Miracle stories

Did late pope cure nun's Parkinson's? - washingtonpost.com

The Washington Post's version of the claimed miracle indicates that, at the very least, it's an interesting story.

As far as I know, I am in good health and don't need a miracle cure. However, I am prepared to declare that if $300,000 appears in large notes in an unmarked box in a secret location I have now emailed to myself, I will contact the Vatican and urge them to take it as the second miracle. John Paul II, this is your chance!

What a surprise

Redfern speech still resonates - National - smh.com.au

Phillip Adams asks Radio National listeners to nominate their most "unforgettable speech", and Paul Keating's Redfern Park black armband oration is up near the top.

A long post on gay children of the modern world

Accepting Gay Identity, and Gaining Strength - New York Times

Talking about sexual self identity is a tricky business. Everyone brings their own life experience to it, and it can seem churlish to question the way others claim to have experienced it. There also seem to be some cases where children do genuinely seem to be far outside of the "usual" gender range of behaviour from a very young age, and no one is surprised when they do turn out to have same sex attraction as adults.

But, having said all that, I still think there is a strong case to be made that the current Western popular conception and understanding of all things gay comprises large elements of what is really just intellectual fashion.

Believe it or not (since he is far from a conservative favourite), I reckon the otherwise fairly loopy Foucault might have been onto something when he dealt with the evolution of the idea of sexuality. Have a look at this article purporting to summarise some of Foucault's ideas. An extract:

Historically, there have been two ways of viewing sexuality, according to Foucault. In China, Japan, India and the Roman Empire have seen it as an "Ars erotica", "erotic art", where sex is seen as an art and a special experience and not something dirty and shameful. It is something to be kept secret, but only because of the view that it would lose its power and its pleasure if spoken about.

In Western society, on the other hand, something completely different has been created, what Foucault calls "scientia sexualis", the science of sexuality. It is originally (17th century) based on a phenomenon diametrically opposed to Ars erotica: the confession. It is not just a question of the Christian confession, but more generally the urge to talk about it. A fixation with finding out the "truth" about sexuality arises, a truth that is to be confessed. It is as if sexuality did not exist unless it is confessed. Foucault writes:

"We have since become an extraordinarily confessing society. Confession has spread its effects far and wide: in the judicial system, in medicine, in pedagogy, in familial relations, in amorous relationships, in everyday life and in the most solemn rituals; crimes are confessed, sins are confessed, thoughts and desires are confessed, one's past and one's dreams are confessed, one's childhood is confessed; one's diseases and problems are confessed;..."

This forms a strong criticism of psychoanalysis, representing the modern, scientific form of confession. Foucault sees psychoanalysis as a legitimization of sexual confession. In it, everything is explained in terms of repressed sexuality and the psychologist becomes the sole interpreter of it. Sexuality is no longer just something people hide, but it is also hidden from themselves, which gives the theological, minute confession a new life.

This post was prompted by the New York Times article at the top, about how one nice liberal family encouraged their gay teen son to be out and proud. The boy's psycho-sexual history is given as this:

From the time Zach was little, they knew he was not a run-of-the-mill boy. His friends were girls or timid boys.

“Zach had no interest in throwing a football,” Mr. O’Connor says. But their real worry was his anger, his unhappiness, his low self-esteem. “He’d say: ‘I’m not smart. I’m not like other kids,’ ” says Ms. O’Connor. The middle-school psychologist started seeing him daily.

The misery Zach caused was minor compared with the misery he felt. He says he knew he was different by kindergarten, but he had no name for it, so he would stay to himself. He tried sports, but, he says, “It didn’t work out well.” He couldn’t remember the rules. In fifth grade, when boys at recess were talking about girls they had crushes on, Zach did not have someone to name.

By sixth grade, he knew what “gay” meant, but didn’t associate it with himself. That year, he says: “I had a crush on one particular eighth-grade boy, a very straight jock. I knew whatever I was feeling I shouldn’t talk about it.” He considered himself a broken version of a human being. “I did think about suicide,” he says.

His coming out to himself and his family (I think the article indicates at the age of 13) is what "cured" him of his depression:

...in the midst of math class, he told a female friend. By day’s end it was all over school. The psychologist called him in. “I burst into tears,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Yes, it’s true.’ Every piece of depression came pouring out. It was such a mess.”

That night, when his mother got home from work, she stuck her head in his room to say hi. “I said, ‘Ma, I need to talk to you about something, I’m gay.’ She said, ‘O.K., anything else?’ ‘No, but I just told you I’m gay.’ ‘O.K., that’s fine, we still love you.’ I said, ‘That’s it?’ I was preparing for this really dramatic moment.”

Doesn't this perfectly illustrate Foucault's idea that the West is obsessed with a need for a confession of sexuality?

I indicated earlier in the post that I don't deny that there may well be some boys who are virtually biologically determined to only ever have any sexual attraction to men.

But that NYT article is written in such a way that it sends subtle encouragement to boys (not just the ones who may end up gay, but the majority "straight" ones too) that stupid things like not being good at sports and not getting being accepted by the "jocks" in school is a sign of sexual destiny. The article notes that after his coming out:

He still wasn’t athletic, but to the family’s surprise, coming out let out a beautiful voice. He won the middle school’s top vocal award.

Let's keep the gay stereotypes coming, shall we.

If I haven't convinced you yet that this liberal family was trying just too hard to make their son feel comfortable, try this:

His father took him to a gay-lesbian conference at Central Connecticut State in New Britain, and Zach was thrilled to see so many gay people in one place. His therapist took him to a Gay Bingo Night at St. Paul’s Church on the Green in Norwalk that raises money for AIDS care. Zach became a regular and within a few months was named Miss Congeniality.

“They crowned me with a tiara and sash, and I walked around the room waving,” he recalls. “I was still this shy 14-year-old in braces. I hadn’t reached my socialness yet, and everyone was cheering.

Bloody hell!

It seems to me that the liberal (or simply modern Western?) attitude to sexual identity as being the vital core of one's being is actually the thing that is likely to be causing many children unnecessary uncertainty and worry about who they are.

I reckon it is the hidden assumptions behind modern Western thinking about this sort of stuff that needs airing, and a historical view is helpful in this regard, whether or not Foucault got it right.

On British comedy

Comedy ain’t what it used to be (but don’t tell foreigners)-Richard Morrison-TimesOnline

I'm not sure I totally agree with Morrison on his analysis, but he has some fun along the way:

...amazing though it may seem to those of us struggling joylessly to pay a huge mortgage for a tiny piece of this fractious isle, the world regards the Brits as the funniest nation on earth...

This anecdotal evidence is confirmed by a survey that Reader’s Digest did a couple of years ago. They asked 4,000 Europeans to rank each other’s nationalities according to traits such as bossiness (the Germans came top), efficiency (the Germans came top), and loveability (the Germans came last). The British ended up mid-table for everything except “sense of humour”, where we soared to the top. Oh, and “sexiness”, where we plunged to the bottom. (In every sense, if you went to a private school.)

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I came late to "Extras", but did find it very funny.

Generally, I don't find much British TV comedy worth watching anymore. I suspect that a large part is to do with the way it seems nearly all shows are written by just one or two writers, often the stars of the show. (Yes, I know, this was true of "Extras" too, yet I liked it.) But generally, what seems to be lacking is someone to tell the writers that a sketch has gone on long enough, and they need to cut it. This is especially the case with Little Britain, which loves to repeat or push an idea so far that it finally does become in offensively bad taste.

(Repetition can itself become part of the joke -"Get Smart" is the best example of that - but it has its limits.)

For me, I still count the finest and funniest sketch show writing ever to come of Britain to be Not the Nine O'Clock News. (It makes me feel old to think that anyone under about the age of 30 has probably not even seen it.)

The show had a whole raft of writers, as do most US Comedy talk shows that I like (Letterman and Conan O'Brien). I also think that few US sitcoms that have been successful have ever been sole writer effort.

If only there was currently such a talented team as that on Not the Nine O'Clock News. Here's a prime sketch:

A trip through Asia

Centauri Dreams - Emerging Asia

Science fiction author Gregory Benford has a post here about a recent trip through Asia. There's a picture of him with a rather frail Arthur C Clarke.

By the way, Gregory Benford looks to me a lot of that writer on David Letterman who seemed to have left the show a year or more ago (Letterman interviewed him as a farewell), but seems to be back doing bit parts now. Don't know his name, sorry.

Cold fusion still under consideration

Cold fusion is back at the American Chemical Society

The story above about cold fusion from news@nature is interesting for what it says about the open-mindedness of science. Some extracts:

After an 18-year hiatus, the American Chemical Society (ACS) seems to be warming to cold fusion. Today that society is holding a symposium at their national meeting in Chicago, Illinois, on 'low-energy nuclear reactions', the official name for cold fusion....

Mosier-Boss presented her team's latest results with a technique called co-deposition, where they electrochemically deposit palladium onto a cathode in the presence of deuterium — a heavy isotope of hydrogen. During their electrochemical reactions they have seen mini explosions, evidence for neutron and tritium production, and a warming of the cell that can't be accounted for by normal chemistry, they say — although they are careful to avoid the 'CF' words.

"We have shown it's possible to stimulate nuclear reactions by electrochemical methods," says Gordon. Others say this conclusion is premature. But they have published some 16 papers over the past 18 years, including one earlier this year1.

Miles is also careful to avoid using the words 'cold fusion'. "There are code names you can use," he says. In 2004 Miles and colleagues were granted a US patent for a palladium material doped with boron for use in low-energy nuclear reactions, but if the patent application contained the CF words it would never have been granted, Miles says. "We kind of disguised what we did."

There was also a 2004 review by the Department of Energy that was inconclusive.

It puzzles me that some scientists are so sceptical about this. If there are experiments still showing inconclusive results, aren't they curious to get to the bottom of what is causing the anomalies?

The path of science is not immune from the influence of the personalities who conduct it, but I feel there are many who don't like to admit this.

Alan Ramsey breaks a story - mark your calendar

Stop the presses: the story Rudd tried to kill - Opinion - smh.com.au

It's a remarkable day when Alan Ramsey uses his Saturday column to actually tell us a story we did not know before. (As opposed to his usual schtick of cutting and pasting enormous tracts of other peoples words.)

Well, this is sort of a new story. Or at least, it's the insider journalist's background to a story we already knew. As told to him by another journalist....

Anyway, anyway...

The point is that there is actual insight to be gained into Kevin Rudd and his adviser's attitudes and character in today's column, and you must read it.

Bad career moves of Gillian

More X-rated than X Files-Arts & Entertainment-Film-TimesOnline

Aw, it's so disappointing to read interviews with stars when they reveal themselves to have none of the charms of their most famous character. Case in point: this interview with Gillian Anderson. She also seems to have strange tastes in selecting movies to advance her career:

In a tiny trailer, in a clearing in a cold and wet Worcestershire forest, Gillian Anderson is swearing like a docker. “Movies should be whatever the f*** they are!” says the 38-year-old actress and one-time TV icon from The X Files. “If they are f****** disturbing, then let them be f***** disturbing!”....

The movie, about a young urban couple, Alice (Anderson) and Adam (Danny Dyer), who are brutalised by a gang of country yokels before extracting even more gruesome revenge, will not be everyone’s cup of tea. “It’s dark, but it’s brilliantly dark,” Anderson says about a movie in which gang rape, torture and the near lethal intrusion of a rusty gun barrel into the rectum of a major character are key features. “We can’t pretend that there isn’t violence in the world, that it doesn’t f****** happen!”.....

“Look, I swear a lot normally,” she admits, before shifting the blame on to her co-star, the notoriously potty-mouthed Dyer. “But working with Danny exacerbated it. I mean, we all absorbed the word c*** into our vocabulary thanks to him.”

She sounds like a natural for that very amusing "Extras" show, I reckon.

Imagining Iraq

Lies and memories: When stories read a little too good. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine

Read the Slate article above about how the New York Times reported on one woman's complete fabrication about suffering while in Iraq. Fascinating.

Eat up all your isotopes, kids

Research suggests fortified food could help resist ageing

This has to be one of the oddest ideas I have ever heard:

Fortifying food with specially developed proteins could make our bodies more resistant to the ageing process, according to a former Oxford University scientist.

Steaks and chicken fillets laced with rare, heavy forms of elements - "isotope-enhanced" proteins - could strengthen cells and protect them against oxidation, caused by highly-reactive particles, free radicals, that are released in the body as a by-product of biological processes in our cells. Many researchers believe free-radical oxidation is a major cause of ageing.

In small-scale studies, Mikhail Shchepinov found nematode worms - used extensively in ageing research - lived 10% longer when fed nutrients enriched with a heavy isotope of hydrogen, deuterium.

Yum.

Cancer and the Left

White House spokesman faces new battle with cancer - International Herald Tribune

Tony Snow, the Fox News host who moved to the White House as the press secretary not so long ago, now has liver cancer too.

I wonder why liver cancer is so difficult (or impossible?) to treat.

As you might expect, there are some on the left who see this as fitting example of karma. There's a column at Huffington Post
which seems to run the line "I really don't wish him ill, but part of me still feels he deserves it." That's left wing compassion for you.

Cute, furry, smart, animal time

Like Goldilocks, mice know a bed that's 'just right' - New Scientist

It seems like every day there is a study indicating that lowly mammals (and birds) are smarter than we thought. Mind you, I am not entirely sure if discovering what some rodents seem to understand has all that much point, really. For example:

Just like Goldilocks, mice have an innate sense of what makes a good bed: a specific group of cells in their brains becomes active when they see a potential nesting spot – but only if it perfectly matches their size...

The researchers say that the findings demonstrate that rodents can understand some abstract concepts, such as the idea of a "bed" that is independent from specific nesting bowls.

Just to rule out the possibility that they actually run the universe, perhaps someone should sit a few mice in front of a TV flashing "E= mc2" and other basic equations, and see if their brain cells click away in recognition. (I like to think that I cover all possibilities.)

Population woes?

No one is willing to address the accelerating growth in the world's population | Comment | The Observer

This article appeared last week, but it's worth reading, including the comments.

The basic argument is that, even with low birth rates in the richer West, the UN predicts population increases to add perhaps another 2-3 billion to the planet by mid century. The writer thinks this a problem for controlling greenhouse gases. The first comment, however, makes this point:

World population was estimated at 2.5 billion in 1950. Between 2000 and 2050, the population is expected to triple in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, the Congos, East Timor, Guinea-Buissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger and Uganda.
However, half of the global increase of 2.5 billion to 2050 will be concentrated in these countries, ranked from most to least : India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, DR Congo, Uganda [ assuming HIV epidemic is ameliorated ], the USA, Ethopia and China.

The article conflates two differing problems : environmental impact and economic development/ social impact. The greatest environmental impact of world population will occur in China and America. The 13 countries I have listed which will have the most rapid population rises, are actually some of the world's poorest. Each inhabitant here has a minimal environmental impact with respect to CO2 etc. It is not clear whether any of the countries whose population is expected to triple by 2050 will actually be functioning, governable states because of the diminishing per capita resources.

Tim Worstoll points out that the IPPC and Stern have already taken into account possible increases in population.

It also appears from the comments that some population forecasts expect a rapid growth to 9 billion, but then a rapid decline due to the falling birthrates back to 6 billion or less by the end of the century.

Certainly, the already dramatically low birthrate is going to affect many countries well before 2050:

The detailed projections for individual countries show 33 countries with smaller populations in 2050 than today. Japan is expected to be 14 per cent smaller; Italy 22 per cent; and a slew of eastern European countries, including Russia and Ukraine, will see their populations crash by between 30 and 50 per cent.

Population dynamics are going to be weird over the next century.

Take your pills

Angioplasty no better than drugs for pre-heart attack patients, study finds - Los Angeles Times

It's pretty fascinating how a new medical procedure seems to take off in popularity with doctors, well before the studies are in that properly compare it with other treatments. The story above is a fine example.

I was also surprised to see just how much money in the stent business:

The findings deal another significant blow to the stent industry, which sells an estimated $3.2-billion worth of stents each year in the United States. As many as 65% of the estimated 1 million stenting procedures performed each year occur in such patients at a cost of about $40,000 per surgery.

That's a lot of money on bits of metal that don't seem so effective (at least for pre-heart attack patients) after all.

Rowan frets again

Archbishop urges church to consider slavery reparations | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

The Archbishop of Canterbury seems well intentioned, but as I noted in an earlier post, gets far too much enjoyment from waffling on to excess. From the story above:

The Bishop of Exeter and three business colleagues were paid nearly £13,000 to compensate them for the loss of 665 slaves in 1833.

Dr Williams told BBC Radio 4's Trade Roots programme organisations that received compensation in the 1830s were still "living off the historical legacy" of slavery.

However, he added: "While it sounds simple to say ... we should pass on the reparation that was received, exactly to whom?

"Exactly where does it go? And exactly how does it differ from the various ways in which we try to interact now with the effects of that in terms of aid and development and so forth?

"So I haven't got a quick solution to that. I think we need to be asking the question and working at it. That, I think, we're beginning to do."

By the way, if you think John Howard lets his eyebrows get too big, check out the fierce competition he faces from the Archbishop. It's a sin against grooming, I say.

Back

The Comment is Free section of The Guardian website is always worth checking. Today I liked this article by Francis Fukuyama about Japan and its difficulties in facing up to its past.

(There is also a photo of him. Can't recall ever seeing him before.)

Away

I probably can't post for a few days. Don't forget to come back!

Meanwhile, here's a very amateur video done to a 20 year old They Might be Giants song that ended their first album. It's not exciting, but has a certain charm of watching some happy youngsters amusing themselves. Cheers.

Future eaters from the ALP

I find it rather puzzling politics that Rudd should want to use income from the future fund to pay for something that, on the face of it, is capable of being paid for from the "normal" current budget surplus. Not only that, he says on 7.30 Report that he may do it again for things that are needed.

Fran Kelly on Radio National this morning seemed to be pressing the line that Rudd is leaving himself wide open for attack on economic credentials here; Michelle Gratton seemed to think it was too early to tell if the public will notice.

A good summary of the issues, and the hypocrisy of the ALP on this, is at Niner Charlie.

Here some of my own points on this:

1. I would like to know how rubbery are the figures thrown about for how faster broadband will result in greater productivity and a stronger economy. I mean, businesses that really need faster broadband don't set up in an area with fast broadband access problems, do they? Faster broadband seems to me to mainly the concern of domestic users, with the big problem being the "black spots" that currently exist even in urban areas.

2. Predictions that the Future Fund is ahead of schedule, or won't be called on as soon as earlier predicted, seem rather dangerous. No one seems to be factoring in the possibility of major world economic problems (I assume stemming from a dramatic collapse in China) within the next decade or so.

3. Is this costing for the project accurate or rubbery? The Age, as one might expect, thinks it is a great idea, and mentions Singapore spending $5 billion to get optical fibre to every user. I know the Australian plan would not be the same, but still the cost sounds low to me.

Interesting days ahead.

The gods of bodily function

Gold poop | The Japan Times Online

This somewhat interesting article starts by examining the story behind a novelty charm from Japan (yes, a gold poo), but Shinto gods get a mention too:

...there is a long history of poo-related worship in Japan, according to Mitsuhashi.

"There are more gods in the Shinto religion than it is possible to count, and they reside just about everywhere, inhabiting natural things like trees, rocks and waterfalls," he said. "Bodily functions are very important -- think what a problem it would be if a person couldn't defecate or urinate properly -- so it's natural that people worshipped deities linked to these functions."

The earliest recorded example is a god called Haniyasu, who is mentioned in the Nihon Shoki, an eighth-century text that is one of the most important records of ancient beliefs and practices. Haniyasu is still worshipped at Haruna Jinja, a well-known shrine in Gunma Prefecture. And until fairly recently, it was common to worship deities known collectively as benjo-gami (privy gods) by placing religious figures in or under the privy.

Mitsuhashi, who is in his 60s, remembers his parents burying a pair of god figures, one male and one female, under the privy in his childhood home.

Well, how does one become a god associated with poo? The Encyclopaedia of Shinto notes:

The name haniyasu is thought to mean "to knead earth so as to make it soft." Kojiki relates that the two kami Haniyasubiko no kami and Haniyasubime no kami were produced from Izanami's feces.

Talk about an inauspicious start to a career as a divinity...

Warts and all

Here's a story about a study on the best way to get rid of warts. (Duct tape verses freezing.)

As a sufferer of the occasional persistent knee or hand wart as a child, I still recommend the tried and true method of rubbing it with a small piece of meat and burying it. As the meat rots, the wart will go.

I have long felt that there is a possible scientific explanation for this. I don't think it is very common knowledge that hypnotism has been medically studied and proven as often being an effective treatment for warts. (In fact, in one study the patient was hypnotised and told to reduce the warts on one side of their body only - and it worked!)

This report of success is of particular interest because:

Of note is the fact that she had low expectations regarding the benefit to be derived from hypnosis and did not at first appear to be highly hypnotizable.

So, the rotting meat method, as well as other folk remedies, are just a subtle form of subconscious suggestion that can work even if your rational mind thinks "this is ridiculous".

That hypnotism should work at all on warts is, I reckon, pretty amazing.

It also seems odd that, as far as I know, the visualisation methods for assisting cancer treatment are now not believed to be effective, yet one would have thought that the hypnotism warts analogy would suggest it could.

Other folk remedies for warts are around, but I like the earthy nature of the rotting meat method. It makes sense to me that my subconscious should believe it. (I mean, rubbing a coin on it and burying it, why should that work?)