The continuing crisis (not Covid-19)

I mentioned last week that I had liked parts of an esoteric book by DT Suzuki about Swedenborg.  Actually, it was mainly the translator's introduction, which gave a short account of the cultural concern in Japan in the early 20th century, as the nation came to the end of the Meiji era with its rapid industrialisation and social changes.

I thought it serves as a good reminder that:

a.  worrying about cultural and social change, as is common in the Western world today, is something that has been around a long time, and is shared by countries that don't have a Christian background.  (I generally like to think that the increasing number of atheists and agnostics in the West is a long lingering effect of the scientific revolution of Darwin, and the discovery of the vast age and size of the universe - remembering that the very nature of galaxies was only realised less than 100 years ago - but Eastern nations whose religion did not carry a key creation creation story had the same social worries); and/or

b. maybe at every period in history, people worry that things are changing for the worse and that they are in the midst of cultural or societal degradation of one kind or another.

Anyway, at the risk of upsetting a publisher, I am just going to cut and paste some relevant pages, and sorry about the size difference (I might try to fix this up later):

There's a gap now, but here's another high profile Japanese suicide from the period:

Well, I had not heard of either the famous suicidal teenager, or General Maresuke killing himself as a sign of loyalty to his boss.

Here's a different translation of the angsty teenager Misao's suicide poem, from Wikipedia:

Thoughts on the precipice

How immense the universe is!
How eternal history is!
I wanted to measure the immensity with this puny five-foot body.
What authority has Horatio's philosophy?^*
The true nature of the whole creation.
Is in one word – “unfathomable”.
With this regret, I am determined to die.
Standing on a rock on the top of a waterfall.
I have no anxiety.
I recognize for the first time.
Great pessimism is nothing but great optimism. 

I don't know - I guess you had to be in Japan at the time to understand why this would cause a sensation.   Also, as I have noted above, this guy is fretting about the size of the universe before scientists even had a clue as to how big it really was.    And that last line if a bit too Zen paradox-y for my taste. 


There is more from the book I want to talk about, but later.

A great take down of Fox News

At Slate, a good article:

Fox News During the Coronavirus Pandemic Is Awful Even by Fox News Standards 

accurately sums up the network  -

The Trump-boosting minimization of the novel coronavirus pandemic may well be a new low for Fox News—but it’s also a logical extension of the network’s decades-long war on objective reality. 

Ever since Fox News launched in 1996, the network has labored to construct its own closed epistemic system, underpinned by a variety of questionable “facts” and baseline assumptions that validate right-wing viewpoints while demonizing liberal values. The point is to prop up right-wing politicians by training its viewers to hate, fear, and distrust anyone who leans even the slightest bit left. Critical to the success of this initiative has been the discrediting of traditional authorities, such as mainstream journalists and academic scholars, that traditionally take a more liberal view on the world. Since Trump became president, this reflexive anti-intellectualism has redoubled as the network has engaged in an all-out campaign to support and bolster Trump by discrediting his many enemies. Who are Trump’s enemies? Anyone who contradicts, criticizes, or disagrees with him, for one thing; anyone who insists on citing objective, observable facts to challenge the president’s narcissistic, narrative-driven worldview. 

Seen through that lens, the network’s subpar coverage of the coronavirus is just another example of Fox doing what it does best: carrying water for a dangerously unqualified president by encouraging their viewers to believe that Trump’s personal grievances are and should be their own.

Virus watch

* As Axios notes:

Trump made 3 false claims in his Oval Office coronavirus speech

* Why aren't more mainstream media making this observation in their reporting on the Trump speech?:

Donald Trump looked sick and terrible during his recent coronavirus speech 

* The Trump travel ban means crowds rush counters in European airports, which is not exactly helpful from a contagion point of view:

'It's ridiculous': Trump travel ban sows panic in European airports

*  But Steve Kates, conspiracy nut and economics lecturer, has a theory:

The media’s hysteria about coronavirus is intended to destroy the American economy because media types are focused single-mindedly on defeating Trump.

There is therefore no longer any independent source of information you can trust since the media is now fully corrupted by its political messaging. Who can you turn to?

*  Tom Hywood in the SMH writes a totally tone deaf piece about how, despite the coronavirus giving him intense headaches for three days which were serious enough to have a heap of tests in a hospital to rule out a brain tumour, he wishes people would stop being "hysterical" about the fact they're worried they might have caught it from him(!).   As someone on Twitter summarises:

 And another:

Updates:

*  The transparent appeal to xenophobia by Trump in his speech is all about his ignorant "base", and is an embarrassment to all serious people.

Which means the Catholic who is only serious in the degradation he causes to the reputation of Catholicism, CL, has another go at his trademark "Whataboutism".   "Oh look, CNN once referred to it as the Wuhan virus, so it's OK for the President to keep pandering to xenophobia." 

*  You would have to suspect the virus would hit India hard, but so far, it's hard to know what is going on.  But nationalist Hindus with their faith in all things "cow" (promoted by government officials?!) indicates problems ahead:

India has conducted nearly 5,000 COVID-19 tests so far, according to the World Health Organization, which says that the “country is responding with urgency as well as transparency.” But so far, India has only reported 74 confirmed COVID-19 cases and one death, on Thursday. Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute tells TIME that count is “just not right.” He believes there must be many more cases, but they have just not been identified. “I’m deeply worried that there’s a lot of community transmission and we are just not aware of it because there is not widespread testing,” he says.

Jha expects there will be a large uptick in cases over the next two to three weeks as testing capabilities improve. Jha and other experts worry that misinformation from government officials and BJP lawmakers touting cow products and unproven homeopathic remedies as ways to prevent infection add to the country’s challenges in containing an outbreak.

The potential Tom Hanks crisis

I think it obvious.  If:

a.  Tom Hanks were to die of the coronavirus, and

b.  Donald Trump never catches it,

it would be a convincing proof that there really is no God.  Lisbon 1755 would have nothing on that inducement to a crisis of faith.

Depending on mood, my seriousness here ranges between 50 and 95%.

And by the way:  I just checked on Google Maps, and he's barely 62km from me as the crow flies.   I feel I should go and stand on the footpath with a sympathetic placard during the weekend.   I hope he tweets something positive about his treatment at what is, after all, a pretty new and modern hospital. 

And one final thing:  can you imagine what his death in Australia would do to our tourism industry after the appalling fire and smoke apocalypse of early 2020? I think we should all just start growing potatoes and chickens and back yard now, just in case Australia has to permanently close for business....

Virus has driven them mad

I am gaining some sense of schadenfreude from watching the wingnut residents of Catallaxy work themselves into a frenzy caused by the attempt to reconcile their fantasy belief that Donald Trump's presidency was and is a glorious success with the unavoidable reality that his performance in the face of a genuine emergency has been as terrible and utterly embarrassing as every Never Trumper always knew it would. 

Steve Kates hasn't been posting much, and seem truly confused as to who to believe, seeing his Dear Leader's early denial of seriousness of the issue has now been transformed into a foreign invasion crisis with an ill-considered response that has hurt the markets more.

Currency Lad, forever stuck in 1950's era nostalgia for Mums who stayed at home and men who went out in the world to do men's things, even said yesterday, after a brief uptick in the stock market, that "Looks like Trump was right again".  Hilarious.

[He operates now as a pathetically predictable, culturally anachronistic, unpaid, completely unconvincing political shill, whose speciality in all matters is "whataboutism." (He cannot write anything more that about 200 words on any Democrat without mentioning Ted Kennedy's unfortunate history.)  Sometimes I suspect he doesn't really believe some of the guff he writes, but then again, he might also write so to convince himself and starts buying into the one-eyed fantasies.  As I have often said:  pretend something for long enough and you can start believing it.]

There are many others who are crapping on there - some are critical of Trump on this issue, but very few.    And the nonsense that some are spouting is profound.

We also have the spectacle of waiting to see if the chronically insecure and needy Lizzie and her high risk husband can get to and from an American based cruise ship without catching the virus.  Look, they deny climate change and think all of Australia's eucalyptus forest should be replaced with foreign trees that don't burn as well - we're not talking sensible people here, but they have money to burn and are a living example of Dunning-Kruger incompetence to judge risk wisely.   They'll probably make it back, but it's clearly a high risk enterprise.  

Anyway, it's - sort of - entertaining.

Update:  here's a quality [sarc] contribution to the blog.  Literally, a man bragging about beating up a woman (petty thief or not - it's wrong.)  

Easiest money ever

Noted at the ABC:

Kristy Wildy did not know she could get paid for donating her poo, but it was an unexpected bonus for the 55-year-old who has been contributing for the past 12 months.

Ms Wildy has been a blood donor for years, and she said donating her stool was a no-brainer.

"I wanted to become a donor because I thought I was a fairly healthy person and I would have something to contribute," she said.

Ms Wildy donates about three or four times a week and said the process was quick and easy.

She said the $25-per-donation payment was a bonus and could be lucrative, depending on donation rates.

Who would have thought...

...that Democrats voting in the primaries might not care for the candidate who kept going on Fox News repeatedly to diss Obama and Hillary Clinton?:

Not a good look

Been meaning to note how Europe just had a remarkably warm winter, and Antarctica a remarkably warm summer (or at least, end of summer).

It's like something might be going on, globally.

Apparently Sinclair Davidson, of all people, recently went on a cruise to Antarctica.  I hope he was trying to make jokes with the (likely environmentally conscious) passengers about how he and the IPA had helped flame global warming denial, and that they considered leaving him stranded on an ice berg. 

I have also been watching some pleasant Youtube videos of an Antarctic cruise by one of the travelling couple vloggers who I have taken to watching recently:  Kara and Nate.  Their first one showing them getting on the ship is here.    I think they are quite likeable as travel vloggers, although I perhaps prefer the couple who do The Endless Adventure.   Both couples are very positive and take setbacks, or spiders or cockroaches in the room, on the chin.    

Viral conspiracies on the Right

Given that they have spent the best part of 20 years echo chambering themselves into believing that the most important long term global problem is a conspiracy by scientists and "leftist" media, is it any wonder that the American Right and its Australian counterpart is showing itself as swinging wildly from one bad take to another on Covid-19?   (And yes, I'm sure there will be people on Twitter on the Left with bad takes too, but I don't think they are any numerical match for nutball belief amongst Trumpers.)

Not that there is a consistent line from the Right - it's either all a media beat up of nothing worse than a flu, fuelled by Deep State operatives who only want to see Trump fail, or a devastating Chinese created bio-warfare planning gone wrong (or right) that will devastate the globe.   But there is also always time for "Chinese as filthy disease carrying foreigners who should be let into the country again" opinions too.   Many are excited by the End of Globalisation they think it heralds - ignoring, as they are wont, the obvious benefits that increased trade has brought both to the West and to helping the global poverty rate decrease.

It is incredible, though, how gullible they are in finding no fault in their Dear Leader.   In truth, the US response has been worthy of a (incompetent) tin pot dictatorship, which is what Trump followers want their country to be, anyway.

And isn't the "Dear Leader" praise of Trump that CDC and health officials feel obliged to give really creepy??  These takes are all accurate:

Update:  to watch the Australian wingnut Right take every conspiracy possible, of course you only need to read Sinclair Davidson's Respite Home for the Stupid and Offensive Right.    monty is there trying to be sensible, but why he bothers I don't know.  

Also, Will Hutton makes an interesting historical point on public health and the Left:

The lack of global public health capacity, standards and enforcement are crippling. The US’s problem is not only that it is led by a fool and a knave, but that its hugely expensive private healthcare system does not invest in public health capacity – such as isolation beds for patients stricken with a contagious virus.

Yet America’s problem – just like China’s problem over unregulated markets for wild animal meat – is our problem, too. One of the foundations of the rise of the left in the 19th and early 20th centuries was the growing recognition that no individual, however wealthy, was insulated from disease epidemics. Sanitation, clean water and immunisation were public goods necessary for everyone to stay alive. The left was their champion.

Now, one form of unregulated, free-market globalisation with its propensity for crises and pandemics is certainly dying. But another form that recognises interdependence and the primacy of evidence-based collective action is being born. There will be more pandemics that will force governments to invest in public health institutions and respect the science they represent – with parallel moves on climate change, the oceans, finance and cybersecurity. Because we can’t do without globalisation, the imperative will be to find ways of managing and governing it.

 

Some impressive sarcasm here...

Remarkable

You could be mistaken for thinking that this is so stupid, it must be a fake account.  But there is no sign of that, as far as I can see:

Another post preview

Hey, I had another weekend in which I had an hour to kill at St Lucia, so it's into the UQ library and up to the 4th floor to look at their (very comprehensive) collection of books on religion and stuff to try to pick out something interesting and get as much out of it as I can in 50 minutes.  (I have to allow for walking to and from my car.)

I am finding this an inordinately fun thing to do, probably because it has reminded me of the serendipity of browsing a library which I enjoyed as a young man, before the internet arrived.   (You can stumble across things on the net, of course, but the more evolved it has become, the more it seems the serendipity has been drained out by too many people - or companies - thinking they know what I might find interesting.)  

This week's choice was a very esoteric one - a translation of a book written in the early 20th century by the Japanese Zen Buddhism populariser DT Suzuki on the European mystic oddball Emanuel Swedenborg!    (Title - "Swedenborg - Buddha of the North".)

And yet I found stuff in it that was interesting and about which I want to post.

A detailed post is coming.

Late movie review - Logan Lucky

I think this might have only recently become available on Netflix Australia?

Watched it on Saturday night, and what a pleasant surprise.   I didn't think it had been very well reviewed when it came out, but it turns out I was wrong.   I was right, though, that it hadn't made much money ($48 million internationally - that's a crime.  Ha ha, a pun.)

It's a very enjoyable, well directed, light weight heist movie in an unusual setting.  Remarkably, I read afterwards, the screenplay was by a first time female writer - she should be really proud.   I wonder if she is from West Virginia, because she does not mock their bogan-ish interests at all.

There were a couple of things I realised about half way through - there is (I think) not a swear word to be heard in the entire movie, even though there are many characters who are crims or ex-crims.   And the style of somewhat eccentric humour is reminiscent of that in the good natured Coen Brothers comedies:  perhaps Raising Arizona and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (neither of which featured swearing either) are the closest comparisons.

[I love to excitedly point out to my son when there is an enjoyable movie that features modern adults but no swearing.  "Yet" - I like to say - "did it ever occur to you while watching that it wasn't realistic?   See - you can still make movies with realistic characters who do not swear!  We should have more of that!"]

I think some Americans say some of the Southern accents are a bit off, but I reckon if you're not from there, you aren't going to notice.  Even Daniel Craig seemed convincing to me.

So - highly recommended.

Another salmon recipe

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the successful recipe of grilled salmon on  mashed potato full of leek, and rocket and corn.  Last night I tried another recipe and it was pretty nice too...crispy skin salmon with bean puree and a (sort of) tomato salsa.  

This recipe was from Woolworths, and the only adjustment I made was a little olive oil and lemon on the salsa.  

Pretty nice, and although serving size for 4 looked a little small on the plate, the bean puree still made it a filling meal.  (We always get by on buying the 4 pieces of salmon for $13 pack at Coles or Woolies.  The pieces aren't  huge but its enough.)

Yesterday's toilet paper exchange

This is a close approximation to how a toilet paper exchange went in my workplace yesterday:

Nearby business person comes into our office [which is near a pharmacy and Coles]:  "The pharmacy and Coles have both got some toilet paper in! Coles have doubled the price, but the pharmacy is selling it at normal price but they'll only sell me 4 packets.  Can you go down and buy some more?" [She was speaking to a staff member - not me]

Me, calling out from my office:  "Can you stop trying to get other people caught up in your panic shopping?"

Panic woman (to me):  "What?  What's wrong with you?  You don't know when they'll next get some in.  They say Coles have ramped up the price, but the pharmacy is selling it but they'll only sell me four."

Me:  "If people keep doing what you're doing, we'll never get back to normal supply and stock.  Isn't that obvious?"

Panic woman:  "But my son and daughter have both run out!"

Me (internally dubious, but still):  "Well, OK, you might have an excuse for buying more than one packet then..."

Panic woman:  "Yes, and I mean 'who cares'?"

Panic woman (to the staff member she had started with):  "Does your daughter have any. Go buy some for your daughter."   [Staff member's daughter lives about 60 km from her.]

Staff member (who, mind you, had been complaining to me about the ridiculousness of the panic buying, sounding defeated):  "Yes, yes, OK I will get one packet for my home.  You want me to get another for you?"

Panic woman:  "Yes please. Get two."

PS:  that evening, I told my wife about it.  Her reaction "But if people keep doing that we'll never get back to normal."   Obviously, I married wisely.

Now they praise her..

I'm seeing a lot of pro-Warren comments on Twitter now that she is out of the race.  Thanks fellas, for coming out now.

I think I am probably also being persuaded by the moderate Democrats arguments that Sanders is just not as electable as Biden, because he is simply not carrying the more moderate states, and the ones that flip between red and blue, in the middle of the country.   Sanders even acknowledges that he is not increasing the youth turnout as he had hoped, which is what he needs to kick out the old white people from middle America (who are killing us - as I like to say.) 

I am also persuaded by the suggestion that, given the age of the two front runners and doubts their health, they should chose a VP runner now.

I had previously said Sanders/Warren may well work, but now I am leaning towards Biden/Warren (and, as someone on Twitter suggested, Biden also undertaking to only stay in for one term.)   I think that could keep both sides of the party happy enough (except for the more ratbag Sanders bros, but really, numerically they can probably be ignored.)

Oh, and I should note again how Tulsi Gabbard is a ridiculous, non serious show pony who is using her campaign to get a job on Fox News, as this article argues.

 

Hard to imagine the compulsion

Well, I was looking at The Straits Times for news about how COVID-19 is going in Singapore (I figure that soon the government will be offering to pay me to fly over as a tourist), and noticed this story: 

44 weeks' jail for man who took upskirt videos of women by hiding camera in shoe

This isn't usually the sort of story worth reading, but the details here are surprising:  he first started this behaviour in 2013, and has been arrested 5 more times for it between then and 2018!  He is only 27.

The guy not only has a clear sexual fetish compulsion, but he's really bad at executing it (assuming his goal is not to get caught, I suppose.)  I find it hard to understand how men develop such a specific sexual fetish, especially these days given the amount of free internet pornography that relates specifically to, well, actual sex. 

Anyway, the guy needs psychological help, clearly.

Do the shelves still carry disinfectant?

May this be a lesson to all teenagers of the benefits of room cleaning:

New research from Singapore published Wednesday showed that patients with the novel coronavirus extensively contaminate their bedrooms and bathrooms, underscoring the need to routinely clean high-touch surfaces, basins and toilet bowls.

On the other hand, the virus was killed by twice-a-day cleaning of surfaces and daily cleaning of floors with a commonly used disinfectant, which suggests that current decontamination measures are sufficient as long as people adhere to them.

The research letter was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and comes after cases in China where the pathogen spread extensively through hospitals, infecting dozens of health care workers and other patients.

This led scientists to believe that, beyond catching the infection through coughing, environmental contamination was an important factor in the disease's transmission, but its extent was unclear.

Researchers at Singapore's National Centre for Infectious Diseases and DSO National Laboratories looked at the cases of three patients who were held in isolation rooms between late January and early February.

They collected samples from their rooms on five days over a two-week period.

The room of one patient was sampled before routine cleaning, while the rooms of the other two patients were sampled after disinfection measures.

The patient whose room was sampled before cleaning had the mildest symptoms of the three, only experiencing a cough. The other two had moderate symptoms: both had coughing and fever, one experienced shortness of breath and the other was coughing up lung mucus.

Despite this disparity, the patient whose room was sampled before cleaning contaminated 13 of 15 room sites testing, including their chair, bed rail, the glass window of their room, the floor, light switches.

Three of the five toilet sites were also contaminated, including the sink, door handle and toilet bowl—more evidence that stool can be a route of transmission...

Air samples tested negative, but swabs taken from air exhaust outlets were positive—which suggests that virus-laden droplets may be carried by air flows and deposited on vents.

"Significant environmental contamination by patients with SARS-CoV-2 through respiratory droplets and fecal shedding suggests the environment as a potential medium of transmission and supports the need for strict adherence to environmental and hand hygiene," the authors wrote.

That phrase "fecal shedding" puts me in mind of a certain blog I am known to read.   "Australia's leading libertarian and fecal shedding blog" has the ring of accuracy about it.

But anyway - the report doesn't say what the "commonly used disinfectant" was.  Is spraying Glen 20 in copious quantities going to do it?  Or antiseptic wipes?  Or are both all sold out anyway?   Perhaps I should check my Coles. I was due to buy some anyway - honest!  

Einstein in Prague

Nature reviews a book with a very narrow focus:  the 16 month period starting in 1911 in which Einstein lived in Prague.  This is in the period between his publishing on special relativity and general relativity.  (When young, I had always assumed that general relativity came first, then special. Seemed a reasonable assumption.)

The reviewer finds the book to be surprisingly good, for the way it discusses the people around Einstein at that time.  For example:

There are quirky observations, almost worthy of playwright Tom Stoppard. For example, Einstein and writer Franz Kafka probably met at a 1911 cultural soirée in the house of Berta Fanta, a “philosophically ambitious” socialite who held a salon above her husband’s pharmacy in Prague’s Old Town Square.

And let's note this, which will no doubt attract some rubbish comment from a reader:

Take Oskar Kraus, a philosopher at the German University. Originally trained in law, he took against Einstein, writing countless articles in philosophy journals unpicking what he saw as egregious internal inconsistencies in relativity. His writing and stance foreshadowed the anti-relativity strand of the Deutsche Physik movement, an eviscerating force in German academia during the rise of the Third Reich. Kraus, who had been born into a Jewish family but converted to Protestantism, was arrested by the Gestapo and ultimately fled to Oxford, UK.

Country accountants are a menace to society

Why do accountants turned politicians from country electorates (such as Barnaby Joyce and this Rennick character from [groan] Queensland) think they know better than the CSIRO, NASA, and God knows how many professional scientific organisation?:

You may have to go to Twitter to watch the video.

Panic attack

I guess I may as well add to the millions of words being committed to pixels on the strange matter of panic buying toilet paper (and, so I am told, pasta, rice and even flour!) in Australia as the first reaction to a (currently small) outbreak of COVID-19.

It is puzzling because:

a.  most tweets and comments I am reading are calling it out as irrational; yet

b.  we all seem to have sufficient numbers of irrational neighbours around us such that the stores are empty of these items.*

It would seem to indicate that society would break down within less than 24 hours if ever the government announces something really shattering - the late sighting of a dinosaur-killer sized asteroid that's going to hit the planet within the next 48 hours, for example.   I'm guessing now that we'd hear the sound of smashing glass (and in America, gunfire) within 5 minutes of the announcement.

Would it help if the government was more pro-active in explaining what things will not run out, even if we get a large scale pandemic?   Is it yet another example of the unpredicted consequence of social media that it supercharges rumour and genuinely fake news so that the truth is crowded out?

It is a worry.   And I think it does point to the need for a more pro-active role by government to quash rumours and misinformation of all kinds.

Update:  First Dog has a somewhat amusing strip on the topic, that starts like this:

* (Oddly, my local Coles seems to have more fresh fruit and vegetables than they have had for quite a while - the fires of early this year really affected supply lines for a while.  But people are leaving it in favour of long life goods.)

Posted only because Teilhard de Chardin is surely only rarely mentioned on Twitter

I see, now that I Google to double check his name spelling, that there was also speculation a few years ago about Pope Francis removing the "warning" the Vatican placed on his works. 

Incredible abilities in mobile phone cameras

This is getting ridiculous, what they can get into a mobile phone camera:



Last week, I also saw some photos of the night sky taken by a young astrophysicist holidaying in New Zealand, like this one, taken on her Huawei P 30 Pro....  [ For some reason, Google is not letting me upload a photo at the moment.  I'll try later...]

Update:  here it is -

Apparently, she just fiddled with the settings, set it up on a rock, and let it take the pic.  Amazing.

More in the narrative "old people are killing us"

The Washington Post notes, regarding the Super Tuesday Democrat votes:

In another sign that a head-to-head featuring Sanders and Biden would mirror the 2016 primary in fundamental ways, preliminary exit polls showed a stark generational divide in support for the two septuagenarian men.

In the seven states where polls have closed so far, Sanders has led by a median 37 points among 17-to-29-year-olds and 20 points among 30-to-44-year-olds. But Biden has led by 24 among 45-to-64-year-olds and by 33 among seniors.

Mind you, I think it is really guesswork how Sanders would perform in a Presidential campaign.  On the other hand, I don't have any doubt that Biden will appear somewhat doddering and "past it" on more than one occasion.

I don't understand why Warren is not appealing to Democrats as a more youthful version of Sanders, and with more detail in her policy ideas too.   I can imagine her being more aggressive with Trump in debates than Hillary, which could play well if done right.  Will Wilkinson has expressed a fair bit of qualified support for her.

But, as we all know, American politics is a bit weird.    

Update:  just saw over a late lunch that Warren ran third in her home state of Massachusetts (!)

She's out.  

PS:  I was watching on Youtube the coverage by the Washington Post - it's very professional.  

 

The verdict is in...

Obviously, I was never likely to become a fan of Scott Morrison as Prime Minister, but as I have mentioned before, I have been willing to ignore him in the role for the most part.

But after seeing the 7.30 interview with him last night, I think I can safely predict that the historical verdict on him is already done and dusted - a waffly, smirking lightweight of a politician who got the top job  with no inspiring policy ideas on anything, who's obviously against enforcing any reasonable standard of accountability and openness in his government, and with a puzzling propensity to lie and stonewall even on relatively unimportant matters. 

I even have a suspicion he might not make it to the next election.  We'll see....

The continuing crisis...

Oh:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on Monday that "millions" of migrants would soon head for Europe, drawing accusations from EU leaders that he is trying to pressure them into backing his incursions into Syria.

Turkey gave the green light to refugees and migrants on Friday to leave for the European Union and thousands have since massed at the Greek border, triggering fears of an influx like that which poisoned European politics in 2015.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel described Turkey's move as "unacceptable" and EU migration commissioner Margaritis Schinas said nobody could "blackmail or intimidate the EU".

But Turkey, which hosts roughly four million refugees, is trying to hold off another mass influx from Syria – where government forces backed by Russian air power are advancing into the last rebel stronghold of Idlib.

Man, that part of the globe is such a never ending mess.

What I've been watching...

*  In case you haven't noticed, season 3 of Babylon Berlin is up on Netflix (yay).  The first episode (the only one I have seen) was pretty good, even if the main crime looked a little overly theatrical in execution.   Also - the opening sequence would seem to indicate that the stock exchange in Berlin really did not take the stock market crash of 1929 at all well.   Was it a dream?   What was the end sequence about; that was a little confusing too.   Anyway, I'm happy to be watching again.

*  Another favourite, Occupied, continues to impress into its 3rd season too.   It reinforces my distrust of everything Russian - and I am curious as to whether Bente, or her daughter, is going to somehow end up in some Russian mafia prostitution ring.   Thinking about it, though, I guess every character is flawed, or does something ethically dubious, in one way or another.   But that's life.   Bente does seem particularly corruptible, though, boo.

*  I saw the Australian made, low budget time travel movie Predestination on the weekend.   It's  (loosely, I think) based on a Robert Heinlein short story, and it's quite a handsome looking film despite an obviously small budget.   (Made by German born twin brothers who grew up in Brisbane!  They have gone on to make bigger budget films, even if they are far from famous.)   I was getting tired and started having trouble staying awake near the end, but I understood  the silly time travel paradox that it showed.   I thought it wasn't bad, but perhaps needed a more compelling "hook" in the first act - waiting for the story to unfold without understanding where it was going lost my son's interest.   Anyway, a nice effort.  

No contact greetings

Yeah, I thought the "Wuhan foot bump" greeting video looked pretty cool, but it is only practical for people with no balance issues who are quick on their feet.   Old people at risk of a hip fracture just shouldn't try it.

I'm sure lots of people must have been saying it on social media, but the obvious replacement for the handshake greeting should be the Japanese bow.   (I see that someone suggested the Vulcan hand greeting, but not everyone can easily get their hand to do that quickly - including, if I recall correctly, Leonard Nimoy!)  

A propos of nothing...

This turned up on Youtube suggestions for me, and it was surprisingly interesting - how they make Tabasco sauce.  It is a huge enterprise, still family run, with production methods pretty much unchanged, and all from the same place in Louisiana since it was first made 150 years ago:


A bit of personal history: my first exposure to it was when I was perhaps 8, and my sister's then husband, from America, put a few drops of it into some tomato sauce which we were eating with some prawns. It couldn't have been much, because I thought it nice, even though (of course) as a child of 1960's Australia, I had no previous exposure to chilli in any form.

More Singapore love

And in Twitter comments following that:

Buttigieg and the 9 yr boy (not a scandal)

So, Pete Buttigieg has dropped out of the race.   As I have said, I never saw much of him and didn't work out why a lot of journalists and Democrat sympathisers I follow on Twitter found him so annoying.

I also had missed, until this weekend when I saw it on a Conan O'Brien sketch (which is sort of funny)....




that Democrats had set themselves up for conservative outrage by getting Pete to respond to a 9 year old boy who wanted help to "tell the world" he is gay.  

Maybe I haven't been following conservatives sites closely enough, but it's pretty remarkable that there wasn't some sort of meltdown about this.      

And, to be perfectly honest, it's not unreasonable to have misgivings about it.   Not so much  about Buttigieg's supportive response - he could hardly say anything other than what he did -  but more about the world view of modern liberal identity politics, wherein it is taken as a given that a 9 year old has a sufficient understanding of sexuality such that it is entirely natural that he or she should already have picked out a sexual identity.    

Now, I don't doubt that the following statements are true:

*  there are kids whose parents suspect from a young age will be gay when they grow up;
*  there are kids who know from a young age that they are "different";
*  there are people who work out that, in hindsight, some childhood feelings were consistent with their older sexual feeling;

and yet I still think it's only sensible for adults and parents to teach pre-pubescent kids to be cautious about thinking they fully understand themselves in the matter of sexual and emotional attraction and attachment before their body and life experience is even close to that of an adult yet.   

To my mind, people of any political persuasion should be able to live with something like this as a response:  

"We love you regardless of who you may want to love and be with; and we will support you if anyone gives you a hard time over your identity in future.   But as for deciding on a sexuality identity to tell "the world" right now:   to be honest, both your body and emotions should  be given a bit more time to develop before you say to everyone that you understand yourself in that aspect.  At this stage of your life, worry more about studying hard, treating other people well and just being a good person.   That's what important now."

PS:  I see that they are saying Buttigieg gave up because he was getting no traction with black voters whatsoever.   Given their relative conservatism regarding homosexuality, why on Earth did the people managing the campaign event think it would be helpful to highlight a 9 year old bringing up the topic? 

PPS:  I think I can even claim some support for my take on the matter from this article, written by gay science writer Jesse Bering in Scientific American back in 2010 (and which I had read before, but forgotten) on research into "prehomosexual" behaviour in children.  

"Filthy foreigners bring in disease" is very big at Sinclair Davidson's Catallaxy

Basically, I don't understand why, in order to maintain their reputation, RMIT doesn't tell Sinclair Davidson that he can't run a blog for appalling, racist conservatives and still work at a university that hosts a lot of foreign students.    

Look at these examples:  he doesn't expand on it in the post itself, but it is clear from the post title that Catholic conservative-in-denial CL thinks Trump is on a winner with corona virus because he will be able to play it as a case of "filthy foreigners bring in disease":

Good luck: Disease-o-crats campaign on open bug borders 

(I won't link - you can google it if you want.)

But even worse is this comment in a thread (which is fully supported by other regulars) by another crusty Catholic, who even has an Asian wife (probably Filipino - so she's OK, she's Catholic.)

The World Health Organisation is utterly useless. It is run by palookas like that Rudd sheila for Pete’s sake! … who cannot even spell “honest”, let alone know what it means. The executive board is 34 nations – they include Sudan, Djibouti, Tanzania, Zambia, Burkina Faso (say what?), probably Haiti and a whole lot of other failed tribes of no consequence – directing how the civilised world should keep is people healthy. Fabulous – they are barely literate, you can forget them....

The demanding unpleasant little Irish p00ve from Qantas will have been throwing his weight around Canberra on Week One protecting his airline’s cash flow and his massive pay packet, followed by a conga line of tourist associations, the retail traders representative, heads of commerce flogging insurance and bank loans, the English language schools and universities who rely on their Asian students for their very survival, and so on. Not one of these people has any interest in public health protection – its someone else’s problem. They will lie handsomely to safeguard their corner.

Further, we have a government and a bureaucracy that is still shipping in illegal Centrelinkers from North Africa, the Middle East and other primitive places, people who routinely have a bog in the street and who don’t bother bathing. When they spit everywhere and shove their dirty mitts into the bowl from which the reffo next to them takes his next mouthful – and contract a gutful of Corona Virus 123 by hundreds – these public servants will ship ’em in by the truckload to the same hospital wards as Australians, because diversity is our strength.

 Sinclair even appears in the comments thread, with apparent intention to mock the catastrophising of the fatality of the disease, but not to tell anyone that they are racist pigs.

Not good enough for RMIT, I would have hoped. 

Sounds a fair summary

PS:  I acknowledge that there is not likely to be any easy, face saving way for the US to get out of Afghanistan.   But it seems pretty clear that this attempt at such looks doomed from the start, and that Republicans supporting it reeks of political hypocrisy.   (Obama doing something similar would have been the end of American greatness and a shameful capitulation to the "real" terrorists.)

Worse than usual

I presume this photo from Trump's "we're getting out of Afghanistan, I'm terrific for that; and by the way, coronavirus is not a hoax after all" press conference has had some filtering:

but it's still true that he has been looking exceptionally tired at recent appearances, no doubt caused by the trip to India followed by flying to some completely unnecessary and self indulgent "maintain the cult" rallies.   In fact, given the huge rally he must have known the dangerous nationalist Modi had organised for him, does Trump ever go anywhere other than to places where he knows his elephantine ego will be massaged?  

Anyway, here's a shot from a video of the same presser:

As lots of people have been noticing, his right eye is much more squinty than his left eye over the last few days.  And he did sound tired.

I cannot fathom how his supporters (or those who make excuses for him, or just keep silent) can stomach the way he tries to turn every single topic into ridiculous self praise.  I also have some sympathy to the critics of media who point out that mainstream media reporting, by editing down his statements, are inadvertently constructing a greater coherence to his media performances than what you get from viewing longer stretches.

On a cheerier note, kinda:  the Colbert 8 minute piece he did with Elizabeth Warren earlier this week really shows her as very likeable.  She looks great for her age, too:



I really think a Sanders/ Warren ticket would stand a chance...  

Update:

Update 2:  Oh, he's back into dictator talk -

Update 3:  I thought this was a "funny cos it's true" take by some random person on the net:

Something about this makeup, demeanor and expression here looks terrible. He looks like he was pampered by a mortician.

  

Why Warren has the right idea

Another great piece at Vox by David Roberts, arguing that the sickness in American politics, caused by the American brand of conservatism, is a systemic one about which only Elizabeth Warren seems to have clearly thought about.

His summary of the problem is not new, but I like it nonetheless:

As I have recounted at great length in other posts, over the last several decades, conservatives have waged war on social and political trust, calling into question the fairness and independence of almost every major US institution from journalism to academia to science. They have created parallel institutions of their own, meant to support their factional interests. And they have relentlessly cast “libs” as an enemy within — an alien, hostile, and ultimately illegitimate force.

As a result, a large faction of the country has descended into paranoia and conspiracy theories, fighting intensely against the basic rules, norms, and post-war assumptions of American life. And because that faction has successfully rendered all political fights — even fights over basic facts — as vicious, zero-sum partisan struggles, another large faction of the country has simply tuned out, coming to regard politics and public life generally as corrupt and fruitless. Americans’ trust in their institutions and in one another is at record lows. 

This serves the right’s purposes. If all common identity is dissolved, all transpartisan facts and norms, then there is no longer any ability to communicate across factional lines. What remains is raw power struggle. That is the milieu in which an identitarian like Donald Trump feels at home; witness his purging of public servants he deems insufficiently loyal. 

But it works against the left’s purposes. The left needs for voters to believe that effective, responsive governance is possible — that we can, in fact, have nice things. The left needs social and political trust. Without them, collective action for collective benefit, the left’s stock in trade, becomes impossible. 

This is the left’s challenge in the US: how to break out of the doom loop and get on a trajectory of better governance and rising trust.

 As to the difficulty of addressing this, politically, you should go read the rest of the article.

COVID-19, explained

Someone just cut and pasted this on twitter, and I can't see whose account it is from.   Probably for the best:

American cuisine can be...excessive

Look, even though I can enjoy a good steak, a 250 to 300 g cut is plenty.   But the American way with meat can be pretty over the top and look distinctly unappealing.  And what is it with the meat on the rib?  Looks like it is charcoal:

I vote Gore

Talk about your trivial First World problems, but The Guardian has an article speculating on who a good replacement director should be for the next Indiana Jones film, now that Steven Spielberg has dropped out.

I don't know anything about most directors on the list, but I agree with the section on Gore Verbinski:  he is extremely talented with protracted action sequences, and I would love him to have a go at an Indiana Jones.

The success of the film, however, will be extremely dependent on its screenplay, and who it sets up to taking over the hat.   The idea flown in the last film obviously didn't pan out.  (Not that it was as bad a film as everyone makes out.)

I am not at all convinced that it is a good idea to be making another one at all.  Harrison Ford looks very old now, and films in which ageing actors are trying to appear too active often look a bit pathetic.   (There are many examples in recent years.) 

BUT I STILL SAY THIS:   the perfect last appearance for Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones would be for him to be one of the astronauts going into the Mothership at the end of Close Encounters.

A fruity observation

I usually notice what fruit and vegetables are good each season.   A couple of summers ago, I think it was, stone fruit seemed to have an exceptionally nice season.  After that, maybe a year or so ago, we seemed to have a flood of cheap but good quality pineapples.

This summer, I have often been impressed with - tomatoes.   I don't know who is growing them now, and how they have got them to develop better flavour and colour, but I reckon tomatoes have been really good, and often not very expensive, this summer.

Back to your more important reading, now.

Possible outcomes of COVID-19 taking off in the USA

While this guy bemoans (rightly) the politicisation of COVID-19 by Trump, he doesn't go on to note that it's possible that the result of the gullibility of believing Donald and his conspiracy mongering mates might be a reduction in the population of Donald Trump supporters (seeing the virus is most deadly in the older demographic):

As for a more, slightly paranoid, pondering about what might happen:

Update:   Trump calms a troubled nation:

Google and loneliness

I got given a couple of Google Home Minis (now called Google Nest Mini) for Christmas, and I have set one up in the bedroom, and one in the bathroom.  

I don't do all that much with them:  listening to radio streams is one useful thing (so I no longer need to use a portable radio in the bathroom to listen to the ABC while shaving in the morning);  asking it to find my mobile phone by making it ring is another useful feature, as is asking for the day's weather.   I've played guessing games, or quiz games, and asked it to play named songs from Spotify too.   I see that you can also buy screen "hubs" for the system too, as well as lights controlled by it.   Also a combined pack with a Googlecast for the TV with a mini speaker too, presumably to help make searching for content easier.

Despite the limited use to which I have put mine, using it has made me think that it must have considerable potential to help older people fight loneliness, and cope with technology in the easiest way possible.   Having a voice respond to a request is surely a more psychologically comforting thing than poking at a screen.  

I would guess that some psychology department somewhere is already doing a study along these lines:  perhaps setting up Google Minis in half of a retirement village and training the residents how to use it, and comparing their mood after 6 months to those residents who don't have access to the service?

I would not be surprised to find it has a positive influence.  

Guilt increasing

Yeah, I have been aware of this for some time (and although the figures are for America, I think it is similar here):

One in five pounds of beef sold come from Holstein or Jersey cows, which frequently are decommissioned dairy cows past their prime. Almost all of the meat from dairy cows is ground (it’s generally not marbled enough or muscled enough for steaks) and made into inexpensive hamburger for food service. So, it’s our consumption of milk and cheese that ultimately fuels the avalanche of burgers at fast-food restaurants.

I think young male calves from dairy production often face the same fate.

When buying cheap mince from Coles or Woolworths, it usually does cross my mind how it is from cows, which I like to think don't suffer much in the milk production phase of their life.  (Although they do get calves taken away from them.)

At least steak from adult cattle is from an animal that had a pretty good life.

While I enjoy a good steak, I can imagine a life in which I give up beef.   I can't bear the idea of giving up on cheese, though.  Which reminds me - why don't we hear more about the question to make "cow-free dairy products"?   The company is apparently selling (on a very small scale, by the sounds) an ice cream product, but it attracts very little attention.

Something good comes from an (almost) pandemic

France 24 reports:

China on Monday declared an immediate and “comprehensive” ban on the trade and consumption of wild animals, a practice believed responsible for the deadly coronavirus outbreak.

The country’s top legislative committee approved a proposal “prohibiting the illegal wildlife trade, abolishing the bad habit of overconsumption of wildlife, and effectively protecting the lives and health of the people,” state television reported.

Previous temporary bans have been put in place, including after the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus killed hundreds of people in China and Hong Kong in 2002-03 and was also traced to wild animal consumption.

That prohibition was short-lived, however, and conservationists have long accused China of tolerating a cruel trade in wild animals as exotic menu items or for use in traditional medicines whose efficacy is not confirmed by science.

Sounds as if the government might be serious about keeping this as a long term ban.  

Rules for Life (continued)

I mentioned my ever-so-slowly-compiling Rules for Life previously today, and TimT seems to have been missing them.   (My readers really are inattentive at times!)   Anyway, it did remind me that I had not added the important one about witchcraft.  So the update:

1.  Always carry a clean, ironed handkerchief in your pocket.  Always.
2.  Never buy into timeshare apartments or holiday schemes.
3.  If you have a choice, buy the washing machine with a 15 minute "fast wash" option.
4.  Always buy reverseable belts. (You know, usually black on one side and brown on the other.)
5.  The best souvenir when on a good holiday is a distinctive cup or mug, which is to be used semi-regularly on your return.
6.  If an activity hurts a lot and causes inflammation - stop doing it.  Permanently, if it keeps hurting.
7.  If a potential boyfriend or girlfriend says, with intended irony, that they know that they can be a bit of a creep (or difficult) at times - don't believe the irony.   Just don't get into a relationship of any kind with them.

and the new one I remembered today:

8.  Do not take holidays in countries where witchcraft or sorcery is still an offence on the books.   It basically means you can be arrested for looking the wrong way at someone.  

I'll have enough for a book any year now...

Update:  I think this one should be added, too:

9.  If you like mashed potato, buy and use a potato ricer.   No - just do it.  The uniformly smooth results for every future batch of mash will give you pleasure for the rest of your life.   

Misogynists upset with Coalition

Sinclair Davidson has an unsubtle view of politics in which he thinks the winning party should crush all Opposition under its heal and never concede to it on anything.   He was, for example, probably the only academic in the land who thought the asinine and highly partisan Bronwyn Bishop was a good Speaker in the House under the Abbott government:  a truly eye roll inducing attitude for an educated observer of Parliament at the time.

So, naturally, he is upset with this (somewhat surprisingly uniform, but pleasing) vote yesterday:

The Coalition government has supported Labor’s motion in the Senate to call for men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt to be stripped of her Order of Australia award over her comments on last week’s horrendous murder-suicide in Brisbane.

The successful motion puts more pressure on the Council for the Order of Australia to remove the AM Arndt received in the Australia Day honours.

The Senate motion was carried 55-2, with only One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts voting against it.

It said Arndt’s comments “are reckless and abhorrent”.

“The values that underpin Ms. Arndt’s views on this horrific family violence incident are not consistent with her retaining her Order of Australia,” it said.

And look at the misogynist commenters agreeing how "disgraceful" this vote was.

Seriously, a bunch of people who routinely speculate that the downfall of the West began with women getting the vote (I'd like to know how often they say this in front of their wives - those of them that have or still retain wives) should take a hard look at their own attitudes and realise why they are ignored by the politicians they vote for.

I bet Arndt is smarting over this, too.  If only she could be "driven too far" to drop out of public commentary and culture warring.

Another important woman in science I'm only just hearing about...

At Nature, a review of a biography about a woman astronomer (Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin) who was big in her field, but not famous in the public mind:

In 1925, Payne was the first person to be awarded a PhD in astronomy at Radcliffe College, at the time the women’s branch of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her thesis on stellar atmospheres is her greatest contribution: she related the line patterns in the observed spectra of stars to their physical conditions. She also discovered that hydrogen is the main component of stars, followed by helium. Her discoveries and expertise were eventually recognized with prizes and honours, culminating in a life-achievement lectureship from the American Astronomical Society.

The brilliance of Payne’s thesis was acknowledged by the most prominent US astronomers of the early twentieth century: her supervisor, Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard College Observatory; and Henry Norris Russell at Princeton University in New Jersey. But both disagreed that hydrogen is the main component of stars. She based her theory on painstaking analysis of the large cache of stellar spectra in the Harvard collection. It was informed by the predictions of Indian physicist Meghnad Saha’s theory of ionization, which relates the observed spectrum of a stellar atmosphere (assuming it is a gas in thermal equilibrium) to its temperature, pressure and composition.

Her conclusion went against a view widely espoused by prominent astronomers, including Arthur Eddington: that stars are made up of essentially the same elements as Earth (silicon, carbon, iron and so on). In response to this criticism, and because she was anxious to get her results published, Payne downplayed her finding as a possible error. Russell was later credited with the discovery, having reached the same result by different means. Payne’s role stayed hidden from the wider scientific consciousness for several decades.

It doesn't sound like she was very likeable at a personal level, though:

I met Payne in the mid-1970s. I remember her as a stern, chain-smoking presence stalking the halls of the observatory: she scolded me for being late for a meeting (recently arrived from Italy, I regarded being precisely on time as impolite). After reading Moore’s well-researched book, I realized that she was a complex figure with whom I can empathize despite being two generations younger and from a different background. A committed scientist and mentor to a new generation, she successfully juggled career and family with a love of the arts and world travel.

Her autobiography (published privately as The Dyer’s Hand in 1979, and publicly as Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin in 1984), is worth a read for its personal view of her multifaceted life and her interaction with observatory colleagues, including the female ‘computers’ who processed astronomical data. I also recommend for its immediacy her 1968 interview for the American Institute of Physics oral-history programme, conducted by Harvard astronomer and historian Owen Gingerich (see go.nature.com/37nm0vr). It captures her essential briskness and rare ability to talk in complex and nuanced sentences.

I expect Graeme (who has argued, from God's knows what line of reasoning, that planets grow up to be stars, to argue in comments that Arthur Eddington was right all along.) 

Some observations

*  Last night's Foreign Correspondent, about Saudi Arabia's attempt to open up to foreign (well, Western) tourism actually showed the place to be of much more archaeological and geographic interest than I realised.  (Call me ignorant, but I didn't expect some of the mountain-y bits in the country.  I usually just imagine it as all sand dunes with a handful of cities.)   I still don't want to go there, though.   It's one of my Rules of Life:  do not holiday in countries where you can be charged with witchcraft.

*  I really think American pundits spend too much time trying to analyse the potential performance of Presidential candidates.   Polling is difficult in the country, with their voluntary voting and weird system of voter registration into categories that people may not follow on the day anyway;  international and domestic events are quite unpredictable;  and with any luck it would be Trump, who appears to get no sleep anymore and slurs regularly at rallies and speeches, who might have a health crisis before November.  Hence I am cynical about this study, indicating that Sanders can only do win  if he gets a surge of new young voters, and the way people like David Roberts are already certain that with Sanders, who they don't mind, is still bound to lose.

*  That Malaysian king seems pretty considerate, for a king:

By the way, Jason - do you follow that Erin Cook on Twitter?  She seems to combine smart, informed, on the ground commentary on South East Asia together with a fragile personal life in which she is always broke and emotionally just scrapping through.   

*  Oh, and here is some analysis of what is going on in Malaysia at CNA.  It includes this bit:

Professor James Chin, director of the Asia Institute Tasmania at the University of Tasmania, told CNA that Dr Mahathir’s decision to resign on Monday was purely tactical as he never wanted to hand over the baton to PKR’s president Anwar Ibrahim.

He said Dr Mahathir had agreed to the PH succession pact to hand over the premiership to Mr Anwar before the May 2018 polls because he needed the help of PKR, Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) to overthrow former prime minister Najib Razak and his Barisan Nasional coalition.

“Prior to the election, everybody got together because everybody wanted to get rid of Najib. You can’t really hold them to what they agreed on before the election because back in 2018, it was widely understood that Najib had damaged Malaysia because of the 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad) corruption case,” he said.

Prof Chin said the bitter history between Dr Mahathir and Mr Anwar suggested that the succession would never have happened between them.

“The general consensus in Kuala Lumpur is that Anwar will not be prime minister this year or next year and will probably miss his chance to be prime minister in the future as well.

“As long as Mahathir is in charge, he will try to hand over the prime minister position to somebody else,” said Prof Chin.

More reason to admire Singapore

CNA may be the Singaporean government's PR outlet, but I still say that watching it always shows that there is much to admire in the whole technocratic/economic interventionalist/social-engineering-for-multicultural-harmony approach of the Singaporean government.   As I have said before, watch any Singaporean government (or even corporate) spokesperson or minister on CNA, and you can't help but be impressed with their apparent intelligence, reasonableness and the general tone of optimism.  

The latest example:  Singapore tourism is taking a hit already due to the COVID-19 problem, so the government has offered to increase payments for tourism workers to get training while their sector suffers.  Don't just lay them off, they are telling hotels, etc, but we pay for them getting additional or other training during this down time.    You can view the CNA video version of the story here.

For those who want more detail, and get a feeling of sad longing for the way the city state manages to show the way government should be, more details are here: 

To help mitigate the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) and Workforce Singapore (WSG), together with the Singapore Hotel Association (SHA) and the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union (FDAWU), have jointly announced various support measures for the tourism sector.

As part of the Stabilisation and Support Package announced by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat on 18 Feb during the Budget 2020 statement, these measures were introduced today by Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Manpower, and Mr Chee Hong Tat, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Education, during a learning journey to Copthorne King’s Singapore. At the event, SHA and FDAWU had also signed an MOU to commit to working together to save jobs, build confidence and deepen capabilities of employees to prepare for recovery and growth. The MOU was facilitated by STB.

Such ground-up efforts and commitment from the employers and the union, together with the support measures rolled out by the various government agencies, make up the latest wave of relief measures to minimise potential retrenchment, upskill workers and redesign jobs to prepare the sector for when business demand returns. Businesses will also continue to receive support in defraying the costs involved in business transformation and job redesign, such as the Hotel Job Redesign Initiative and the Lean Enterprise Development Scheme.

Encouraging tourism sector to leverage downtime to reskill and upskill

To provide tourism companies with more support to upgrade the capabilities of their workers, STB will be enhancing the Training Industry Professionals in Tourism (TIP-iT) fund to fund up to 90% of training course fees and trainer fees, up from the previous cap of 50%. In addition, funding for absentee payroll will be increased from $4.50/hour to 90% of the worker’s hourly basic salary, capped at $10/hour.

In support of STB’s measures, SSG will also be providing time-limited, enhanced training support for the tourism sector. Employers in the tourism sector who send their workers for selected sector-specific training programmes in the next three months will receive: (i) enhanced Absentee Payroll (AP) support at 90% of hourly basic salary capped at $10 per hour, and (ii) enhanced course fee support at 90% of course fees. SSG will work through appointed training partners to ramp up training capacity for such programmes. Training programmes will include courses in digital marketing and SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace programmes.

 Gah.  That sounds such a reasonable thing to do.    And supported by government, unions and business.   I know that a tiny city state may find it easier to quickly come up with such proposals - they don't have to run it across a bunch of States like in Australia - but still, I find it impressive.