Abuse by the "Haves"

                                 Abuse by the "Haves"

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that after a surprise inspection, the city’s health department has ordered Japanese fine dining spot Hashiri to take down the fine dining domes that have made it internationally famous.

Hashiri opted to erect three plastic garden igloos on the sidewalk and reopened for dinner on August 5. The structures, which cost $1,400 apiece, immediately generated controversy, as the restaurant, which caters to the ultra-rich, happens to be located in an area where people experiencing homelessness congregate. Experiencing homelessness.

“Mint Plaza is a phenomenal space, it’s just sometimes the crowd is not too favorable,” Matsuura said to the Chronicle. “There are people who come by and spit, yell, stick their hands in people’s food, discharging fecal matter right by where people are trying to eat. It’s really sad, and it’s really hard for us to operate around that.”

The restaurant began receiving hate mail prior to the surprise inspection, which Matsuura suspects was the result of anonymous complaints to the Department of Public Health. The domes were ordered removed “due to the enclosed nature of the structure, which may not allow for adequate airflow,” per the inspection report.

There is an obvious question here: Who is at fault and who should be restricted? One gets the feeling that the law will go after whoever takes them seriously and will ignore an offender who does not. The criminalization of restaurants and their customers requires a very special prism.

 

Forgotten

                                                                    Forgotten

Studies show silver diamine fluoride stops decay in 60 to 70 percent of cases with one application. A second application six months later boosts the treatment’s long-term effectiveness to more than 90 percent.

In addition to killing cavity-causing bacteria, the treatment hardens tooth structure, desensitizes the tooth and even stops new cavities from forming. Applying the liquid on the exposed root surfaces of older adults once a year is “a simple, inexpensive, and effective way” to prevent cavities, a 2018 study concluded. 

This has been around for 100 years and used in Europe for decades.

Scurvy was “cured” as early as 1497, when Vasco de Gama’s crew discovered the power of citrus…but this cure was repeatedly lost, forgotten, rediscovered, misconstrued, confused, and just generally messed around with for hundreds of years, despite being a leading killer of seafarers and other explorers. By the 1870s the “citrus cure” was discredited, and for nearly sixty years, scurvy — despite being cured, with scientific research to back it up — continued killing people, including men on Scott’s 1911 expedition to the South Pole. This went on until vitamin C was finally isolated in 1932 during research on guinea pigs.

And, of course, Roman concrete. They mixed lime and volcanic ash and, after packing the mixture into wooden molds, they submerged it all in seawater. The saltwater then set off a chemical reaction–it hydrated the lime in such a way as to make it react with the ash, which ultimately formed an incredibly sturdy, solid bond.

Solutions, all in plain sight.

Heritage and its Evils

                                                   Heritage and its Evils    

A recent article in the WSJ said:

As civilization from the Renaissance forward has drawn on knowledge of the classical liberal world, the association of classical forms with an illegitimate order has long been a central tenet of antiliberal ideology. “Racism” and “whiteness” have now been added to these accusations in an attempt to undermine the country’s classical foundations. For example, “the primacy of Western (Greek, Roman) and Judeo-Christian tradition” is now considered one of the “aspects and assumptions of whiteness,” according to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Similarly, earlier this year, after the Trump administration proposed a classical mandate for the design of new Federal buildings in keeping with Washington’s classical vernacular, critics denounced the style as one that “dredges up images of antebellum America.”

It ended, 

“Every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute.” So George Orwell wrote in “1984.” “History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

This, it seems, is the endpoint of all dissections, the identification of a separateness among the many, a singularity of antecedents which, when identified, can be either celebrated or diminished in this new tyranny of the weak. 

Such a view of life makes things so much easier to control. 

Sunday/Political Dogma

 

                                         Sunday/Political Dogma

Trump has nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. All Supreme Court nominations bring out the worst in American politics and this one will be particularly bad because Ms. Barrett's opponents will, as they did with Bork, have to publicly oppose quality.

Like Bork, no one objects to the nominee's credentials. She is simply a fine mind, the caliber of Scalia. Her scholastic and academic background is impeccable, her judicial decisions logical, forceful, and often groundbreaking. Nor does anyone object to her personally; who could not admire a successful woman who has adopted two Haitian children? Who could not feel for the mother of a Down's child? No, the antipathy toward Ms. Barrett is deep and white-hot. Ms. Barrett is not just opposed, she is despised--for her beliefs. In the United States of America, a candidate for a court is despised because she reveres the American Constitution.

No one will admit this, of course. There will be a Stalin-like sham trial over her judicial decisions that will be presented not as judicial, but as religious. As the esteemed Diane Feinstein slurred in her appointment hearing for the 7th Court, "the dogma lives loudly within you.” Ms. Barrett, you see, is a Catholic.
"The dogma within" distorts her. She is not just an accomplished American citizen, she is some other twisted creature.

Already the internet cries are out. Girls are calling each other with new contraceptive plans. Barrett will certainly attack The Pill, perhaps an IUD should be considered. That might get each girl through a four-year term. The ancient suggestion the Pope might be packing his bags to take up residence in the Chambers might be next.

This, of course, is theater. There are already five Catholics on the Court: Sonia Sotomayor, Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. There has not been, as yet, a gynecologic revolution. The point is not her Catholicism, it is her strict application of the Constitution. And that must be fought in any way possible.

The attacks on this woman will be much worse than those on Kavanaugh because she, like Bork, has a deep, abiding quality; she is a woman of substance. And that translates into influence. Her opponents do not oppose her because they are simply bigots, they oppose her because she embodies all of the standards of individualism and freedom that stand in the way of the power they crave. Already they are meeting in boardrooms and conferences, testing focus groups and ad men, planning, and coordinating. Even though the Press is in thrall, they know they will have to be better than Kennedy was with Bork.

She will have to have a lot within her to withstand the viciousness that is coming.

Stats

 

                                                                       Stats

An interesting--if unflattering--way of looking at the damage done by the Virus:

Goals for America

                                    Goals for America

Communication, despite our technological advances, seems to have become more difficult. As a social species, we are eager for interaction but writing is new to us and speech is our real medium. The written word has to be approached and decided upon so it is easily avoided but we are subjected to speech, whether we want to be or not. Technology has taken us far beyond the annoying town crier or the drunk in the road. We now have television, radio and countless portable devices chatting or blasting at us through walls or from across the street.

So, despite our basic tendencies, we are getting good at tuning things out.

We are protecting ourselves from everything; bad music, arguing spouses, advertisements, talk shows, weird game shows…and politics. We really try to protect ourselves from politics. There was a time when some profound leaders roamed the land but they are extinct. Now we are the victims of simply astonishing political nonsense, caused partly by the growing belief that everything is a performance. Children can make a good living performing on Facebook or Instagram. Clothing must startle. Private tattoos are creeping up the neck and into the face. 

When politicians perform, bad things happen. Intensity and distinctiveness demand politicians step from center stage to the sideshow. In the last months we have had an avalanche of political debris of every kind characterized by insincerity, grandstanding and laughable mendacity, lying so profound and pervasive that we accept it as a sort of compartmentalized argot to be understood, tolerated and ignored like Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Since Vietnam, military men seem to be in decline. And Lord knows what we can think of churchmen. Indeed, one might wonder if our culture of advertising, seduction and insincerity is capable of producing probity at all. Even baseball cheats.
            If true, we might turn to one group that consistently speaks with insight and truthfulness in their area of expertise: Hockey coaches. Whether between periods or at game’s end, hockey coaches consistently give accurate, unflinching assessments of the performance of the team and its coaching staff. They are determined, always looking forward, always as upbeat as the situation allows, always offering some suggestions for improvement. They don’t wander out beyond their field of influence. They seem to be better dressed. And they don’t cry. This is a virtual description of a desirable chief executive.

This leads to an obvious conclusion. Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as president of the United States, under clause 5: 

            No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

It is time to change this rule to allow hockey coaches born in Canada, to run for president. And if they refuse, perhaps we could conscript them.

                                

Mencken Quotes

 

In these times of enlightenment and change, it is valuable to think on those notions that have less confidence in enlightenment and change.

Mencken Quotes

A Collection of Mencken Quotes

1. Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

2. A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

3. A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

4. Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

5. Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.

6. Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

7. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

8. Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

9. If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

10. For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

11. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

12. As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

13. The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve.

14. No democratic delusion is more fatuous than that all men are capable of reason, and hence susceptible to conversion by evidence.

15. Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

16. Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.

17. The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.

18. When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

Zealots

                                                 Zealots

From Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (“What Islamists and ‘Wokeists’ Have in Common“):


"Their ideology goes by many names: cancel culture, social justice, critical race theory, intersectionality. For simplicity, I call it all Wokeism.

… consider the resemblances [between Wokeism and Islamism]. The adherents of each constantly pursue ideological purity, certain of their own rectitude. Neither Islamists nor the Woke will engage in debate; both prefer indoctrination of the submissive and damnation of those who resist.

The two ideologies have distinctive rituals: Islamists shout “Allahu Akbar” and “Death to America”; the Woke chant “Black lives matter” and “I can’t breathe.” Islamists pray to Mecca; the Woke take the knee. Both like burning the American flag.

Both believe that those who refuse conversion may be harassed, or worse. Both take offense at every opportunity and seek not just apologies but concessions. Islamism inveighs against “blasphemy”; Wokeism wants to outlaw “hate speech.” Islamists use the word “Islamophobia” to silence critics; the Woke do the same with “racism.”

Both ideologies aim to tear down the existing system and replace it with utopias that always turn out to be hellish anarchies: Islamic State in Raqqa, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle. Both are collectivist: Group identity trumps the individual. Both tolerate—and often glorify—violence carried out by zealots.

This Sept. 11, then, let’s dismiss the fairy stories about the enemies of a free society. Their grievances aren’t merely economic and they won’t be satisfied with jobs or entitlements. Their motivations are ideological and they will be satisfied only with power.

I cling to the hope that most Americans are still willing as a nation to fight and, if necessary, to die to preserve our freedoms, our rights, our customs, our history. It was the spirit that ultimately defeated al Qaeda and Islamic State. But it is not the spirit of today’s “woke” protesters. And it is time that we all woke up to that reality."

* I think this is a misleading article. I'm not sure that fanaticism isn't just generic. But religious fanaticism at least has some dogma, a library of commonly held beliefs rather than just slogans. Indeed, religious fanaticism is usually an exaggeration of those same beliefs held by a larger and more moderate people. The Inquisition in Europe looked very similar, one Christian group to another. I think comparing incoherent, childish,  and untutored morons greatly underestimates the appeal of the zealot and gives more dignity to the moron than he deserves.

Aristocracy

 

                                                                      Aristocracy

The Supreme Court vacancy allows the rest of the citizens--and the world--to watch the politicians in all their glory. It will be a crash course on all the problems built into us that the Constitution tries to protect us from. Mendacity, vanity, arrogance, hypocrisy, lust for power will all be on parade while the presumed watchdog, the Press, doesn't bark.

Some, feigning morality and fair play, will urge the Republicans to give up their advantage for the larger, better cause. Usually they would--from weakness, not sensibility--but probably will not this time, certainly to the high-minded criticism of their predatory opponents. But one small thing appeared in the growing discussion that is indicative of the whole, rotten mess. Ms. Ginsburg made a dying wish that the vote on her successor be withheld until the new President is sworn in. As if the seat were a legacy. Something to bequeath.

Hers.

Some Populism

                                          Some Populism           

Curious that there is a lot of talk about populism going on, as both an accusation and as a claim. Generally described as "the will of the people," populism is hard to define because "the people" are hard to define. Indeed, Asimov had a story where "the people" were embodied in one person picked by computer and that person cast the only vote for president. The "will of the People" has a background, sanctified by Rousseau

The tyrannical strand of the French Revolution—there was also a classical-liberal strand, rapidly overcome—was anchored in the thought of Rousseau, who made “the people” and “the will of the people” the foundation of his political philosophy in The Social Contract. Rousseau may be the father of modern populism of the left and of the right.

But on the basis of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem and social choice theory, the “will of the people” simply does not exist. It does not exist because there is no “the people” to have a will like an individual has. The “will of the people” is a rhetorical device to exploit a large proportion of the individuals who are the only reality under “the people.” So Asimov's distilled voter is impossible. The people’s preferences cannot be aggregated into a sort of social superindividual without being either dictatorial or incoherent, which is the essence of Arrow’s theorem. Those who pretend to represent the will of the people, from the French Revolution until 20th-century populist experiments, can only be authoritarian rulers, with or without the legal forms of democracy.

(some from Lemeiux)

Sunday/Message from The Dark Fields of Venus

 

                                       Sunday/Message from The Dark Fields of Venus

The disorder and lawlessness of the current summer have some definable origins. Bad cops certainly are one. But the unhappiness of the richest culture in the history of the world is harder to pinpoint. The disparity between the average guy and uber-rich is difficult to object to when the average guy is richer than Charlemagne. Then the average man's grousing looks little more than envy.

Yet it seemed to be that we are in a period of great discontent, despite our wealth and security. Would more money solve this? If so, where would that come from? If it is taken from someone else, would that make him unhappy? What are the rights of a guy who wants to be richer? And would that redistribution solve the problem?

The causes of happiness are not simply the absence of irritants. The content stomach may help a lot but that is not a problem where the poor's identifying mark is obesity. There must be other elements to a content heart.

Years ago there was a small book called The Dark Fields of Venus--maybe even self-published--by a physician who fled Eastern Europe in WWII and settled in New York where he spent his life working in a venereal disease clinic. It was not a significant book. It consisted of a series of anecdotes describing the men, women, and the families afflicted with venereal infections and how they suffered in the world, suffered in an infected bed that they only partly contributed to. Poverty, drunkenness, violence, and despair were the constant companions of his patients for whom venereal disease was only a part. The miseries of these people, chapter after chapter, after a while, drowned the reader and eventually became indistinguishable so I no longer remember the specifics. 

But I do remember the last line: "Sometimes, penicillin is not enough."

Some Graphs

 

                                Some Graphs

Cabala Harris

 

                                    Cabala Harris

 On Monday, Kamala Harris referred in public to something she called the “Harris administration.” In a speech the next day, Mr. Biden himself referred to “a Harris-Biden administration.” It's generally believed that Biden, with a history of his age, two craniotomies and gradually declining function, expects to rely on a number of unseen--and unelected--helpers in his campaign and his eventual administration. This is beginning to sound more and more like a cabal.

Or.....Cabala Harris!

Precarious Quality

 

                                                Precarious Quality

More on the horrible 1619 Project, this from Magness:

"To the extent that historians informed the project’s discussion of the crucial period between 1775 and 1865, the Times has remained entirely non-transparent. Hannah-Jones has declined to specify which experts she consulted for her essay, and the only public acknowledgment of any outside review to date has come from Leslie Harris, the historian the Times recruited to fact-check her arguments about slavery’s role in the American Revolution – and then promptly ignored when Harris advised against publishing the claim. Desmond’s essay sources its interpretation to seven academic historians who are quoted in the article. Yet all seven are affiliated with the “New History of Capitalism” (NHC) movement – an insular and ideological school of slavery scholars that emerged in the last decade, and that has fared poorly under scrutiny of its own arguments about slavery’s economic dimensions. Desmond’s essay is, at best, a sloppy cribbing of NHC arguments that most other economists and non-NHC historians of slavery already found wanting and rejected."

Buried in this pointed, goal-oriented politics disguised as scholarship is the denigration of academic quality. This kind of behavior disallows any standards.

Batteries for Buckwheat

                                 Batteries for Buckwheat

An Australian mining firm wants to turn a Nevada valley into a quarry for lithium and boron – key elements for green technologies – but a rare plant may stand in its way. Researchers say that biodiversity and clean energy should not be in opposition.

The company, Ioneer, says the quarry in Rhyolite Ridge valley would be the first US quarry of its kind, able to supply lithium for 400,000 electric car batteries a year and boron to power wind turbines. But soil containing these elements is also the perfect environment for Tiehm’s buckwheat (Eriogonum tiehmii), a plant that looks like a pile of leaves. When it blooms, it could be the dandelion’s fuzzy cousin.

There are only about 40,000 specimens of the buckwheat, and its namesake, Arnold Tiehm at the University of Nevada, Reno, says its closest relative is more than 80 kilometres away.

Most of the buckwheat’s natural home lies in the area mapped to be dug up for the quarry. “That puts the buckwheat on a one-way path to extinction,” says Patrick Donnelly at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nevada. Ioneer will remove 65 per cent of the buckwheat’s population if the first planned quarry goes ahead, the company confirmed to New Scientist.

Although rare, the buckwheat isn’t yet considered endangered, but that may change. Following a petition by the CBD, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced in July that the plant is both valuable enough and under sufficient threat to warrant a year-long review to decide whether to list the plant under the US Endangered Species Act. The listing would spell the end for the quarry as currently planned. )New Scientist)


So the culture thinks it is so rich that it can sacrifice its growth for that of a minor buckwheat.

Looting and its Friends

 

                                     Looting and its Friends

National Public Radio had an interview last month with Vicky Osterweil, author of a new book called "In Defense of Looting." Looting is good, she says, because it exposes a deep truth about the great American confidence game, which is that “without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free.” The “so-called” United States was founded in “cisheteropatriarchal racial capitalist” violence. That violence produced our current system, particularly its property relations, and looting is a remedy for that sickness. “Looting rejects the legitimacy of ownership rights and property, the moral injunction to work for a living, and the ‘justice’ of law and order,” she writes. Ownership of things—not just people—is “innately, structurally white supremacist.” The destruction of businesses is an “experience of pleasure, joy, and freedom,” Osterweil writes. It is also a form of “queer birth.” “Riots are violent, extreme, and femme as fuck,” according to Osterweil. “They rip, tear, burn, and destroy to give birth to a new world.” She reserves her most pungent criticism for advocates of nonviolence, a “bankrupt concept” primarily valuable for enlisting “northern liberals.”

NPR asked Osterweil to talk about rioting as a tactic, in the way a lifestyle reporter might ask a celebrity to talk a little about a new movie. As the author explains, rioting accomplishes "important things." For starters, "It gets people what they need for free immediately, which means that they are capable of living and reproducing their lives without having to rely on jobs or a wage…That's looting's most basic tactical power as a political mode of action."

But looting isn't simply about stealing. It has a deeper and more uplifting purpose. "It also attacks the very way in which food and things are distributed," Osterweil added. "It attacks the idea of property, and it attacks the idea that in order for someone to have a roof over their head or have a meal ticket, they have to work for a boss, in order to buy things…It points to the way in which that's unjust."


NPR brought o lot of insight to this "concept." One question was, “A lot of people who consider themselves radical or progressive criticize looting. Why is this so common?” 

So, when you worry about the quality of the Press and its defense of civilization, keep in mind that the civilization's enemies are morons.

Symmetric stupidity.  

(some from Greenhut and Wood)

1619 is a Prime Number, 2

                                        1619 is a Prime Number, 2

The following is excerpted from a review of a speech that Ms. Hannah-Jones gave to Holyoke. She is the creator of the bizarre 1619 Project. It is good to hear her speak because the 1619 project is so weird and vicious a notion that it makes one avert one's eyes. Hearing and seeing her thought process is revealing. And hopeful. Stupid and poorly articulated ideas are of a danger only to those with a death wish.


The American Revolution was a "revolution of the elite" and the "elite white men" who fought for the nation's freedom didn't intend "for us to have a democracy," the author of the New York Times 1619 Project said."I don’t think we’re an exceptional nation," Nikole Hannah-Jones said in an address at Mount Holyoke College's September Common Read Keynote event.

"I think that’s ludicrous for any nation to make that claim, and we certainly cannot make that claim. We’re a nation founded on genocide, and chattel slavery, and classism, and gender discrimination," Hannah-Jones said. "We’re not. We had exceptional ideas but we’re not an exceptional nation. But if you believe that, then your country can certainly withstand scrutiny."

The Frederick (MD) News-Post reported that: "The Pulitzer Center helped turn The New York Times’ The 1619 Project — which received worldwide attention when it was published last year — into a curriculum that’s now taught in more than 4,500 schools nationwide."

Asked if the U.S. would ever have a true democracy, Hannah-Jones responded that America at its “founding, did not believe in democracy."

President Donald Trump said on Sept. 6 that the Department of Education is examining the use of the 1619 Project in schools, and warned that institutions that teach this alternative narrative of American history could lose federal funding.

The 1619 Project, which is based on the premise that American history began in 1619 when African slaves arrived in Virginia and that everything following this should be viewed through that lens, has been discredited by several historians.

Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, introduced a bill in July which would deny funds to any school that uses the 1619 Project in its curriculum.

In a statement, Cotton called the project “a racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded.”

In her Mount Holyoke address, Hannah-Jones also said it is a “fairytale” that “the demographic destiny of our country will turn us into a more interracial democracy," adding that when “white people” start to “lose an American majority, they always found ways to hold onto power."

Hannah-Jones cited examples of what she sees as “white people” maintaining “power," including Stacey Abrams’ failed gubernatorial candidacy in Georgia, the Electoral College, and alleged voter suppression laws.

The 1619 Project author said that she didn’t have faith in democracy, especially since “an open white nationalist and misogynist” who has “led the most corrupt administration in the history of this country” can still win this November’s election.

“Large numbers of white Americans are willing to suspend democratic principles to maintain racial power, and we’re seeing that,” Hannah-Jones said, citing an unnamed study.

"Anti-Americanism has been used against black activists, black scholars, black journalists pretty much as long as we’ve been in this country,” Hannah-Jones added. “It’s that our efforts to have our full humanity and full citizenship and to call this country out for its hypocrisies is seen as anti-American.”

Hannah-Jones called history taught in schools “a nationalistic agenda” and that it’s “not about truth, it's about giving us a shared sense of American exceptionalism and American identity and because of that you had to downplay genocide, you had to downplay what happened with chattel slavery, you had to downplay what happened to most marginalized groups."

Boiled down to its meatless bones, these notions, like most of the media and entertainment industry, substitute intensity for content with curious twists of views on very well analyzed and understood events, completely unsubstantiated accusations of individuals and giant groups, and insights reminiscent of that famous definition of the sociologist: Amazed by the obvious. Just imagine, that America at its “founding, did not believe in democracy." That these dastardly elites  didn't intend "for us to have a democracy." Who is responsible for such an outrage? How was this evil Republic slipped in under the guise of Democracy?

Thankfully, we have the current high-minded commentators to correct the errors of our inferior, misguided, and malicious Founders. Can you imagine any of these people holding the attention of Jefferson or Adams--or even Rutledge--for more than a minute?

Sunday/Lamech

                                      Sunday/Lamech

Today's gospel is on forgiveness with a rather obscure reference to a very obscure Old Testament story of Lamech, a descendent of Cain, who said what is called "The Song of the Sword."

"Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold."

This has had countless interpretations, including an idea that Lamech is using God's threat of punishment as a guarantee of his people's longevity.

Here is a poem by AE that is more transparent and uplifting:

Forgiveness

At dusk the window panes grew grey;
The wet world vanished in the gloom;
The dim and silver end of day
Scarce glimmered through the little room.

And all my sins were told; I said
Such things to her who knew not sin—
The sharp ache throbbing in my head,
The fever running high within.

I touched with pain her purity;
Sin’s darker sense I could not bring:
My soul was black as night to me;
To her I was a wounded thing.

I needed love no words could say;
She drew me softly nigh her chair,
My head upon her knees to lay,
With cool hands that caressed my hair.

She sat with hands as if to bless,
And looked with grave, ethereal eyes;
Ensouled by ancient Quietness,
A gentle priestess of the Wise.

 

Stats and Lowry

 

                            Stats and Lowry

A regular NBA game has about 90 shots per team, or 180 all together. Let’s say, generously, each shot takes about two seconds (a period of time that also includes almost every rebound and assist too). That’s 360 seconds, or a nice tidy six minutes, that overwhelm the box score. Those six minutes make almost every highlight, GIF, and meme from the sport. The players who excel in those six minutes make the most money, have the biggest endorsement deals, and are must-gets for your fantasy team. 

Meanwhile, two teams x five players x 48 minutes means a game is 480 minutes of work. Six minutes is 1.25 percent of the time. That massive 98.75 percent of the game is “little things.” 

From an article on Kyle Lowry that argues this:

In this year’s playoffs, we’ve seen a tale of two Raptors: the team with Kyle Lowry and the team without. If you watch every second Lowry has been on the floor, you’ll see a Toronto cakewalk. They have a shot at a title outscoring opponents by eight points per 100 possessions. If, on the other hand, you watch the minutes Lowry has been on the bench, it’s just about a tie, and the Raptors are not elite at all.

This might be surprising for a player who—when you mash his box-score stats together into PER, emerges as the 57th best player in the NBA this season (somewhere beneath Marquese Chriss, D’Angelo Russell, and Dwight Howard). It’s less surprising if you look at any team-performance based stat. Real Plus-Minus ranks 400 or so NBA players every season. This year, Lowry finished sixth overall, ahead of players like Kawhi Leonard, Luka Doncic, Jayson Tatum, Joel Embiid, Damian Lillard, Jimmy Butler, and Anthony Davis. And it’s no outlier. By that same measure, Lowry’s average finish over the last five years had been fourth in the entire league.

The thing is, we tend to measure basketball performance with things we are used to tracking, like points and rebounds. Kyle Lowry is OK at those things, and was great in Game 6. But if he’s a top five or 10 NBA player at winning, while being only OK at those easy-to-measure things … he must be a genius at the other things, which we often mistakenly call little things.

The Mainstreaming of the Outliers

                                           The Mainstreaming of the Outliers

In downtown Pittsburgh, several people accosted customers in a restaurant, driving a number of people away. One couple stayed and was harassed, abused, and their drinks were taken. 

The harassers were from a Black Lives Matter group and the specifics are not known. One wonders if specifics are possible. It is difficult to visualize exactly what the group would want--or expect--from a number of random people sitting in a restaurant. Social justice? The end of hate?

There was a time when an individual accosting a stranger in the street with demands that could not be understood or answered would be hospitalized. Now they are introduced at halftime.

A Private Symbol

 

                                  A Private Symbol

 

The Australian Aboriginal flag is actually copy-righted by an individual although it is recognized as a national flag.

It was created in 1971 by an artist named Harold Thomas and went onto to become culturally accepted as the flag of the Aboriginal people. And then as above, went onto being proclaimed a national flag by the government.

Unfortunately, since then, Harold Thomas has licensed the flag to various private agencies. One of the licenses was exclusive to a clothing label, which now means that no other Aboriginal business can print clothes with the flag on it without paying royalties. (Sitting around 20%) A lot of Aboriginals feel dismay at the current situation of the licensing.

A-level

 

                                              A-level

The WSJ had an article on the British A-level exams and the impact of the Virus. This is from it.

If you want to understand how a virus exposes everything that’s wrong in modern governance writ large, this is the place to look.

The U.K. A-levels are subject-matter exams taken by university-bound students in their last year of high school, after two years of focused instruction. As with U.S. Advanced Placement courses that sometimes confer college credits, the A-levels are meant to denote a university level of academic achievement.

Except that in Britain the stakes are much higher. The A-level is the only government-approved qualification for university-bound high-school graduates, so it serves as a diploma. And since U.K. students devote only three years to their undergraduate degrees, A-levels serve as the functional equivalent to an American freshman year of college.


As a result, admission offers especially to the most selective universities are conditional on earning certain minimum grades in specified A-level subject tests. These one-off, high-pressure tests are the stuff of 18-year-olds’ nightmares.

Then the pandemic hit.

The first spread of the virus and Britain’s lockdown, imposed in late March, coincided with the normal schedule for sitting the standardized A-level tests. Absent that exam, an entire cohort of students would be left without a clear path into the university places for which they had conditionally been accepted.

Of course the education bureaucracy devised the worst possible workaround. Students would submit class work graded by their teachers and scores on mock tests they took earlier in their studies. A finely tuned computer algorithm would then “normalize” those inputs to account for possible grade inflation and spit out an exam grade for exams students hadn’t taken.

No one seems to have stopped to ask what could go wrong. The answer was a lot. Some 40% of grades on individual A-level “exams” were downgraded by the computer. Students from poorer areas and less glamorous schools were disproportionately affected. For instance, the algorithm assumed that the bigger a school’s average class size, the less accurate a teacher’s classwork grades were likely to be. This favored students at posh private schools with small classes. High-achievers were punished if they attended a school with a history of poor A-level results—the computer relied heavily on historical averages.

This has become a political disaster for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and it should be. His lockdown policy failed to weigh the costs in lost educational opportunities against the virus’s cost on public health. Then his government picked a dumb way to try to even the scales.

The U.K. exam fiasco highlights the extent to which overreliance on technocracy has robbed governments—and societies—of resilience. Britain suffered for its long-running attempt to impose national uniformity on education at all levels. U.S. college admissions have not been marred by a similar crisis because, mirabile dictu, no one is in charge. Meaning, no one person.

American high-school students follow multiple pathways into higher education. A hodgepodge of SATs, ACTs, grade-point averages, AP exams and extracurricular activities provide the fodder for admissions officers. In normal times, Americans worry this system is too flexible, too forgiving of grade inflation or too prone to abuse.

During an unprecedented crisis, however, flexibility has been a blessing.

Metamorphosis

 

                                                  Metamorphosis                                             

In a restaurant section in Pittsburgh several tables of people were hectored, chased away and one table that stayed had invading people drink their drinks. Some guy carrying a bicycle was reportedly roughed up. The information has been recorded on phones; there has not been any official report I could find. According to the single news report I could find, the attackers were part of a demonstration against police behavior in Minneapolis.

So people in Pittsburgh are to be hassled in the street because of an event in Minneapolis by the local government And what are they to do? What corrective action are they to take--if they believe that action to be warranted? 

Kafka's enemies were official, passive and bureaucratic, never malignant and his fellows. We may be writing a new page in the giant tome of human hostility.

A Thought

 

                                                   A Thought

One of the elements of Warren Buffet's thinking is how sensible he is. This, on a holiday, is his advice on something non-financial:

“If I gave you a car, and it’d be the only car you get the rest of your life, you’d take care of it like you can’t believe. Any scratch, you’d fix that moment. You’d read the owner’s manual, and you’d keep a garage, and do all these things. And you get exactly one mind and one body in this world. And you can’t start taking care of it when you’re 50. By that time, you’ll rust it out, if you haven’t done anything. So you should really make sure that you just remember that you’ve just got one mind and body to get through life with, and to do the most with it.”

stats

 

Astounding chart.

The Flu and the Zombie Apocalypse

                                 The Flu and the Zombie Apocalypse

A major element of this pandemic, aside from paranoia, is ignorance-induced speculation. Here is some knowledge-based speculation, at least as paranoid-inducing, from The Scientist. This fits nicely with the rumors that Big Ten athletes are showing myocarditis when infected with the Virus.


"One of the earliest links between influenza and neural dysfunction was a correlation between the 1918 Spanish flu, caused by a subtype called H1N1, and an epidemic of Parkinson’s a few decades later. In the 1940s and early 1950s, diagnoses of the neurodegenerative disease appeared to increase abruptly, from 1–2 percent of the US population to 2.5–3 percent, then fell back down to 1–2 percent, Smeyne (a neurobiologist interviewed in the article) says. “Basically, 50 percent more people in those years got Parkinson’s.”

The evidence to suggest that influenza infection caused the neurodegenerative disorder was tenuous, to say the least, but the correlation was enough for Smeyne to investigate further. With his colleagues, he shot nonlethal doses of H5N1 or H1N1 up the noses of six- to eight-week-old mice, then tracked how the viruses spread through the animals’ nervous systems. The results were startling, he says: some viruses weren’t blocked from entering the brain by the blood-brain barrier—a semipermeable layer of cells that separates the central nervous system from the body’s circulation. H5N1, for example, could easily infiltrate nerve cells in the brain and kill them, and it appeared to especially target the dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra. And while the H1N1 flu strain couldn’t cross the blood-brain barrier, it still caused central nervous system immune cells called microglia to flow into the substantia nigra and the hippocampus, causing inflammation and cell death in the area.

“So these were two different flus, two different mechanisms, but the same effect in a sense,” says Smeyne, who moved to Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia in 2016. “They were inducing inflammation and death in the parts of the brain that we see degenerate in Parkinson’s disease.”

Smeyne’s experiments aren’t the only ones to suggest that viral infections can contribute to neurodegenerative disorders, and the connection is not limited to influenza. Several different viruses, including measles and herpes, can give rise to symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) in rodents, for example. And levels of herpesvirus are higher in the brains of people who died from Alzheimer’s than in those without the disease, while some HIV patients develop dementia that appears to be associated with the infection.

“Viruses are often ignored in relation to neurodegenerative diseases,” Yale University neurobiologist Anthony van den Pol tells The Scientist. “That’s in part because there’s no clear sign that a virus causes a neurodegenerative disease. But it might.”"

So, every bug comes with the potential of some population damage somewhere at sometime in the future, neurologic, reproductive, personality. We, from rheumatic fever to Bright's Disease to Shingles are just waiting for collateral damage to emerge. 

That should be quite concerning to a culture that has so much faith in fine-tuning Nature.

 

The Social Justice Industry

No culture can afford to ignore the talents of a large percentage of its citizens. Apparently not many cultures can afford the solution.

                                     The Social Justice Industry

By selling expensive liberal arts degrees in “global gender studies” and “feminist studies” [not to mention degrees in “bitterness studies,” “indignation studies” and “grievance studies”] American universities have not only created a new generation of the exhaustively woke, but have also created a booming industry where the new profession of being a full-time social justice warrior can be a profitable gig.

Aside from paying the high-priced professors to persuade the campus community of its inherent racism, the University of Michigan doled out nearly $8.4 million for diversity staff in 2018, where 26 of these “diversicrats” raked in more than $100,000 a year in cash compensation, according to an analysis of the university’s salary database by the center-right American Enterprise Institute. When accounting for staff salaries plus benefits, the university’s 93 diversity-dedicated administrators reaped in $11 million total annually.

Young America’s Foundation spokesman Spencer Brown told The Federalist they’ve been tracking the explosive growth of the social justice industry for years. Isolated campuses continue to breed extremism that ultimately gave rise to the prosperous self-righteous profession today and also gives way to items such as the anti-American 1619 Project.
“Social justice has indeed turned from a cottage industry, largely limited to the bubble of academia, into a multi-million dollar enterprise,” Brown said.

Indeed, according to McKinsey & Company in 2017, American corporations spent about $8 billion annually on diversity trainings, a number certain to skyrocket following the death of George Floyd. Glassdoor.com reports the average base pay for diversity and inclusion consultants meanwhile, a job title on the rise ranges from $70,657 to $107,000 a year.

(From Perry)

Men in Masks

                                                            Men in Masks

Got up in the morning and performed my usual ablutions. After shaving I dressed in the dark bedroom with the wife still sleeping, grabbed my rucksack, got to the car, and drove to work.
I parked and walked to the office through long corridors, past people I knew and knew not, all murmuring good wishes behind masks and nodding.
At my desk, drinking my first coffee, a secretary stopped at the door.
"What happened to you?" she asked, her eyes wide above her mask.
"Huh?" was my astute reply.
"Your face!"
I walked with her to the bathroom and inspected the mirror. A one-inch stripe of thick blood was clotted from my ear to my jaw. I scrubbed, she inspected, and we found a deep nick below my sideburn from my early shave. For ten minutes I had walked through the halls and ridden elevators with the face of a man who had just lost a knife fight and no one had said a word.
In a land and time of intense concern for one's fellows, I found that disappointing.

DeJoy and the Nature of Anger

 

                               DeJoy and the Nature of Anger

One element that is overlooked in this political swamp is how these politicians treat American citizens.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., went after the postmaster general for his past business dealings with Amazon. However, DeJoy said he did not have any financial interest in the giant online marketplace.

The member of the so-called Squad, a group of progressive Democrats who are female freshmen in the House, said that about 40% of Amazon’s shipments go through the Postal Service. Since DeJoy had an interest in both, this posed a conflict, Tlaib said.

“This appears to be a classic example of conflict of interest and insider trading. Yes or no, will you commit right now to divest any and all financial interests in Amazon to avoid illegal insider trading?”

DeJoy responded: “That was a lot of time on an issue that doesn’t matter. I don’t own any Amazon stock.”

Tlaib shot back: “You have financial interest. You can call it whatever you want.”

DeJoy: “I don’t own anything with Amazon.”

Tlaib: “Your financial interest in Amazon will continue to be problematic, illegal, and a conflict of interest. Regarding this matter, you have a simple choice, Mr. DeJoy. You can either resign or divest that interest.”

The Michigan Democrat didn’t spell out what conflict or financial interest she was talking about.

Tlaib also accused DeJoy of “dismantling the Postal Service,” and appeared to warn that he could end up in jail.

“This impeached president, Mr. DeJoy, you have to realize, has a tendency of employing crooks who end up in a lot of trouble for their illegal activities,” she said, adding: “You are not in good company right now, so do the right thing and resign.”

                                                  #

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked the postmaster general: “Why are these guys out to get you? What is it?”

DeJoy diplomatically responded: “I don’t—they have their own concerns. I’m assuming they’re legitimate with them.”

Jordan said: “You assume they’re legitimate. Why are they out to get you?”

The Ohio Republican then said he thought it likely Democrats were not sincere and were looking to use language that might create panic before the 2020 election.

“I mean, Mr. DeJoy, they’ve had people protesting at your house. They’ve been doing it for weeks, 90-some of these people have already called for you to resign,” Jordan said of House Democrats.

                                                     #

“Am I the only one in this room that understands that we have a $10 billion a year loss?” DeJoy said. “Am I the only one in this room aware of the OIG reports that have stacked up?”

At that point, Cooper referred to Trump’s recent granting of clemency to Roger Stone, a veteran GOP operative charged and convicted of lying in special counsel Robert Mueller’s ultimately fruitless investigation of Trump campaign ties to Russia.

“Mr. DeJoy, is your backup plan to be pardoned like Roger Stone?” Cooper said.

A murmur arose in the rather empty, socially distanced hearing room, as people saying, “Oooh.”

Someone said, “Pitiful.”

DeJoy laughed and said, “Oh, my God.”

Cooper, stone-faced, said: “You have two seconds.”

DeJoy, shaking his head and smiling, said: “I have no comment on that. It’s not worth it.”

Anger, regardless of its source, will accept any outlet.