Cocaine, Popes and black America

The question of whether or not Pope Francis would partake of coca leaves (he didn't, apparently) led to the Mindhacks blog noting that at least one past Pope was not at all reticent about drinking cocaine laced wine.

  This wine was discussed at The Atlantic in 2013, where it was noted that the American version had a claim that might put off a Pope from consuming it:

Seeing this commercial success, Dr. John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta -- himself a morphine addict following an injury in the Civil War -- set out to make his own version. He called it Pemberton's French Wine Coca and marketed it as a panacea. Among many fantastic claims, he called it "a most wonderful invigorator of sexual organs."

 I see from various sources that there was a strong racial element in the campaign to prohibit cocaine, with great concern that it had become particularly popular with the black population and had led to rape and general criminal mayhem.  However, one other link said that there was also concern about the large number of deaths from cocaine abuse.   One suspects that the racial aspect is emphasised heavily these days by drug reformers to downplay legitimate concern on the drugs health effects back in 1900.   Anyhow, this extract from The Nation is interesting:

Around this time, Congress was debating whether to pass the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, one of the country’s first forays into national drug legislation. This unprecedented law sought to tax and regulate the production, importation and distribution of opium and coca products. Proponents of the law saw it as a strategy to improve strained trade relations with China by demonstrating a commitment to controlling the opium trade. Opponents, mostly from Southern states, viewed it as an intrusion into states’ rights and had prevented passage of previous versions.

By 1914, however, the law’s proponents had found an important ally in their quest to get it passed: the mythical “negro cocaine fiend,” which prominent newspapers, physicians and politicians readily exploited. Indeed, at congressional hearings, “experts” testified that “most of the attacks upon white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain.” When the Harrison Act became law, proponents could thank the South’s fear of blacks for easing its passage.

It would be interesting to see what the history of its prohibition in Britain is like, seeing in that country there presumably no basis to worry about it being abused by a black underclass.

Actually, I see from an article from the BBC that in England, there was a panic over the Chinese  in the country promoting both opium and cocaine recreationally.    But it also makes the point that the main concern in the 19th/early 20th century was really over excessive drinking, particularly during World War 1.

All rather interesting. 

Oh Canada

Canada's Conservatives may face unexpected hazard as economy cools | Reuters

Well, seems to me Canada may be displaying the weakness of current conservative economic ideology:

Canada's economic woes, including a struggling manufacturing
sector, tepid jobs and wage growth and weak oil prices, have
been compounded by slowing growth in key trading partners like
the United States and China.

After reveling in Canada's escape from the global financial
crisis, Harper suddenly has less to boast about. But the party
is not likely to back away from campaigning on the economy
nonetheless....

"When someone says: 'Are you better off today than four
years ago when this government got its majority mandate?' There
are not many people that are going to answer that question as a
yes," said Jim Stanford, economist at Unifor, Canada's largest
private sector union.

"Whatever sector of the economy you're in, there's a pretty
pervasive sense of insecurity."

Pollster Nanos said research shows the Conservatives are
seen to be good at controlling spending, but they do not have as
strong of a lead on promoting economic growth, which may be
closer to voter hearts than fiscal restraint.

And while Harper is among few Western leaders who can boast
of a balanced budget forecast for 2015-2016 after years of
deficit, union economist Stanford said balanced books may not
pay off at the polls.

"If they had balanced the budget and things were looking up
for the average household, then maybe this claim would have a
bit more credibility but I think it's a pretty hollow victory."

A lot of the blame is put on falling oil prices.   Guess we can see the same happening here eventually with falling coal and iron prices.

Diversity in an economy helps:  seems to me that governments that wipe their hands completely of having policies to encourage diversity are asking for trouble.

Europe and the migrants

There was a great Foreign Correspondent last night set on the Greek island of Kos, inconveniently close to Turkey and the scene of many, many escapees from Syria, Pakistan and other countries.

This is ABC content at its best:  informative, humane, and not done by any commercial network (or certainly  not with the same depth or finesse.)   Also, causes me to have contempt for anyone who wants to privatise it, especially if they say they don't watch it. 

Update:  here's the Lowy Institute blog talking about the problem for Greece:

The number of boat arrivals is staggering and continues to grow rapidly, much like Greece's debt. During my recent discussions on irregular migration in Athens with think tank analysts, commentators and academics, the numbers quoted have climbed dramatically and currently hover at around 80,000 arrivals so far in 2015. About a month ago, the number was 30,000. Greece has now received more maritime migrants than Italy this year. Some estimate that arrivals to Greece may top 200,000 by year's end.

The number of arrivals Australia was freaking out about during the Rudd and Gillard governments:  at its peak, about 30,000 over a year and a half.  The Libs press release was saying 50,000 over the total Rudd/Gillard years.

Puts our problem in perspective. 

Sounds entirely likely

Peak body lashes Abbott government: Our business interests in Indonesia harmed by bad diplomacy: Australia's "megaphone" diplomacy and lack of consultation with Indonesia over policies like boat turnbacks has caused widespread unhappiness in Jakarta and harmed relations, the head of the peak body representing Australian businesses operating there says.

All in a day's work for a social worker

Do we Always Practice What we Preach? Real Vampires’ Fears of Coming out of the Coffin to Social Workers and Helping Professionals | Critical Social Work - University of Windsor

I may be sounding increasingly left wing lately, but social workers always have been, and remain, a bit of a worry.

Gina re-visited

Really, as her children asked, why did Australian Story bother with a two parter on Gina Rinehart, as it seemed to add nothing to what we didn't already know about her family history?  It certainly was used by Gina for an attempt at some better PR, but whose idea was it to do such a lightweight update on her lifestory at this particular time?

Anyway, the show did amuse me for a few reasons:

*  I had forgotten about her father's crackpot hope that H bombs could be used to help develop Northern Australia even faster, and it was funny to watch the ever soft voiced Gina talking to family friend Ed Teller about this idea from an aircraft full of the white shoe brigade.

*  the show also mentioned her Dad's involvement with the deadly blue asbestos mine at Wittenoom.   It didn't mention this:

...according to his friend John Singleton, had a party trick of spreading asbestos on his Weet-Bix to prove the point that asbestos wasn't deadly.

Lang had discovered asbestos in the Pilbara in the 1950s and went to his grave swearing that asbestos wasn't dangerous.

*  it did make a brief mention of Gina opposing the Labor carbon "tax", although it made no mention of her actively funding climate change fake skepticism.

In short, despite the attempted gloss, the show reminded the careful viewer that nutty Right wingers bent on making money can be freaking dangerous.

Thanks ABC, I guess...

Update:   In answer to Tim's question in comments - he definitely thought they were good for creating instant deep water harbours, but really, what didn't Lang think H bombs were good for?:

Some interesting answers

Reddit, Why DON'T you smoke weed? : AskReddit

I don't look around Reddit often, but I was Googling for some links about rats on cannabis (being inspired by the previous post about meth rats) when I found a link to this recent Reddit thread.

Given that Reddit is not exactly a forum where you are likely to get too many overly judgemental contributors, it was interesting to see how many readers complain about how cannabis has never agreed with them (usually due to it increasing anxiety, causing paranoia, and/or panic attacks) yet their smoking friends keep on trying to convince them to smoke their way through those problems.   Yes, that would be annoying.

This is the reason why I am always leery about the too simple comparison between cannabis and alcohol.  Cannabis seems to have a very sudden and strong unpleasant psychoactive effect on some people in a way that (as far as I am aware) is simply not comparable to the effect of a moderate consumption of alcohol.   (What's a fair comparison here?  I would guess at, say, two standard drinks in one hour as being somewhat akin to one mid strength joint?  Not that I know how much cannabis users typically use in one session:  just my guesswork here.)

It just seems to me a qualitatively different thing if it can have a paranoia increasing effect even in modest quantities; that sensation is never desired and indicates something serious going on in the brain in a way that I can't imagine is the same for anyone having a modest hit of alcohol.   Sure, some people get drunk quicker than others, but even then the sensation of moderate drunkenness per se is rarely distressing.  "Two pot screamers" are said to exist; I can't remember ever knowing one.

I know what many will say - the proportion of people who are very sensitive to distressing feelings from cannabis is small, and why punish the majority by criminalisation of something that most adults can handle and desire. 

All true, but don't come back to me with the "alcohol causes more harm across society" line.   That's an apple and oranges comparison that I've never found compelling.   Sure, on a population basis, the overuse of one drug may make it a societal problem; but if you want a fair comparison as between drugs, then the true test would be more like "what is a society with cannabis use as widespread and frequent as alcohol like, compared to one where alcohol is the only abused drug."    Both drugs are capable of abuse;  having one legal allows for the human desire to have mood altered pleasantly by a drug potentially dangerous and life damaging in overuse; having more than one potentially dangerous drug available for that purpose is indulgent.  (Very un-libertarian of me, but then libertarians with any brains are presumably conflicted about how far Russia should go in dealing with a chronic alcohol problem that clearly has economic effects on the entire country.  We each draw our lines in different places.)

As for the ultimate effect of the legal cannabis experiment in the US on a society scale - I still say we will have to wait many years to be sure of that. 

Certainly, countries known for their high cannabis use don't exactly seem to be the economic powerhouses you would want to emulate.  (Here's a story about Uruguay's legalisation experiment, by the way.)

In rat research news...

Researchers test meth-addicted rats in a rodent casino

It's kind of what you would expect, I suppose, but this is what they found:

Using a gambling test, we demonstrated that methamphetamine
(METH)-treated rats chose a high-risk/high-reward option more frequently
and assigned higher value to high returns than control rats, suggestive
of changes in decision-making choice strategy. 

Liking the Lollipop

The Samsung TabS I use got its software upgrade to Lollipop (Android 5.0.2) on the weekend.

I'm not a giant nerd about these matters, but I have to say, the new operating system seems to have sped up the way the tablet operates in a very pleasing way.

Not sure that I've learned to love the keyboard yet, but I think I'm starting to like that too.

I also finally got around to paying all of $4 to get PicSay Pro.  (I usually use the lite version to make the comic book speaking boxes in photos.)  It's a very comprehensive set of photo fiddling tools, and has very a high positive rating on Google Play which is well deserved.

The high attrition rate detailed

What Happens to Sperm Once They're Inside a Woman?

I didn't go looking for this post, honest.  But it does give an interesting explanation of the high attrition rate of sperm cells at each waypoint, so to speak, on the way to the egg.

Pompeii finally viewed

I mentioned recently that I had recorded but not watched Mary Beard's doco on Pompeii.  (I thought it was a short series, but it appears it was a single show.)

I watched it with my son last night, who was surprised to learn about all the sex and rude bits on open display around the town.

Anyway, it was really very good, and I see that it is on Youtube for viewing too.   Hope Mary, and the BBC, don't mind. 

Big wind, indeed

Wind power generates 140% of Denmark's electricity demand | Environment | The Guardian

Infrasound worrier David Leyonhjelm has taken to sarcastically calling the wind power industry "Big Wind".

I take it he saw this story.

True, Denmark has a population of only 5.6 million, and is particularly windy, but still, a modern industrial country getting all of its power that way seems surprising.

In a more general sense, I see that the country is aiming for half of its power from renewables by 2020 (and completely "green" in power by 2050.)

The other interesting wind power story is to do with South Australia, In fact, I see that the State is ambitious in targets too (although it is aiming to achieve this through a combination of solar and wind):

Interestingly, the South Australia government has already exceeded its target of generating 33 per cent of the state’s electricity needs from renewables (over a full year), and has now set a 50 per cent target by 2025. In reality, it will likely reach that mark well before that, particularly if the Ceres wind farm and the Hornsdale wind farm are built. It could even be the first mainland state towards 100 per cent renewables over the whole year.

Wind power is performing better than expected, it seems.

Yet more "we need babies" talk

Japan should re-examine the idea of marriage to help spur a baby boom | The Japan Times

Yet more talk here about the Japanese population decline and the need to be "creative" in finding ways to encourage reproduction.

I did learn something new about France along the way (I thought it was perhaps a bit more "traditional" than this, given it managed some decent sized protests about gay marriage):

For instance, one of the biggest social obstacles is the institution of
marriage, which sounds counterintuitive, since everywhere marriage is
considered a prerequisite for having children. But it doesn’t need to
be. France has one of the highest birthrates in the developed world, and
in 2006 the majority of new mothers there were not married.
In Japan, the birthrate for unmarried women is almost zero, because the
taboo against having children out of wedlock is effective.

Trump and the base

Republican Base and Donald Trump — WHINOS Are Frustrated and Choosing Foolishly | National Review Online

 Heh.  The apparent popularity of nutty Trump with the Republican "base" is upsetting some other Republicans. 

Premature praise

Grindr – The app that has become part of the sexual health solution | Croakey

Interesting report here of a study of the use of sexual health messaging on the Grindr app, which most people think has likely increased the amount of unsafe sex amongst men by making casual "hook ups" easier to organise.

The report seems to say that because a lot of people using the app did go to the site with more information, it was a success.

What it doesn't (and probably can't) deal with is the question of whether more men got tested as a result, or were dissuaded from their intended recreational sex, or were convinced to have the sex but only safe sex.   (And, I note, with syphilis in particular, which this campaign seems to have been about, safe sex means no unprotected oral, which one suspects is a particularly "hard sell" in the gay community.)

So, I wouldn't getting too full of praise for it being a "sexual health solution."

Nothing has changed

Some careless media reporting out there, taking its cue from a poorly drafted press release, about the prospects for a "mini ice age" sooner rather than later, which of course would be grabbed with glee by people who refuse to read widely on global warming.  (And by "reading widely" I mean read what science says, apart from a handful of do-nothing/denialists sciecntists.)

Here is the correction on the latest story (read the comments too), but it's pretty much what we have known for years - a new solar minimum will likely have small consequences for global warming, given the amount of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere over the last few hundred years.  But yes, it could mean some cold winters in parts of the world.

Sad to report the decline of Pixar

I think it's probably time to call it:  Pixar is past its prime and lately producing only passable entertainment that carries little in the way of its early quality.

This is prompted by seeing Inside Out yesterday, inspired as I was by high praise from critics, and despite a trailer which I thought indicated a not very funny or visually exciting film.

Guess what - it was the trailer that was right, not the critics.

I really don't understand their excitement.  The movie was more like an academic exercise to build a story around a psychology book.  So there were ideas there, just not very interesting ones; characters on screen who were hard to identify with (most the characters are the "inside your head" emotions, anyway - they aren't meant to be nuanced) and a visual style that was unexciting and uninnovative.

It was not a bad film per se, just a very forgettable and not very engaging one.  (I actually think Brave was positively bad, so its certainly possible for Pixar to have a complete dud, in my books.) 

As for the big picture at Pixar, the last one I quite liked was Toy Story 3, and that was in 2010.  I have never bothered with Cars2, given that I thought the first was dull and childish; and Monsters University was underwhelming.

Now, part of the problem is how often they are re-visiting the old stories, and it's a bit distressing to see there are probably 4 sequels in their current production line up.  But Brave and Inside Out show they are fizzing on "stand alone" stories too.

Their highlight films for me remain the original Toy Story, Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille, with A Bug's Life deserving an entry too.  Brad Bird is the pick of their directors, but he hasn't made enough yet to really see how consistent he can be.
 

Rising Inequality and its apologists

There's a good and enlightening review from last month at The Economist about another book on inequality, this one by British economist Anthony Atkinson.

We get to see this chart:

and these bits of explanatory comment:

Inequality across rich countries was high before the two world wars of the 20th century. It fell to striking lows after 1945 and then began growing again around 1980 (see chart). Rising income inequality is a feature of most rich countries, especially America and Britain, and parts of the emerging world, including China. Sir Anthony is not interested in outlining any fundamental economic rules. Instead he carefully walks the reader through the ways that different forces have pushed incomes apart historically.

In America, for instance, incomes at the top of the scale began pulling away from the rest quite soon after 1945. Yet household inequality—taking account of taxes and transfers—did not rise until what Mr Atkinson calls the “Inequality Turn” around 1980. Several factors contributed to this, including changes for women and work. After the second world war, when female labour-force participation grew rapidly, high-earning men tended to marry low-earning women; the rising numbers of working women reduced household inequality. From the 1980s on, by contrast, men and women tended to marry those who earned like themselves—rich paired with rich; rising female participation in the workforce exacerbated inequality.

This line from the review:

Sir Anthony dwells on one class of contributory factors above all others: the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways the rich are able to influence government policy in order to protect their wealth.

 put me in mind of some commentators in Australia.  Who could they be*?:

Anyhow, The Economist reviewer is critical of many of Atkinson's suggestions as to reigning in inequality, basically saying they are unwelcome throwback to the 1960's and 1970's.   And to be fair, the criticisms on some points ring true.

But overall the review obviously considers the book an important contribution to an important issue. What irks me most is the effort those in the ABC** collective put into arguing there is no issue at all.

* words in their mouths are mine, but as far as I can tell, represent their positions with only mild exaggeration, if at all in some cases

(** the Australian, Bolt, Catallaxy)

A troubled life

Literary Review - Donald Rayfield on Stalin's Daughter

Well, amongst the many things I didn't know much about until now was the turbulent life of Svetlana Alliluyena, Stalin's daughter.  She defected from Russia in 1967.  This paragraph  from a review of a new biography gives some details of her, shall we say with understatement, troubled life:

Svetlana emerges as a remarkable, largely generous, sometimes heroic
figure. Whatever she inherited from her pathologically cruel and
vindictive father and from her neurotic, suicidal mother she did her
best to overcome (her brother, Vasili, succumbed and destroyed himself
with drink and sex; her half-brother, Yakov, who grew up fostered in
Georgia and did not meet his father until he was a teenager, was
captured by Germany during the Second World War and effectively
committed suicide by provoking his German captors to shoot him).
Svetlana's childhood and youth were as traumatic as any of Euripides's
tragedies: her mother shot herself when she was six; Stalin had nearly
all the maternal aunts, uncles and cousins of his children arrested and,
in many cases, shot. Svetlana's first love was badly beaten and sent to
the Gulag; her first husband was erased from her passport after they
divorced; her second husband was the withdrawn son of one of Stalin's
cronies. She barely saw her father after she ceased to be a living doll
that he could play with: her most searing memory is of Stalin in his
death throes on the floor, soaked in urine, threatening her with a
raised left hand. Yet after his death she negotiated a career for
herself and refused to be a mascot for the party or for anyone else. In
the prestigious Gorky Literary Institute she stood up for the first
dissident writers to fall victim to the Brezhnev regime. She dared to
live openly as Singh's partner.

She did not have a particularly good time after her defection, either, but you can read the review to see what went wrong.

A tad misleading by the publisher?

Maybe I just hadn't bothered to read up on it, but I hadn't realised until now where this new Harper Lee book stood in relation to Mockingbird:

Though “Watchman” is being published for the first time now, it was essentially an early version of “Mockingbird.” According to news accounts, “Watchman” was submitted to publishers in the summer of 1957; after her editor asked for a rewrite focusing on Scout’s girlhood two decades earlier, Ms. Lee spent some two years reworking the story, which became “Mockingbird.”

So, although it is set ahead of the first book, it's a bit like a first draft of the famous one.

I wonder how many people ordered the book on the basis that it was a sequel written after the first?  Because coming to the book on the basis of how it was really written may well lower ridiculously high expectations.

The Guardian did have a lovely graphic/audio accompaniment to the first chapter, though.  (Actually, I don't care for the audio.  It quickly becomes tedious.)