The Curse of Wealth
New York Magazine published a cover story a while ago declaring that, in the age of President Trump, all the new "it" kids in Brooklyn (most are well into their 30s) are avowed socialists. And the problems with wealth never stop; not only is competition destructive, but money itself also harms the owner.
The new generation of Brooklyn cool kids have low-paying editorial jobs at digital magazines like the (now defunct) Outline, Deadspin or Jacobin, a magazine with an almost inexplicable understanding of history. Most of them were white women, the most oppressed class.
The NYT has published a story about a handful of wealthy heirs who have embraced the socialist credo, and who see their inherited wealth as a symbol of shame, not a blessing.
25-year-old Sam Jacobs, for example. Described as "a socialist since college", he reportedly sees his family's "'extreme plutocratic wealth' as both a moral and economic failure".
"I want to build a world where someone like me, a young person who controls tens of millions of dollars, is impossible," he said.
Fortunately for Jacobs, his grandfather was one of the founders of Qualcomm, the ubiquitous chipmaker. And even if he gives $30 million away, he'll still have another $70 million or so coming to him over the course of his lifetime. And, fortunately for him, he can do what he wants with his money.
30-year-old Rachel Gelman is another example. Her wealthy family gave generously to liberal causes growing up. Now, as a 30-year-old preparing to inherit millions from her parents, Gelman is trying to find a way to "give back" since most of her family's money "comes from stocks...which means it comes from underpaying and undervaluing working-class people, and that’s impossible to disconnect from the economic legacies of Indigenous genocide and slavery." Again, wonderful. She can do what she wants with her money.
Liberty is extraordinary. But my bet is that Sam and Rachael have bigger intentions. People, of course, have a right to do whatever they want with their money. That same freedom does not allow them to do what they want with yours.
Sunday, November 29, 2020
The Curse of Wealth
Sunday/The Watchman
Sunday/The Watchman
Today's gospel is the watchman's, waiting for the return of the lord of the manor. It has become a jumping-off point for many writers, Dylan's "Watchtower" a famous one.
Merton opens “Fire Watch,” with the first line, “Watchman, what of the night?”
Isaiah is writing about the fall of Babylon, Dylan about threats and collapse. Merton's is strangely benign about the world, the promise of some gigantic unifying reckoning:
Saturday, November 28, 2020
Some Stats
Some Stats
In the United States during 2018, civilians and domestic law enforcement owned about 426 million firearms or an average of 1.3 firearms per person.[243] This increased from 0.8 firearms per person in 1986:
Handguns comprised 55% of all new guns sold to civilians and law enforcement in 2018, which is an increase from 35% in 2000:[245]
Murder rates in Washington D.C. and the entire United States were as follows:
Murder rates in England and Wales were as follows:
Friday, November 27, 2020
Nast and Thanksgiving
Nast and Thanksgiving
Thomas Nast was a Bavarian immigrant credited with developing the American cartoon. He arrived in the 1840s as a child and became the illustrator for Harper's weekly. He developed the modern version of Santa Claus and the elephant as the Republican Party symbol. As such, this is a provocative drawing, from the Nineteenth Century.
Melanie Kirkpatrick’s 2016 book, Thanksgiving: The Holiday and the Heart of the American Experience (link added):
{Thomas] Nast was an immigrant, having arrived in America from Germany when he was six years old, and “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner” reflected what Nast saw as the immigrant’s passionate affection for his new country and commitment to its democratic values….
At the head of the table stands Uncle Sam, who is carving a turkey. Around the table are seated Americans representing an array of races and religions, identified in many cases by their national dress. Among the guests are an African American family, a Native American, a Chinese man with a long queue, an Irish American couple, a Spanish woman wearing a mantilla and holding a fan, a bearded Muslim with a fez on his head. Nast presents the people in this portrait respectfully, not as caricatures. His message is that every American has an equal right to sit at the Thanksgiving table.
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a tricky word. It means gratitude but it implies more than something to be grateful for, it implies something to be grateful to.
In the fall of 1621, the Plymouth settlers had a celebratory meal with a local Indian tribe as part of a traditional English harvest festival. There are two accounts; no mention is made of a Day of Thanksgiving but they were probably happy; since their arrival, they had a 50% mortality. It lasted three days. A Day of Thanksgiving, a day the English would have considered religious, was first held in the new land in 1623 following a needed rainfall. Various days of thanksgiving were celebrated by the country over the years, the first in commemoration of the end of the Revolution by Washington. In 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, Lincoln formally made Thanksgiving an annual event.
It is interesting to see these two men, Washington suspicious of organized religion and Lincoln harder to read, celebrating an official Thanksgiving, but both seem heartfelt, Lincoln's surprisingly so. Washington is almost a mirror of the mindset of the time. The two proclamations are below.
The Thanksgiving
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor--and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me `to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.'
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be -- That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks -- for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation--for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted -- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions--to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually -- to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn [sic] kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord -- To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease [sic] of science among them and us -- and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
George Washington
Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day October 3, 1863
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence [sic], have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
Abraham Lincoln
Samuel Palmer's "Harvest Moon:"
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
A Reverse Coverup
Half a century after JFK’s death, in a once-secret report written in 2013 by the CIA’s top in-house historian and quietly declassified, the spy agency acknowledges what others were convinced of long ago: that McCone and other senior CIA officials were “complicit” in keeping “incendiary” information from the Warren Commission.
According to the report by CIA historian David Robarge, McCone, who died in 1991, was at the heart of a “benign cover-up” at the spy agency, intended to keep the commission focused on “what the Agency believed at the time was the ‘best truth’—that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy.” The most important information that McCone withheld from the commission in its 1964 investigation, the report found, was the existence, for years, of CIA plots to assassinate Castro, some of which put the CIA in cahoots with the Mafia. Without this information, the commission never even knew to ask the question of whether Oswald had accomplices in Cuba or elsewhere who wanted Kennedy dead in retaliation for the Castro plots. (Politico)
No doubt this will become our CIA cover-up story for the next decade. But.....
This might remind one of Oswald in Mexico City.
Now a real conspiracy. Jack Childs was a spy/raconteur who knew Castro. He says Castro told him that when Oswald realized the Cubans would not grant him a visa when he was in Mexico City he screamed with defiant bravado, "I'm going to kill Kennedy!" This was confirmed by the spy Rodriques Lahera in a debriefing with Harold Swenson. In November 1963, the Cuban intelligence officer in charge of monitoring possible CIA/exile activity against Cuba, Florintino Aspillaga, was told by Castro to abandon his usual sweeps and focus all his listening devices on the Dallas area.
So.....? The specifics of the assassination are beyond debate. Oswald, a defector to Russia, a communist disillusioned with the Russian system but enamored with the Cuban one, murdered President Kennedy. The only question is whether someone or some group influenced Oswald's decision. Castro may not have been involved. But it sounds as if he was not surprised.
Monday, November 23, 2020
Kennedy #2
Kennedy #2
An industry has arisen to continue the mythology.
Oswald was not capable of such violence; he could not have made the shots in the time allotted; the rifle was inferior and the scope was misaligned; he had an alibi; there is no record of his interrogation by the Dallas police; he was an imposter from Russia; the "Oswald" in Mexico City was an imposter; his pictures holding the rifle with the pistol and the two Communist newspapers are fakes; he travelled with Cuban revolutionaries; the rifle found on the depository sixth floor was a Mauser, not Oswald's Italian infantry rifle Model 1891/1938; the third shot--the head shot--came from the front; a second shooter was seen on the "grassy knoll;" the Dallas doctors disagreed with the Bethesda pathologists; three tramps in a box car in Dallas were likely CIA and were probably involve--one even looked like Woody Harrelson's father; Tippit's murderer was unidentified; the bullets that killed Tippit did not match Oswald's pistol; many involved have died suspiciously; the Mafia did it because of their annimosity to Bobby Kennedy; the CIA did it because of their fear of a Kennedy retaliation over the Bay of Pigs invasion; the Garrison argument implicating Clay Shaw (on the evidence of a psychotic who failed a lie detector test); Castro did it in self-defense; the JFK movie by Stone (see Garrison); the Navy pathologist burnt his notes; the Dallas FBI burnt a note Oswald left for them before the murder; Marina Oswald burnt photographs of Lee holding the rifle, Ruby killed Tippit, Tippit was meeting Oswald and was involved, .....on and on.The democracy is hard at work here. Many of these notions come from average and concerned people, volunteers working far afield. Some are lawyers. Few are experts in the area they are focused on in the murder. One writer on the Zapruder film and what it reveals about the number of bullets and their timing is a Kierkegaard lecturer from Haverford. Some of these objections are just nuts, some are true but, of those that are true, none would change anything.
What is certain is this:
1. Oswald bought the murder weapon from a mail order house using an alias he always used and had the false ID in his wallet at his arrest. Oswald posed with the rifle holding communist newspapers; his wife, Marina, took the picture. Marina saw the rifle many times and knew where it was kept.
2. Before going to shoot Gen. Walker, a right-wing John Birch Society member, Oswald wrote a detailed letter to Marina explaining what he was going to do and what she should do if he were killed or did not come back.
3. He shot at Walker and the window slat diverted the bullet. He then fled the state for New Orleans.
4. The day of the murder he left his wedding ring in a glass by his wife's bed, then carried the gun to the depository wrapped in paper (later found at the shooting site) in a car driven by a fellow worker.
5. He was seen and described by a witness as he pushed the gun out of the window and the muzzle fire of 3 shots were seen.
6. Men at the window' one floor down and directly below the sniper's nest on the sixth floor of the depository, heard the gunfire above, heard the bolt action and heard the casings hit the floor.
7. Oswald was seen in the depository after the shooting; he left the building and took a bus, then a cab, to his rooming house where he got his pistol.
8. Officer Tippit was a well regarded, simple guy and a solid citizen. At least ten people saw him murdered by Oswald and all identified him. Three bullets hit him in the chest. Oswald stepped away, then returned several steps to put a bullet in Officer Tippitt's temple as he lay on the ground.(!)
9. Ruby killed Oswald but his motives are obscure. It may not even have been planned. All acquaintences said he was distraught over Kennedy's death and the possibility that Jackie, whom he adored, would have to return to Dallas to go through a trial with Oswald. (The only press interview he ever gave was to Dorothy Kilgallen. Kilgallen!)
Any theory about the killing has to include and accept these facts.
Sunday, November 22, 2020
Kennedy #1
The Kennedy assassination was a significant moment for me and for many. Yet the event, so terrible and intense, so researched and analyzed, has developed almost as its own entity, its own beast, as it matures along paths of manipulation, overt deception, and least resistance.
First, the reaction. Mrs. Kennedy's quote here is significant: "He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights . . . . It's — it had to be some silly little Communist."
This may not have set the tone for the management of the murder in history but it certainly was representative of it. The general reaction to the murder was completely divorced from what happened. Chief Justice Earl Warren ascribed Kennedy's "martyrdom" to "the hatred and bitterness that has been injected into the life of our nation by bigots." Drew Pearson wrote that Kennedy was a victim of "hate drive."A Soviet spokesman assigned "moral responsibility" for Kennedy's death to "Barry Goldwater and other extremists on the right." The NYT encouraged us all to take blame for "the shame all America must bear for the spirit of madness and hate that struck down" the President. James Reston's article the day after the shooting--on the first page--was headlined ""Why America Weeps: Kennedy a Victim of Violent Streak He Sought to Curb in Nation." Senator Mike Mansfield eulogized the President as a victim of "bigotry, prejudice, and hatred." In Arthur Schlesinger Jr. one thousand page history of the thousand day Kennedy presidency the assassin is not even mentioned. The Manhattan Institute's James Piereson, in his 2007 book "Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism," writes that the country's illness that led to the assassination required a curative "punitive liberalism." A newer book, Dallas "1963", says Dallas did it through a "climate of hatred" created by right-wing businessmen, religious leaders, and media moguls. And an updated take by Alex Beam in a Boston Globe article: "Kennedy brought low by some redneck."
This is not simply a need to turn away and shield our eyes; there is plenty of stomach for Zapruder films and autopsy shots. This is much worse, an inability--an unwillingness--to see things as they are. It is simply not possible for the Left to accept the idea that Kennedy was murdered by a Marxist. And this perspective will lead to any number of creative narratives, consistent or not, to shift the blame from Oswald and towards a more acceptable villain. More, it is a refusal to see the modern world and its potential where a man of great standing and regard can be brought down by a fool. It is the egalitarian nightmare.
November 22, 1963
November 22, 1963
The past and present merge:
The Thanksgiving holiday, one of the best holidays and certainly the best secular one, has been spoiled for everyone who was awake and thinking in the mid 60's by the assassination of Jack Kennedy. That promising shift from the generation of Eisenhower to its sons, to youth and its potential, to the charismatic and the virile was just stopped cold by Oswald in Dallas. We defaulted back to the older, ponderous Lyndon Johnson, a true guardian of the Old Guard. That loss--of youth, of hope, of promise, of beauty--has never been overcome and we are reminded of it every Thanksgiving. One only wonders how much of the unrest in the 60's and 70's was a result.
An aspect of the assassination that has dogged its shadow has been the shameless exploitation of the atrocity by writers, politicians and artists. This exploitation, which has become almost a cult, believes--or says it believes--that the assassination was a conspiracy of a number of men, groups or organizations. Every aspect of the event has been picked over, every inconsistency of life magnified, every possibility made a probability. The result is that the event, right before many of our eyes, has been completely recreated and, like an alternative universe, continues without interference with its own laws, experts and history. It is very like those academic musings run wild. "If, instead, you assume that history and archeology was 300 years wrong--or falsified--and Moses was actually alive in the court of Akhenaton...." "If, instead, you assume there is a unexplained and unexplainable driving force in history..." "If, instead, you assume that everyone is possessed at birth by sexual urges towards their immediate family...." It is another victory of the Art of the Plausible.
This is nowhere more revolting than is seen in the movie "JFK" where a seemingly respectable director rewrites the assassination story according to a man whose grasp on the event is dangerously close to psychosis. Oliver Stone writes a story of the assassination through the eyes and the belief set of James Garrison, the District Attorney of New Orleans, who had arrested, charged, indicted and tried a local community figure, Clay Shaw, for involvement in the Kennedy murder. Shaw's arrest was virtually random. There was no evidence against him other than the word of a psychiatric patient who failed a lie detector test and refused to testify. How an American citizen could come under such unreasonable, whimsical charges has never been explained. But Garrison persisted and then Stone followed up after the laughable trial (where the jury took longer to find their seats than to find "not guilty") with a movie inexplicably presenting the Garrison thesis as within the same time zone as reason. Of course, all the facts of the assassination were changed to implicate the innocent, the shooting presented was almost a complete fiction and this all was delivered by Kevin Costner, a credible actor, with certainty and outrage. Anyone who knew anything about the assassination walked from the theater with their collective heads spinning. But many with less of a good grasp left alarmed and resentful. This constant barrage of misinformation has done a lot to undermine this country's credibility and value in the minds of its people who, after all, own and run it.
There are two bad lessons here. The first is there are people and industries in the world who, even in those cultures with the highest of ideals, will do anything, say anything, publish anything to make a buck. If possible they will take the Plausible-made-Art and create an industry of it with historians, academics, and franchises. The second is that they often hide their entrepreneurship in the gowns of Art. How many of our greatest artists have questioned the reliability of memory, the interaction of history and art--even to the point of their blending? So Stone calls Julian Barnes and Cormac McCarthy as witnesses for his defense.
Stone is more Goebbels than John Huston here. He is everything that is wrong with businessmen gone rogue. His product is harmful to the society, toxic to the young, and delivered without an ounce of social conscience. The real story about Garrison is how is it possible that Clay Shaw could be treated like a Kafka character in the United States. Another would be a clarifying and cleansing explanation of all the facts and evidence that has been gathered over the years about the murder. This might set the country at ease. But there's probably not much money, or return on arrogance, in this. Instead, why not take advantage of the distressed and confused citizens, contribute to their malaise, and cash in.
In 1976 the U.S. House of representatives created a commission, The House Select Commission on Assassinations, to investigate all the evidence in the murder again. This time they applied all the newer technologies available as well. Aside from the single and erroneous "fourth bullet thesis" not a single new conclusion was reached. Instead, this august deliberative body concluded there was no evidence of a conspiracy--but they believed one existed anyway.
Saturday, November 21, 2020
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Resources
Resources
A constant criticism of the West is its exploitation of small nations' natural resources.
But, as McCloskey writes, “'Resources' don’t matter until new ideas make them valuable." Oil has been around forever. It was valuable only with the development of internal combustion. In the beginning, there was light. Only recently has it become LASER. For that matter, the lobster was worthless until some madman decided to cook it.
All such criticisms depend upon the belief that raw materials have their own value, their own inevitable place in the future. Historical inevitability, or something. That these "resources" are inherently valuable, only waiting to be released but looted by outsiders. This is clearly not true.
It is the basic human intervention, the creative mind, that manages these inert compounds, chemicals, and things and makes them valuable.
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Numbers and Viruses
Numbers and Viruses
“BIDEN CALLS FOR UNITED FRONT AS VIRUS RAGES.”-NYT
Rages.
It seems Penn State, much like U.S. universities in all 50 states, has an aggressive coronavirus testing program as a way of keeping close track of the virus’s spread on campus.
Please think about the fact that testing for the coronavirus in what is the world’s richest country is increasingly very convenient, and free. Please think about it relative to March and April when tests weren’t anywhere close to this accessible. Not too long ago a quick coronavirus test in the United States cost a privileged subject $400 and above, but in November of 2020 it’s more and more the case that the tests can be had for nothing.
From there, let’s travel to Indonesia on the other side of the world. This country can claim 270 million citizens versus roughly 330 million in the United States. Where it gets interesting is that according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, Indonesia has reported 11,000 deaths related to the coronavirus versus nearly 240,000 in the U.S.
Indonesia, it would be fascinating to witness the perpetually alarmed explain the low number of “coronavirus deaths” there. Are Indonesians genetically immune to infection from the virus, do they religiously wear N-95 masks while studiously avoiding touching their faces, do they have their own “genius” Dr. Fauci equivalent whose gameplan has been brilliantly embraced by President Joko Widodo, or is it possible that Indonesia has a low death count precisely because it has a low testing rate?
You see, according to the Journal, testing in Indonesia has been very rare. 8 per 1,000 inhabitants kind of rare. Keep in mind that Mexico can claim 13 tests per 1,000 and even the Philippines can point to roughly 30 per 1,000. (from Tamney)
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Endogamy
Endogamy is the custom of marrying only within the limits of a local community, clan, or tribe. It is a requirement of racial structure. One could argue that racial distinctions are more than exclusionary, they are inclusionary.
A few hundred years ago, aristocrats seemed like a race apart from ordinary Englishmen. They were taller. They spoke with a different accent. Endogamy was a requirement among the aristocratic class.
Monday, November 16, 2020
Viral Numbers
Viral Numbers
COVID-19 INFECTION SURVIVAL RATES (per CDC)
Ages 0-19: 99.997%
Ages 20-49: 99.98%
Ages 50-69: 99.5%
Ages 70+: 94.6%
Seasonal Flu Infection Survival Rate (for population as a whole): 99.90%
So, what is happening? We seem to be responding out of proportion to the Viral threat. Why is that? Certainly, caution, especially among the more vulnerable, is reasonable. And certainly, people should be cautious around the more vulnerable. But should industries be shut down? Lives ruined? Families disrupted? Commerce stopped? And even traditional and constitutionally independent cultures are allowing tremendous power centralization without discussion.
It seems as if the culture says "yes" to all these questions. The real question is "Why?"
Sunday, November 15, 2020
The Sons of Tilikum
The Sons of Tilikum
As if this year was not bad enough, the BBC interviews a guy whose catamaran was attacked by orcas--killer whales--off the coast of Portugal.
The encounter is one of at least 40 similar incidents in the area. During the summer of 2020 a group of killer whales off the coast of Spain and Portugal began to act very strangely indeed.
Accounts of the incidents suggested that the animals were deliberately targeting sailing boats. As the captain puts it: “They came to us, not the other way around.”
The first reported incident was back in July, the most recent at the end of October.
Behind international headlines about “rogue killer whales”, “orchestrated” orca attacks and the videos shared thousands of times on social media, there is a forensic marine science investigation that is still trying to work out what is driving these complex, intelligent and highly social marine mammals to behave in this way.
Photo and video line-up showed that three individuals were involved in most of the incidents: juvenile males named in the official orca record as black Gladis, white Gladis and grey Gladis.
Killer whales live, hunt and move in very closely connected family pods: tightly knit, matriarch-led groups that - in some populations - have even been shown to have their own pod-specific dialects.
Families generally stick closely together, with long-lived grandmothers helping to raise young and to teach youngsters to hunt. Males though will wander off, mixing and mating among other pods. So far, the researchers have not worked out which family “the three Gladises” belong to.
All sorts of explanations have been offered from play to revenge. As usual, we have the good sense to analyze organized animals as if they were neolithic people. But the interesting lesson here is that these guys can weigh 4-5 tons, they compete with us for blue-fin tuna, and they teach and learn. So how come the virus is scarier?
Sunday/Talents
Today's sermon, the sermon of the talents, is a tough one. In its place with the previous sermon, the wise and foolish virgins, it is especially difficult.
The virgins are waiting for the bridegroom who is late. Half have brought extra oil for their lamps, half have not. As the hour grows late and the half without the extra oil begin to lose their lamps, they go to the others and ask for help. They are refused and are forced to leave and buy more oil. In their absence, the bridegroom comes. In the next parable, today's, three servants are given money to hold in their master's absence. One is given 10,000 talents, one 2,000 and the last 1,000 each according to the master's assessment of his ability. (A talent was originally a weight of precious metal and became 35 kilograms of gold. It eventually became a coin.) The first two invest their portion and double it, the third, fearful of losing it, buries his. The master returns, lauds and rewards the first two and throws the third out.
These two gospels have been translated in many ways, sometimes as a tribute to selfishness on the part of the virgins, sometimes as a tribute to investing and interest as in the case of the talents, sometimes as a parable on the fulfillment of one's ability as if Christ was making a cross-cultural and language pun with "talent." But it seems more difficult than any of these and more bleak. There seems in these two parables a remorseless emphasis on the responsibilities of the individual. Risk and responding to those risks with the acceptance of the consequences is paramount. No one can bail you out, hiding your responsibilities from danger is not safe. Moreover, the master trusts the servant to do the right thing. Nor does he give these servants more than they can manage. He recognizes the differences among them. But he does have expectations. He expects his servants to make a difference.
There is another question: What does Christ mean when the third and unsuccessful servant describes the master as one who reaps where he does not sow and the master agrees with him? Who is such a man, a magician? A thief? A raider? Is it a reference to the gentiles who will be a default recipient of Christ's message? And is some irony implied when the third servant buries--plants--his assigned money?
E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Graphs
Graphs
From 1929 to 2019, federal government current expenditures and receipts—expressed as a portion of gross domestic product—have varied as follows:
From 1962 to 2019, interest payments on the national debt as a portion of federal revenues ranged from 9% to 27% per year, with both the median and average being 17%:
From 1960 to 2018, the portion of government outlays consumed by various measures of social spending increased by 1.9–3.0 times:
From 1959 to 2017, spending on social programs increased from:
- 20% of all federal outlays to 62%.
- 30% of all federal, state, and local outlays to 60%:
Friday, November 13, 2020
Cost of Election
Cost of Election
Does this look reasonable? So you invest in a candidate; what is the payoff? Or is this just gratuitous? And such a change in 2020 totals. These are Billions!.Total Cost of Election (1998-2020)
Cycle Total Cost of Election Congressional Races Presidential Race
2016* $6,511,181,587 $4,124,304,874 $2,386,876,712
2014 $6,285,557,223 $3,664,141,430 N/A
2010 $3,631,712,836 $3,631,712,836 N/A
2008* $5,285,680,883 $2,485,952,737 $2,799,728,146
2006 $2,852,658,140 $2,852,658,140 N/A
2004* $4,147,304,003 $2,237,073,141 $1,910,230,862
2002 $2,181,682,066 $2,181,682,066 N/A
2000* $3,082,340,937 $1,669,224,553 $1,413,116,384
1998 $1,618,936,265 $1,618,936,265 N/A
Thursday, November 12, 2020
Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy
Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP) is a mental illness in which the sufferer fantasizes that others–usually people in their charge, such as children–are suffering from serious illness and require drastic medical intervention.
Pirong argues that the West's leadership is suffering from MSbP as evidenced by their behavior toward Covid 19.
The obsession with Covid-19 has the monomaniacal focus on “cases” (usually the result of hypersensitive tests prone to false positives), with the belief that people who test positive are sick, and huge numbers of those who become sick will die.
Given the actual experience over the last several months, these beliefs are wildly exaggerated–imaginary, fantasized illnesses, with fantasized severity, just the kind of thing that a sufferer of MSbP does.
And there’s more to the diagnosis. MSbP sufferers subject the people whom they imagine are ill with suffocating attention and unnecessary, and often harmful, health-related interventions. You know, like lockdowns; draconian restrictions on movement, social contact, and other features of everyday life; the shutting down of schools and colleges; and strident demands to wear masks–even between bites of your meal if you are in California.
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
The Covid War
The Covid War
When Nixon was elected, the Vietnam war suddenly became his. Protests focused upon him and him alone. Dan Rather profiled one killed American Soldier of the Day every broadcast.
The Covid fiasco is the obverse of that and I expect the opposite reaction. Where the Press--and the easily influenced American people--began to see the War as Nixon's and never thought of it as Kennedy's or Johnson's war, so Covid will always be seen as Trump's epidemic and, when Biden is elected, the daily and weekly infection numbers will begin to disappear from print and Covid will fade into the background, taking its hysteria with it.
Yesterday was the first day that CNN did not have its Covid Diagnosis and Death Banner.
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Energy Sources
Energy Sources
Some observations on the shares of energy sources used to generate the nation’s electricity from 1949 to 2020:
Coal was the No. 1 fuel source for electricity in every year until 2016 when natural gas became the No. 1 fuel source.
In every year from 1949 to 2011 coal supplied at least 40% of the nation’s electric power and in most years (43) supplied more than 50%.
In every year from 1983 and 2008, nuclear supplied more electric power than natural gas, and in 2020 it generated more electricity than coal.
Natural gas has become so abundant and cheap that it now supplies more electric power (41.2% this year) than coal and nuclear combined (38.3%).
Monday, November 9, 2020
Some Grammars Walk into a Bar
Some Grammars Walk into a Bar
Found this on the internet, a collection of definitions.
A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
Two quotation marks walk into a “bar”.
A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
A question mark walks into a bar?
A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out -- we don’t serve your type.”
A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
A synonym strolls into a tavern.
At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.
Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.
The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
A dyslexic walks into a bra.
A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.
An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.
A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.
A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.
A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.
A period walks into a bar, full stop.
An alliteration boldly bounces into a bar and later walks away with a wobble.
An onomatopoeia walks into a bar without a sound.
An incomplete sentence into a bar.
A double contraction walks into a bar although it oughtn’t’ve.
A synecdoche walks into a barstool.
A metonymy walks into a drunkard.
Sunday, November 8, 2020
Sunday/Bridesmaids
Sunday/Bridesmaids
Today's gospel is the ten bridesmaids gospel, five wise and five foolish. It's a bit harsh as the wise do not share with the foolish, who are then locked out of the ceremony. The Second Coming is strangely ominous.
But “Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” (Tagore)
On the other hand:To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
BY ROBERT HERRICK
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
Saturday, November 7, 2020
Friday, November 6, 2020
Thursday, November 5, 2020
Dog DNA
Dog DNA
The most extensive study of ancient dog DNA to date has shown how rapidly dogs spread across the world after domestication and pins their likely origin to a group of extinct wolves.
Further info:
By 11,000 years ago, dogs had already diverged into five different lineages and spread worldwide. It is widely accepted that dogs were domesticated at least 15,000 years ago. The new study suggests, but doesn’t prove, that domestication probably began around 20,000 years ago.
Dogs probably evolved from an extinct form of wolf, yet to be identified. There is some disagreement among experts about the strength of this finding.
Ancient dogs were much more diverse genetically than modern dogs. Four thousand years ago, European dogs had a wide genetic diversity that disappeared long before the Victorians started creating new breeds. All European dogs appear to have descended from one group of ancient European dogs, and the great modern diversity of dog shapes and sizes indicates an emphasis by breeders on certain very powerful genes.
Dogs are a continuation of a line of wolves, but since those wolves became dogs more than 15,000 years ago, no new wolf DNA has entered dog genomes. This puzzles researchers because humans crossbred dogs and wolves, but none of the wolf DNA survived in dogs at large. Modern wolves, however, do show the incorporation of some dog DNA.
The geographic spread of dogs sometimes mirrors and sometimes diverges from human migration, leaving unanswered the effects of dog-trading and why the genes of particular populations of dogs sometimes extended and other times did not.
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Following the Science
Following the Science
Ours is the time of the magician.
Covid has revealed a lot about us. We cheerily place ourselves under house arrest. We calmly shut commerce down and destroy countless businesses and lives. We stop education. Some of this comes from our confidence that the culture's success comes from some place other than ourselves, some weird governmental source that can maintain and nurture us. Another motivator is our strange "following the science."
For as knowledgeable and as savvy a culture as we are, you would expect some adequate understanding of science and technology. But that does not seem to be the case. Science is an exploration, a search. It is not a declaration. Fracking is technology, Covid infections are numbers, Pythagorean Law is geometry.
Science does not look at numbers and come to a conclusion. Science offers a thesis, does experiments, then reviews the results to see if the numbers justify the thesis. Any other approach is augury.
Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Boo! Happy Election!
Monday, November 2, 2020
The Myth of Control
The Myth of Control
Every four years, like locusts, politicians come out of their meetings, boardrooms, elegant restaurants, and caucuses to meet and cajole the common man. They shake hands with passers-by, they reassure frackers, they talk about God. It reminds you of those old holidays when, for one day, the servants run the estate while the owner acts as servant. Then, after trembling on tenterhooks throughout election day, in thrall to people they despise, they return to their lairs, shaking their heads over the stupidity of the electorate and try for the next years to pass more rules making election easier for the candidate.
So the poor citizen participates in the myth that he has some influence in his government, some control
Sunday, November 1, 2020
Sunday/Mount
Sunday/Mount
Today is All Saints Day, a day of remembering the saints of the Church. At first, the choice of the gospel, the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes, might seem strange but, rather, it is illuminating. Christ's description of the Good in the Beatitudes includes meekness, the poor in spirit, those who mourn--they are not limited to the dramatic apostles, their dramatic lives and deaths.
In many respects, these qualities are in the everyday.
Saint Irenaeus was a man of the Second Century, a man who campaigned against the Gnostics. He has a famous quote: “The glory of God is man fully alive.” This has been debated for years; does it imply the value of self-fulfillment, without God? In fairness, he answers this himself in the next phrase: “The life of a man is the vision of God.” But it implies that spiritual fulfillment is possible for humans in their daily interactions.
The author Alan Furst gave an interview once on his writings, a collection of WWII spy stories that describe the heroism of everyday men during the time before the war. He says that his readings of the period have led him to believe that evil, a true evil life, requires full-time application. That it was simply too hard to be devoted to evil without eliminating all other elements of your life. (Or perhaps evil eventually fills the moral space?) So the caricatures of Evil are true.
Goodness, on the other hand, emerged as a by-product of living a normal thoughtful life inspired, as Irenaeus would say, by God.
Not at all tooth and claw. And achievable by all.
Here are two minority reports:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
--Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 75–77
PERHAPS too far in these considerate days
Has patience carried her submissive ways;
Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek,
To take one blow, and turn the other cheek;
It is not written what a man shall do,
If the rude caitiff smite the other too!
Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need
God help thee, guarded by the passive creed!
As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and cowl,
When through the forest rings the gray wolf's howl;
As the deep galleon trusts her gilded prow
When the black corsair slants athwart her bow;
As the poor pheasant, with his peaceful mien,
Trusts to his feathers, shining golden-green,
When the dark plumage with the crimson beak
Has rustled shadowy from its splintered peak,--
So trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm
The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm,
Thy torches ready for the answering peal
From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted keel!
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
And Blake's summary of unresolved conflict:
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
--William Blake