Paganism re-visited

In a conversation over some craft beer last weekend, the topic of pagan practices being pretty ugly came up briefly, specifically this practice (referring here to Vikings, but I think the death of chieftains in other societies might have led to this to):

A man couldn’t marry his concubine, thus his wife didn’t feel threatened by her. They all lived together in the same household. The most powerful men among the Vikings owned sex slaves. The life of sex slaves was hard.

When a chieftain died, his men had sex with the sex slave to express love for their deceased leader. Afterwards, they killed the poor woman and cremated her together with her master. She would serve him also in the afterlife.

"...to express love for their deceased leader"!   That seems to be putting spin on the practice, to put it mildly.

Another site notes that pre-Christian Vikings took the idea of a male dominance in sex very seriously:

Calling a man by any term which suggested he played the ‘passive’ or ‘feminine’ part in homosexual sex was considered an insult so severe that the person who had been insulted had the right to avenge it in combat. Just the insult itself might be enough to get a man outlawed.

There is no apparent equivalent derogatory term for a man who played the ‘active’ part in homosexual sex. Indeed in ‘Guðmundar saga dýra’ Guðmundar plans to rape a male captive in order to break his spirit. This reflects badly on the slave, but not on the rapist, who is merely demonstrating his manliness.

Both castration and rape of defeated foes was seen as a good way of making them more effeminate, and therefore easier to control.

In this context – where the penetrator is regarded as perfectly normal and admirable, but to be the one being penetrated is to be shamed, broken, treated as a slave and ridiculed thenceforth as unmanly – it’s hard to imagine many m/m relationships existing as between equals.

From yet another article, I don't think I have heard before about men being the specific victims of sacrificial rites led by effeminate priests:

From Saxo Grammaticus, a 12th Century Christian chronicler, comes the information that the god Freyr was served by gender-variant male priests who displayed feminized behaviour and employed bells, which were considered ‘unmanly.’ They apparently enacted a symbolic sacred marriage in order to “ensure the divine fruitfulness of the season.” A ritual which took place every nine years, and consisted of the sacrifice of nine males of every species (including humans) to Freyr, who was worshipped as an erect phallus. The Priests of Freyr also performed shape shifting rites with boar masks.The ergi priests who practiced seidr also performed tasks usually associated with women, such as weaving and childrearing. The quality of their voices was was referred to as seid laeti, possibly indicating that some of them were castrati. Seidrmen were clearly differentiated from men who might occasionally indulge in same-sex relations & take the active role.The key theme here is that in surrendering themselves to passive intercourse, the ergi became a channel for the divine.

I wonder - how did one avoid becoming part of the 9 year festival?

And I can't say I know about Freyr, so here we go:

Freyr (pronounced “FREY-ur;” Old Norse Freyr, “Lord;” sometimes anglicized as “Frey”) is a god who belongs to the Vanir tribe of deities. He’s also an honorary member of the other tribe of Norse gods, the Aesir, having arrived in their fortress, Asgard, as a hostage at the closing of the Aesir-Vanir War.

Freyr was one of the most widely and passionately venerated divinities amongst the heathen Norse and other Germanic peoples. One Old Norse poem calls him “the foremost of the gods” and “hated by none.”^[1] The reasons for this aren’t hard to understand; their well-being and prosperity depended on his benevolence, which particularly manifested itself in sexual and ecological fertility, bountiful harvests, wealth, and peace. His role in providing health and abundance was often symbolized by his fylgja, the boar Gullinborsti (“Golden-Bristled”),^[2] and by his enormous, erect phallus.^[3]

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that Freyr was a frequent recipient of sacrifices at various occasions, such as the blessing of a wedding^[4] or the celebration of a harvest. During harvest festivals, the sacrifice traditionally took the form of his favored animal, the boar.^[5]

This drawing of him (thankfully modest) is a popular one at several site:

 Yet a visit from the priests of Freyr was not always a worry:

We know from medieval Icelandic sources that priestesses and/or priests of Freyr traveled throughout the country on a chariot which contained a statue of the god.^[12] The significance of such processions is described by the Roman historian Tacitus, who vividly depicts the processions connected with the early Germanic goddess Nerthus, whose name is the Proto-Germanic form of the name of Freyr’s father Njord. When the chariot reached a village or town, the people laid down their arms and “every iron object” and enjoyed a period of peace and joyful festivities, reveling in the deity’s kind presence.^[13] Such processions and celebrations appear to have been a common feature of the worship of the deities the Norse called the Vanir from at least as far back as the first century CE through the Viking Age. 

Back to the human sacrifice story, from another site:

Another Freyr-related sacrifice is the Frøsblot ("Frø-sacrifice", with Frø being another name for Freyr) as recorded by Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish scholar who lived c. 1150-1220 CE. In Uppsala, Sweden, a certain Haddingus is said to have instituted a yearly sacrifice to Freyr – the Frøsblot - as a way of atonement to the god, something seemingly linked to the great sacrifice at Uppsala that is supposed to have happened every nine years.

There may indeed have been a temple at Uppsala, as a famous account – based on hearsay but usually considered reasonably to moderately authentic – written by Adam of Bremen c. 1070 CE argues. Adam writes of a big, golden temple with statues of Thor, Odin, and Fricco (synonymous with Freyr), the latter adorned with an "immense phallus" (4). Every nine years, men, horses and dogs were allegedly sacrificed, their bodies swinging from trees in the sacred grove. The archaeological record does not support the existence of a temple, although there are other buildings among which a large hall have been found dating to between the 3rd and 10th centuries CE.

 Anyhow - I'm rather glad to have avoided the era.    

As I said on Saturday,  the most pleasing aspect of Christianity is that it's a religion that displaced the extremely widespread belief* in the need for continual animal or human blood sacrifice - God partook in the ultimate (self) sacrifice, and doesn't require fresh animal (or human) sacrifice any more.   Which is a kind of relief, in a practical sense.    

*  I was even surprised to read this in Journey to the West.  The Monkey King does this:

One day he instructed his four Stalwart Generals to arrange a feast for the six other kings. Oxen and horses were slaughtered, sacrifices were made to Heaven and Earth, and the assembled monsters danced, sang, and drank themselves blotto.

Chinese babies

Not that I want to upset our (slightly delayed) future Overlords, but Chinese sensitivity to imagined  historical slights is getting out of hand.  They're almost as whiny as transgender folk are towards JK Rowling (or, to be fair, as Donald Trump on the failure of people outside of his cult to also praise him):  

South Korean boyband BTS is facing a barrage of criticism in China after its leader made remarks about the Korean War and several big-name brands, including Samsung, have apparently distanced themselves from the K-pop group amid the uproar.

The controversy is the latest example of the political landmines lying in wait for big brands in China, the world's second-largest economy.

The leader of BTS, known by the initials RM, upset many people in China in a speech when the band received an award from a US-based organisation for their contribution to South Korea-US relations.

RM invoked a "history of pain" shared between South Korea and the United States and, referring to the 1950-53 Korean War, spoke of "sacrifices of countless men and women".

The war pitted South Korean and US forces against those from North Korea and China.

The comments touched off heated debate on social media in China.

"They should not make any money from China," one angry user said on the Weibo platform, referring to BTS.

"If you want to make money from Chinese fans you have to consider Chinese feelings."

Posts featuring Samsung's BTS special edition smartphones and earphones disappeared from Chinese e-commerce platforms Tmall and JD.com as the controversy swirled.

I noticed the band and their somewhat catchy song Dynamite featuring in a Samsung ad here.   They need to retire soon, or this level of celebrity is going to eat them up, in the way it usually does.

 

Very unfortunate

It's pretty rare to see significant construction accidents in Australia lately, it seems; and this one seems particularly embarrassing given where it happened.  (Not that, I presume, the school or its graduates necessarily had much to do with it, I suppose):

At least one person is believed to be dead and several injured after a building under construction at Curtin University collapsed after midday WA time on Tuesday.

The construction site at Curtin’s Bentley campus has been closed, and police, firefighters and ambulance officers rushed to the scene after part of the building collapsed at around 12.30pm....

The five-storey building under construction is part of Curtin’s new facility called Exchange, and features a glass courtyard as part of the new School of Design and the Built Environment. It was due for completion in 2021.

Weird Japanese tomb to be excavated?

From Japan Times:

The Imperial Household Agency is considering excavating Daisen Kofun in Osaka Prefecture, the country’s largest ancient burial mound, in a conservation project that could begin around next fall, sources close to the plan said Saturday.

The tomb mound in Sakai, dating back to around the middle of the 5th century, is under control of the agency as the mausoleum of Emperor Nintoku, while academic debate continues over who was actually buried there.

If the planned re-excavation project is carried out, it would be the first digging since an ancient burial complex comprising 49 tombs including Daisen Kofun was added to the World Heritage list in 2019, the sources said.

Archaeologists and historians hope the envisioned research on the tomb mound will shed light on its structure, many aspects of which remain a mystery.

I posted about this tomb about a year ago, as I hadn't previously realised they existed.   A reminder:

 

  

Some good context on "court packing"

I learnt stuff from this column at CNN. 

Another cult noted

I have to say, the New York Times Op-docs videos on Youtube are very good.  Very artfully made, sometimes a bit trivial but still extremely watchable.  Here's one I saw recently: 

And here's a creepy one about kids growing up in the narco zone of Mexico: 

There's a lot more that look interesting, but I haven't watched many yet.

Corn fritters for future reference

I love when it's cheap, fresh corn season, and over the last couple of years I've tried making corn fritters a couple of times, with mixed results.   I tried again last night, basically using this recipe except just using self raising flour instead of plain with baking soda.  I probably used more than that amount of coriander, too, but it still working out fine.   The amount of salt for this quantity seemed just right, too.  (Working out the right amount of salt by taste can be tricky.)

I'll copy the key parts of the recipe here: 

For the fritters:

For dinner, we ate them with some hot smoked salmon on top (although cold smoked salmon would be fine too) and some grilled asparagus too.  Nice.

Exactly. Why doesn't Chas Licciardello realise this?

I refer to cheery Chas on Planet America who keeps saying Biden is playing this wrong.  

Maybe something good for my ageing body?

Oh look, maybe body builders have stumbled onto something good.  From Science last month:

A dietary supplement bodybuilders use to bulk up may have a more sweeping health benefit: Staving off the ravages of old age. Mice given the substance—alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG)—were healthier as they aged, and females lived longer than mice not on the supplement.

Other compounds, like the antiaging drug rapamycin and the diabetes treatment metformin, have shown similar effects in mouse experiments. But AKG is naturally made by mice and by our own bodies, and it is already considered safe to consume by regulators.

“The big thing about this is that its safety profile is so good,” says University of North Dakota aging researcher Holly Brown-Borg, who was not involved with the study. “It has potential and should be explored further, for sure.”

AKG is part of the metabolic cycle that our cells use to make energy from food. In addition to its use by bodybuilders, doctors sometimes treat osteoporosis and kidney disease with the supplement.

The molecule grabbed attention as a possible antiaging treatment in 2014, when researchers reported AKG could extend life span by more than 50% in tiny Caenorhabditis elegans worms. That’s on par with a low-calorie diet, which has been shown to promote healthy aging, but is hard for most people to stick with. Other groups later showed life span improvements from AKG in fruit flies.

In the new study, Gordon Lithgow and Brian Kennedy of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and colleagues turned to mammals. They gave groups of 18-month-old mice (about age 55 in human years) the equivalent of 2% of their daily chow as AKG until they died, or for up to 21 months. AKG levels in blood gradually drop with age, and the scientists’ aim was to restore levels to those seen in young animals.

Some differences jumped out within a few months: “They looked much blacker, shinier, and younger” than control mice, says Azar Asadi Shahmirzadi, a postdoc at the Buck Institute who did the experiments as a graduate student. In addition, the AKG-fed mice scored an average of more than 40% better on tests of “frailty,” as measured by 31 physiological attributes including hair color, hearing, walking gait, and grip strength. And female mice lived a median of 8% to 20% longer after AKG treatment began than control mice, the group reports today in Cell Metabolism.

The AKG-eating mice did not perform better on tests of heart function or treadmill endurance, however, and the tests did not include cognitive performance.

I see it is readily available, although in variations that are confusing.

Here's some reference to a possibly dubious claim by a certain company selling the supplement to oldies under the brand name Rejuvant.    Only $150 for a 30 day supply(!).   I might have to pass on that one.

 

 

It might be slightly exaggerated...

...but this Twitter commentary on how a Trump interview on Hannity went a short time ago is pretty amusing:

 

What he said...

 And also, what she said:

Extremely obvious sexism and misogyny

It's impossible to read the conservative reactions on Twitter and the net to Kamala Harris's debate performance without seeing screamingly obvious sexism and misogyny.

From Trump calling her a "monster", to Fox News calling her "cringeworthy", to (of course I went there) Australia's pathetic Trump base at Catallaxy saying that that her very voice was unbearable and making "jokes" about her and fellatio.

It is simply an inexplicable overreaction without factoring in white, older male sexism and misogyny - the same group in which Trump still has a majority of support, at least if they low education.   

I watched a bit of her performance on Youtube and I find her inoffensive.   I will make allowances for people letting political partisanship read things into voice and mannerism that are not really there (or not so obvious, at least, to the other side), but as I say, in this case, the conservative reaction is just over the top and the reason for it transparent.

By the way:   why are journalists buying into the whole Republican line that it's really bad if Biden and Harris don't explain clearly their intention regarding "court packing"?   As someone said on Twitter, what the Republicans are doing (or trying to do - it would be hilarious if COVID casualties prevent them from having a quorum to confirm Coney Barrett before the election) is a form of deeply unethical "court packing" anyway;  and I don't see that anyone who would be inclined to vote Democrat would really care if Biden kept his cards hidden on what his party might try to do re court numbers in future.

Update:  Ahem.

 

An unrelated thing

Seeking diversity of topics for this blog, I just had a scroll through this year's Archives of Sexual Behaviour.   As you do.   I see that someone has studied something I had noticed in about 1985 when sharing an office with a gay guy who could not, at the time, be openly gay and keep his job.   Everyone assumed, correctly, that he was gay anyway - they just didn't say it openly at the workplace.  Now, I have mentioned this story before, but it became clear to me that the "gay voice" became much more distinct when he took a call from one of his friends.  I told him, as it was not exactly in his interest for his sexuality to be too widely known in the organisation, and he honestly did not realise he was doing so.   Anyway, onto the abstract:

Listeners rely on vocal features when guessing others’ sexual orientation. What is less clear is whether speakers modulate their voice to emphasize or to conceal their sexual orientation. We hypothesized that gay individuals adapt their voices to the social context, either emphasizing or disguising their sexual orientation. In Study 1 (n = 20 speakers, n = 383 Italian listeners and n = 373 British listeners), using a simulated conversation paradigm, we found that gay speakers modulated their voices depending on the interlocutor, sounding more gay when speaking to a person with whom they have had an easy (vs. difficult or no) coming out. Although straight speakers were always clearly perceived as heterosexual, their voice perception also varied depending on the interlocutor. Study 2 (n = 14 speakers and n = 309 listeners), comparing the voices of young YouTubers before and after their public coming out, showed a voice modulation as a function of coming out. The voices of gay YouTubers sounded more gay after coming out, whereas those of age-matched straight control male speakers sounded increasingly heterosexual over time. Combining experimental and archival methods, this research suggests that gay speakers modulate their voices flexibly depending on their relation with the interlocutor and as a consequence of their public coming out.

So, evidence after all of these years that it was not just my imagination.

A VP debate

Didn't see any of it, but seems to me that Harris supporters think she won, and Pence supporters think he did.   (Actually, in the routine verbal imagery of violent dominance that the Right loves to use now - he "crushed" or "smashed" her in the debate.   I think they get a particular thrill when it's a woman they are saying it about.)   No reason to think it was other than a sort of draw then?  

Then again, probably not, because from comments around the place, it seems Pence was a bit of an interrupter and ignored the time rules on a more minor scale than Trump but in a context in which it looks like he wanted to walk over women.   Given Trump's unpopularity with women, that should have been something to avoid.  

The biggest scandal that may come out of it would be if it turns out his pink eye really was a sign of a COVID infection.   It would not be too surprising if this happens, and damaging to the Trump brand.  

I also note that, as someone reminded us on Twitter, the Lefties watching thought the fly that was attracted to Pence's head was hilarious and a great metaphor; but if it had been the other way around, there would have genuinely been Trump supporters talking on social media about how it was a sign she was a demon or in league with them.   [The tweet reminded us that Alex Jones had claimed this when a fly briefly alighted on Hilary Clinton in 2016.   The nuttiness of the Right has only increased since then.]

Some appalling social media news

Noticed this at Gulf News:

Manila: Online misinformation is leaching out from cheap mobile phones and free Facebook plans used by millions in the Philippines, convincing many to reject vaccinations for polio and other deadly diseases.

Childhood immunisation rates have plummeted in the country - from 87 per cent in 2014 to 68 per cent - resulting in a measles epidemic and the reemergence of polio last year.

A highly politicised campaign that led to the withdrawal of dengue vaccine Dengvaxia in 2017 is widely seen as one of the main drivers of the fall.

But health experts also point to an explosion of vaccination-related misinformation that has undermined confidence in all types of immunisations.

In the northern city of Tarlac, government nurse Reeza Patriarca watched with horror the impacts of Facebook posts that falsely claimed five people had died after receiving an unspecified vaccination.

The problem is the popularity of Facebook in the country, even with the poor:

Most of the Philippines' 73 million internet users have a Facebook account, according to Britain-based media consultancy We Are Social.

Many poorer Filipinos rely on Facebook's Free Basics plan to use the internet, trapping them in the social media giant's information bubble.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has defended the service, saying it gives people who could not otherwise afford it an opportunity to use the internet.

Posts about President Rodrigo Duterte flooded Facebook in 2016 and were seen as playing a key role in his election victory - and officials say the site has been a boon for anti-vaxxer groups too.

Wilda Silva, the health department's immunisation programme manager, said fake news about vaccines "travels faster and wider than correct information".

 

 

Some cultural education for you

I should know more than the average Australian about what (some) Japanese don't like about their own culture, but this list by a young Japanese guy (who I think went to college in America) has some amusing surprises in it:  

Wishing him ill

Forgot to mention on the weekend, but this Vox piece:

Is it immoral if you feel schadenfreude about Trump’s Covid-19? 

is really good.  After considering what some famous philosophers have said on the topic, it ends on this consideration:

That said, what if someone wishes for Trump to die, not out of pure punitiveness, but out of a desire for Americans to get a new president who that person believes would save many lives?

 Whether you think this is ethically acceptable depends a lot on your preexisting moral commitments. Specifically, you’ll answer differently depending on which school of ethics you gravitate toward: utilitarianism, deontology, or virtue ethics. Here’s a brief (and admittedly oversimplified) breakdown.

If you’re a utilitarian, you might argue this is a perfectly acceptable wish because something is moral if it produces good consequences — and having a president who doesn’t bungle a national pandemic response would prevent a lot of death, which is clearly a good consequence.

But if you’re a deontologist (also known as a Kantian), then you’d argue this is an unacceptable wish because something is moral if it’s fulfilling your duty to others and immoral if it’s not. Immanuel Kant famously said we have a duty always to treat human beings as ends in themselves, not means to our ends. Wishing death upon someone — even if it’s to save many more people from death — is treating that someone as a means.

A virtue ethicist would likely agree with the deontologist that wishing death on someone is unacceptable, but for a somewhat different reason: By doing so, you’re cultivating in yourself a negative trait, rather than a virtuous trait like empathy. Even if it doesn’t actually harm anybody else (wishes are different from actions, after all), it harms you as a moral being, potentially chipping away at your capacity for empathy in the long term.

The virtue ethicist would probably want to remind us that it is perfectly possible to wish for the alleviation of suffering in a human being who has tested positive for a lethal pathogen, even if we happen to deeply dislike that human being. It is possible to wish for that human being’s recovery even if we feel a simultaneous sense of superiority, of vulnerability, of desperation to see justice in our world — and even if we think the world would be better off if that person didn’t recover.

If we examine what’s under the hood of our schadenfreude and don’t like what we see, it’s worth remembering that we have this option at our disposal.

Despite my general sympathy towards Kantian and virtue ethics, I'm leaning towards utilitarianism on this one.

Just stop it, Patricia

Patricia Karvelas is quite OK as a broadcaster on the ABC, even though her evening slot means I don't hear all that much of her show.   But I have to say, her recent daily tweeting of her radio studio dancing really strikes me as gratingly undignified and more becoming of a "look at me" teenager on social media than a mature adult.   [This is today's example.]  I wish she would stop it.

 

Netflix movie review time

Last weekend - saw the recent Netflix Tom Holland/Robert Pattinson vehicle The Devil All the Time.

First:  how does Tom Holland manage to act American so convincingly?  He's the best thing about the movie, by far.

But secondly and more importantly:  what a strange story, and not in a good way.  Basically, it's a multi-generational tale of psycho/socio-pathic preachers (as well as one or two nutty ordinary believers) which plays like a Southern Gothic written by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins on a drunken weekend tag team effort to come up with the most evil and hypocritical evangelicals they could imagine.   The result is too patently over the top, and lacks an overall narrative credibility, even if on a scene by scene basis, the acting is fine and it is nicely directed.   

A very odd effort.

 

 

 

Kevin has a point

You all know I had no time for Rudd as a politician, but he really has a point here: