More from Sinclair Davidson's nut haven

Just when I thought that scenes of (presumably) religious Catholic Parisians walking through the streets singing hymns and lamenting the damage to Notre Dame may have given the conservatives of Catallaxy some heart, I read ageing prat "Percy Popinjay":

The French are quite possibly the most vile people to have existed in human history. Never, ever forget that.

People really need to be more careful with social media

Look at this:  a Democrat (!) politician makes a tweet about something a friend in Paris claims he heard, quickly deletes it, but it's too late. Already it is grabbed by Infowars and nut sites and a key part of a Notre Dame "truther" conspiracy.

Have you ever seen a more intense desire by those on the nutty Right to discover an incident was Islamic terrorism?  

I blame Donald Trump

An unusual topic gets a run in Nature news:

The number of children in the United States who swallowed coins, toys and other small objects nearly doubled between 1995 and 2015, an analysis shows. Some of these objects can cause serious harm when ingested, and possibly even death.

In 1995, an estimated 22,000 children under the age of six visited hospital emergency departments across the country after swallowing items such as marbles, buttons or rings. In 2015, the number had risen to about 43,000, an average annual increase of 4.4% over the two decades. Researchers published their analysis¹ on 12 April in Pediatrics....

Coins were by far the most common type of object swallowed (62%), followed by toys, jewellery and batteries. And between 1995 and 2015, there was a 60-fold increase in the proportion of children ingesting batteries, from 0.14% to 8.4% (see ‘Small objects’). Button batteries — used in watches, remote controls and electronic toys — were the most common type swallowed. These small, flat objects can damage or even puncture the walls of the oesophagus if they become stuck.

Yeah, the cases of kids dying from a swallowed coin battery can be really tragic.  

Cult member in state of panic

Steve Kates seems to have missed the news that the Cathedral is not entirely lost:

Kates, surely Australia's leading academic member of the Cult of Trump, is (like all of the conservative and alt. Right) in a constant froth that All of the Great and Glorious Western Civilisation is About to Collapse.   I am sure if I bother looking back that he was in a huge panic that Islamic State was going to sweep in from the East and be burning down the Vatican within mere years.   (He's not even, as far as I can tell, particularly religious.  A lot of the nutty Right seems to be like that - ex practising Christians who nonetheless think the Christianity is crucial to the ongoing moral and financial health of the globe.)

I see that even one regular at Catallaxy gives Kates a "pull yourself together" slap in the face:

Nice sarcasm!

Count me as amused

Notre Dame and my slidebox

I visited Notre Dame in about 1986, and was very impressed.   On the same trip, I had found the cathedrals of England too light inside to give any great sense of age, and their role felt more as  architectural tourist destination than living place of worship.   But Notre Dame was darker, had the haze of incense in the yellowish light, and held masses which gave a real sense of reverence.   Its atmosphere was distinctly medieval, or how I felt medieval should be, at least.  

I must have some photos of it in the slide box.  I do have a slide scanner that I haven't used for many, many years, and probably gives a much lower quality than what you can get now. 

Still, this gives me motivation to scan some and see what I can "save".  

Meanwhile, I see that its partial destruction is like catnip to alt.right conspiracy theorists.   I'll link to stuff later.

And finally, if ever there is a company which ought to contribute to its reconstruction, it would be Disney.  It is planning a live action version of Hunchback of Notre Dame, and almost certainly it would have been a complete CGI creation anyway.   The company should make the movie and donate all profit to the re-construction.   Given that could easily be several hundred million dollars, it should go a long way towards the task.

Everything you needed to know about medieval parasites

AEON has a fairly long essay up on the above topic, full of interesting details, some of which I have not heard before.  Like this bit about a perceived Jewish custom:

At the same time, the filthiness of medieval people should not be exaggerated. Much evidence shows that personal hygiene mattered to medieval people, that they made an effort to keep clean. Popular advice books recommended washing the hands, face and teeth on rising, plus further handwashing throughout the day. Other body parts were washed less frequently: daily washing of the genitals, for example, was believed to be a Jewish custom, and thus viewed with suspicion by the non-Jewish population.

Hmm.  I would have thought that having smelly genitals might have given medieval folk a clue that the Jews were onto something there (whether or not they really did it); but no, apparently not.

The article spends a lot of time noting how perceptions that parasites just arose spontaneously out of the body meant that people didn't hold any hope of preventing them:  they had no idea that they are "caught":

Children were thought to be particularly vulnerable to intestinal parasites because they were naturally warm and wet. Mothers were advised not to give under-sevens too many phlegmatic and viscous foods, such as fruit and oily fish. Convention held that these types of food impeded digestion and unbalanced infant humours, leaving them vulnerable to worms. The susceptibility of adults also depended on diet, among other things. According to Bernard of Gordon, professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier from 1285, gluttons were particularly prone to worms. When the barber of Thomas Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford, asked another servant why their master had so many lice, he replied that ‘it happened naturally to some men more than others’.

They would try to remove them, though, with some herbal ideas, and others more dangerous.  (A head lice treatment with mercury in it, for example.   I wonder - is it just the shiny, interesting attractiveness of that element that led people to believe it was good for all that ails us?  It has surely caused a great deal of human suffering over the centuries.)

The final section explains how the one part of society that embraced lice and parasites was the clergy, viewing suffering from them as a sign of ascetic devotion to God:

The most devout Christians not only thought about parasites, but also embraced them as part of their daily lives. Numerous doctors remarked on the clergy’s susceptibility to parasites, including John of Gaddesden, to whom it was clear that the religious were prone to lice because of their lack of grooming. Bernard of Gordon blamed their consumption of phlegmatic and melancholic foods. Medieval literature is scattered with examples of monks and nuns who are troubled by lice. In the 12th-century verse Planctus monialis, a young nun complains about the hardships of her life, and begs a young man to sleep with her. Among her problems were the unhygienic conditions in which she was forced to live: ‘The shift I wear is grim, the underwear unfresh, made of coarse thread … there’s a stench of filth in my delicate hair, and I put up with the lice that scratch my skin.’....

Throughout the middle ages, holy men and women ignored conventional hygiene, and consequently suffered. Laurence of Subiaco, a 13th-century hermit, wore a coat of chainmail that continually ripped his flesh and was ‘full of lice’, while St Margaret of Hungary (a Dominican nun of royal birth) refused to wash her hair so that she would be tormented by lice. The 14th-century Dominican mystic Henry de Suso wore a hairshirt and was often ‘tortured by vermin’; eventually, he took to wearing leather gloves with sharp tacks sticking outwards, so that if he tried to scratch at his bites in his sleep he would claw at his flesh. Even rich and powerful churchmen might embrace this form of suffering, concealing their penitential garments (and the creatures that lived in them) under their splendid vestments. After Thomas Becket was murdered in his cathedral, the monks who prepared his body for burial discovered that he wore hair undergarments, and

This goat hair underwear was swarming, inside and out, with minute fleas and lice, masses of them all over in large patches, so voraciously attacking his flesh that it was nothing short of a miracle that he was able to tolerate such punishment.

The monks interpreted these vermin as a form of martyrdom. During the canonisation inquiry for Thomas Cantilupe, his servants reported that his bedding and clothing were full of lice. One claimed that there were whole handfuls of them. Another said that he had never seen so many lice, either on paupers or on the rich.

I think I had read that about Thomas Becket before (maybe posted about it?), but I didn't know that more generally, the devout held that ignoring lice and other parasites was a good thing to show their holiness.

The 21st century is a pretty good place to be.

The continuing threat (Update: yay, threat gone)

Good to see that David Leyonhjelm, despite having a very high profile maintained by saying immature, attention seeking things in the Senate and on social media, could not manage to get voted into the NSW Legislative Council.   He had, incidently, already declared victory (snort): 

Mr Leyonhjelm prematurely declared himself elected just three days after election day when, with just six per cent of the upper house vote counted, he appeared to be a front runner.

I read somewhere that he could still run for the Senate, though, at this election.  He has time to nominate.

Not only his immaturity annoys me - his doctrinaire libertarianism reminds me of that scene in Hitchhiker's Guide where Zaphod speculates that if you replaced Arthur's brain with a simple electronic one that asks for a cup of tea, no one would notice....

Update:  this statement by Leyonhjelm indicates he is out of politics for good.   It appears that (not for the first time, I think) he can't get on with other people in his own party.  I'm not at all surprised.  

Good riddance, I say.   If you want to remember how many times he has annoyed or appalled me, search his name in my blog search tool. 

Weekend in suburbia, update

* Saw Captain Marvel. Pretty much what I expected - quite OK, but a bit Marvel movie bland.  I said to my son that the visual look of outer space fights in Marvel movies looks too generic now - too many mini spaceships making too much movement.  The screen is way too busy for my liking.   It was particularly a problem for me in Guardians of the Galaxy 2.   (I guess it happened in the first Guardians too, but I was more forgiving because of the novelty.)    Anyway, I thought Aquaman was a bit more enjoyable than Captain Marvel, due to its visual novelty.  Of course, I am very curious as to the reception Avengers Endgame gets.  A three hour run time is a bit of a danger sign for bloat, I think.   Still, it is a sure thing to make a billion dollars in short time, probably regardless of reviews.

*  Cooking.

Had half a roast chicken left, and wanted to try something new to use it up.

Came up with chicken tamale pie - almost like a Mexican pizza on a cornbread base.  (Some versions have the cornbread on top, like a real pie.  But I like things that are cooked in one skillet, and brought to the table to cut. I wouldn't know which version came first.)  Not sure how Mexican it really is (I suspect it's more a Tex Mex sorta thing), but it came out pretty good:

I have to record the recipe here, because I used a combination of two online recipes:

Cornbread base:

One cup of polenta
One cup plain flour
3 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar (I used 1 1/2 and it was quite sweet.  I think a bit less might be right.)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk (some say better to use buttermilk, but I used about 3/4 cup of normal milk and the rest was sour cream)
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
Canned corn kernels.  Not the big size can, not the little size.  The in between size.  (OK, I checked:  300 g can.)

Sift flour, baking soda and salt.  Add polenta and everything else and mix.  Spread batter across oven proof skillet (spray some oil on first).  Bake at 200 C for about 30 minutes.  Top will be light brown.  It doesn't rise much, but that's OK.

Topping:

2 cups of roast chicken
a large Onion
two garlic cloves
Capsicum (or whatever you think goes with Mexican I guess)
Half a can of black beans
1 tablespoon or a bit more of taco seasoning
Chili powder and a bit of salt to taste
a cup or so of Enchilada sauce (although you could use salsa or anything really)

You probably get the idea:  fry the onion and capsicum, and garlic, add chicken and everything else, but keep some of the sauce for the cornbread.

Spread some sauce on top of the cornbread, and then the rest of the topping.  Sprinkle cheese on top and put under griller to melt.  Add sour cream and coriander on top before serving.

Dream noted

It's annoying when the alarm wakes you from a dream you're curious to see played out.

This morning, I was with the family at a theme park sort of place - a bit Disneyland, and rather like EPCOT, now that I think of it - and we were inside listening to someone giving an illustrated talk from a podium about the monument city found on the Moon by the Apollo program, and its subsequent excavation.  There were photos, and everyone was listening as if this was something unremarkable - as if it was something that had really happened.

I said to one of my kids something like "I'm not sure, but I think somewhere here today, we've moved into an alternative timeline universe."   I then had the foresight to ask a woman nearby what year it was.  She answered "1975", and I felt vindicated in my surmise.

Then the alarm went off.

Delmar does Socrates

Gosh.  Tim Blake Nelson first came to my attention with his terrific comedic acting as Delmar in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, but I see from the New Yorker that he's no dimwit in real life.  He's written (and is directing) a 2 1/2 talky play about Socrates. (!)

Hoping it's real

I find this guy pretty funny and likeable.   I kind of hope he makes it to the Senate. 

A bit Romeo and Juliet, with chicken

I've fallen out of the habit of checking on the Times of India for some of the oddest crime and legal reporting to be found on the planet. I'll skip linking to the husband jailed for 10 years for unnatural sex story (it is icky), but this one is pretty oddball, while admittedly tragic:

Couple commit suicide after argument over non-veg dinner during Navratvas

Some details:

According to police, on Tuesday evening, the man came home inebriated and asked his wife to cook chicken for him, but when she refused, he entered the kitchen and started cooking chicken himself. An argument ensued between them and the wife consumed poison. Later, the husband realised his mistake and he, too, ended his life by consuming poison....

According to their daughter, her mother used to keep fast throughout Navratras, and she got hurt when her father forcefully tried to cook chicken in the kitchen.

I've just found that the Times website makes cutting and pasting from their stories extraordinarily difficult.  So it's probably not a habit I'll get into again in a big way.

Update.  Ugh:  it's still a nation where the idea of human sacrifice has a hold in some quarters (allegedly!):

 The poor kid's decapitated body was found in a pond in the village, indicating that tantric magic practitioners aren't exactly criminal masterminds.

When too much Game of Thrones is... too much Game of Thrones

Hey, Media:  did it ever occur to you that there are probably quite a lot of people who have never watched an episode of GOT, and have no interest in the show whatsoever?

You can stop talking about it now, OK?

Update:  that said, I did laugh at the recent GOT jokes (there's more than one) on a Colbert "Meanwhile" segment:

 

In Queensland legal news

A paranormal investigator who abused Virgin airline workers over the phone has avoided jail because of his excessive weight.

He sounds an absolute nutter from way back:

The court was told Jones, who refused to identify himself on the calls, threatened staff with legal action, made racial slurs and refused to believe he was talking to someone based in Brisbane.

“Ma’am, don’t tell me in that Filipino lingo of yours, the thing is, let me tell you what the thing is, I’ve got my legal team here, I’ve got the police on the way,” Jones told customer service staff, the court heard.

“So you may need to get off that little Filipino backside of yours and you may want to get onto your Australian head office.

“And they want to go into crash control because voice recordings of you and your Filipino staff abusing me and swearing at me are about to be handed to the Australian Federal Police.”

The court was told Jones had already been placed on a watch list with the airline, which banned him from flying with them in 2010 after he made a number of calls to the company.

Jones also had been convicted of similar offences on three other occasions dating back to 1998.

During those incidents he told public servants they were “going to hell” and threatened to “break kneecaps”.
In his sentencing submissions, Jones’s barrister Rob Glenday said prison would be too difficult for his client due to his complicated obesity.

 Good to know the world of paranormal investigation attracts such well adjusted people!

Yet more "humans live in the stupidest places"

I was pretty blown away by watching World From Above on SBS on the weekend - the one about Algeria.  Some of the desert scenery was very spectacular:  reminded me a lot of some of surreal imagery of sand dunes in The English Patient which can look like a special effect, until you realise they're not.

I didn't realise how large, intricately built (and isolated, of course) some of the oasis based towns in the middle of the desert could be.   There was also this astonishing city, which I have noted before. 

But, as usual, I am always saying to myself - why the heck did anyone ever decide these were good enough places to stay put in?  Why not move out of the desert and closer to the coast?

It's on SBS on Demand, if you live in Australia.

Wealth and (un)happiness

1.  Is this a recent photo of James Packer?:

It might just be the angle, but it makes him look (with that thick neck) a tad Neanderthal.

OK, I'm being mean and don't really know what his character is like - and he has had an unhappy love life and a bit of a difficult upbringing with a high pressure Dad. [Update:  I may be understating with "a bit".   I had also forgotten treatment for depression last year, quite likely continuing, I would guess.  Do anti-depressants cause weight gain? - yes in about 25% of people taking them, the Web tells me.]    He sure does not look like a happy man, and you suspect if he could have chosen a different, quieter path through life, he would have.

2.   I didn't get to read all of the NYT recent feature length look at Rupert Murdoch and his family, but did reach the point where the dysfunctional family had counselling sessions:

As friends of the Murdochs liked to say, Murdoch didn’t raise children; he raised future media moguls. It had made for fraught family dynamics, with competing ambitions and ever-shifting alliances. Murdoch was largely responsible for this state of affairs: He had long avoided naming one of his children as his successor, deferring an announcement that might create still more friction within his family, not to mention bringing into focus his own mortality. Instead, Murdoch tried to manage the tensions, arranging for group therapy with his children and their spouses with a counselor in London who specialized in working with dynastic families.

I'm waiting for the movie "A Very Murdoch Thanksgiving".  

Quick answers to headlines

*  Can a President be Too Old, asks the Washington Post.

Answer:   Yes, obviously.  Like, duh.  For God's sake Democrats, pick someone under 60.

*  Queerbaiting - exploitation or a sign of progress?  asks the BBC.

Answer:  Neither:  it's a sign of the stupid modern obsessive interest in labelling sexuality as part of identity politics.  Go write about something worthwhile.

* I’m an attractive, heterosexual woman who wants no-strings-attached sex. Where do I find non-creeps for that? (From Slate's routinely awful sex and relationship advice column.)

Answer:  No where.  You've already worked it out, why are you bothering asking?

*  Who does homework work for?   (A letter to The Atlantic).

Answer:  what?  Obviously, the person who came up with that headline needed to do more of it.  (Homework, of course.) 

Lovely people

Latest in the "you do know you are admitting to being an unpleasant, uncivil jerk, don't you?", Cassie of Sydney who comments at Catallaxy:

I actually DO stuff. I have confronted ALP hacks in the street…..to the point where the most recent ALP candidate for Wentworth in September and October would run a mile when he saw me walking on Oxford Street. What an effing scaredy cat. I verbally confronted that slag Phelps at the polling booth about her support from GetUp and the fact that she was the biggest phoney around…..she didn’t take too kindly to that confrontation and I could see the colour fade from her face. I do my bit! I am NOT some little pussy cat who tiptoes around people or issues. 

Thanks, Sinclair, for providing a safe place for uncivil jerks of the Right to out themselves.   It's a real public service you provide.

Now, be a good Professor and out your own clear views on climate change in light of recent year's temperatures, and what government policy should be?  

Update:  today, the perfectly stable Cassie has come down feeling ill: