"There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen....Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil."
- From an essay by Frédéric Bastiat in 1850, "That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen"
- From an essay by Frédéric Bastiat in 1850, "That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen"
The Jodi Arias trial was the single most searched Internet topic in 2013.
Neuroscientists have determined that the same part of the brain that processes physical pain -- a cut or a punch -- also processes emotional pain such as exclusion, rejection or lost love. It is known as the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). A relationship or event can be painful.
Social scientists are very interested in the human shift from country to city, rural to urban. There are ninety cities in China alone that have a population of greater than one million. In 1950, there were two cities in the world with a population of more than ten million, by 1975, there were three. In 2007, there were nineteen, and by 2025, the United Nations estimates that there will be twenty-seven. This growth will not occur in North America. People seem frightened by this as we are being removed from basic needs the rural community produces. But we are not frightened by medical specialists, accountants, even shoemakers all who do things we cannot do for ourselves.
"Monster" has many meanings, an imaginary creature, a cruel or wicked person, of huge size, malformed thing. Interestingly the British use it as a verb, "to criticize," which hints at its origin. Its origin is from "warning" or "demonstrate" and some have theorized that "monsters" were symbolic of current problems or anxieties. It has the same root as "money."
A new book with interviews of Hannah Arendt on her writings is arriving. She remains a lightening rod for her “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” a book fascinated with the nature of evil and how little it takes for evil to emerge and be victorious. She excoriates intellectuals for the creation of complex ideas that take on a malignant life of their own.
In one section the interviewer says:"Let’s return to your book, Frau Arendt. In it, you referred to the way that the Eichmann trial laid bare the total nature of the moral collapse at the heart of Europe, among the persecutors and the persecuted alike, in every country." A horrifying question. The moral collapse at the heart of Europe. And the perpetrators and victims on the same moral footing.
Who was....Iris Chang?
We humans share more than half our genomes with flatworms; about 60 per cent with fruit flies and chickens; 80 per cent with cows; and 99 per cent with chimps. This sounds like a cocktail party note but is actually quite important to current biology. The book of genetics is big with a lot of common script. What is crucial is how it is read.
When an organism dies, its DNA breaks down into smaller and smaller fragments, while also becoming contaminated with the DNA of other species like soil bacteria. This makes reconstruction particularly difficult.
The first fossils of the species H. erectus were found on Java, Indonesia, in 1892 by Eugène Dubois, called Java man. Nearly 30 years later, more H. erectus fossils were found thousands of miles away during excavations of the Zhoukoudian cave system just outside of Beijing. This was Peking man. These caves turned out to be "one of the most important Paleolithic sites in the world." After the first fossil was found, anthropologists eventually turned up skulls and bones representing at least 40 H. erectus individuals, other mammal fossils and tens of thousands of stone artifacts. Amazingly, no one knows what happened to the original Peking Man fossils. They disappeared during the Japanese invasion of 1941. Fortunately, the American Museum of Natural History holds an almost complete set of casts made from the originals before the war.
Zhoukoudian, with the cave sites to the left.
Rose Williams, Tennessee Williams' schizophrenic sister and the inspiration for The Glass Menagerie, underwent a frontal lobotomy for her illness, one of the first. Another reason to be careful about being too avant garde.
Golden oldie:
Federal, state and local governments hired a net additional 338,000 workers in November, equaling 41 percent of the total of 818,000 net additional jobs created in the United States during the month.
AAAAaaaannnnndddddd.....a drawing on a map of St. Brendan celebrating mass on a whale:
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