James Amos

John Heim aka Big Mo Retiring from the Big Mo Blues Show

We were listening to the KCCK radio Big Mo Blues Show last night when John Heim aka Big Mo announced he’s retiring as of May 15, 2026. Iowa musician Ed English (Uncle Ed of the Beaker Brothers band) was also in the studio and remarked that he’ll be taking over the show sometime after that. The Beaker Brothers Band will also be retiring around the same time frame. It was a surprise to us.

I’ve been listening to the Friday night blues show off and on probably for about 18 years. And here’s a shout-out to Bobby DeForest who first started “da Blues” back in 1992 (Little Village news story). After that John Heim (aka Big Mo) came on. Bob DeForest still has a blues music show on Saturday night.

I don’t remember who was doing the Friday blues show during the times when I was listening (although Sena says it was Big Mo) which probably started back in the mid-1990s or so—but I do remember that Iowa blues star and member of the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame Kevin Burt substituted for a couple of weeks sometime between 2005 and 2011. Despite my faulty memory for some things, I’m pretty sure about that. There’s no mistaking Kevin Burt’s voice.

Ed and his band will be retiring sometime this summer. They have several gigs planned in June. Ed mentioned he might record some of the Friday night blues shows after May 15^th. By the way, I’ve got a blog post from last August about my post from April 14, 2024 entitled “KCCK Big Mo News and More.”

Ed left a comment on it: “Always available on the web and the KCCK App, too… ;0).”

The first part is clear, although the emoticon puzzled me. I looked it up but couldn’t find anything about it except that it might mean amazement. It looks like wink.

Other than the music, I like Big Mo’s sense of humor, which he often displayed in little comedy bits which are about “Sponsors de faux.” The main one is MayRee’s Hand-Battered Catfish. There are a few others like Shorty’s Adult Diapers (they’re ready when you aren’t) and Big Furry Shaving Products. There was a podcast about those. And I can’t swear to it but I think he tried to start another one about “fish psychics” back in October 2025. But I can’t swear to it and I’ve not heard it since.

I have suggested that KCCK make a tee-shirt with a MayRee’s hand-battered catfish logo on it, but apparently that’s a non-starter.

Anyway, we wish Big Mo all the luck in the world after his retirement and hope he enjoys it as much as he can. I retired from psychiatry 6 years ago and look how well I turned out! That reminds me, I always like to pretend that, during the shout-out part of his show, when he mentions “Jim the Shrink” he means me.

How Cribbage Tournaments Deal with Slow Players

Remember that cribbage game Sena and I filmed a while ago to show we could finish a cribbage game in 15 minutes if we really tried? Well, we just managed, although truth to tell, our games typically run 20 minutes or so.

Well, today I looked at the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) monthly newsletter called Cribbage World. There’s an interesting article in the My Deal column (a regular feature) on page 6 in which the writer, David Aiken (one of the board directors) describes how the ACC manages slow players in tournaments.

They actually move up the starting line to either 28 or 56. Apparently, the problem of slow cribbage players is common enough to make a rule change that makes the typical cribbage hole range shorter than 121. It’s called playing the short game.

The way they standardized this was to use cribbage expert DeLynn Colvert’s 26 Theory as described in his book “Play Winning Cribbage.” This forms the basis of what is sometimes called positional cribbage. Sena and I contacted the person at the ACC who typically answers questions about cribbage about how commonly do tournament players use positional cribbage strategy to increase their chances of winning by playing aggressively or defensively depending on board position and knowing where the “par holes” are located.

Incredibly, he says he doesn’t use it, yet he’s reached Grand Master level over the course of his career. I never use it either, but it’s because I don’t understand it well enough.

Anyway, they adjusted the par holes based on Colvert’s 26 Theory and came up with new starting holes that would compensate for the tendency for some players to play too slowly during tournaments.

Of course, that raises the question of how do tournament officials know which players need to play the short game? Do the slow players self-select? I hardly think so; many would probably resist being labeled “slow.” Would they have to play rock, paper, scissors with tournament organizers to settle it?

I don’t know how that’s done. Occasionally, I take a stab at trying to read Colvert’s chapter on his 26 Theory. Inevitably, I give up before getting to the “ah hah, Eureka!” moment. I did find a couple of other articles by Aiken about the 26 Theory which were published in the January page 6 and February page 6 2023 issues of Cribbage World. I think it’s fascinating that somebody else came up with a strategy similar to Colvert’s about a hundred years before he did.

What’s Happening with the Hawks?

This morning I got a couple of videos of one of the hawks perched on the side of the nest fiddling with something in it. We can’t tell what’s happening with it, but I don’t think anything has hatched, if any eggs are in there.

We’re hoping the chicks hatch so we can see them before the foliage gets too dense on the trees.

Cannabis Rescheduled from Schedule I to Schedule III Today

As of today, the US Dept. of Justice moved “…the classifications of products containing marijuana that are covered by the Food and Drug Administration or that have received a state medical-marijuana licence” from Schedule I to Schedule III.

This is not exactly the same as reclassifying all marijuana, although it looks like that is being considered as the next step. Marijuana itself is still illegal at the Federal level. And today’s current change in classification could also be legally challenged in the next 30 days.

It’s important to point out that today’s DOJ action is not the same as “full federal legislation” of marijuana. That would mean de-scheduling it altogether.

You can find out more about the legal consequences of today’s action at congress.gov. For example, “With respect to the manufacture, distribution, and possession of recreational marijuana, if marijuana were moved to Schedule III, such activities would remain illegal under federal law and potentially subject to federal prosecution regardless of their status under state law.”

Is Cannabis Reclassification Imminent?

I saw a couple of brief news alerts indicating that progress toward reclassification of marijuana from Schedule I to III could be happening as soon as today according to a Reuters report. I think that means we should pay attention to other stories and reports of cannabis use being associated with higher rates of psychosis in adolescents. That information is not new and it has been reported since at least since 2010.

The DEA is in charge of reclassification of substances.

Red tailed Hawk Pair Trade Places on the Nest

Early this morning, we saw the Red-tailed hawks trade places in the nest. This gives the mate a chance to grab a bite to eat while the other incubates the eggs we hope are in there.

Little birds tend to chase the hawks away from their territories. Even though the hawks are 3 times bigger than the little ones, they meekly oblige by moving away.

Sena’s Out in the Garden on Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day and Sena is out in the garden working. She’s doing it not just because it’s Earth Day. She’s doing it because she cares a lot about the garden and not just that. She’s often way out in the outlot beyond our back yard.

We got a message in our mailbox from Forever Green in Coralville. Of course, it’s an ad about a sale to buy stuff at their store on Earth Day through Arbor Day (April 22-25). The great part of their message is:

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

Sena cares a whole awful lot. Happy Earth Day!

The Question of Ethical Principles Regarding the Ivermectin Portion of Governor Reynolds MAHA Bill HF 2676

I think the Iowa legislature bill HF 2676 (Governor Reynolds’ MAHA bill) has just been sent back to the Senate, maybe based on fiscal issues, according to the most recent information I could find on the web. The ivermectin piece probably isn’t in a section that bears heavily on fiscal matters, so if the Senate approves it this time, it might either go back to the House for more debate about budgetary issues—or it might go to Governor Reynolds’ desk to sign (if it even has to be signed by the governor).

The ivermectin part of this bill would allow pharmacists to decide (it’s not mandatory; it’s permissive) on whether or not to offer ivermectin over-the-counter—for whatever reason a patient wants it, which could be for treating Covid-19 infection for which there’s no evidence of its effectiveness.

Because the language of the bill states that pharmacists would be immune from civil and criminal liability for bad outcomes from using ivermectin for treating Covid-19 infection, it would be up to individual pharmacists to choose whether or not to provide it for that purpose, based on their ethical principles to act out of their sense of clinical duty to ensure patient safety.

The ivermectin part of the bill is in Section VII and, in my opinion, should be removed.

How are the Red-tailed Hawks Doing?

How about them Hawks! I’m not talking about the Iowa Hawkeye football team. Today, I got another video of the Red-tailed hawk pair in their nest that might make you seasick. It’s windy. Sena tried to get a video but often gives me the camera.

According the internet they mate around March or April and lay 2-4 eggs which hatch in 4-5 weeks.

They poke around in the nest as if maybe they’re turning eggs (we think). Tree leaves are starting to bud out so visibility will unfortunately diminish.

Who is Stupider in Cribbage: AI or You?

I read this article today about how more and more students are using ChatGPT or some kind of AI to write term papers. The title gives you a clue what the author’s opinion of it: “AI Chatbots could be making you stupider.”

For about the last 3 years I’ve been writing about how AI is not the greatest thing, in fact both Sena and I say it should be “dislodged.” It won’t be, so we need to keep our brains limber. Hey, we exercise our bodies. There are ways to exercise our brains and some of them can be fun.

For example, we regularly play cribbage and there are variations of the game that make scoring more challenging.

Sena regularly says that 6 card cribbage as typically played in tournaments sponsored by the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) is too easy those who participate in them. I think that might be an overstatement, but there’s no doubt a lot of variants make you think harder about scoring, what cards to throw to the crib, and how to think your way through the pegging phase.

Take 9 card cribbage for example—please! I almost hate this game because the hand and crib scores are often too hard to count. You have to resort to using a computer scorer that, so far, you can find in only one place and it’s the Reddit site where you also can find the rules of the game. It’s not hard to play because you follow the basic rules of 6 card cribbage. It’s just mind-bendingly difficult to score most of the time.

You can check out our YouTube video of 9 card cribbage for the Cribbage Wars game if you like, which took hours (no, days) to put together because of the scoring complexity.

I still can’t get over the fact that Sena got a 29-hand playing 6 card cribbage on Cribbage Wars a while back and we never even recognized it until days later. The context of playing 6 card cribbage on a Cribbage Wars game board somehow made us oblivious to seeing the 29-hand right in front of us. Most people never see it because the odds of getting it are 1 in 216,580.

I realize playing cribbage isn’t the same as writing term papers, but it’s still good for your brain. Some think people are still better than AI at playing cribbage.

There is a computer player called Brutal on a computer version of cribbage called Cribbage Pro. I got a 28-hand playing Brutal once. Google Gemini calls this an AI player and says, while Brutal uses algorithms and statistics, it can falter when facing the psychological tactics used by humans.

Google Gemini summary and a video of a Cribbage Pro game using ChatGPT:

“AI Performance: High-level AI, such as that in the CribbagePro app, is very competitive, with top human players only beating the hardest bot 55% to 60% of the time.
Techniques Used: AI in cribbage uses a combination of techniques, including reinforcement learning and minimax algorithms, focusing on maximizing scores in both the discarding and pegging phases.
Challenges: While analyzing the best cards to discard is a “static” problem, teaching an AI to excel at the “pegging” (card play) phase is harder, as it requires anticipating opponents’ moves.
Vision Technology: Recent developments include using AI for real-time computer vision, such as apps that use machine learning to identify and score physical cards on a table.

While AI is capable of playing, it often focuses on statistical optimization rather than the psychological aspects of the game used by human players.”