Author Archives: Alaska

Kangal Dog

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Alaska

Twenty-sixteen was (to put it mildly) a rather rough year for me and those I love, capping a five-year-long midlife crisis extended epiphany. Happily, most everything’s right with my world now, but for the gaping hole left by Alaska’s passing. … Continue reading →

Posted in DWWFB, Kewel! | 1 Comment

Mandocello Madness!

Posted on February 23, 2017 by Alaska

As a child I wondered why you could not find a acoustic bass guitar. Enter the mandocello: Hat tip: Allison Hayward, whose sighting of Mike Marshall at Wintergrass 2017 spurred me down the rabbit hole. Check this out!

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

Rest in Peace, Connie du Toit

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Alaska

via Traction Control: Connie du Toit, beloved wife of Kim du Toit, passed away this afternoon. Readers may recall Kim’s blog introduced me to the concept and importance of the American Rifleman, and inspired me to travel more than a … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | 3 Comments

RNS Quote of The Day, 01/02/17 — Vice Edition

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Alaska

(He had done, he liked to say, all the vices.) —Larissa MacFarquhar, describing philosopher Bernard Williams in her endlessly-delightful New Yorker article on the late Derek Parfit, “How to Be Good.” I find her prose, BTW, to be both astonishing … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense, Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel! | Leave a comment

Time Travel: Berlin, 1900

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Alaska

I found this video, film of 1900 Berlin colorized and slowed to normal speed, tremendously affecting. The facial expressions did it. Those ghosts are all too real.    

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Stephen Hsu and Some Guy Who Played Bongos

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Alaska

To some of us, this photo has the same emotional resonance as the one of Bill Clinton shaking JFK’s hand had to a very different tribe: I still try to reread Feynman’s QED every year. You should too.  

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense, Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel!, Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

Specialty Pistol on 6mmBR

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Alaska

Always nice to see more specialty pistols exposure, and 6mmbr sure does have pretty pictures: XP-100 on custom aluminum frame. And on the C&J Convertible Rest — Hot Dog! Cayle’s Custom 22BR Prairie Dog Pistol

Posted in Gratuitous Gun Pics, Kewel! | Leave a comment

“Reading was not fashionable in the eighteen-fifties”

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Alaska

A delightful book worth seeking out is The Fantastic City by Amelia Ransome Neville, (link to free ebook, good luck on finding a hard copy) primarily for its humanizing nuggets of golden-state history (“Beckwourth, the explorer, lately returned from the … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense, Kewel! | Leave a comment

Well That’s Interesting

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Alaska

Walter Russell Mead neatly catches the irony that, just as Obama handed the Palestinians a resounding political victory, a sober look at the situation suggests that the Palestinians have not been this weak, this divided, or this helpless in many … Continue reading →

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The Mastermind

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Alaska

You want to read all of this series. The Cliff’s Notes are here and a good place to start. Bonus North Carolina Bosom Buddy holster-bra inventor/international assassin connection. Stephen Hsu’s post (hat tip) emphasizes the intellectual interest in the high-iq … Continue reading →

Posted in Kewel!, The Government is Not Your Friend | 1 Comment