The Demographics of Independence and Loneliness

On this day:
1226
Tran Thu Do, head of the Tran clan of Vietnam, forces Ly Hue Tong, the last emperor of the Ly dynasty, to commit suicide.
1470
Henry VI of England returns to the English throne after Earl of Warwick defeats the Yorkists in battle.
1485
King Henry VII of England is crowned.
1905
Czar Nicholas II of Russia grants Russia’s first constitution, creating a legislative assembly.
1918
The Ottoman Empire signs an armistice with the Allies, ending the First World War in the Middle East.
1922
Benito Mussolini is made Prime Minister of Italy.
1938
Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, causing anxiety in some of the audience in the United States.
1941
World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves U.S. $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Allied nations.
1985
Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for mission STS-61-A, its final successful mission.

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"Even $1 million isn't going to make you happy. It is not going to happen. You look around, and you see people with $2 million, and your happiness will disappear."--Warren Buffett

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From a remarkable paper:

'Researchers have shown for the first time that flipping an epigenetic “switch” in specific memory-holding neurons can directly alter memory strength. By targeting the gene Arc—which helps neurons adjust their connections—scientists used CRISPR-based tools to either boost or silence its activity in engram cells within the hippocampus.

Silencing Arc blocked memory formation, while activating it strengthened recall, even days later, and these effects were reversible. The discovery offers groundbreaking insight into how gene regulation within memory cells can control learning and forgetting, opening possibilities for future therapies in PTSD and neurodegenerative diseases.'

***

The Dadger manager entered the World Series famously saluted his team's overwhelming scouting and financing with the line, "Now, let' destroy baseball."
Last night's Toronto starter went seven innings, gave up one run, and struck out 12. He is 22, started this year in Single A

***

Seven years ago, President Xi promised to end Fentanyl shipments.

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The Demographics of Independence and Loneliness

In 2024, Poland’s fertility rate collapsed to 1.1. Round up the usual suspects. But in this article culled from The Guardian, Anna Gromada offers a unique idea about the problem.

'Unemployment in Poland has dropped to one of the lowest rates in the EU. Incomes have more than doubled. Nursery and childcare places are multiplying. The government now channels almost 8% of the national budget into cash transfers known as the “800 Plus” programme, so called because the state pays families 800 zlotys every month, per dependent child.

And yet, over the same time period, the population has shrunk by 1.5 million. A million new one-person households have materialised in the demographic ledger, quiet entries in a changing social contract. In 2024, Poland’s fertility rate collapsed to 1.1 – meaning it ranks among the world’s least fertile countries, beside war-scarred Ukraine. This year, it is poised to fall further, to 1.05.

The problem is not simply that Poles are having fewer children. Increasingly, they have no partners with whom to try. For the latest phase of gender wars impedes not only childbearing but the very formation of couples – here understood as heterosexual unions – on which birth statistics still mostly rest.

For most of human history, being alone meant being dead. The word “loneliness” barely existed in English until the industrial age. At the dawn of the 20th century, only a tiny share of adults remained unmarried – smaller still in eastern Europe than in the west. In the lands of today’s Poland, scarcely 8% lived as single people; in England, it was nearly double.

A century later, the balance has flipped. Nearly half of Poles under 30 are single. Another fifth are in relationships but live apart. This generation, in particular those aged 18 to 24, surveys show, is more likely to feel lonely than any other – more even than Poles over 75. In 2024, almost two in five young men said they had not had sex for at least a year. Abstinence, too, has become partisan: right-leaning men and left-leaning women are the likeliest to be sexually inactive.

What appears, in statistics, as a fertility crisis seems, in lived experience, to be a crisis of connection.

Gender wars – stoked by political polarisation, the bias of dating algorithms and the clash between autonomy and intimacy – have swept across much of the world. But in post-communist Europe, the conflict feels more acute. Three forces combine to set the region apart: the dizzying speed of change, the rise of psychotherapy as a new cultural grammar and the legacy of communism itself.

Few regions have transformed with such vertigo. Since 1990, GDP per capita in Poland has risen eightfold, even adjusting for the cost of living. Since 2002, unemployment has fallen from 20% to 2.8%. Prosperity has altered both daily life and consciousness, upending generational life patterns and sparking a reckoning between the genders.

The family, once imagined as Poland’s unbreakable core, has begun to fray. When the Berlin Wall fell, less than 6% of children were born out of wedlock – almost five times fewer than in Britain. But as that generation came of age, many chose distance over duty. Data on estrangement remain imperfect, but by one estimate up to one in four Poles under 45 has no contact with their father; up to one in 13 is cut off from their mother. (In Britain, around one in five has no contact with a family member.) When parents no longer serve as role models, stepping into parenthood yourself becomes an act of improvisation.

What the family and the church once provided, the therapist’s couch now supplies. Raised on an low-calorie emotional diet, many Poles have turned to psychotherapy. A decade ago, it was taboo. Today, public health providers report a 145% surge in psychological consultations in 10 years.

Behind these intimate dramas lies a paradox peculiar to post-communist Europe: it is at once more and less gender-equal than the west. Communism, in rejecting the bourgeois model of the family, propelled women into full employment and higher education, a policy that left Poland with one of the EU’s smallest gender-pay gaps. By the 1980s, women already outnumbered men at universities. Yet in the private sphere – marriage, domestic labour, child-rearing – conservative norms endured. When women still seek partners with equal or higher status, but in a society where they get two out of three university diplomas, the numbers no longer add up.

Men and women are literally in different places too: internal migration has shifted the balance so that in the country’s largest cities – such as Warsaw, Łódź and Kraków – there are at least 110 women for every 100 men. Men are more likely to stay in smaller towns, away from the new economy and new norms.

Poland’s baby deficit is not something that can be remedied with cash bonuses, cheaper mortgages, or subsidised creches. What’s faltering in the first place is not the willingness to raise a child but the capacity to build a life with someone.

Beneath Poland’s economic boom lurks what could be called the new generation’s Ingmar Bergman moment: a quiet crisis not of war or want, but of silence – of how to live together, how to find each other, how to sustain intimacy in a nation where people have learned all too well how to thrive on their own.'

This is a different, spooky assessment of a world maturing into group independence and plenty, both becoming individually toxic.

Anti-Intellectualism in the University

On this day:

312
Battle of Milvian Bridge: Constantine I defeats Maxentius, becoming the sole Roman Emperor.
1628
The Siege of La Rochelle, which had lasted for 14 months, ends with the surrender of the Huguenots
1919
The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January.
1922
March on Rome: Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government.
1929
Black Monday, a day in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which also saw major stock market upheaval.
2006
The funeral service takes place for those executed at Bykivnia forest, outside Kiev, Ukraine. 817 Ukrainian civilians (out of some 100,000) executed by Bolsheviks at Bykivnia in 1930s – early 1940s are reburied.

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“There is no such thing as a Lost Cause, because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause.” --T.S. Eliot

***

Ray Dalio argues that the economy can no longer be treated as a single, coherent entity. Big Tech and high finance, dominated by a narrow slice of elites, drive virtually all growth, with the top 1% reaping the greatest economic rewards and the rest of the top 5-10% at least in a position to participate meaningfully.

The bottom 60% of American workers are increasingly unable to participate meaningfully, becoming more “unproductive” in the AI age, not less, and creating “very, very big differences” between the top and bottom. This structural imbalance, in turn, increases fragility and risk.

Dalio's argument assumes that, at least in the U.S., such a knowledge economy is accelerating away from most people, not flattening out or becoming more accessible through AI.

***

Are Mayor Bass, Mayor Lightfoot, and Letitia James Democrat thought leaders?

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Anti-Intellectualism in the University

A remarkable story from Bryan Caplan's blog that is excerpted here.

'Two weeks ago, Scott Beaulier, my co-author and former student, seemed likely to become the next president of Northern Michigan University. In 2016, he became the youngest business school dean in U.S. history at North Dakota State University. In 2022, he became the dean at the University of Wyoming. An NMU alum, he was on the short list for the presidency of his alma mater.

Until activist Andrew Plocher reviewed Beaulier’s C.V. — and discovered that he co-wrote “Behavioral Economics and Perverse Effects of the Welfare State” (Kyklos, 2007) with me. Beaulier’s candidacy was cancelled in a heartbeat.

If Plocher had accused us of plagiarism, falsification of evidence, or other violation of research ethics, the relevance would be clear. University presidents don’t have to be great researchers, but they are supposed to have basic academic integrity. But Plocher made no such accusations. Indeed, he didn’t even try to argue against our paper. Instead, he hysterically summarized our paper’s thesis.

Here are his remarks, interspersed with my commentary:

“I write to express deep concern about the candidacy of Scott Beaulier, who co-authored an academic article titled ‘Behavioral Economics and Perverse Effects of the Welfare State’ (Kyklos, 2007),” Plocher wrote. “In it, Beaulier and his co-author argue that recipients of government assistance are not just economically disadvantaged—they are behaviorally and cognitively deficient.”

Correct. If you read the paper, we offer plenty of evidence in favor of these claims.

Beaulier and his co-author wrote, “The average recipient of government assistance does not even come close” to rational expectations, and go on to claim that “the poor are much more prone to engage in such activities [as drug use, crime, and unprotected sex] than the rest of the population.”

Another correct description of our position, without any effort to refute our evidence.

“They frame these issues not as consequences of structural injustice but as “pathologies” rooted in poor decision-making,” said Plocher.

The subpar decision-making of the poor is fact; see our cites. The “consequences of structural injustice” is dogma. Plocher presents no evidence that the poor are being treated more unjustly than the non-poor. And if society demonstrably did so treat the poor, the rational response for the poor would be extra caution, not imprudence.

Suppose, for example, that society treated you very unjustly. The sensible reaction is, “The deck is stacked against me, so I should be extra careful,” not “Maybe I should have a non-marital birth?” or “Maybe I should heavily use alcohol?”

“Their conclusion is not merely theoretical: it advances a policy framework that explicitly favors restricting the agency and autonomy of low–income people.

On the contrary, Beaulier-Caplan takes the agency and autonomy of low-income people seriously. Rather than attributing their imprudent decisions to “structural injustice,” we treat them like normal humans who are capable of revising their personal decisions without transforming society first.

To date, Beaulier has not publicly recanted, clarified, or rejected these views. That silence is not neutral. It is consent.”

Yes, it is consent. Consent and integrity. Beaulier could have said, “I was only a grad student when I co-authored the paper. Blame Bryan!” But he didn’t. Thank you for that, Scott. Though I would have forgiven you if you’d shifted the blame to me, I’m proud that you didn’t.

Beaulier’s paper went on to state that “by giving the poor material support, we discourage them from getting jobs, acquiring experience, and eventually pulling themselves up by their bootstraps” (Kyklos, 2007).

This correctly states our position, without any effort to refute it.

Beaulier and his co-author also used sources from the studies of Herrnstein and Murray to make their claims. They directly quote their statement on page 497 of ‘Behavioral Economics and Perverse Effects of the Welfare State’ (Kyklos, 2007), saying, “How intelligent a woman is may interact with her impulsiveness, and hence her ability to exert self-discipline and restraint on her partner in order to avoid pregnancy (1994, p. 179).”

Correct.

This quote can be interpreted as allowing the responsibility of conception to fall solely on the woman.

Someone with poor reading comprehension might so interpret the quote. But the sensible interpretation is each woman has a strong influence on whether she gets pregnant, and that more intelligent women do, on average, use their influence more prudently.

NMU community members are concerned about Beaulier’s respect for women, minorities and those in poverty.

“This matters because NMU is a public institution,” Plocher said. “Our student body includes first-generation students, working-class students, rural students, Indigenous students and others from communities often misrepresented in the very ways Beaulier’s paper describes.”

Plocher never even tries to show that we “misrepresent” anyone. He also misses the truism that you can simultaneously believe that (a) the average member of a group is below-average in some way, yet (b) still judge members of that group based on individual performance. Which, if you know Beaulier, is exactly what he would do.

Indeed, you could say that it is attributing subpar performance of “women, minorities, and those in poverty” to “structural injustice” that shows a deep lack of respect for these groups. If members of your group do worse because of bad decisions, you have a straightforward solution: Make better decisions. If members of your group do worse because of structural injustice, in contrast, your situation is basically hopeless. Revolutionary daydreams aside, what can any one individual do about structural injustice?

If you take the time to actually read “Behavioral Economics and Perverse Effects of the Welfare State,” many readers will find some of our arguments less than convincing. But you should still be repelled by Plocher’s — and NMU’s — utterly anti-intellectual response. This really is akin to responding to arguments for atheism with, “They insult the eternal glory of God.” If human beings can dismiss academic arguments merely because they lead to politically unwelcome conclusions, what’s the point of having academic arguments about politically-charged subjects? To quote the self-contained title of one of my favorite essays, “I can’t help but feel like you’re trying to intimidate me into pretending to agree with you.”'

                                                             *

The scientific accuracy and value of the paper's arguments are, and should be, debatable, but that is not the focus of the objection here. The focus is the assumption of 'structural injustice,' a fascinating, growing faith-based nihilism that questions the accuracy of thought and its very process of analysis. Our own imperfections are so deep and ingrained that we can not escape our failures.

Perhaps the only thing that can help us is a counter faith-based philosophy. Or leader.

Sunday/A Declaration

On this day:
1774
The first Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1775
King George III goes before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion, and authorized a military response to quell the American Revolution.
1776
Benjamin Franklin departs from America for France on a mission to seek French support for the American Revolution.
1795
The French Directory, a five-man revolutionary government, is created.
1905
Norway becomes independent from Sweden.
1917
World War I: Battle of Caporetto; Italy suffers a catastrophic defeat at the forces of Austria-Hungary and Germany. The young unknown Oberleutnant Erwin Rommel captures Mount Matajur with only 100 Germans against a force of over 7000 Italians.
1944
World War II: The Battle of Leyte Gulf ends with an overwhelming American victory.
1967
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi crowns himself Emperor of Iran and then crowns his wife Farah Empress of Iran.
1968
Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy pilots Soyuz 3 into space for a four-day mission.
1977
The last natural case of smallpox is discovered in Merca district, Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination.
1999
Britain’s House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain’s upper chamber of Parliament.

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"After 500 years of 3% inflation, $100,000 will be worth 4 cents. If you're not a socialist when you're 20, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative when you're 40, you have no head."---Winston Churchill

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Are endangered species swimming against Nature's tide?" Is a naturalistic fallacy possible?

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When confronted with emotion, reason loses. Emotion has more energy and is better armed. The Enlightenment has lost its influence throughout the West.

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In our post-modern world beyond good and evil, can we still define what should or shouldn't be said?

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Pittsburgh leads the nation in home inheritances, with Birmingham, Ala., not far behind. In both cities, more than 7% of homes — roughly 1 in every 14 — were received as an inheritance or a gift.

***

Sunday/A Declaration

Today's readings are wonderful examples of the richness of early Christian writing.

The gospel is that of the Pharisee and the tax collector, pit against each other in the mind of God. On the surface, it appears a simple criticism of success in the material world but it quickly emerges as much more. The Pharisee is not praying; he is declaring. In essence, he is praying to himself. What is on the chopping block here is not success--in the world or spirit--it is a very human trait: Self-satisfaction. What Christ is criticizing is self-content, the lack of self-criticism. The letter of the law is not enough. He wants  us to be restless, to search. Revelation wants us to search!

And Paul's letter to Timothy: "Beloved: I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand." Just beautiful.

This was once everyday reading for people. Skepticism has stripped this finery from us, leaving us with the occasional insightful, snarky political editorial.

SatStats

On this day:

1415
The army of Henry V of England defeats the French at the Battle of Agincourt.
1854
The Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War (Charge of the Light Brigade).
1917
Traditionally understood date of the October Revolution, involving the capture of the Winter Palace, Petrograd, Russia. The date refers to the Julian Calendar date, and corresponds with November 7 in the Gregorian calendar.
1944
Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, takes place in and around the Philippines between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the U.S. Third and U.S. Seventh Fleets.
1944
The USS Tang under Richard O'Kane (the top American submarine captain of World War II) is sunk by the ship’s own malfunctioning torpedo.
1945
The Republic of China takes over administration of Taiwan following Japan’s surrender to the Allies.
1962
Cuban missile crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows photos at the UN proving Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba.

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That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way. -Doris Lessing, novelist, poet, playwright, Nobel laureate (22 Oct 1919-2013)

***

Is it likely a political group that doesn;t know what a woman is will be able to recognize what a Nazi is? Will this difficulty be solved by applying terms like "adjacent" to it?

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An Anti-Defamation League chart purports to prove that right-wingers perpetrate the majority of politically motivated murders in the United States.
In only one of 11 murders classified as right-wing on the 2024 ADL list was the perpetrator clearly inspired by ideology.
On the other hand, the assassination of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was explicitly ideological in nature — the shooter wrote an anti-capitalist manifesto. Yet the ADL did not categorize it as a left-wing attack and did not include it in its list of extremist murders at all.

Could they pass the 'what is a woman' test?

***

SatStats

Hamburger Helper sales have risen 14.5 percent just since the start of the year.

*

The Industrial Revolution, over a century and a half, raised the bread, ships, and innocent amusement available to the ordinary person by a factor of 12.

*

The Pirate payroll/revenue split is ranked 27th in MLB. 31.6 percent of revenue is being reinvested into players.

*

The share of coal in electricity generation dropped as renewable energy surged ahead. But the general increase in power demand meant that more coal was used overall, according to the annual State of Climate Action report, published on Wednesday.

*

In 2024, Poland’s fertility rate collapsed to 1.1 – meaning it ranks among the world’s least fertile countries, beside war-scarred Ukraine. This year, it is poised to fall further, to 1.05.

*

1,899 — Total points, including playoffs, for Crosby entering Saturday. He surpassed Mario for the most in team history Tuesday. Sid now ranks seventh in NHL history.

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Apple’s 2023 revenue (almost $400 billion) makes it about as big as the entire economy of Denmark or the Philippines.

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Wells Fargo estimates Costco was selling as much as $200 million in gold bars per month in April 2024.

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When 120 of Cornelius Vanderbilt's descendants gathered at Vanderbilt University in 1973 for the first family reunion, there was not a millionaire among them.

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The horse population declined by almost 90% between 1910 to 1960.

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20 years after the electric light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison in 1879, just 3% of US households had electricity.

Human Rights

 On this day:

42 BC
Roman Republican civil wars: Second Battle of Philippi – Mark Antony and Octavian decisively defeat Brutus’s army. Brutus commits suicide.
1641
Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641.
1642
Battle of Edgehill: First major battle of the First English Civil War.
1861
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, D.C., for all military-related cases.
1906
Alberto Santos-Dumont flies an airplane in the first heavier-than-air flight in Europe at Champs de Bagatelle, Paris, France.
1911
First use of aircraft in war: An Italian pilot takes off from Libya to observe Turkish army lines during the Turco-Italian War.
1912
First Balkan War: The Battle of Kumanovo between the Serbian and Ottoman armies begins.
1956
Thousands of Hungarians protest against the government and Soviet occupation. (The Hungarian Revolution is crushed on November 4).
1958
The Springhill Mine Bump – An underground earthquake traps 174 miners in the No. 2 colliery at Springhill, Nova Scotia, the deepest coal mine in North America at the time. By November 1, rescuers from around the world had dug out 100 of the victims, marking the death toll at 74.
1983
Lebanon Civil War: The U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut is hit by a truck bomb, killing 241 U.S. military personnel. A French army barracks in Lebanon is also hit that same morning, killing 58 troops.
2002
Moscow Theatre Siege begins: Chechen terrorists seize the House of Culture theater in Moscow and take approximately 700 theater-goers hostage.

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"...job opportunities will exist as long as we human beings have wants to be met, and entrepreneurs and workers are free to bargain with each other to find ways to satisfy those wants.

Unless AI becomes godlike and fully satisfies each and every human desire, leaving no one wanting for anything, humans will have demands that can be met only by cooperating commercially with other humans. This cooperation creates jobs."--letter to the editor WSJ, on AI

***

Will AI history formulas emerge from AI writing formulas?

***

Which laws approved by duly elected representatives should we oppose in the streets? How is that decision made? Why are some law agents opposed and not others?

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It is said that discussion is an alternative to violence. Here is an interesting etymology:

Polemical:

MEANING:
adjective: Relating to or involving strong, critical, or controversial writing or speech.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek polemikos, from polemos (war). A related word is polemology (the science and study of human conflict and war). Earliest documented use: 1615.

***


Human Rights

Where are rights from? What rights are inalienable?

Cicero, bringing the Greek Stoics' idea of higher law to Rome, expressed the primacy of moral standards over government laws. These standards became known as natural law. Above all, Cicero declared, government is morally obliged to protect human life and private property.

Natural rights are those inherent to human beings, before any formal legal or social structures were in place. They can not be removed and do not need to be granted. 

Thomas Hobbes, a much later English philosopher, described nature as a “war of all against all,” where life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” In this chaotic environment, Hobbes argued that individuals had the natural right to do whatever they needed to survive, and society's restrictions arose to moderate it.

John Locke had a more optimistic view of the state of nature. He believed that people were generally reasonable and moral, but still needed a government to protect their natural rights to life, liberty, and property.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that humans were naturally good but were corrupted by society. The development of property, social institutions, and technology led to inequality and conflict.

Jeremy Bentham was a critic of natural rights. He described the idea of natural rights as “nonsense upon stilts,” that rights are created by laws and cannot exist outside of a legal framework.

"Natural." "Rights." A merging. A two-way street. A partnership. The Left takes a leap of faith.

The “nature rights” movement is pushing environmentalism into that unscientific realm. Specifically, the movement promotes a neo-pagan mysticism — such as invoking Pachamama, the Incan earth goddess — as a major basis for its advocacy.

The Left is, in the absence of argument, becoming fantastical. 

Such approaches have reached the highest levels and are in use in medical and scientific journals.

And symposiums.

Harvard Kennedy School hosted a symposium on “nature rights” undergirded by “indigenous knowledge” as part of the 2025 Harvard Climate Action Week. From “Indigenous Leadership on Protecting Water as a Fundamental Right:”

Throughout the event, a recurring theme was the need to reframe the human relationship with water—not as a resource for human consumption but as a living relative with which humans share reciprocal duties.

So, if a river rises and the flood hurts people, should we whip the waters? Or can we sue it?

Or are we above that?

No Pawns

On this day:

1096
People’s Crusade: The Turkish army annihilates the People’s Army of the West.
1097
First Crusade: Crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond IV of Toulouse, begin the Siege of Antioch.
1774
First display of the word “Liberty” on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts in defiance of British rule in Colonial America
1805
Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar: A British fleet led by Vice Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve. It signals almost the end of French maritime power and leaves Britain’s navy unchallenged until the 20th century.
1854
Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War.
1861
American Civil War: Battle of Ball’s Bluff – Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war. Baker, a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, is killed in the fighting.
1944
World War II: Battle of Aachen: The city of Aachen falls to American forces after three weeks of fighting, making it the first German city to fall to the Allies.
1944
World War II: The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.

***

"Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals, the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great creative scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned if at all." -Martin Gardner, mathematician and writer (21 Oct 1914-2010)

***

A funny aspect to 'No Kings:' The hope this would become an international leftist populist movement (without the violence, rape, and murder inherent to revolutionary philosophies) was limited by the fact that many of the target countries really had kings.

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A common assessment of the New York mayoral election is that the popular candidate is dangerous to the city. But he is the expression of a sizable portion of the electorate; are they dangerous, too?

***

No Pawns

One of the axioms of democracy is that 'Freedom Isn't Free.' It also isn't one-sided. A simple look at the American Revolution, a pivotal point in the Western world, shows that getting rid of oppression wasn't the half of it. 

On July 2, 1776, the Congress voted to declare independence. Two days later, it ratified the text of the Declaration. Cornwallis surrendered his entire army at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. The American Revolution officially ended on September 3, 1783. Washington was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, in New York City. It took years to hammer out a constitution that everyone could tolerate.

After the Lee Resolution proposed independence for the American colonies, the Second Continental Congress appointed three committees on June 11, 1776. One of the committees was tasked with determining what form the confederation of the colonies should take. This committee was composed of one representative from each colony. John Dickinson, a delegate from Delaware, was the principal writer.

The Dickinson Draft of the Articles of Confederation named the confederation "the United States of America." After considerable debate and revision, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation on November 15, 1777, establishing a "league of friendship" for the 13 sovereign and independent states. Each state retained "every Power...which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States. The Articles of Confederation also outlined a Congress with representation not based on population – each state would have one vote in Congress. Partisan bickering delayed final ratification until March 1, 1781.

A few years later, the young country was on the brink of collapse. With the states-nee-colonies retaining considerable authority, the central government had insufficient power to regulate commerce. Nor could it tax, set commercial policy, or support a war effort. Congress attempted to function with a depleted treasury, and paper money was flooding the country, creating extraordinary inflation.

The states were on the brink of economic disaster, and the central government had little power to settle quarrels between states. Disputes over territory, war pensions, taxation, and trade threatened to tear the country apart.

In May of 1787, the Constitutional Convention assembled in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation. They shuttered the windows of the State House (Independence Hall) and swore secrecy so they could speak freely. By mid-June, the delegates had decided to completely redesign the government. After three hot, summer months of highly charged debate, the new Constitution was signed, which remains in effect today.

This is to say, after the stunning success of the Revolution, even the geniuses who engineered it could not create a lasting government structure. Their first effort resulted in unworkable chaos.

Which brings us to the charming street fair known as 'No Kings.' Free government is an oxymoron; it is very hard. Trying to create your own populist movement by opposing something that doesn't exist by dressing up in multicolored unicorn costumes and dancing is benign enough, but only if you truly understand that it is neither serious nor meaningful.

The real lesson of 'No Kings' is that the flamboyant opposition to something that doesn't exist is not even a first step to solving our life-threatening problems.

Sunday: The Widow and the Judge

On this day:
1469
Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella I of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
1512
Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology (Doctor in Biblia).
1781
At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis’ sword and formally surrendered to George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau.
1789
Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.
1805
Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grand Army of Napoleon at the Battle of Ulm. 30,000 prisoners are captured and 10,000 casualties inflicted on the losers.
1812
Napoleon I of France retreats from Moscow.
1813
The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats.
1900
Max Planck, in his house at Grunewald, on the outskirts of Berlin, discovers the law of black body emission (Planck’s law).
1950
The People’s Republic of China joins the Korean War by sending thousands of troops across the Yalu river to fight United Nations forces.
1956
The Soviet Union and Japan sign a Joint Declaration, officially ending the state of war between the two countries that had existed since August 1945.
2005
Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

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“Make no mistake: What we are dealing with is a real mysterious creature, not a simple and predictable machine. And like all the best fairytales, the creature is of our own creation. Only by acknowledging it as being real and by mastering our own fears do we even have a chance to understand it, make peace with it, and figure out a way to tame it and live together.”--Jack Clark, whose official title at Anthropic is head of policy

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Went to the "No Kings" event yesterday in Boston. Some clever signs answering unasked questions, a festival mood, an older crowd. This seemed to be a meeting of people who don't like Trump--of whom there are many. (Over 48% of voters voted for Harris.) But one would think if you were mad enough at him to get up, make a sign, and join others in the street, you would have some specifics.

There's a lot wrong with the country and its direction, but they will not be solved with self-indulgent displays.

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The Israeli military says it has carried out strikes in southern Gaza, after an alleged attack by Hamas on its troops in Rafah.

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For Tesla owners in the U.S., their 2023 Model Ys are worth 42% less than what they paid two years ago, while a Ford F-150 truck bought the same year depreciated just 20%. Older EV models depreciate even faster than newer ones.

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A brazen robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris on Sunday morning has left investigators searching for several men who made off with what officials describe as "priceless" jewels.

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Sunday/The Widow and the Judge

In today's Gospel, the persistent widow wears down the judge. It is paired with the Old Testament reading where Moses influences Joshua's success in battle by having his friends support his arms during the combat. Both involve the advantage of regular prayer. Of courage and persistence. But Christ also raises a disquieting concept: a dishonorable judge.

Here, the judge neither feared God nor respected man. However, it raises a more significant concern: the possibility that the judge is not committed to justice.

There was a disturbing sci-fi story where the judge of this universe was a child playing with the universe given to him by his all-powerful parents as a toy.  And there are countless post-Enlightenment philosophies stating the universe is, at best, godless and indifferent. Christ does not assume that such questions will not be raised. What is astonishing is how dismissive He is of them.