THE PAGE TURNS

July 4, 2025July 5, 2025

Ascending to Ballhalla

The WNBA announced this past Monday that the professional women’s basketball league will expand to 18 teams. Nearly two years ago, when they announced a Northern California franchise, it was shrouded in mystery. It would be a year before they announced the next franchise to Portland or the team name. However, this week, four more teams were confirmed. The timing of this sudden bloom of teams is no accident.

The Valkyries can claim some credit, though that credit should be shared. It’s definitely due to the players; absolutely the coaches; partly the owners; unquestionably to the growing fan base, in the Bay Area, and in general; to the WNBA of today; to all the US Women’s Olympics teams back to 1976; and to all the women’s basketball players, across the six professional leagues that did not survive; in the industrial leagues that lasted for years before, during, and after the wars, in dimly lit, humid gymnasiums with cramped locker rooms, where the locals cheered madly for their wives and daughters and sisters and neighbors. For this success story, there are a lot of shoulders to stand on.

Perhaps you don’t give a fig about basketball. You have plenty of company. However, you don’t have to enjoy basketball to appreciate the success of the Valkyries, a bunch of no-names, who play fiercely with such joy, in front of fans who have yearned for a team that represents them. It’s good for basketball. It’s good for women. It’s good in general. Let me tell you why, with a little history, business, and sociology. This is not (really) about basketball.

May 31, 2025June 5, 2025

Pushing the Boundaries of Dinosaur Knowledge

Kajmeister’s calendar is ready and waiting!!!!

In honor of World Dinosaur Day, I’ve decided to inaugurate the first ever annual World Dinosaur Day post. I’ll start by reminding you, dear reader, that I have written a book all about paleontology, The A to Z Dinosaurs, full of fun little tidbits about these magnificent reptiles. With that sponsor’s message out of the way, let’s talk about some of the latest dinosaur research. I’m going to call it DRAMA, INDUSTRY, MAGIC! That is, drama among the paleontologists, industrialists helping out their scientific friends, and magical new technology uncovering hidden secrets.

World Dinosaur Day was designated as such by cartoonist Joe Wos back in 2016. Wos is a well-known illustrator who helped found a small cartoon museum in Pittsburgh, had a website, was noted as a visiting cartoonist to the Schulz museum here in Northern California–the guy does a lot of things. Lots of ideas. Lots of projects. Museum now closed; website gone; lots of 404 links. He’s available for speaking events but has not, according to his personal site, said much about dinosaurs. However, his Dinosaur Day idea caught on, and museums and educators have enjoyed pitching a tent on it, even if Joe seems to have wandered away. Thanks anyway, Joe Wos! Who wouldn’t want another excuse to celebrate dinosaurs?

May 17, 2025May 18, 2025

The Folly of Greenlandia

Aerial view of Fordlândia, photo by the Ford Motor Company, 1934.

Last month when I was writing about Rubber, I learned about Fordlândia, a rubber plantation/utopia that Henry Ford built in the Brazilian jungle. My word count for that post was too high, so I left out the story. But it’s been rattling around in my head ever since, pinballing to the top every time I read another story about this administration’s obsession with Greenland. Plus, that Santayana quote, the mantra of historians, constantly reminds me to study the lessons of the past. Anybody remember maps which referred to the Belgian Congo? Ever hear of Minimata disease?

Corporations and governments–that is, corporations whose security adopts uniforms and carries a flag–often get the bright idea to get resources cheaply from places where the scrutiny is lax. Of course, corporations and governments aren’t entities unto themselves. It’s the leaders who come up with cockamamie schemes of exploration and exploitation, schemes which lead to environmental devastation, mutilations, genocide. Often, costs vastly outweigh the benefits.

I realize that the moral reprehensibility of those first three evils ought to sway the argument against exploitation, but there’s no moral reasoning, sometimes, with corporations, which suddenly become faceless when there is wrongdoing. I was nurtured at a tender age on cost-benefit analysis, and I sometimes find it makes a persuasive argument when other arguments won’t do. In that spirit, I’d like to offer a few examples from history as reason to pause before we start invading and strip-mining Greenland.