Orlando Shooting and Alligator Tragedy; Presidential Talk; MENSA Disability; Scrapple Champion; Detective Trivia

Mild day with periodic rain.  Good for the plants I think. 

Spent all morning calling Doctors and Insurance Companies.  It's what you have to do often when you are an old dude like me.  I'm just glad that I am still able to do things.

Orlando

Shooting

I heard the President speak about it yesterday.. that man has a gift.  He is the epitome of a President.  Hillary did a good job also.  But, Mr. Trump, he flunked out.  I just can't imagine him presiding over this country. 

I feel so sorry for the victims of the shooting and their family.  I admit that I tear up when I listen to reports about it.  I heard the Senate debate gun control today.. the Senators agree that nobody needs an assault rifle... will they do something about it?  I doubt it.  The NRA is too powerful.  How about a Constitutional Amendment that revises the second amendment?  It's time.

Alligator

Another tragedy..  a two year old boy possibly eaten by an alligator at a Disneyland pond.  OMG! What next?
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How about a change of pace?

What Good is a MENSA Membership?

Chuck Shepherd reprises a Funny Times story from 1997:

A gentleman sued the New London, Connecticut police department for discrimination.. they said that he was too intelligent to become a cop.  He had scored extremely high on a department intelligence test and the department heads thought that a person with such intelligence would quickly get bored with police work.  A  U.S. District Judge agreed with the department and dismissed the case.

This MENSA Member did Good!

The Week reports that Nigel Richards won the French-language Scrabble World Championship, even though as a New Zealander, he could not speak French.  Instead, he memorized all the words in a French dictionary.  WOW!

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Hey.. how about some Crime Scene Trivia?

Q:  Who is considered the "father of the detective story?"

A:  Why, that is easy.. it's Baltimore's own Edgar Allen Poe. ( You know that his grave is downtown. For some years, every year, to celebrate Poe's life or death.. a mysterious stranger would leave a bottle of booze on his grave at Halloween.  I don't think anyone ever found out who the "culprit" was. )
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Q:   Who created Inspector Wexford?

A:    Ruth Rendell.  (This is a new one on me.  I'll have to learn about the good Inspector.)
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Q:   Name the two main characters in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy.

A:   Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.  (I've read these books, but I'll be damned if I remember much about them.  Fun at the time though.)
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Q:  Which novel is considered the first detective novel in the English language?

A:   Wilkie Collins's  The Moonstone.  (I read this book, but I thought that the author's name was Willie Conklin.  Oh well... )
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Q:   In how many Arthur Conan Doyle novels did Sherlock Holmes appear?

A:   Holmes appeared in 4 novels and 56 short stories.  (When I had leg wounds that would not heal, I spent a lot of recuperation time reading Sherlock Holmes stories... even those that were not written by Doyle.  My Kindle is filled with the stuff.  I may have read all of the novels and most of the short stories..)
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Q:  When and where did Holmes stories appear.

A:   They appeared in the British Strand Magazine during the Victorian era.  Sidney Paget, was an illustrator whose illustrations of Holmes and Watson "iconicized" the pair.
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Q:   What was the name of the detective in the lead story of a Detective Magazine in 1948?  And what was the author's name.

A:   Joe Vaughan... the author was my friend, Courtney Gilbert.  (I've been searching for that issue for years.)

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