OHYAT: Titus' Decline

With the temperatures dropping, sun disappearing, wind unhelpful and surfaces dreadful, the Polar Party was having a very rough time. Titus awoke on the morning of the 5th to find one of his frostbitten feet had swollen 'tremendously,' rendering him lame and unable to help pull the sledge. 'It is pathetic enough because we can do nothing for him;' Scott wrote, 'more hot food might do a little, but only a little, I fear. We none of us expected these terribly low temperatures, and of the rest of us Wilson is feeling them most; mainly, I fear, from his self-sacrificing devotion in doctoring Oates’ feet.'

Then, ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY:

Poor Oates is unable to pull, sits on the sledge when we are track-searching — he is wonderfully plucky, as his feet must be giving him great pain. He makes no complaint, but his spirits only come up in spurts now, and he grows more silent in the tent. We are making a spirit lamp to try and replace the primus when our oil is exhausted. It will be a very poor substitute and we’ve not got much spirit. If we could have kept up our 9-mile days we might have got within reasonable distance of the depot before running out, but nothing but a strong wind and good surface can help us now, and though we had quite a good breeze this morning, the sledge came as heavy as lead. If we were all fit I should have hopes of getting through, but the poor Soldier has become a terrible hindrance, though he does his utmost and suffers much I fear.

– R.F. Scott

Lovely Lenten Lady #451

All right, hands up everyone who's read Fahrenheit 451 ... Okay, how many of you actually remember it? Do you remember the Hound? The robotic 'pet' at the firehouse that can outrun and hunt down miscreants and inject them with a fatal dose of barbiturates?

Yeah, um ... way not to be reassuring, there, Defense Department:

The Pentagon's 'Cheetah' breaks legged-robot speed record

If you haven't read the book, or don't remember it from when you did read it in school, I highly recommend a (re)visit when you get the chance — it suffers, I think, from being famous and lumped in with very serious and worthy books like 1984 and Brave New World; it's a short and ripping read and would easily make a fantastic movie if anyone thought to do it.* When I read it in school, in the mid-90s, I was astonished how prescient it was regarding the direction of popular culture, and that was before the invention of iPods and Bluetooth and giant wall-mounted flat-screen televisions.
*Edit: there was a movie made in 1966, but I mean a modern movie with post-Godfather sensibilities and really good effects. It would be sweeet!

One of the things that really surprised me when I reread it recently was Clarisse McClellan, the nonconformist who fascinates the protagonist at the beginning of the book. Just how much did she (and the book as a whole) influence the adult I became? I was already well on the path to being a freaky weirdo by Grade 9, but my life as a non-driver and the lack of a television in my house might be traced back to this. (Ray Bradbury lived in LA and never drove; I consider that acceptable company.)