The pro-dog Bible

Biblical Archaeology Review has an article, summarised here, arguing that dogs generally get a pretty positive treatment in the Bible, and from Jews:

Throughout the ancient Near East and Mediterranean, domesticated dogs served as companions, hunting dogs, sheep dogs, and guard dogs. Dogs filled similar roles in the Bible (e.g., Job 30:1; Isaiah 56:10–11). Although dogs sometimes appear in negative contexts in the Bible, such as in insults, they are not listed as ritually “unclean” animals. Strong clarifies that at least by the second century B.C.E., Jews viewed dogs positively:

If the dog was ever considered ritually unclean by the Israelites, it had shed this taboo by the time of the second-century B.C.E. Book of Tobit. When the author narrates Tobias setting off on a long journey, he depicts Tobias’s pet dog exiting the Jewish home to tag along on the adventure, presumably as a companion and co-guardian with the angel Raphael (Tobit 6:2; 11:4).

Dogs as healers has old roots:

Dogs also filled the interesting role of physician in the Greco-Roman world. Strong explains how this developed:

Ancient authors noted, for example, that the dog knows that it should elevate an injured leg, following what Hippocrates prescribed. Alongside other evidence, the ancient observer saw that the dog knows what plants to eat as medicine to induce vomiting if it has eaten something that upsets its stomach, that the dog knows to remove foreign bodies, such as thorns, and that the dog knows to lick its wounds to ensure that they remain clean, understanding that clean wounds heal more quickly.

In the role of physician of the animal kingdom, dogs appear in the cult of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. Sacred dogs, living in the god’s temples, would lick visitors’ wounds. Their tongues reputedly soothed and healed.

Given the surprising ability of dogs to sometimes warn their owns of serious disease, the ancients were not completely off the mark.

And also, this puts a different slant on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus:

In the parable, dogs lick the wounds of Lazarus. Viewing the dogs as healers, we can see this was a benevolent action. Strong explains that this corrects a previous interpretation of the dogs as malevolent characters: “The function of the dogs licking Lazarus has traditionally been understood by scholars to be a signal of extreme misery. Lazarus must be so disabled that he cannot drive away these ‘unclean’ dogs who are making a meal of him, so the old interpretation goes. But, as we can see now, this act would have been perceived by a first-century audience as a sign of sympathy from the dogs, who have been caring after Lazarus as though his nurses.”

Yay for dogs.

Endorsement of victimhood sought

David Frum's piece in The Atlantic about how Trump is getting angry with the FBI - again! - is good reading:

Trump got extra angry Sunday night. Uncheered by Mother’s Day, the president launched into a sequence of rage tweets that included the line: “The FBI has no leadership.” Trump has fired one FBI director, James Comey, for looking into the Russia matter. He fired an acting director, Andrew McCabe, for the same apparent reason. Apparently, he is now gunning for the present director, Chris Wray.

Why is Trump angry? Trump disjointedly tweeted over linked messages: “The Director is protecting the same gang…..that tried to……..overthrow the President through an illegal coup. (Recommended by previous DOJ) @TomFitton @JudicialWatch”

Trump wants the FBI to endorse his own theory of victimhood—and it won’t. Worse, the FBI was embedded in the Mueller investigation. The FBI received, and still holds, whatever information the investigation gathered about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, including potential answers to the all-important question: Why? Why was Vladimir Putin so eager to help Trump into the presidency? Why did Russia care so much, and run such risks for him?

This is such a weird situation - and the irony runs deep.   The American Right that so dislikes identity politics when it leads to claims of victimhood won't call out a President whose own victimhood status is based on narcissism.     

Strange German deaths

Sounds rather like some murder suicide by crossbow in Germany.   Also sounds like cult-ish people involved?:

A hotel guest said the man had a long white beard and the women were dressed in black, and described them as "strange".

On arrival on Friday evening they simply wished other guests a "good evening", then went upstairs to their second-floor room with bottles of water and Coca-Cola, said the guest, quoted by Merkur.

In Wittingen a neighbour quoted by Merkur described the 30-year-old woman as "always a bit odd - always dressed in black, sort of gothic".

News from France, and Australia

I feel this is another embarrassing admission, but I didn't realise, until I saw it on SBS this morning, that there was a good English news service from France 24, and its English news website looks very good too.  I believe it is a government funded broadcaster, and according to Wikipedia, it is a very large organisation.

On our public broadcaster, 4 Corners last night had a good episode looking at the issue of children being held in Queensland police watch-houses for unfortunate lengths of time (weeks, in some cases.)   It was pretty remarkable viewing, and (of course), the type of journalism that is non existent in the commercial news sector now.   (I trust people noticed the ridicule that Sky News Outsiders got for including a segment with a climate change astrologer who claimed it was all down to the position of the planets and energy field alignments, etc.   That James Morrow was co-hosting, eroding any credibility in his judgement even further.)  

The value and quality of the ABC is so obvious, I simply can't understand how right wing twits can spend time plotting its demise.  

The dry bar

The BBC reports that some bars in some big cities are trying to operate completely alcohol free, and are (apparently) growing in popularity.

But look at some of the cocktails (don't other countries call them "mocktails"?) one of them serves:

...the menu features a list of $13 (£10) cocktails with ingredients like tobacco syrup, lingonberry and jalapeno puree, with a friendly note from the owners that laptops are not allowed.

First, that's really expensive for a non alcoholic drink.

Secondly:  tobacco syrup, for goodness sake?  There's a taste idea I would run away from.

Vegetable cooking noted

*   Anyone who notices food writing will know that whole baked cauliflower has been the "new" big thing for a couple of years now (especially for vegetarians - there's been so much praise for it, it has sounded like the dish that will convert some to give up meat).    I tried it on the weekend, and have an announcement to make:

It is still cauliflower.

I know there are a thousand different suggestions on the net as to how to prepare and cook it, and I decided on a marinade of tahini, olive oil, garlic, salt and smoked paprika.  Pretty simple, but then again I found one person who just recommended olive oil and salt, and add a sauce at the end.   I went with the "cover in a foil tent for first half hour, then leave it open" method  (as opposed to the reverse.)  I left it in the oven for like 1 hour 20 minutes (it's a ridiculously energy intensive thing to prepare, for few calories.)

And at the end of the day:  yeah, it tastes like cauliflower with an added bit of taste on the outside.

I know:  I read some cooking sites where someone said they had to try several different ways of preparing and cooking it 'til the found the perfect one.  But I just can't see that it is worth the bother.

I think cauliflower and zucchini are both in a race for the blandest vegetables on the market, and really, I can't be bothered with the electricity and cooking experimentation to get either of them into an alleged taste sensation.

People:  just eat another vegetable that already has flavour and cooks in shorter time.

*  My wife makes a very nice, dry style pasta using garlic, anchovies, broccoli, dried chilli and - that's it, really.  Well, some olive oil, I assume.   She even saves time and energy by cooking the broccoli with the pasta.

I really enjoy the drier styles of pasta dishes now.   Less heavy that a meaty or creamy sauce, but still delicious and pretty satisfying with a tiny bit of side protein.  (We had a bit of hot smoked salmon on the side.)

Mongolian camels and their humans

NPR has a story about Mongolia's Biggest Camel Festival, and it features many photos of dolled up camels, like this one:

They do look nicer than some of your other camel versions.

Some history:

Why this regional craze for the two-humped creature? The origin story is intertwined with Mongolia's transition to democracy.

Under socialism, herding was centrally planned. Herders sold their animal products to the state. With the onset of capitalism in 1990, herders faced new pressures within the free-market economy. For some, their camels were worth more dead than alive.

"Camel herders couldn't get a good amount of money selling products from camel milk and wool," says 35-year-old festival organizer Ariunsanaa Narantuya.

Camel milk and wool wouldn't sell, but camel meat would. Some herders began slaughtering their camels. The festival was created a few years later, in 1997, by the newly formed Camel Protection Association — a local nongovernmental organization — to reverse that trend and protect the desert creature.

OK, well that makes me realise that I know very little about Mongolian political history.   I see from  Wikipedia that it sure is geographically unlucky, the way it's caught between China and Russia.   It has, however, transitioned to democracy:

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 strongly influenced Mongolian politics and youth. Its people undertook the peaceful Democratic Revolution in 1990 and the introduction of a multi-party system and a market economy.

A new constitution was introduced in 1992, and the "People's Republic" was dropped from the country's name. The transition to a decentralised economy was often rocky; during the early 1990s the country had to deal with high inflation and food shortages.^[43] The first election victories for non-communist parties came in 1993 (presidential elections) and 1996 (parliamentary elections). China has supported Mongolia's application for membership in to the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and granting it observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.^[44]

Anyway, as a democracy, and they are free to love their furry camels, and hold races of (allegedly) a thousand camels at a time:



I wouldn't mind visiting the place, but probably more to look at it out of the window, rather than to stay there any length of time.   Always looks such a bleak landscape.

Brisbane did not deserve you....

Where am I supposed to buy my Italian washed rind cheese now??

It was only last week that I said I was worried about the very upmarket deli/café/bottle shop Mercado surviving in King Street, in the old Exhibition grounds.

And yes, this morning it's shut, no sign on the door, but some guy who seemed to know what he's talking about said it has gone into receivership. This morning.  Ugh.

To be honest, I doubt it is in the right location.  I could imagine it working in one of the old money suburbs, perhaps Hamilton or Ascot, but it's in an area full of new, mostly small apartments, many ofwhich would have tenants who pay enough on the rent and can't spend up on tiny $9 cans of tuna from Spain, or very expensive cuts of aged steak. 

It's still a pity.  I think they were trying to provide some fish and other items at cheaper prices.  And the staff were very knowledgeable and nice.   There were so many of them, though. 

It's odd when an average Joe like me with no experience in retail can tell a place won't work out. 

Maybe it will be revived with less fancy goods and half the staff.  I hope so.

False beliefs that must change to advance the world

Ugh.  I see the Washington Post has a story about tigers being farmed and eaten in Laos.

I just posted about a ridiculous caste story from India.

No need to mention radical Islam, is there?   Wannabe terrorists (and actual arsonists) were convicted in Canberra yesterday.

Let's make a list of some key false beliefs that need to change to advance the world, and who they are addressed to:

1.    Everyone:    Climate change caused by increasing CO2 and greenhouse gases is not a matter that is any serious scientific doubt.   It's not a vast conspiracy by climate scientists, weather bureaus, socialists, "cultural Marxists" or anyone else.   Scientific advice to reduce the future concentration of greenhouse gases must be followed.   

2.    Various Asians (primarily):   You do not gain particular strength or benefits according to the type or part of animal you eat.   Eating strong animals doesn't make you any stronger than eating lazier animals.     Leave wild animals alone!    Leave most animals alone!  (If you must, do something similar to what Catholics do - invite the generic animal spirit to go into something that's harmless to eat and eat that instead.  Or adopt homeopathy, so the atoms of one dead animal should be enough to make billions of litres of spirit imbued tonic. Either way - happy animal, happy placebo affected human!)

3.    Indians:   Belief in the caste system is an offence to universal human dignity and rights.   Treat all humans with respect, and make opportunity for social and material advancement open to all.   And build more toilets while you're at it.

4.    Muslims:   God does not want you to kill other humans for not believing your brand of your faith.   Respect other faiths, and non belief, if you want to be respected.  (PS - companion dogs are cool, you don't know what you're missing out on.)

5.   Everyone who's inclined to believe it:   natural formations are not sacred.  They may be very cool, awe-inspiring, lovely to look at or be in or on, and important to preserve for environmental or aesthetic reasons:  but they are not sacred.    Gods or spirits might like natural places too, but they don't  fuss about making one spot sacred and other spots not.

To balance things out, seeing 4 out of 5 complaints are about "traditional" or ancient beliefs:

6.  Atheists and modern philosophers:   it's OK to complain that theism doesn't make any sense to you - believers worry about how to make sense of the problem of evil too, amongst other things.   But stop promoting the idea that free will is an illusion and does not exist:  it's an unhealthy meme psychologically and culturally, encouraging defeatism towards the idea of self control and choosing a moral life, however you wish to define that.  (And you may not even be right, anyway - so why promote a belief that has such obvious potential for harm?)

In more "OMG India", news

From the Times of India:

Dalit groom rides horse, community faces boycott 

 If I understand it right, it was the leadership who were boycotting the Dalits who were arrested, which is something, I suppose. 

New information for the sex ed class

Why am I reading this in the Washington Post and not in the Australian media, when it's from Australian researchers?:

It may be possible to pass gonorrhea through kissing, challenging the widely accepted notion that the sexually transmitted disease is spread almost exclusively through sexual contact, a new study says.

Researchers in Australia found that kissing with tongue may be a way to transmit oropharyngeal gonorrhea, or oral gonorrhea, particularly among gay and bisexual men. Although the idea has not been well-studied, one expert says the findings, published Thursday in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, could be important for understanding gonorrhea as it continues to spread and become more resistant to treatment.

Not entirely sure what this means for Australian coal

Spotted in the Jakarta Post:

The Indonesian coal price reference (HBA) has continued to decline this month due to shrinking market demand to US$81.86 per ton, or a month-to-month (mtm) decrease of 7.86 percent.

Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Ministry spokesperson Agung Pribadi said that East and West Asian countries, especially China and India, were currently limiting their Indonesian coal imports.

“China and India have started to reduce their coal imports from Indonesia. The countries launched a protection policy and have increased domestic coal production to fulfill [local] demands,” Agung said in a statement on Tuesday.

STEM students don't care for gun control, apparently

Slate has a report of an event that I'm guessing with thrill the American Right:  apparently, a "vigil" for the student killed in the school shooting this week turned out all strange when lots of students attending didn't like that it was a "political stunt" to talk about gun control.   (The report says they apparently weren't aware of it having been organised by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.)  

“I thought this was about us, not about politics,” one student said, according to the Washington Post. Another student argued that they were “not a statistic” and shouldn’t be cited to justify gun control: “We are people, not a statement.” 

The students held their phones’ flashlights into the air and chanted, “mental health, mental health.” They also confronted journalists, whom the Brady Center had invited to cover the event, calling them derogatory names, according to the Denver Post, and asking to see what photos they had taken.

Colorado is a swing state, apparently, and it seems Denver is more Democrat than other parts.   That makes this sort of reaction surprising, but I wonder if STEM students swing more Right wing than your average student.

Oh well, they will presumably get more shootings in future, if that's their attitude.   

She keeps the best company

I see that Helen Dale has turned up on a Youtube with Carl Benjamin, better known (apparently) as Sargon of Akkad, discussing Brexit.   The discussion, which went on far too long to keep my interest, was intelligent enough, but I was more interested in the "meta" aspects.


First, she is sounding very British these days (although that happens if you live in a country); but more oddly, if I understood her correctly, she is now in the Conservative Party and said something like she was "conservative from birth".   Which sounds a tad odd:  did I read somewhere in one of the many articles/interviews about her that she once said she helped (when very young, and perhaps with her father?) on a Greens campaign?  But she has also said her father was a con man and made many disparaging remarks about him at other times.   

In any event, I have a suspicion that we are witnessing another re-invention of herself.

More significantly, this Benjamin character is a controversial figure, who I have managed to avoid knowing anything about until now.   He's running for the pro-Brexit, anti immigration UKIP, and The Guardian notes that he was a big figure in the Gamergate controversy in 2014 (and not in a good way.)   He's also in trouble for some "joke" he made about how he wouldn't rape a certain politician, and he's not apologising for it.   He puts on an air of reasonableness in some of his material, but Buzzfeed notes his online presence is closely associated with an alt.right fanbase. 

I seriously doubt he is someone who (shall we say) reasonable people should be associating with.

Dale has also done an interview with James Delingpole - the climate change denying twit and general right wing gadfly.   Apparently, he was all gushing about her take on Roman society.   For a person who thinks libertarians should stop denying climate change, she sure doesn't mind helping the profile of one of the most prominent climate change denying writers of the last decade.

At the risk of being accused of jealousy or undue obsession with her, I say again that there has always been something about her manner in talks, interviews or writing which strikes me as a facade of intellectualism more than anything substantial.  But she wins over many on the "classic liberal" or libertarian right,  who do not perceive her this way.   

She's pretty fascinating, because I perceive her as very strange, and rather Zelig-like in many ways. 

Should I ride?

I have been curious to try a Lime scooter:  they look sort of fun, but my inherently conservative view towards my safety might mean I not go anywhere near their top speed (23kph).

However, I see a man in Brisbane, not too far off my age, has died after riding one down some stairs (unintentionally, I assume.) 

I had a look at the cost of buying one of these things - if you lived in a city with a good enough bicycle path network (I think they are allowed on them?), I thought they might be pretty appealing to youngsters as a cheap commuting device.   Not much fun in rain or storms, but on a lot of days in Brisbane in winter, I can imagine them being a pretty pleasant way to get to university, for example.

I see that Segway sells a reasonably flash looking one for about $850, with a 20km range (but a 3.5 hour charge time.)   Other companies sell much more expensive ones.

I think if I lived within 10 km of a university I was  attending, I would be tempted to buy one.

The de-evolution of Mark Latham

Mark Latham's descendent into creepy old man Right wing culture war whinger was on full display in his maiden speech to the New South Wales Parliament, where some high(?)lights included:

"Like a scene from Orwell's Animal Farm, the Green-Labor-Left has become the thing it originally opposed: elitist, would-be dictators taking away from the working-class communities the things these battlers value."

He also attacked political correctness and the "confected outrage" of the "elites".

Quoting Monty Python actor John Cleese, Mr Latham argued that telling a joke about someone does not mean you hate them.

"We love the people we joke about — the Irish, the blondes, the gays, everyone — as they've helped to bring humour and joy into our lives."

Yeah, tremendous jokes and commentary such as he gave on Sky News recently:

Discussing the new "Respect Victoria: Call It Out" advertisement in which a man leers at a woman on a train – eyes running down and up her, persisting despite her visible discomfort and distress – Latham dismissed the man’s behaviour as normal.

“If you don’t have a good look at a beautiful person of the opposite sex there’s something wrong with you,” the One Nation NSW leader said on Sky News last week.

“Was he thinking … did I used to root her at uni?”

 The rest of the summary of his speech:

The One Nation MP spoke for more than 47 minutes, calling for limits on immigration, an end to identity politics, an overhaul of the state's education system and the introduction of nuclear power and greater investment in coal-fired power.

If you want to read how much he has devolved, have a look at this 2014 piece with its moderate,  thoughtful and regretful analysis of why climate change denialism had been so successful amongst large parts of the public.

Now he belongs to a climate change denying party.  (One Nation's policy position on this looks like it was written by nutter Malcolm Roberts.)  

His culture war whinging has won him many admirers at Catallaxy - fellow man-stuck-in-the-social- zeitgeist of the 1950's, CL claims this:

It’s really disappointing to me that Latham cannot be prime minister.
He is the outstanding man in Australia’s polity right now.

It all again shows that Right wing opposition to climate change action is simply based on culture war resentment and has nothing to do with a serious consideration of science or economics.

One final question:   doesn't Latham's wife find this change of persona worrying?   It must be like living with a different man from the one she married.   And don't his sons, who must at least be teenage now, find him cringeworthy and "old before his time" as well?
 

Numb to the absurdity

While you can still find tweets and the occasional headline like this:

Trump shows he still doesn't grasp who bears the brunt of tariffs 

it's pretty incredible that we are watching a US President re-engaging in a trade war while making it abundantly clear that he still doesn't understand what he is doing (in that he doesn't understand tariffs, at all.)

How can any economist of any credibility defend a President so dumb as to not be able to absorb correction on this matter?  

The media (and much of the public) has become pretty much numb to the absurdity of the situation.

Time for out and proud atheists

This one's sure to appeal to Jason. 

Lots of good points made in Max Boot's Washington Post column about America's weirdly distrustful attitude towards atheist politicians, when disbelief (or agnosticism, at least) is actually rapidly climbing in the nation, and much of American religiosity has permanently tainted itself by supporting Trump:

It’s time for us to have an unapologetic atheist in the Oval Office

Boot indicates that even Democrat Presidential candidate Andrew Yang is not an atheist.   And he's right:  Wikipedia says he attends a small Protestant denomination:

Yang attends the Reformed Church of New Paltz with his family and has identified Mark E. Mast as their pastor.^[40][41]

Update:  well, I feel it a bit embarrassing to admit I didn't know this about Winston Churchill (I have never read a biography of him), but Boot points out he was a disbeliever with only the most nominal attachment to the Anglican Church.   A detailed article about his (lack of) religious belief can be found here.   

Shorten did fine

If anything, I wish he had been more sarcastic and ridiculing of Morrison's laughable line that the Coalition accepted climate change and the need to take action on it.  He should have mentioned Morrison's lump of coal in Parliament, although I suppose that would have led to questions about Adani that Shorten would prefer not raised.

Overall, though, people who hated Shorten before the debate will still hate him;  people like me who think Morrison is an inch deep failed advertising executive who has accidentally found himself as Prime Minister will still view him the same.

Shorten's summary of the Coalition was spot on, though:  they want you to believe that everything is fine, when most suspect we are just skating on thin ice with the global economy changing in ways no one completely understands, and the feeling of an ever present risk of another financial meltdown of some sort or another.    I like that Labor has made itself a "big target" in terms of tax reform and climate change - that's how politics should work.

Mum's the word

What an interesting day in Murdoch land.

The Daily Telegraph took a pretty bizarre decision to run as front page news that Bill Shorten didn't include in his Q&A explanation about his Mum (that she wanted to be a lawyer but to support her kids she became a teacher) enough detail about how she later did go on to study and practice law, although only for 6 years as a barrister.   Unsurprisingly, Shorten had publicly discussed his Mum's late career in law before - it's not as if it is a secret.  

So it was a ridiculous decision to try to make a mountain out of a molehill.  In fact, I'm not even sure that it's a molehill - there's nothing to show Shorten was being deceptive given his mother's career was already a matter on the public record.  

Yet the Tele's opinion editor, James Morrow, who I recently noted has always seemed to want to live up closely to the first part of his "Prick with a fork" nom de plume, turned up on twitter promoting the story.   Tim Blair also noted it on his blog with approval, and hopeless partisan hack and enriched canine admirer Chris Kenny defended the story too. 

On the other side of the Murdoch fence, though, the Herald in Melbourne decided not to run it, and Andrew Bolt has defended that decision.

The overwhelming take on the matter on Twitter that this is a real misfire and is much more likely to help Shorten than hurt him.   

Here's my take:   I wouldn't have thought it's likely to be any sort of key turning point of the campaign - it didn't exactly attack his Mum, even though the headline was ambiguous - but gee it shows what ridiculous editorial judgement pervades the Daily Telegraph.  (And the Courier Mail too, apparently.)

As a semi-gotcha, it might at most have been worth appearing as a small part of some opinion hack's mid section column - and it is the sort of useless rubbish that Tim Blair now excels at in his blog.

But when even Andrew Bolt can see that putting it as the front page lead story is wrong - well, as I say, it's a weird day in Murdoch land.

Update:  I see that Shorten has elaborated on his Mum's legal career, indicating that the late start did affect it:

Mr Shorten elaborated that while his mother had eventually studied law, she was a victim of age discrimination - despite her academic record, no law firm hired her to complete her articles and when she did join the bar, she only received about nine briefs.

"It was actually a bit dispiriting," he said.

Update 2:   since I first wrote the post, I have re-read what Shorten said on Q&A, and realised he had made it very clear she did study and practice law.   (When I first posted, I was going by memory of part of what he had said.)   I have therefore amended the post.

It just makes the Daily Telegraph's story, and all who defend it, look pretty idiotic.

Update 3:  jeez, I was right the first time - I thought I was reading transcript of the Q&A show when it was an interview or talk he gave somewhere else.  Now that I'm sure I have read the right transcript, I see that he didn't go on to say on Q&A that his Mum had gone on to study and try being a barrister in her 50's - after a career in teaching that had not been her first preference.