July 2023: The Strange Files Newsletter
July 2023: The Strange Files Newsletter
July, and it's Hotter than a Firecracker -- and, Yes, It's Global Warming
Welcome to the month of July, the hottest month of the year -- July 26 the warmest date on average.
And what's the most sizzling spot on a baking planet Earth?
Furnace Creek in Death Valley, California, holds the record at a sweltering 134 degrees Fahrenheit. Elsewhere, average temperatures are increasingly rising, the rate accelerating each decade. Since 1981, the average temperature has risen at a rate of one degree every 30 years.
The cause, of course, is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, pumped into the air by mankind since the beginning of the Industrial Age. We made the problem; it's up to us to fix it.
Meanwhile, be safe this July. As temperatures rise, the human body's ability to cope with heat diminishes. That Death Valley temperature -- it will render you unalive if exposed for too long.
Speaking of safety: Be careful with those fireworks on the Fourth of July. Best bet: Let the professionals handle them. Last year, nine people in the United States were killed and more than 11,000 injured by fireworks.
But if you insist setting off your own firecrackers, at least do it safely.
Here are safety tips to follow.
Independence Day Trivia
You Can Use to
Impress Your Friends
The first July 4th celebration at the White House took place in 1801. Thomas Jefferson was president.
Speaking of dead presidents, three of them passed away on the Fourth of July: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826 -- the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. James Monroe died five years later in 1831.
The first fireworks show took place in Philadelphia in 1777.
Americans eat around 150 million hot dogs each Independence Day. There are over 330 million people in the U.S. so, clearly, somebody's not eating their share.
The American Pyrotechnics Association estimates that more than 14,000 fireworks displays light up U.S. skies each 4th of July
July Milestones and Events for Your Calendar
Baseball's All-Star Game will be played on July 11 starting at 8 p.m. (televised on FOX) from T-Mobile Park in Seattle.
Shark Awareness Day is July 14. There are many ways to become aware of sharks, one of which is to step into the water where I live in Florida, the shark-bite capital of the world.
Bastille Day is also July 14. It commemorates the storming of the Bastille (Paris prison) and the start of the French Revolution. (We were in Paris on Bastille Day several years ago and discovered to our delight that entrance to The Louvre was free that day. And there were no lines. Got up close and personal with Mona Lisa. She's small.)
Cow Appreciation Day is July 15. Having become aware of sharks, you may now hug a cow or give thanks by visiting your favorite hamburger joint, the very best of which as noted in earlier polls here at the GET SMART newsletter, is Jucys Hamburgers in Longview, Texas.
Be a Dork Day is also celebrated on July 15. A dork is defined as (1) a person who spouts trivia with few social skills or (2) a whale's penis. I guess you get to decide what kind of dork you want to be.
Snake Day is the following day, July 16. What's this day about? Spend a day in the Everglades and get acquainted with Florida's most aggressive invasive species, the Burmese python, and then you'll know. Here in Florida, every day is Snake Day (and Gator Day, and Malaria Day, and Deadly Giant Snail Day, etc.).
July 16, 1995. On this day in history, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon where some of the very best mysteries are published.
Islamic New Year begins on July 18. It starts with the first sighting of the crescent Moon after the new Moon in the month of Muharram.
On July 19-20, 1848, a group of women gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, marking the beginning of the women's rights movement. In 1920, women won the right to vote. But in 2022 the Supreme Court stripped them of their right to control their reproductive health.
Head to Key West July 20-22 for the annual Sloppy Joe's Ernest Hemingway lookalike contest. Entry Form Here.
An historic flub. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong become the first human to step onto the Moon. Before a worldwide TV audience, he was supposed to announce: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." But he left off the "a" changing the entire meaning. But, hey, he wasn't hired as an orator.
Tell an Old Joke Day is July 24. Interesting bit of joke trivia: The world's oldest recorded joke (it's not funny at all if you ask me) dates back to 1900 B.C. You can read about it and other ancient and bawdy attempts at humor (I'm certainly not reprinting them) in this University of Wolverhampton report.
Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day is July 27. Who would take a plant for a walk? See Be a Dork Day above.
July Sports
Big events in the month of July, in addition to Major League Baseball's All Star game (mentioned above) include the Wimbledon tennis championship, the Tour de France, the Women's World Cup soccer championship, and more. Here's a curated list of some of the events, courtesy of Topend Sports.
July TV and Movie Premiers
We're in the dog days of summer, and even though there are dozens of movies and streaming TV programs premiering this month, there is a shortage of blockbusters.
The best of the bunch on the silver screen, in my view, is the opening of Oppenheimer on July 21. Here's a complete list of opening films courtesy of Movie Insider.
Here are the July streaming TV previews courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
What I'm
Reading and Watching
Just finished reading Ascension by Nicholas Binge and I highly recommend it.
Stephen King and other reviewers classify it as a horror story. I didn't read it that way at all, although, yeah, there are monsters. I like what the Washington Post said: “Binge’s eerie speculative thriller looks both outward at the edges of scientific understanding, and inward at the meaning of responsibility, remorse and the human capacity for salvaging mercy from tragedy.”
Ascension provided a break from the rest of my "binge" reading. I've been absorbed by Mick Herron's Slough House series, which I mentioned in last month's newsletter. Gobbled up all eight books in the month of June and I wish there were more.
I heard from one of my favorite authors, Bonnie Kistler, (The Cage) who wrote to recommend the streaming adaptation of the Herron books (Slow Horses) and now I'm hooked on that, too.
Next up: Jeopardy host Ken Jennings' new book: 100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife.
Among the more disturbing things I've watched in a while, but that I highly recommend, is Shiny Happy People, a documentary on Amazon Prime. It's about the overpopulated Duggar Family and the underlying cult known as the Institute in Basic Life Principles driven by the cult's leader Bill Gothard. This explains so much about what's behind the most radical of the Evangelical movement and why it is so dangerous.
On my list to watch next: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Another Jeopardy host, Mayim Bialik, joked about how many times she's seen it recently.
The Authors Show Podcast
This turned out to be more fun to do than I anticipated: I was interviewed on The Authors Show podcast about my latest novel, Mister Manners. We talked about my writing process, from where I draw inspiration of the stories in The Strange Files series, and more. the interview is about 15 minutes long. Here's a link if you're interested.
They Said It...
"It's not that the world hasn't had more carbon dioxide; it's not that the world hasn't been warmer. The problem is the speed at which things are changing. We are inducing a sixth mass extinction event kind of by accident and we don't want to be the extinctee."
-- Bill Nye
"Climate change is already ravaging the world. It's not hypothetical. it is destroying people's lives and livelihoods, and doing it every single day."
-- Joe Biden
"'I've starred in a lot of science fiction movies and, let me tell you, climate change is not science fiction. This is a battle in the real world, it is impacting us right now."
-- Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Strange Files
The world is a weird place. Which is a good thing for Alexander Strange, whose adventures I chronicle in the Strange Files series. Here are a few of the stories Alexander has been covering:
STRANGE ANIMALS: Beware the Giant African Snails
Giant African land snails have been spotted on Florida's east coast prompting officials to place a quarantine on Broward County. The snails can grow up to eight inches in length, have pointy edges that can puncture tires and carry a parasite that can give people meningitis. This news arrived during the same week that malaria was reported on the state's west coast. Welcome to Florida.
STRANGE SCIENCE: Here's a New Spin on the Climate Crisis
Scientists have discovered that another disturbing consequence of global warming is that it is causing the Earth's axis to shift.
Our planet historically has had an unusually stable rotation thanks to the influence of the Moon's gravitational pull stabilizing our rotation. Other planets (Mars, for instance) wobble all over the place.
Still, other factors influence the axis around which our world turns, and a big factor is water: First, the melting of ice caps because of climate change is changing the balance of the planet, if you will. The other: Use of groundwater for irrigation also is impacting the distribution of weight around the globe.
The upshot of all this is that the North Pole is shifting, drifting downward into Canada. The seasons we experience are caused because the Earth's axis is on an angle to its orbital plane around the Sun. A change in that axis will impact our seasons.
So, yeah, mankind is not just changing the weather, we're changing the very rotation of the planet. (Source: Multiple including NYT)
STRANGE SCIENCE: Hot Rocks in Yellowstone
The volume of melted rock lurking in Yellowstone National Park's supervolcano is much higher than previous estimates. This sounds scary, but experts say there is no danger of an imminent eruption. In fact, it's normal for the magma of volcanos to have a mix of both solid and molten rock. But the odds of volcanos blowing increases with the volume of melted rock -- typically the danger zone is above 50 percent, so it bears monitoring. Right now, Yellowstone's caldera (the name for really big volcanos) is about 20 percent or less. (Source: LiveScience)
STRANGE POLITICS: Did Trump Really Say That About Ivanka?
They say that politics makes strange bedfellows, but this is creepy. According to Miles Taylor, author of the upcoming book Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy From the Next Trump, the former president regularly made lewd comments about Ivanka, his daughter, and fantasized about sex with her.
From The New Republic:
“Aides said he talked about Ivanka Trump’s breasts, her backside, and what it might be like to have sex with her, remarks that once led [former Chief of Staff] John Kelly to remind the president that Ivanka was his daughter,” Taylor, who served as a Department of Homeland Security chief of staff under Trump, wrote in his book.
STRANGE PEOPLE: Is Your TV Watching You?
Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks someone is trying to hack her TV to spy on her. She offered this in a recent tweet:
"Last night in my DC residence, the television turned on by itself and the screen showed someone’s laptop trying to connect to the TV." She went on to explain she wasn't on drugs when that happened and, of course, "I am not vaccinated," so it's not the result of those tracking robots Fauci hid in the Covid 19 shots.
But could it be the same evildoers who are manning those space lasers setting fire to all the Canadian forests?
Book Signing
My next book signing will be at The Art of Fashion & Moore on Sunday July 23 from 1-4 p.m. Drop by for food and refreshments and check out Teri Moore's revitalized shop, all spruced up after an unexpected bath from Hurricane Ian. It's in the heart of the Fort Myers Downtown Art Walk, 2267 First St., next to the Florida Repertory Theater. See you there.
Readers Write...
Dear J.C.
You mentioned getting up close and personal with the Mona Lisa on Bastille Day earlier in this newsletter. I was wondering, is that how you decided to name Alexander Strange's mannequin Mona? And do you and I have to talk about possible copyright infringement?
Leo da Vinci
Well, Leo, you can't copyright a name, and I'm pretty sure that if you are unalive you won't have standing (or the ability to stand) in court. So, forget about copyright issues. But to your question regarding how Mona the mannequin was named, there might have been some subconscious inspiration. I mean, take a look. They're practically identical, right? Here's what's really going to drive you crazy: Mona has a sister mannequin. She stands guard in my wife Sandy's office. Her name is Lisa.
Dear J.C.
How do you decide which items to include in your list of monthy events in this newsletter? For instance, you note Bastille Day (as the letter writer above mentioned) but you neglected to report that July 11 is International Town Cryers Day. Defend yourself.
Beety Dick
Well, good hearing from you, Beety. Last I knew you were a Scottish town cryer yourself, but according to the never-wrong internet you last rang your bell in 1773. Must be the dead letter-writers issue of the GET SMART newsletter. But to your question, I like the dart-throwing method: Spread of copy of Chase's Calendar of Events and start tossing. Which also explains why I didn't mention that July 17 is World Emoji Day or that the month of July was named after the Roman general and eventual dictator Julius Caesar.
Dear J.C.
Great podcast! I noticed the link sent me to your website, www.jcbruce.com. Have you redesigned it? Looks like you've combined it with the tropic.press website. That right?
E. R. Murrow
Ed, thanks for noticing, and that's right. I've merged three websites into one: Tropic.Press, JCBruce.com, and TheStrangeFiles,com are all now in one place. Click on any link and they all land in the same place. Handy, huh?
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Parting Shot
J.C. Bruce is the author of The Strange Files series of mysterious novels (available on Amazon and other fine online booksellers). He also writes this free monthly newsletter. He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and Florida where he is increasingly alarmed at the number of books being banned. And he was recently awarded the George Santos Medal for setting the world record at underwater ping-pong.