Come back, Ken

Don't look now, the white elephants are multiplying

Gosh.  The normally reliably Labor supporting Kenneth Davidson has a column saying that the Coalition has better policies on the NBN and superannuation.

Actually, I suspect that many of the claims he makes regarding the NBN will be hotly disputed by tech people in the industry.   I doubt that this is a Davidson area of special knowledge, and this part of the column reads suspiciously like a list of questionable talking points prepared by some consultant who is against the NBN.

That said, I have always felt that the NBN is the riskiest of Labor's policies.  It's just that I have tended to be persuaded that enough people in the IT industry had come on side that it was probably was a worthwhile thing. 

How Misérable?

I never saw Les Misérables on stage - I have to be very, very sure that I will like something in a theatre before spending the same amount of money to get in which would let me see 12 or more movies - so I was curious to watch the DVD of last year's movie version tonight.

Man, those 19th century novelists loved their melodrama, didn't they?  It kept on reminding me of (not that I am overly familiar with his books) Charles Dickens.  Did they ever meet?  Yes, as it happens.  A wide reading blogger notes:

 In 1846, the thirty-four-year-old Dickens, having just written the chapter of Dombey and Son that ended poor Paul Dombey's life, wandered Paris with his best friend, John Forster, and called on Victor Hugo. Tomalin's account, which draws on Forster's biography of Dickens, shows Dickens to have been simultaneously impressed and amused:

Hugo made a profound impression on both of them with his eloquence, and Forster observed that he addressed "very charming flattery, in the best taste" to Dickens. Dickens thought he "looked like the Genius he was," while his wife looked as if she might poison his breakfast any morning; and the daughter who appeared "with hardly any drapery above the waist . . . I should suspect of carrying a sharp poignard in her stays, but for her not appearing to wear any."

Les Misérables was not published until 1862, but from the same blog I just linked to, there is an extract from the Goncourt Journals (written by two brothers - more about them below) which indicates that Hugo went through a lot of melodrama in his family:

 I started thinking about that family, about that father, that genius, that monster--about that first daughter who had been drowned, and that second daughter who had been carried off by an American and brought back to France raving mad--about those two sons, one dead and the other dying--about Mme Hugo, committing adultery with her son-in-law--about Vacquerie, marrying one daughter, sleeping with the mother, and practically raping his sister-in-law--and finally about that Juliette, that Pompadour of the poet's, still pursuing, with her kisses, at his late date, the dying son. A Tragic Family, such is the title the dying man gave a novel he once wrote--and such is the title of the Hugo family.

Gosh.  His Wikipedia article does not give much detail about his home troubles, but they do provide a photo from 1853:

Not your classically handsome French man, but he does remind me a bit of Gerard Depardieu.

Reading further in his entry, I see that he became a pretty fierce critic of Catholic clericalism, which makes the sympathetic treatment of the Church in the movie (and its general theme of redemption and - I think - grace) rather surprising.   Here's what Wiki says about his views:

Hugo's religious views changed radically over the course of his life. In his youth, he identified himself as a Catholic and professed respect for Church hierarchy and authority. From there he became a non-practicing Catholic, and increasingly expressed anti-Catholic and anti-clerical views. He frequented Spiritism during his exile (where he participated also in many séances conducted by Madame Delphine de Girardin),^[6][7] and in later years settled into a Rationalist Deism similar to that espoused by Voltaire. A census-taker asked Hugo in 1872 if he was a Catholic, and he replied, "No. A Freethinker"

 I'll have to dig further some other time as to why the book (I assume) treats its Catholic figures well. [See update 2 below.]

 Did I like the movie?   Yes, with some reservations.  On the up side, all of the actors did well, and even though Hugh Jackman routinely appears in material that simply does not interest me (and he always just seems to be too nice in interviews),  he really is very good in this.  (Strangely enough, I have just realised that my objectively hard to justify dislike of Jackman as a personality - which is seemingly shared by no one - is similar to the view a huge number of people are supposed to take towards his co-star Anne Hathaway.  I can't see what's wrong with her at all.)    It is also interesting to note that Helena Bonham Carter's approach of only taking roles that allows her to have insane hair continues. 

I see that the singing was filmed "live", which is a pretty remarkable way to make a movie musical.  As to the score itself, it sometimes drags a bit, but it grew on me as the movie progresses.

On the downside:  it's one of those movies which displays poverty via the personal grubbiness of characters to such an extent that it looks rather over the top and a caricature.   I am sure poor slums were squalid and that prostitutes did sometimes look pretty horrifically made up, but it is still hard to believe that the poor didn't wipe the grime off their faces or bodies every now and again, as they never seem to do in much of this movie.     

And, as I say, the plot is melodrama to the max, with continual co-incidences and ill fortune heaped upon ill fortune,  love at first sight, and characters racked by internal conflicts about which 20th century folk would have forgiven themselves within 24 hours, let alone 24 years.   Anthony Lane just found the thing too over the top, and includes some fantastically witty lines in his review: 

Valjean (Hugh Jackman) serves nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread: a punishment that he regards as unjust, though in fact it reflects well on the status of French baking. Had he taken a croissant, it would have meant the guillotine....

I was unprepared, having missed “Les Misérables” onstage, for the remarkable battle that flames between music and lyrics, each vying to be more uninspired than the other. The lyrics put up a good fight, but you have to hand it to the score: a cauldron of harmonic mush, with barely a hint of spice or a note of surprise. Some of Hooper’s cast acquit themselves with grace, notably Redmayne, and it’s a relief to see Sacha Baron Cohen, in the role of a seamy innkeeper, bid goodbye to Cosette with the wistful words “Farewell, Courgette.” One burst of farce, however, is not enough to redress the basic, inflationary bombast that defines “Les Misérables.”

 I can see where he's coming from, but I did find it affecting in parts, so I can't endorse his view.

Would I ever try to read the book?   Well, after reading the Wikipedia entry about it - definitely not.  I've commented here or at other places around the web how my late 20th century brain has trouble coping with the length of sentences in 19th century novels.   Sure, I can read them and understand them, but I just keep getting the mental equivalent of feeling I have run out of breath by the end.   If this explanation by Hugo in his preface is any guide, I have every reason to be fearful that the book is against me:

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Wikipedia also explains the layout of the book in great detail, noting that it is by no means a straight narrative.  In fact it sounds as if it makes the lecturing content of much of Moby Dick (or so I am told) minor in comparison:

More than a quarter of the novel—by one count 955 of 2,783 pages—is devoted to essays that argue a moral point or display Hugo's encyclopedic knowledge, but do not advance the plot, nor even a subplot...

I think I'll give it a miss.

And finally, what about the journal of the Goncourt brothers, about whom I have not heard.   They sound pretty interesting, and as if to again confirm the remarkably widespread effects of syphilis I was recently contemplating in another post, it got to one of them:

Born nearly ten years apart into a French aristocratic family, the two brothers formed an extraordinarily productive and enduring literary partnership, collaborating on novels, criticism, and plays that pioneered the new aesthetic of naturalism. But the brothers’ talents found their most memorable outlet in their journal, which is at once a chronicle of an era, an intimate glimpse into their lives, and the purest expression of a nascent modern sensibility preoccupied with sex and art, celebrity and self-exposure. The Goncourts visit slums, brothels, balls, department stores, and imperial receptions; they argue over art and politics and trade merciless gossip with and about Hugo, Baudelaire, Degas, Flaubert, Zola, Rodin, and many others. And in 1871, Edmond maintains a vigil as his brother dies a slow and agonizing death from syphilis, recording every detail in the journal that he would continue to maintain alone for another two decades.

 Oh well.   Put their journal on the list of things I might enjoy, but will never get around to.

Update:   I could have added that Charles Dickens had a life full of melodrama as well.  I was vaguely aware that he had a mistress, and was not exactly a good family man, but this short summary of his dark side as detailed by a recent biographer indicates it was much worse than I imagined.  (And no, I don't get all of my biography information from The Sun...).

This part struck me as interesting:

 The writer had always shown a genuine interest in helping prostitutes. He even set up a home to look after them. But Dickens also had a less than wholesome reason for seeking out their company. Claire said: “He almost certainly used prostitutes. Many men did in the 19th Century. They thought they needed regular sex to maintain ‘sexual hygiene’.

I can't say I was aware of that motivation in that century, and given the risk of fatal venereal disease, it's remarkable that the idea caught on.  I wonder - was it part and parcel of the idea that masturbation was a incredibly unhealthy activity?  [See update 3 below.] 

As for Victor Hugo and mistresses, here's a handy summary of his sexual exploits.   Talk about talking in code in those days:

Although both Hugo and Briard were married they began to see eachother. Their encounters did not remain private for very long however because On July fourth Hugo and Biard were found "in criminal conversation and in uncrumpled attire meaning that they were comitting adultery and were wearing no clothes. While his lover went to jail Hugo left the station a free man because he was pair de France and was thus immune to prosecution"

The site that this is from is entirely devoted to entries about the state of France at the time of Les Miséables.  It seems to contain quite a few interesting perspectives.

Update 2:   On the issue of sympathy to Catholicism in the film, this review by a Catholic indicates the musical takes quite a different tack to the novel:

Today, Les Misérables is the center of one of the most successful pop-culture phenomena of recent decades—and all because the material has been reworked in ways that Hugo himself would likely reject. His story of Jean Valjean—a man who spent 19 years in a French prison for stealing a loaf of bread—was not meant to be a Christian spiritual odyssey, but a individualist, humanistic one. Valjean's nemesis, the singleminded Inspector Javert, is an atheist in Hugo's novel; in the stage and film production of Les Misérables, he becomes a Christian believer who, unlike Valjean, never rises above the concept of duty nor embraces the Christian teaching on mercy toward others—or even, in the end, toward himself.

 Certainly, the cranky Catholic Church of the 19th (and 20th!) century had no time for the book:

As with anything pleading for social change, the novel acquired many conservative enemies who feared the social impact of the novel. Common reasons for banning it included displaying prostitution, murder, “portraying the Church as unimportant”, and glorifying the French Revolution.

All of Victor Hugo’s works- past, present, and future- were banned in 1850 by Tsar Nicholas I because of Hugo’s less-than-flattering depiction of royalty; his works were also listed on the infamous Index Librorum Prohibitorum- the Catholic Church’s list of books forbidden among members of the faith. Les Misérables was added to the Index in 1864, where it remained until 1959 because it was considered to be critical of the clergy and the papacy.

Update 3:  I haven't found much yet about the claim that 19th century men thought  "they needed regular sex to maintain ‘sexual hygiene’", and a page on the topic of sex and sexuality at the Victorian & Albert Museum website does not make it all that clear as to how ideas evolved through the century.  It does note briefly, however, the apparent influence of evolutionary ideas (and Darwin's famous book was published in 1859): 

By the 1870s and 1880s, evolutionary ideas of male sexuality as a biological imperative, which added fuel to many male writings on gender, were countered by those who argued that 'civilisation' enabled humans to transcend animal instincts. This view acquired a public voice through the Social Purity campaign against the sexual 'double standard', and for male as well as female continence outside marriage. Though female Purity campaigners were often ridiculed as 'new puritans' who had failed to attract a spouse, the movement did succeed in raising public concern over brothels, indecent theatrical displays and images of naked women in art - the reason why Victorian female nudes are idealised and air-brushed.

Private sexual behaviour is hard to assess, though there are many hints that 'considerate' husbands, who did not insist on intercourse, were admired, not least because of the high maternal mortality rate.

The site also says (without explaining why):  

Certainly, the 1860s were briefly as 'permissive' as the same decade in the 20th century, while the 1890s saw an explosion of differing and conflicting positions.

Yet it also says that "moral panic" about prostitution peaked in the 1850's and early 60's.  Confusing.

In any event, this page explains in readily digestible form an explanation of many of the different factor influencing prostitution in Victorian England.  One thing I didn't know - being a seamstress was one of the worst ways to try to make a living then:

Harriet Martineau (who supported herself as a seamstress during her literary apprenticeship) observed that “prostitution is fed by constant accession from starved or overwearied dressmakers.” (Logan)

This is what happens when young men can't drink or take a date to see a movie at the cinema

Saudi Arabians in 'sidewalk skiing' craze – video | Sport | guardian.co.uk

The Civil War briefly discussed

David's Bookclub: Battle Cry of Freedom - The Daily Beast

In this brief look back at a Civil War history book, David Frum notes as follows:

From time to time, we hear denials of the centrality of slavery to the Civil War. That's apologetics, not history. Slavery was always, always there: the war's fundamental cause, the war's shaping reality.

James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom is now, incredibly, 25 years old. The anniversary moved me to download the book in audio format and re-ingest it after the long lapse of time. What struck me most, on this rediscovery, is how brilliantly apt is McPherson's title. Both sides of the terrible conflict insisted that the war was a war for freedom. But what did "freedom" mean?

Jefferson Davis' message to [the Confederate] Congress on January 12, 1863, proclaimed the Emancipation Proclamation 'the most execrable measure in the history of guilty man.' Davis promised to turn over captured Union officers to state governments for punishment as 'criminals engaged in inciting servile insurrection.' The punishment for this crime, of course, was death.

(p. 566.)
Davis never carried out this threat. But captured black Union troops were often massacred - and sometimes sold as property. Confederates regarded the placing of weapons in black hands as itself a war crime, and a terrible one, justifying the most terrible retribution.

It's a wonder that it isn't repeated every 5 years or so, but I don't recall ever seeing Ken Burn's masterful Civil War series since it was first shown in - good grief - 1990.  I can't quite recall now what the historians on that show had to say about the centrality or otherwise of slavery to the war.

Ghosts of Tokyo?

Tokyo denies ghost fears keeping PM out of official residence - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):

The Japanese cabinet has formally denied months-long rumours that prime minister Shinzo Abe has not moved into his official residence over fears the mansion is haunted.

The conservative leader took office in December but has yet to move into the 11-room brick home in central Tokyo.

According to local media, it is the longest holdout among any of his predecessors.

Several former prime ministers have reported experiencing unusual phenomena at the mansion, which was centre-stage for two failed but bloody coups in the 1930s....

In May 1932, a revolt by naval officers ended in the murder of then-prime minister Tsuyoshi Inukai and the plotters' surrender to military police.

Several years later in 1936, about 1,400 rebel troops killed several political leaders and seized the heart of Tokyo's government district including the official residence for four days.

Not your average childhood

Tyrannical pet chimpanzee ruins childhood

The stepdaughter of a dead (and very nutty) French singer of whom I have never heard has told a very bizarre story of how her father tried to raise a chimp as part of the family.  Zut alors, things did not go well:

"Pepee had her own bedroom, her toys, she dined with us, took siestas, drove the car on Leo's lap. In the evening, before slipping on her pyjamas, she would politely drink her infusion before hugging us tenderly and very tight," she writes in an extract published by Liberation newspaper.

Soon, however, Pepee became an uncontrollable tyrant who would strip guests - including once a government prefect and wife - of their clothes and valuables, bite others who failed to accede to her whims and once stole a baby, taking the infant to the roof despite Ferre waving a toy pistol at it and shouting: "Daddy's not happy. Daddy's going to shoot."

I am assuming that the number of house guests soon dried up.

I am also reminded of Michael Jackson.  Eccentric singers and chimpanzees seem to go hand in hand, so to speak.

Maths can be hard work

Yitang Zhang, twin primes conjecture: A huge discovery about prime numbers—and what it means for the future of math. - Slate Magazine

It seems something really important has been discovered in pure maths.

It's all to do with prime numbers and randomness.

I can't tell if this is interesting or not...

A good point

Critics query Coalition climate costs

Yes indeed:  while Tony Abbott is out saying that "direct action" is the best way to deal with reducing CO2 (which may include things such as additional tree plantings), the Coalition in Queensland has just made it easier for farmer to knock their trees down.

There really, really need to be more economists out there putting out criticism of the direct action plan, because I have never heard any economist say that it actually can achieve what it claims it will in  a better way than carbon pricing.

Learning to love the middle aged spread

A feature report at Nature on the vexed issue of how much weight gain is actually bad for you:

But many researchers accept Flegal's results and see them as just the latest report illustrating what is known as the obesity paradox. Being overweight increases a person's risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and many other chronic illnesses. But these studies suggest that for some people — particularly those who are middle-aged or older, or already sick — a bit of extra weight is not particularly harmful, and may even be helpful. (Being so overweight as to be classed obese, however, is almost always associated with poor health outcomes.)

The paradox has prompted much discussion in the public-health community — including a string of letters in JAMA last month² — in part because the epidemiology involved is complex, and eliminating confounding factors is difficult. But the most contentious part of the debate is not about the science per se, but how to talk about it. Public-health experts, including Willett, have spent decades emphasizing the risks of carrying excess weight. Studies such as Flegal's are dangerous, Willett says, because they could confuse the public and doctors, and undermine public policies to curb rising obesity rates. “There is going to be some percentage of physicians who will not counsel an overweight patient because of this,” he says. Worse, he says, these findings can be hijacked by powerful special-interest groups, such as the soft-drink and food lobbies, to influence policy-makers.

The Austerity Wars

Why Is Europe So Messed Up? An Illuminating History : The New Yorker

In this summary of why Europe is struggling economically (blame austerity is the gist), I was particularly interested in these paragraphs:

 With so much hinging on Germany, the discussion of postwar German ordoliberalism, which underpins Berlin’s hostility to expansionary policies, is particularly valuable.

As Blyth points out, German politicians influenced by ordoliberalism, such as Chancellor Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble, the finance minister, aren’t hostile to government activism in the same way conservatives in the United States and Britain are. To the contrary, they believe in a social market economy, where the state sets the rules, including the generous provision of entitlement benefits, and vigorously enforces them. But encouraged by Germany’s success in creating an export-led industrial juggernaut, they believe that everybody else, even much less efficient economies, such as Greece and Portugal, should copy them rather than rely on the crutch of easy money and deficit-financed stimulus programs.

That’s all very well if you are an official at the Bundesbank, or one of the parsimonious Swabian housewives beloved of Merkel, but it ignores a couple of things. First, it’s the very presence of weaker economies in the euro zone that keeps the value of the currency at competitive levels, greatly helping German industry. If Greece and Portugal and other periphery countries dropped out, the euro would spike up, making Volkswagens and BMWs a lot more expensive. Second, it isn’t arithmetically possible for every country to turn into Germany and run a big trade surplus. On this, Blyth quotes Martin Wolff, of the Financial Times: “Is everybody supposed to run a current account surplus? And if so, with whom—Martians? And if everybody does indeed try to run a savings surplus, what else can be the outcome but a permanent global depression?”

 I particularly like the Martin Wolff quote.

Anyway, now all I need to know is:  what's "ordoliberalism"?

UPDATE:   the IMF warns Britain about heavy cuts at this time:

Hit the austerity pause button. Invest more in social housing, schools and road repairs. Growth is more important in the short term than deficit reduction. Couched in suitably polite language, that was the uncomfortable message from the International Monetary Fund to George Osborne .

The chancellor could take some comfort from the fact that the fund was rather more diplomatic about his economic strategy than it was in Washington a month ago, but not all that much. For the past couple of weeks, the government has done its utmost to persuade the IMF that Britain should stick to its current budgetary course. Osborne has tried. The chief secretary Danny Alexander has tried. Sir Mervyn King has tried. They have all failed.

After three years in which it first strongly supported Osborne's austerity programme, then had second thoughts when the economy sank into a double-dip recession, the IMF has finally had enough. It wants further fiscal tightening postponed until the economy is strong enough to take it.

Potentially useful for Labor in Australia if it wants to warn on the effects of a needless hurry to reduce a deficit by harsh spending cuts poorly targetted.
 

An old argument, continued

Cold viruses thrive in frosty conditions 

Ah, it was decades ago now that I was arguing with friends (well, more friends of friend, really) that it was not unreasonable to believe that getting a "chill" in winter made you more susceptible to catching a cold.   "Rubbish" I was told; it's an old wive's tale believed before people understood that colds were caused by a rhinovirus,  and (of course) if you don't have the rhinovirus you don't catch a cold no matter how chilled you get.   But, I said, I would guess that nearly everyone has some exposure to rhinovirus during "cold and flu season", and letting your body temperature dip may lower your immune system enough to become more susceptible to getting ill from the exposure.   "No", I was told, they've done studies about that and you are still wrong.

Well, in fact, the matter has been the subject of some contradictory studies, as I noted when I last addressed this in a post in 2005.  (I have been blogging for a long time...)

And now, further vindication (of a sort) I can claim from another study:

In an attempt to solve the cold conundrum, Foxman and her colleagues studied mice susceptible to a mouse-specific rhinovirus. They discovered that at warmer temperatures, animals infected with the rhinovirus produced a burst of antiviral immune signals, which activated natural defenses that fought off the virus. But at cooler temperatures, the mice produced fewer antiviral signals and the infection could persist.

The researchers then grew human airway cells in the lab under both cold and warm conditions and infected them with a different rhinovirus that thrives in people. They found that warm infected cells were more likely than cold ones to undergo programmed cell death — cell suicide brought on by immune responses aimed at limiting the spread of infections.

Foxman says that the data suggest that these temperature-dependent immune reactions help to explain rhinoviruses' success at lower temperatures, and explain why winter is the season for colds. As temperatures drop outside, humans breathe in colder air that chills their upper airways just enough to allow rhinoviruses to flourish, she says.

This also shows why you shouldn't lose contact with old acquaintances: it removes the fun of claiming vindication 30 years later.

IPA, ABC, ALP

State Liberals propose privatising ABC, SBS

I see that John Roskam of the Liberal Party and the Institute of Paid Advocacy (as someone referred to it recently)  is quoted here as if he is leading the charge to have the Coalition consider privatising the ABC.

The ALP will be delighted that the Liberal Party (Tea Party Subdivision) is now openly talking about it, not just mumbling to themselves on blogs and while listening to Rupert Murdoch talk up the wonder of free markets at the Victorian Art Gallery.

I would say the situation is like this:

1.   the ABC has always had a soft Left bias.   Given that journalists and the artistic community has always leaned left, this is a virtually unavoidable fact.

2.   Despite this, people watch the ABC current affairs shows because of the depth to which they cover issues, which you simply do not see on commercial current affairs.  People adjust to the bias in any individual report.  (I mean, for example, when it comes to gay marriage being dealt with on the ABC, everyone knows how that's going to lean.)

3.   The ABC has actually attempted to address the issue of bias in the last several years, and as a result has been the major outlet via which the IPA talking heads have managed to get their mysteriously funded message out.   Shows such as Insiders, the Drum and Q&A specifically seek Right wing commentary on their panels, and the IPA in particular has never had any where near the amount of  air time as they have had over the last few years at the ABC.   A major ABC journalist (Chris Uhlmann) some years ago expressed muted skepticism of climate change, muttering about it being believed like a religion.  Sure, he's married to a Labor politician, but I still think he is the softest handler of Coalition figures we have seen on ABC flagship current affairs for years.

4.   Despite this, because the (large) Tea Party rump of the Liberals has moved to the Right and absorbed the silly Fox News "culture wars" attitude, they are still complaining about bias and the lack of Right wing voices on the ABC.   Yet no one ever nominates who in journalism or the media generally is a Right wing figure who is being unfairly denied his or her own gig on the ABC.   Bolt went off and got his own show on commercial TV;  Gerard Henderson still goes on Insiders but no one in their right mind (ha! a pun) could imagine his dour delivery being listenable on its own for a whole hour;  same with Piers Ackerman.  And besides, have any of the current Righties in the media said they actually want a full time job at the ABC?   They may be perfectly happy with their hours and salary where they are for all we know.

The talent pool of Right wing broadcast media figures is very limited - that's just always going to be a fact of life.

And as for the IPA - if they are going to start campaigning for privatisation of the ABC, a major change to Australian media landscape - then now more than ever people ought to be telling any ABC host talking to someone from the IPA about the topic to ask if their salary is being part funded by someone who perceives a commercial interest in that happening. 

A lower dollar could only help

Australian dollar could dive below 90 US cents in coming weeks - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The big economic factor that does not attract as much attention as it should in the mind of the public is the  high Aussie dollar.

The Gillard government has been very unlucky to be caught in a period of a sustained high dollar, and a new Abbott government would be very lucky to have it sink to a permanent, more realistic level.

To Containers: hip hip...

Free exchange: The humble hero | The Economist

I would have always assumed that the use of shipping containers had been a major innovation for trade, but I had no idea it had been as significant as shown in the above article.  For example:

  It was the brainchild of Malcom McLean, an American trucking magnate. He reckoned that big savings could be had by packing goods in uniform containers that could easily be moved between lorry and ship. When he tallied the costs from the inaugural journey of his first prototype container ship in 1956, he found that they came in at just $0.16 per tonne to load—compared with $5.83 per tonne for loose cargo on a standard ship. Containerisation quickly conquered the world: between 1966 and 1983 the share of countries with container ports rose from about 1% to nearly 90%, coinciding with a take-off in global trade (see chart)....

In 1965 dock labour could move only 1.7 tonnes per hour onto a cargo ship; five years later a container crew could load 30 tonnes per hour (see table). This allowed freight lines to use bigger ships and still slash the time spent in port. The journey time from door to door fell by half and became more consistent. The container also upended a rigid labour force. Falling labour demand reduced dockworkers’ bargaining power and cut the number of strikes. And because containers could be packed and sealed at the factory, losses to theft (and insurance rates) plummeted. Over time all this reshaped global trade. Ports became bigger and their number smaller. More types of goods could be traded economically. Speed and reliability of shipping enabled just-in-time production, which in turn allowed firms to grow leaner and more responsive to markets as even distant suppliers could now provide wares quickly and on schedule. International supply chains also grew more intricate and inclusive.

 And a study claims this:

In a set of 22 industrialised countries containerisation explains a 320% rise in bilateral trade over the first five years after adoption and 790% over 20 years. By comparison, a bilateral free-trade agreement raises trade by 45% over 20 years and GATT membership adds 285%.

I have been impressed by containerisation ever since I saw the automated container straddle carriers at the Port of  Brisbane in 2007.   My post about that trip is here.

Lust and that disease in history

Syphilis, sex and fear | How the French disease conquered the world | Books | The Guardian

I think I find reading about the history of syphilis so interesting because I just find it hard imagining societies coping for so long with an illness that was so devastating to the individual and their family, and so closely tied  to personal behaviour.    It's like the first decade of AIDS, but going on for four or five centuries.

Here are some bits of information about syphilis which I don't think I had heard before:

The theories surrounding the disease were are as dramatic as the symptoms: an astrological conjunction of the planets, the boils of Job, a punishment of a wrathful God disgusted by fornication or, as some suggested even then, an entirely new plague brought from the new world by the soldiers of Columbus and fermented in the loins of Neapolitan prostitutes.  

The boils of Job seems a pretty apt guess, I suppose.

There seems to be a hint of exaggeration here:

 Whatever the cause, the horror and the agony were indisputable. "So cruel, so distressing, so appalling that until now nothing more terrible or disgusting has ever been known on this earth," says the German humanist Joseph Grunpeck, who, when he fell victim, bemoaned how "the wound on my priapic gland became so swollen, that both hands could scarcely encircle it."

 I don't think I knew wet nurses could pass it on to babies:

 Erring husbands gave it to wives who sometimes passed it on to children, though they might also get it from suckling infected wet-nurses.

 This seems a novel suggestion:

 In a manifestly corrupt church, the give-away "purple flowers" (as the repeated attacks were euphemistically known) that decorated the faces of priests, cardinals, even a pope, were indisputable evidence that celibacy was unenforceable. When Luther, a monk, married a nun, forcing the hand of the Catholic church to resist similar reform in itself, syphilis became one of the reasons the Catholic church is still in such trouble today.

 I hadn't heard this suggestion before either:

Those who could buy care also bought silence – the confidentiality of the modern doctor/patient relationship has it roots in the treatment of syphilis.

What about this horrible plan for husbands who wanted to secretly treat their spouse:

The old adage "a night with Venus; a lifetime with Mercury" reveals all manner of horrors, from men suffocating in overheated steam baths to quacks who peddled chocolate drinks laced with mercury so that infected husbands could treat their wives and families without them knowing. Even court fashion is part of the story, with pancake makeup and beauty spots as much a response to recurrent attacks of syphilis as survivors of smallpox.

And what about that last sentence - as you can tell, there is a lot here that is new to me.

As to the famous who may had suffered from it, there are a few names on this list I hadn't heard mentioned before:

Detective work by writers such as Deborah Hayden (The Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis) count Schubert, Schumann, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Flaubert, Van Gogh, Nietzsche, Wilde and Joyce with contentious evidence around Beethoven and Hitler.

The mystery of how "hysteria" became the fad of the day that Freud and his ilk were so interested in may also be connected: 

Late 19th-century French culture was a particularly rich stew of sexual desire and fear. Upmarket Paris restaurants had private rooms where the clientele could enjoy more than food, and in opera foyers patrons could view and "reserve" young girls for later. At the same time, the authorities were rounding up, testing and treating prostitutes, often too late for themselves or the wives. As the fear grew, so did the interest in disturbed women. Charcot's clinic exhibited examples of hysteria, prompting the question now as to how far that diagnosis might have been covering up the workings of syphilis. Freud noted the impact of the disease inside the family when analysing his early female patients.

All very fascinating.  I should read an entire book on the subject, perhaps.

Spend less, get the tick of approval

Budget polling: Newspoll 56-44, Nielsen and Galaxy 54-46 | The Poll Bludger

The most surprising outcome from the post budget polls is the strength of the popularity of decision to reduce the "Baby Bonus":

 Abolition of the baby bonus has received strikingly strong support: 68% from Nielsen and 64% from Galaxy, with opposition at 27% and 22%.

Who'd have thought:  the public can identify overly generous middle class welfare when they see it.

Doesn't this suggest that Labor's move towards tighter means testing of benefits is a winner, too?

It's not just me - Part 3

I'm encouraged to read, via this spectacularly wrong headed assessment that Dr Who is still a fantastic show, that there are indeed a large number of former fans pretty much abandoning it due to the woeful trajectory it has been on with Steven Moffat in control.     

Have a look at this blog post, for example, found via from the previous link.  It correctly identifies the obvious current problem:  Moffat sets up big story arcs that end with a pathetic, uninteresting and un-engaging  deus ex machina fizzle.  (And, I would argue, even the "stand alone" stories now frequently have pathetic resolutions.)  From the last link:

Notably, both season five and season six end with a wacky aborted universe and a wedding. If there’s not a wedding and a wacky alternate universe at the end of season seven, I’ll be worried Stefan Moffat forgot to rip himself off. Now, I’m not saying Doctor Who should be a champion of stories that make sense all the time, but it should at least be consistent with its own mythology. The excellent Tennant/Davies era episode “The Waters of Mars” showed us the huge consequences (mostly emotional) when you screw with fixed points in time. These days that doesn’t mean jack shit, because the Doctor seems down with rewriting time whenever it suits the needs of the script.

Rest the show.  For 5 years.

But can he make them have babies?

Japan: Abe’s master plan | The Economist

"Abenomics"  is getting some good reviews for its sudden improvement to the Japanese economy.  It also seems to be a massive experiment which, if successful, would be seen as a strong win by Krugman for his take on economics.

Yet, in this Economist article, there is little to suggest what he can do about the major long term demographic problem for his country.   In short, if the Japanese are never going to accept high levels of immigration, how are they ever going to be persuaded to have more babies?

It's not just me - Part 2

Hoppy beer is awful—or at least, its bitterness is ruining craft beer’s reputation. - Slate Magazine

The boutique beer business is big in the US as well as Australia, and I am happy to hear that I am not the only person who is finding too many of these beers just too overpoweringly hoppy.

While different hops are supposed to have different taste characteristics (other than simple "bitter"), it's good to read that there really is no point in making it too bitter:

From a consumer’s standpoint, though, beers overloaded with hops are a pointless gimmick. That’s because we can’t even taste hops’ nuances above a certain point. Hoppiness is measured in IBUs (International Bitterness Units), which indicate the concentration of isomerized alpha acid—the compound that makes hops taste bitter. Most beer judges agree that even with an experienced palate, most human beings can’t detect any differences above 60 IBUs. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, one of the hoppiest beers of its time, clocks in at 37 IBUs. Some of today's India pale ales, like Lagunitas’ Hop Stoopid, measure around 100 IBUs. Russian River’s Pliny the Younger, one of the most sought-after beers in the world, has three times as many hops as the brewery’s standard IPA; the hops are added on eight separate occasions during the brewing process.

Craft brewers’ obsession with hops has overshadowed so many other wonderful aspects of beer. So here’s my plea to my fellow craft beer enthusiasts: Give it a rest.

 Hear here.

It's not just me - Part 1

“Star Trek Into Darkness”: Who made J.J. Abrams the sci-fi god? - Salon.com

Readers will know I don't care for the directorial work of JJ Abrams, so it's good to read a review by a critic who seems pretty lukewarm on him too.   (He's enjoyed him more than me, though. I think.)

I'm also lukewarm on the new version of Star Trek, and was bored with Abram's first effort. 

This new movie has good reviews, but after reading Andrew O'Hehir's, I don't think I'll bother seeing it.

O'Hehir's review is pretty witty, if you ask me.  It ends on this note, for example:

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with “Star Trek Into Darkness” – once you understand it as a generic comic-book-style summer flick faintly inspired by some half-forgotten boomer culture thing. (Here’s something to appreciate about Abrams: This is a classic PG-13 picture, with little or no sex or swearing, but one that never condescends.) That’s the way almost everyone will experience it, and fair enough. Still, if you feel like bitching about it, come on over. We’ll crack a couple of watery brews and complain (in Klingon) about Uhura’s ill-fitting romance with Spock, or Chris Pine’s frat-boy weightlifter Kirk, who completely lacks the air of provincial, semi-educated suavity that made William Shatner the greatest bad actor in TV history. Or the fact that those in charge of the “Star Trek” universe could have entrusted its rebirth to someone who actually liked it.