1972, four voyagers dramatically bolted into the twilight sky above the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Fla.   The on-board crew operating the Orion spacecraft comprises NASA’s Reid Wiseman, mission commander; Victor Glover and Christina Koch; as well as Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. They are now in high Earth orbit, preparatory to a journey to the Moon.   The early flight included a brief loss in communications, and a control panel malfunction indicating problems with their craft’s toilet. This dashboard snafu was quickly toggled and solved.   Later today, the go/no-go decision will come on the plan to leave Earth orbit and head to its moon.   This manned return to Moon fli...

Andrew Ross Sorkin's take today on Larry Fink's Letter to Blackrock customers makes the point that GenAI as it is being posed means economic disparity. That as the elevator Muzak of 'future abundance for all' dims. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/business/dealbook/trump-iran-energy-attacks.html It's interesting to see the Mighty Fink echo tech vet Tim O'Reilly's screed describing the AI economy that makes producers richer only by slash, burn and strap of consumers' wallets and hopes. https://www.oreilly.com/radar/ai-and-the-next-economy/ This is a stub - go to working page on AI and society.