Fascists do the strangest things

BBC News - A gay island community created by Italy's Fascists

A somewhat interesting story here of an island exile which Mussolini set up in the 1930's for homosexual men.

The way fascist Italy dealt with them was a step up from Germany, I suppose, but still:  

No discriminatory laws were passed. But a climate was created in which open manifestations of homosexuality could be vigorously suppressed.

And one particular police prefect in the Sicilian city of Catania took full advantage of the official mood.

"We notice that many public dances, beaches and places in the mountains receive many of these sick men, and that youngsters from all social classes look for their company," he wrote. 

He said he was determined to halt this "spreading of degeneration" in his city "or at least contain such a sexual aberration that offends morality and that is disastrous to public health and the improvement of the race".

He went on: "This evil needs to be attacked and burned at its core."

So in 1938 around 45 men believed to be homosexuals in Catania were rounded up and consigned to internal exile.

They were locked up in dormitories at 8pm (under police supervision, it says), and had no electricity or running water, but apart from that, it appears the days were pretty relaxed:

"In those days if you were a femminella [a slang Italian word for a gay man] you couldn't even leave your home, or make yourself noticed - the police would arrest you," he said of his home town near Naples.

"On the island, on the other hand, we would celebrate our Saint's days or the arrival of someone new... We did theatre, and we could dress as women there and no-one would say anything."
And he said that of course, there was romance, and even fights over lovers.

Then the war broke out, and they had to go back home to "a kind of house arrest", and some were disappointed to leave.It does sound like most sent to the island were effeminate, although there is reference to a seminarian who somehow was exiled there.

The article ends on a point I hadn't realised about the state of gay politics in Italy today:

There is still no real social stigma attached to homophobia in Italy, Scalfarotto says, and the state doesn't extend legal rights of any kind to gay or lesbian couples.

The influence of the Church, I assume?   One thing I have never understood, though, is why the Spanish Latin countries seem to have adapted to gay relationships very quickly, given that the macho culture reputation and Catholic influence.   Why have they changed very quickly, yet Italy is conservative on the matter?  I also don't really understand the strength of the anti gay marriage sentiment in France:  a country I had assumed had little Catholic influence.  I know there are other elements in the protests there, but still... 

Is this why dogs have sometimes detected it?

Scent of melanoma: New research may lead to early non-invasive detection and diagnosis

It's only tests in the lab so far, but still:

The researchers used an absorbent device to collect chemical compounds from air in closed containers containing the various types of cells. Then, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques were used to analyze the compounds and identified different profiles of VOCs emitting from melanoma cells relative to normal cells.

Both the types and concentrations of chemicals were affected. Melanoma cells produced certain compounds not detected in VOCs from normal melanocytes and also more or less of other chemicals. Further, the different types of melanoma cells could be distinguished from one another.

Noting that translation of these results into the clinical diagnostic realm would require a reliable and portable sensor device, the researchers went on to examine VOCs from normal melanocytes and melanoma cells using a previously described nano-sensor.

Constructed of nano-sized carbon tubes coated with strands of DNA, the tiny sensors can be bioengineered to recognize a wide variety of targets, including specific odor molecules. The nano-sensor was able to distinguish differences in VOCs from normal and several different types of melanoma cells.

Another 4 billion?

World population could be nearly 11 billion by 2100, research shows

African fertility is not slowing at the expected rate, and hence:

The current African population is about 1.1 billion and it is now expected to reach 4.2 billion, nearly a fourfold increase, by 2100.

That's pretty remarkable.  

The boss divorces

That's interesting.  Rupert Murdoch is getting divorced from his Chinese wife.

I've been puzzled by his swings on issues - he was an early enthusiast on climate change, and I suspected her influence.   (She is said to have introduced him to a younger crowd.)    Of course, he now rarely mentions it and has no regrets about running media outlets which are an absolute disgrace in their coverage against climate change being real, and I wonder how this sits with her.   His politics lately has been swinging harder Right, it seems to me.  

I therefore wonder if he will soon be worse in that regard. 

One other thing:  I find it truly remarkable that Britain still has "page 3 girls" running his Sun newspaper.  Earlier this year, it was noted that maybe Rupert was considering stopping it.

Obviously, his wife either had no interest in the topic, or had not been able to influence him on it for a decade or so before this year.

On the menu today...

Michelle Grattan's summary of the whole issue of Julia Gillard and women is very good.

I have a few comments:

*  the two Ruddite MP's who were happy to go on TV and say they didn't think it was a good idea for Gillard to make the comments she did in her speech to the women's group are complete idiots who obviously have no concern at all for the devastation that a disunited party will cause at an election.   I doubt that Rudd was behind this - his performance on TV yesterday attacking the Liberals on "menu-gate" was good:  he clearly has some stupid supporters, however. 

*  when a politician's first response to an embarrassing document is "I don't recall seeing it", it is usually code for "I saw it but with any luck I'll get away with this if I use this phrase."    It would appear both Brough and Hockey used the formula.   (Hockey definitely did; Brough seemingly has been kept away from the cameras for fear he will stuff up his own defence.)    Given that it appears from the first reports about this late yesterday morning that Brough knew all about how it was (allegedly) created but not distributed, the late arrival of the exculpatory email from the restaurant owner was suspicious too.    Sorry, but given Brough being shown up as a liar before, I think it highly likely he will soon be shown to be a liar again.    If so, this will do more harm than the menu itself.

*  scepticism of the restaurant owner's explanation was evident on breakfast TV this morning, with a reporter outside the restaurant (will this be good or bad for their business, I wonder?)  saying that staff had hinted the menu had been on the tables.   This is all silly business, but it will be fun to see what develops today.

*  there is too much concentration on the messaging rather than the message as far as Gillard is concerned.  Labor supporters like Jane Caro and Eva Cox should just shut up if they want to help.

*  Joe Hockey seems a bit of an unexpected wuss for complaining about Gillard apparently referring to him as a fat man.  First of all, no one remembers that, and secondly, he had gastric by-pass surgery to lose weight, for goodness sake.   If Gillard helped encourage him to a healthy weight, stop whining about it.

A good thing for the government to question

Who really pays for designer vaginas?

Increasing numbers of Australian women are asking their doctors for a designer vagina. So many, in fact, that the government is reviewing whether such surgery should be publicly-funded via Medicare.

Over the last ten years, claims through the medical benefit scheme (MBS) for labioplasty have increased from 200 to over 1,500 per year. The resulting cost, rising from $40,000 to $740,000 annually, has led to a government review questioning the procedure.

As the article says,  there is virtually no doubt at all that the demand for this surgery is driven by a combination of the ubiquity of pornography due to the internet, and the fashion for pubic hair removal.   Perhaps a government advertising campaign against both is called for?  (Well, it would be interesting to sit in on the ad agencies workshopping such a campaign, at least.)  

Quite the nutter

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vaccine conspiracy theory: Scientists and journalists are covering up autism risk. - Slate Magazine

Wow.  Robert F Kennedy comes out sounding quite the conspiracy nutter in this Slate article detailing his anti-vaccination theories.  

Saletan on the NSA kerfuffle

The NSA’s phone-call database: A defense of mass surveillance. - Slate Magazine

I find it hard getting excited about this issue - I thought all sensible people just assumed that no electronic communication was free from secret US (and probably other countries) access.   

But William Saletan has a column explaining some of the detail of the current story that is exciting both the Left and Right in the US, for very different reasons. 

M'eh.   Still seems no big deal to me.

Free advice to Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard

Dear Kevin & Julia,

If you really, really want to help Labor, and (for Kevin) preserve the possibility of returning to the leadership in the future, here's what you could do:

1.  Kevin:  start referring to the Prime Minister as "Julia", on TV, not all the time, but at least once or twice between your insistence on referring to her as "the Prime Minister" (as if her actual name remains poison to you.)

2.  Kevin and Julia:  stage a very public reconciliation meeting for the cameras (perhaps with a couple of other Rudd "enemies" in the background) at which Kevin refers to "Julia" at the key point where he explains that you are reconciled, and Kevin makes it clear that he will co-operate in all respects with campaigning and media appearances so as to not give the impression that he is still competing for the leadership.

3.  Julia:  at the reconciliation meeting, explain that Kevin will return to Cabinet  in the event of the return of the Labor government.  Use the reasoning that it's obviously too late to fit him back in now, and returned Prime Ministers typically do re-shuffle things a bit.  Talk him up as obviously a person who the public wants to see in a more prominent role in government, and you are willing to accommodate this.

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that such an obviously useful tactic could be achieved by Labor?

Colebatch on the dollar, again

Blame it on the dollar, but can we rein it in?

My favourite economics commentator emphasises in this column how much the high Australian dollar alone has been responsible for many business's high operating costs:

Between 2010 and 2013, the IMF estimates, we and our producers have been paying a staggering 55per cent more for goods and services than our US counterparts.

Our costs against the US and the world have doubled in a decade. Not all of that is due to the dollar. Wages and prices have kept rising at vaguely normal pace here, while barely growing at all in Europe, Japan and the US. But the dollar's rise is the main reason.

Since 2010 its average value has been almost 50 per cent higher than it was in the years from 1985 to 2005. Whether you are Ford, BHP, the University of Melbourne or a Wimmera wheat grower, that is a crushing competitive burden.

Relief has come in recent weeks. As the US recovery gains strength and our economy weakens, the dollar has fallen 10 per cent since April 12, when it stood at a 28-year high on the Reserve's index.

But it also sank below parity for some weeks in 2010, 2011 and 2012, only to return again. And it needs to fall much more before many Australian producers will feel confident to invest and expand.

Back to that Lee Smolin book...

Further to my recent post regarding physicist Lee Smolin's new book, I see that someone at Backreaction has put up a link to a copy of its review in Nature.   It makes the argument in the book a little bit clearer.

Something to come back to

At about 70 pages, I don't have time to read this essay I found at arXiv on physics, free will and Turing, but I will come back to it.

Reviewing Darwin and Johnson

Essay Book Reviews - Irish Book Reviews - Dublin Review of Books

I mentioned late last year that there is a short book out by Paul Johnson about Charles Darwin.

This lengthy review is of the kind that seems to make it unnecessary to read the book.  I like this kind of review...

Hope for my brain

Nuclear bomb tests reveal brain regeneration in humans - health - 07 June 2013 - New Scientist

Nuclear bomb tests carried out during the cold war have had an unexpected benefit.

A radioactive carbon isotope expelled by the blasts has been used to date the age of adult human brain cells, providing the first definitive evidence that we generate new brain cells throughout our lives. The study also provides the first model of the dynamics of the process, showing that the regeneration of neurons does not drop off with age as sharply as expected.

Very clever work.

Spices considered, and nutmeg revisited

This seems to be the second series on SBS I've seen in the last couple of years devoted to spices, but I have been enjoying Spice Trip.  Last night they were on Grenada, a country you rarely see on travel shows, looking at nutmeg and mace.

Curiously, the male co-host, a London chef with a name (Stevie!), voice and manner which I thought indicated he was gay, last night noted that he has one child and another on the way.  (He has a wife and two sons, I see.  Maybe the English really are the easiest nationality to mistake as gay.)    This came up in the context of the alleged aphrodisiac qualities of nutmeg - people from Grenada talk a lot, it seems, about how a meal full of nutmeg will assuredly make you "horny". 

My decreasing number of long term readers will recall my interest in nutmeg because of Uncle Scrooge having an addiction to nutmeg tea, which turned out to be kind of unfortunate because you can indeed get high (although not pleasantly so, apparently) from consuming too much of the spice.    And yes, this did get mentioned on the show last night, with a warning that you should consume no more than 5 g a day, and (if I recall correctly) more than 15 g might kill you (!).   I must now weigh a nutmeg nut to check its weight.

Anyhow, I see the whole episode is on DailyMotion, if you are interested:


E4 Spice Trip - Nutmeg - Grenada by zodiacza

What was I saying about Christopher Pyne earlier this week?

Christopher Pyne's strained relationship with the truth* continues to be operating at crisis level, and I don't think they're ever going to be reconciled again:  

Lateline - 06/06/2013: Election countdown: CHRISTOPHER PYNE, MANAGER OF OPP. BUSINESS: I understand from sources within the Labor Party that Julia Gillard demanded that she'd also be able to appear.

TOM IGGULDEN: That was denied by both the Prime Minister's office and the ABC.

LEIGH SALES, 7.30 PRESENTER: For the record, I can confirm that the Prime Minister did none of those things.

TOM IGGULDEN: Mr Pyne claimed the interview had already been recorded.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: And in her interview, I'm told from my Labor sources that she has demanded that Mr Rudd rule out a challenge to her leadership.

TOM IGGULDEN: In fact, that question was put by Leigh Sales.

* heard at their counselling session:  "It's like he doesn't know me anymore.  I ring, and the next day he claims he can't remember".

Worth a try

Google rolls its own keyboard app for Android 4.0 and up

I have been a bit dissatisfied with Android keyboards on my 10 inch tablet, and find the Apple one better when I go back to use it again, but I haven't really bothered to work out what exactly it is that makes me prefer the latter.

Anyway, a Google keyboard for Android will definitely be worth a try.   Mind you, it will probably form part of the Google grand plan to gather enough information about every user on the planet so as to be able to develop computer based analogues of them in cyberspace.  Maybe this is how resurrection will occur in the distant future, and it's Google in particular which will evolve into God.

I'm sure it's something the process theologians should be giving thought to....

Stephen's problem

Stephen Fry reveals details of recent attempted suicide | Culture | The Guardian

Apparently, he had another suicide attempt last year, despite being on medication for bipolar and being a spokesperson of sorts for mental health.

Like most people, I suppose, I find Fry quite likeable, but suspect his reputation for high intelligence and all round brilliance is probably rather over-rated .   I just wish he would slow down.  He seems the perfect candidate for something like intense meditation for its calming effect.

The remarkable ageing Japan

Japan's oldest community - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

I saw this story on Lateline last night and thought it was a poignant illustration of what is happening in the Japanese countryside.

The most remarkable figures from the story are these:

There are more than 7.5 million empty houses and apartments in Japan. That's about 10 per cent of all residences in the country. And here, in this district of Nanmoku, more than two-thirds of homes have been abandoned....

While there are 10 babies in this village, there are also 10 people over the age of 100. 106-year-old Masu Koido is the oldest of the lot.

I didn't quite get why at least one house of a deceased resident, who the neighbours come over to open up every now and then, still seemed to be full of contents and family memorabilia.

If I had enough money, a holiday home in some nice corner of the Japanese countryside would be very pleasant.  A spare one in France is needed too.

Would be interesting if I could read it

Quantum physics: The quantum atom 

This special issue of Nature explores the origin and legacy of Bohr's quantum atom, a model that has resonated ever since. In 1911, Bohr began a postdoctoral year in England that planted the seeds of his thinking. In a Comment on page 27, historian John Heilbron relates how letters from Bohr to his brother Harald and to his fiancée, Margrethe Nørlund, published this year, chart the dauntless physicist's work with J. J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford, and his study of the papers of John William Nicholson, which presaged his breakthrough.

All stuck behind the ridiculously expensive Nature paywall, unfortunately.   Seriously, who is going to pay £12 for access to an article like that?