The Last Dinosaur (1977)

Masten Thrust Jr. (Richard Boone) is an oil tycoon and big game hunter.  He is more proud of the big game hunting, of course.  His company has recently been using a laser on the tip of a manned submersible that bores into the earth beneath the Arctic in search of oil.  A recent exploration found a hidden valley that was heated by a volcano.  Of the 5 crew, only one returned: Chuck Wade (Steven Keats).  He claimed the other 4 men were devoured by a Tyrannosaurus Rex!  Thrust himself will lead an expedition to both confirm the claim and study the animal.  The team is Thrust, Wade, Frankie Banks (Joan Van Ark) the photojournalist, Dr. Kawamoto, and Bunta the Masai tracker.

The hidden valley proves to be inhabited by various dinosaurs - most of which make a quick appearance before vanishing for the remainder of the film - and long extinct plant life.  After setting up camp, Thrust's next order of business is to find the T Rex.  He brings a rifle.  For their protection!  Sure enough, they come upon the dinosaur, who sounds uncannily like Godzilla, and the rifle is required.  Thrust blows the shot then tosses the jammed rifle aside like it is worthless.  Gah!  Are you mad?  The little band flee.  When they return to the camp, Dr. Kawamoto has been devoured and their submersible is gone!  Worse still, in addition to dinosaurs, the valley is inhabited by primitive humans who decide to compete with them.  Worst of all, Thrust gave orders that no rescue should be launched for them.  If they were not back in five days, they were to be presumed dead.

The special effects are extremely dated.  The dinosaurs are clearly just actors in rubber suits.  The characters are okay.  Thrust is single-minded in his desire to kill the T Rex.  I was horrified when Thrust, who should have known better, tossed aside the only rifle in the valley.  It's just a jam!  Take it back to camp and clean the gun!  It really damaged his character, making him look like a blithering idiot.  Bunta has no lines but his size and daring making for an interesting character; he's kind of like Chewbacca.  Wade is the voice of reason but also a complainer.  He and Frankie both take on the complainer mantle.  Thrust had been adamant against taking a woman on safari but was 'convinced' after the two spent some time together.  Huh.  There is something of a love triangle as Wade and Frankie are drawn together while in the valley.

Just so-so.

Dueling Eagles: Reinterpreting the US-Mexican War

This book is a collection of essays that were presented at the 150-year anniversary of the Mexican-American War.  The essays are authored by both American and Mexican academics on a variety of topics.

1. Richard Francaviglia offers a view of the war from a geographic and cartographic perspective.  The war took place in mountain highlands, lush valleys, parched deserts, marshy coastlands, and vast prairies.  The battlefields were determined by the geography.  This is one of the less interesting essays, since every war has geography that impacts how it is fought.

2. Sam Haynes expanded on England's role in the war.  Though English diplomats had sought to keep Texas as an independent country to hem in the growing American power, it did not plan to enter the war on Mexico's side.  Of course, neither Mexico nor America believed that England would stand on the sidelines.  Mexico hoped for British support in money and equipment to aid them against the Americans and the Americans - still full of indignation about the War of 1812 - expected England might do exactly that.  The antics of Captain Charles Elliot, veteran of the First Opium War (1839-1842), only added to the American concerns and the Mexican hopes.  False views on what England would do certainly influenced the war.

3. Josefina Zoraida Vazquez notes that the US benefited from the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that followed upon its independence.  Thanks to Europe's preoccupation with European affairs, the United States was able to grow and prosper without much interference.  By contrast, Mexico became independent in 1821, well after Europe had settled into a new normal.  England, France, and Spain all had interests in Mexico and the Mexican government was in constant turmoil.  Polk's complaints about unpaid debts were overblown and did not provide sufficient basis for his actions.  The base cause of the war was America's Manifest Destiny motto, a desire for expansion.  Dysfunctional but land rich Mexico was an easy target.

4. Richard Bruce Winders details the mutiny at Buena Vista.  A North Carolina volunteer regiment was camped near the site of the recent Battle of Buena Vista.  Colonel Paine, the commander of the regiment, was not impressed with his troops' conduct and proposed some punishments to bring them up to the standards & discipline of a regular army regiment.  This did not go over well.  Mutiny followed.  Was it that these volunteers didn't think they should be treated the same as regulars?  Or was it that the Colonel was a Whig while most of the soldiers were Democrats?  Indeed, though the standard procedure for volunteer regiments was to have the men vote for the Colonel, Lt. Colonel, and Major, in the case of the North Carolina Volunteer Regiment, the governor of North Carolina - a Whig - selected the officers.  The kindling for mutiny had been placed before the regiment left the state.  To make matters worse, President Polk - a Democrat - sided with the mutineers!

This is only a sample of the essays, all of them interesting and worthwhile.  Very good book and recommended for those interested in the Mexican-American War.

The Incredible Shrinking Government

Javier Milei has been sworn in as the new president of Argentina.  His first act?  Reduce the 20 government ministries to 8!  No, he hasn't done away with Education, but rather transferred its functions to the new Ministry of Human Capital.  Human Capital also took on the portfolios of Labor, Culture, Social Development, and Women, Gender, & Diversity.  Look at that!  5 ministries consolidated into 1.  Imagine the streamlining!  Can he come to the United States next?  If we got rid of many of these pointless departments, we could balance the budget in a snap.

Though I like Milei's ideas, it remains to be seen if they will work.  I cannot recall a government that rapidly reduced its size and cost.  How will that work?  A president who attacks the government might find himself targeted by the government in return.  Sounds like Donald Trump.  Unlike Trump, Milei has the benefit of attacking an entirely discredited government that had a 100% inflation rate.  That is why he was elected and he has a mandate for dramatic change.  I'm eager to see the results.

Ghost Town (2008)

Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) is a misanthropic dentist.  He leads an unremarkable life in New York City.  All goes awry when he has a colonoscopy.  No sooner is he leaving the hospital than he discovers he can see ghosts.  Once the ghosts know he can see them, they start following him and asking him to do this or that.  Returning to the hospital, he learns that he died for a few minutes during his procedure!  What to do about the ghosts?  Frank (Greg Kinnear) is a tuxedo clad ghost who offers to keep the other ghosts away if Pincus will do him a favor.  Frank doesn't want his widow, Gwen (Tea Leoni), to marry Richard (Billy Campbell).  It turns out that Gwen lives in the same building as Pincus and they have had multiple negative encounters that he does not recall but she remembers vividly.  How is he going to woo her away from Richard, who appears to be an ideal man?

Where in The Sixth Sense the dead did not know they were dead, here they are entirely aware.  All of them are seeking out Pincus to finish their unfinished tasks so they can move on.  Some are innocuous - make sure my daughter sees the letter I left for her - while others are not - a hitman asks that Pincus kill the last guy on his list.  The story arc is to have Pincus go from a misanthrope to a decent human being.  He's a lot funnier as a misanthrope, but it is satisfying to watch him become a better person.

Light and fun.  Good entertainment.  Recommended.

Vice Presidential Success Rate

When the vice president becomes president, by whatever means, how does that tend to work?  Let's take a look.

First, let's consider those elected to the presidency on their merits:

1. John Adams served as the first vice president.  When George Washington declined to run for a 3rd term, Adams was elected.  His was a tumultuous presidency and not popular.  He served only one term.

2. Thomas Jefferson served as the second vice president.  Though Adams and Jefferson were on opposite sides of the political aisle of the day, the way the system worked gave the presidency to the man who received the most electoral votes and the vice presidency to the man who received the 2nd most electoral votes.  This was changed for the 1800 election so that Jefferson and Burr ran as the Democratic-Republicans against Adams & Pinkney for the Federalists.  Jefferson proved to be far more popular and successful than the president for whom he was VP.  He served for two terms and is considered one of the great presidents.

3. Martin Van Buren was Andrew Jackson's second VP.  He was elected in 1836 and was then beset by a financial panic the following year.  He only served one term.

4. Richard Nixon served as Eisenhower's VP and ran for the presidency in 1960.  He lost.  However, he ran again in 1968 and won.  Though he was reelected, his second term proved to be a national disaster thanks to Watergate.

5. George Bush was Ronald Reagan's VP for two terms.  In 1988, he ran as the 3rd Reagan term and won in a landslide.  In the wake of the Gulf War, he was so popular that most of the 'formidable' Democrats declined to run.  However, an economic downturn led him to have only the one term.

6. Joseph Biden was Barack Obama's VP for 2 terms.  Unlike most vice presidents, he did not seek election immediately after his stint as VP.  He was elected in 2020 and it is yet to be determined if he will complete a second term like Jefferson or be relegated to one-term status like most of the rest.

Next, there are those who took over in the wake of the president's death through illness.

1. John Tyler spent only a month as the VP before William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia.  Most of the papers referred to Tyler as Acting-President.  This was the first time the VP assumed the office of president and the exact workings were not settled.  Tyler established the ascension of the VP to President, not Acting-President.  He was not a popular president and did not win nomination for re-election.

2. Millard Filmore became president when Taylor died of cholera in 1850.  Having no mandate other than filling out Taylor's term, Filmore was bypassed in favor of Winfield Scott for the Whig Party.  In 1856, he ran as the Know Nothing nominee; he won 8 electoral votes.

3. Calvin Coolidge stepped in when Warren Harding died.  It was the Roaring Twenties and the country was humming.  Coolidge benefitted from the prosperity.  He was elected to a term of his own, serving from 1925 to 1929.  Coolidge declined to run for another term, thinking it would be too much for a man to serve 10 years as president.

4. Harry Truman had only been VP for a few months when FDR died.  He took the helm in the waning days of World War II and dropped the bomb.  He was nominated to continue as president in 1948 and - despite headlines to the contrary - defeated Dewey.  He had a successful presidency and is viewed quite favorably by historians.

Finally, there are the VPs who took office in the wake of a presidential assassination.

1. Andrew Johnson was Abraham Lincoln's second VP and had only served a month when Lincoln was assassinated.  He had a contentious relationship with the Radical Republicans and eventually found himself being impeached, something not to be repeated until Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.  Unsurprisingly, he did not have a term of his own.

2. Chester Arthur took office when James Garfield died.  He had lingered for a couple of months after his shooting.  Arthur was a machine politician who benefitted from the Spoils System and yet became the champion for reform when he was in office.  Though he might have secured a term of his own, Arthur was in poor health and didn't have strong support from the party.  He left office in 1885 and died the following year.

3. Theodore Roosevelt was McKinley's second VP, the first having died in office.  Like Garfield, McKinley lingered and even appeared to be recovering from the assassin's bullet.  Roosevelt took office and proved to be an active executive.  He easily secured a term of his own and even had enough popularity at the end of that term to select his successor.

4. Lyndon Baines Johnson became president when JFK was assassinated in Dallas.  In one of the most lopsided elections, he trounced Barry Goldwater in 1964 and won a term of his own.  However, the Vietnam War crushed his popularity.  He declined to run for a second term and his party lost the 1968 election.

Of the VPs elected on their merits, only Thomas Jefferson can be called a success.  President Biden will have to wait until next year to see if he joins Jefferson.  Of those to take over after a death, both Coolidge and Truman made the office their own and won re-election for themselves.  Of those who took over after an assassination, only Theodore Roosevelt fully succeeded.  LBJ was burdened with an unpopular war and a tumultuous era.

Generally, VPs do not provide strong presidential material.  Of course, that is true of most presidents as well.

General William S Harney: Prince of Dragoons

William Selby Harney was born in Kentucky in 1800 and joined the military in 1817.  His family was acquainted with Andrew Jackson and Harney found himself accompanying the great general to the transfer of East Florida from the Spanish to the United States.  Harney didn't see action until the Black Hawk War (1832) where he met Abraham Lincoln and served with Zachary Taylor.  Through his political connections, Harney rose rapidly in rank.  However, he had made an enemy of Winfield Scott, the top general for the majority of Harney's career.  Though he fought in the Mexican War, his career was mostly defined by his reputation as an Indian fighter.  During the 2nd Seminole War, he saw the failures of the European mode of combat against the guerilla style of the Seminoles.  He used disguises, new colt revolving rifles, and riverine warfare to counter them.  Despite orders to the contrary, he led a campaign with such tactics into the Everglades and won plaudits from the newspapers for his daring.  When the 3rd Seminole War erupted (1858), it was no surprise that the military sent Harney back to Florida.  In 1855, he had given a band of Souix such a drubbing at the Battle of Ash Hollow that he was ever after viewed with awe among the Plains Tribes.

Known as a hothead with a short fuse, Harney was quick to attack.  This belligerence nearly led to disaster more than once.  Most notably, the Pig War (1859) in the state of Washington.  Though the border between the US and Canada was mostly settled in 1846, some islands between Victoria Island and the mainland were left in contention.  Harney escalated a case about the value of a pig into an international incident.  His old foe, Winfield Scott, was forced to quell the situation in person and give Harney a lecture.  No sooner did Scott leave than Harney started his shenanigans again.  In another instance, he became so furious with a black servant that he beat her to death.  He fled St. Louis to avoid arrest.  He was eventually indicted for murder and tried.  Unsurprisingly, he was acquitted.

Like most people, Harney mellowed with age.  In the case of the Civil War, perhaps he had mellowed too much.  Having command of the Western Department - most importantly the state of Missouri - Harney was too slow to counter rebellious activities.  Erring on the side of caution, he allowed the Confederate-leaning governor to maneuver toward rebellion.  Of note, he saw that he was probably the wrong man to be posted in Missouri at the time and asked for a transfer.  Instead, he was sent into retirement and sat on the sidelines during the Civil War.

Having encountered Harney in my many readings over the years, he always appeared as a difficult, bellicose, and generally mean villain.  He is often painted as vindictive and cruel, which was frequently true.  However, George Rollie Adams gives a more complete view of the man.  Though his bad qualities stand out in works where he is mentioned, his good qualities are overlooked.  Here was a soldier who was intensely loyal to the United States, had courage to burn, had a keen understanding of the various Indian tribes, and proved to be a better planner and tactician than many of his contemporaries, especially as regards the Indians.

Outstanding book and highly recommended.

Longest Serving Vice President

In 1805, George Clinton was inaugurated as Thomas Jefferson's 2nd Vice President; Aaron Burr had discredited himself.  Oddly enough, when Jefferson left office in 1809, George Clinton remained Vice President but now for James Madison.  In 1812, Clinton died in office and he was not replaced for the remainder of Madison's 1st term.  For 11 months, there was no VP.

In 1813, Elbridge Gerry - the man who gave his name to gerrymandering - became VP for Madison's 2nd term.  Gerry died in 1814 and was not replaced until the next election.  The vacant sign hung on the VP's door for 2 years and 4 months!

In 1825, John Calhoun became the 7th VP of the country to John Quincy Adams.  Like George Clinton, he stayed on as VP when Adams left office.  However, during the Nullification Crisis of 1832, Calhoun resigned his office.  The vacant sign was again hung on the VP's door, this time for only 3 months.

In 1841, William Henry Harrison offered an overlong inaugural address on a cold March day.  A month later, he became the first president to die in office.  Vice President John Tyler assumed the office.  This time, the vice presidency remained vacant for 3 years and 11 months.

In 1850, Zachary Taylor died of cholera.  Vice President Millard Filmore took his place and the vacancy sign was deployed yet again.  Two years and 8 months later, William King became VP.  He promptly died one month later.  The vacant sign took over for another 3 years and 11 months.

Just over a month after his 2nd inauguration, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and Andrew Johnson was sworn in as president.  The vacant sign was nailed back on the VP door.

In 1875, Henry Wilson, who was Grant's 2nd VP, died in office.  The vacant sign was called back to service for another year and 4 months.

In 1881, President James Garfield was shot.  He lingered for a couple of months before dying in September.  VP Chester Arthur moved to the White House, leaving the vacant sign posted until the next election: 3 years and 6 months.  Thomas Hendricks took the vacant sign off the door in March 1881.  He died that November, and the vacant sign took charge again.

In 1899, Garret Hobart died of heart disease.  For the rest of the McKinley's 1st term, the vacant sign was posted.  Theodore Roosevelt took office in March of 1901, trusting the vacant sign would get a rest.  Such was not to be.  President McKinley was assassinated in September of that year and Roosevelt posted the vacant sign on his way to the White House.  Charles Fairbanks became VP in March 1905.

Just prior to the election of 1912, VP James Sherman died.  Sherman was the 7th, and so far last, VP to die in office.  The vacant sign had just over 4 months before Thomas Marshall was sworn in as Woodrow Wilson's Vice President.

In 1923, Warren Harding died in office.  Calvin Coolidge ascended to the presidency and the vacant sign once again adorned the VP's door.

In 1945, FDR died at the beginning of his unprecedented 4th term.  Harry Truman, who was FDR's 3rd VP, had only been a VP since January.  The vacant sign was once again called upon to serve as VP.  In 1949, when "Dewey beats Truman!", Alben Barkley was inaugurated as the new VP.

In 1963, JFK was assassinated and LBJ became President.  The vacant sign was once more called to service.

At this point, the vacant sign had served almost 38 years in the Office of the Vice Presidency.  The country decided something needed to be done.  The 25th Amendment was added to the Constitution, providing a means of filling vacancies.  Even so, the vacant sign was not quite retired.

In 1973, Spiro Agnew resigned and the vacant sign was dusted off.  However, only 2 months later, Gerald Ford was sworn in as Vice President.  Less than a year after that, Nixon resigned and the vacant sign was once again needed.  It was just over four months before Nelson Rockefeller took the vacant sign down and sent it in the National Archives.  Amazingly, it has not been needed in the last 50 years.

Knock on wood!