I mentioned my ever-so-slowly-compiling Rules for Life previously today, and TimT seems to have been missing them. (My readers really are inattentive at times!) Anyway, it did remind me that I had not added the important one about witchcraft. So the update:
1. Always carry a clean, ironed handkerchief in your pocket. Always.
2. Never buy into timeshare apartments or holiday schemes.
3. If you have a choice, buy the washing machine with a 15 minute "fast wash" option.
4. Always buy reverseable belts. (You know, usually black on one side and brown on the other.)
5. The best souvenir when on a good holiday is a distinctive cup or
mug, which is to be used semi-regularly on your return.
6. If an activity hurts a lot and causes inflammation - stop doing it. Permanently, if it keeps hurting.
7. If a potential boyfriend or girlfriend says, with intended irony,
that they know that they can be a bit of a creep (or difficult) at times - don't
believe the irony. Just don't get into a relationship of any kind with
them.
and the new one I remembered today:
8. Do not take holidays in countries where witchcraft or sorcery is still an offence on the books. It basically means you can be arrested for looking the wrong way at someone.
I'll have enough for a book any year now...
Update: I think this one should be added, too:
9. If you like mashed potato, buy and use a potato ricer. No - just do it. The uniformly smooth results for every future batch of mash will give you pleasure for the rest of your life.
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Misogynists upset with Coalition
Sinclair Davidson has an unsubtle view of politics in which he thinks the winning party should crush all Opposition under its heal and never concede to it on anything. He was, for example, probably the only academic in the land who thought the asinine and highly partisan Bronwyn Bishop was a good Speaker in the House under the Abbott government: a truly eye roll inducing attitude for an educated observer of Parliament at the time.
So, naturally, he is upset with this (somewhat surprisingly uniform, but pleasing) vote yesterday:
Seriously, a bunch of people who routinely speculate that the downfall of the West began with women getting the vote (I'd like to know how often they say this in front of their wives - those of them that have or still retain wives) should take a hard look at their own attitudes and realise why they are ignored by the politicians they vote for.
I bet Arndt is smarting over this, too. If only she could be "driven too far" to drop out of public commentary and culture warring.
So, naturally, he is upset with this (somewhat surprisingly uniform, but pleasing) vote yesterday:
The Coalition government has supported Labor’s motion in the Senate to call for men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt to be stripped of her Order of Australia award over her comments on last week’s horrendous murder-suicide in Brisbane.And look at the misogynist commenters agreeing how "disgraceful" this vote was.
The successful motion puts more pressure on the Council for the Order of Australia to remove the AM Arndt received in the Australia Day honours.
The Senate motion was carried 55-2, with only One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts voting against it.
It said Arndt’s comments “are reckless and abhorrent”.
“The values that underpin Ms. Arndt’s views on this horrific family violence incident are not consistent with her retaining her Order of Australia,” it said.
Seriously, a bunch of people who routinely speculate that the downfall of the West began with women getting the vote (I'd like to know how often they say this in front of their wives - those of them that have or still retain wives) should take a hard look at their own attitudes and realise why they are ignored by the politicians they vote for.
I bet Arndt is smarting over this, too. If only she could be "driven too far" to drop out of public commentary and culture warring.
Another important woman in science I'm only just hearing about...
At Nature, a review of a biography about a woman astronomer (Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin) who was big in her field, but not famous in the public mind:
It doesn't sound like she was very likeable at a personal level, though:
In 1925, Payne was the first person to be awarded a PhD in astronomy at Radcliffe College, at the time the women’s branch of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her thesis on stellar atmospheres is her greatest contribution: she related the line patterns in the observed spectra of stars to their physical conditions. She also discovered that hydrogen is the main component of stars, followed by helium. Her discoveries and expertise were eventually recognized with prizes and honours, culminating in a life-achievement lectureship from the American Astronomical Society.
The brilliance of Payne’s thesis was acknowledged by the most prominent US astronomers of the early twentieth century: her supervisor, Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard College Observatory; and Henry Norris Russell at Princeton University in New Jersey. But both disagreed that hydrogen is the main component of stars. She based her theory on painstaking analysis of the large cache of stellar spectra in the Harvard collection. It was informed by the predictions of Indian physicist Meghnad Saha’s theory of ionization, which relates the observed spectrum of a stellar atmosphere (assuming it is a gas in thermal equilibrium) to its temperature, pressure and composition.
Her conclusion went against a view widely espoused by prominent astronomers, including Arthur Eddington: that stars are made up of essentially the same elements as Earth (silicon, carbon, iron and so on). In response to this criticism, and because she was anxious to get her results published, Payne downplayed her finding as a possible error. Russell was later credited with the discovery, having reached the same result by different means. Payne’s role stayed hidden from the wider scientific consciousness for several decades.
It doesn't sound like she was very likeable at a personal level, though:
I met Payne in the mid-1970s. I remember her as a stern, chain-smoking presence stalking the halls of the observatory: she scolded me for being late for a meeting (recently arrived from Italy, I regarded being precisely on time as impolite). After reading Moore’s well-researched book, I realized that she was a complex figure with whom I can empathize despite being two generations younger and from a different background. A committed scientist and mentor to a new generation, she successfully juggled career and family with a love of the arts and world travel.I expect Graeme (who has argued, from God's knows what line of reasoning, that planets grow up to be stars, to argue in comments that Arthur Eddington was right all along.)
Her autobiography (published privately as The Dyer’s Hand in 1979, and publicly as Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin in 1984), is worth a read for its personal view of her multifaceted life and her interaction with observatory colleagues, including the female ‘computers’ who processed astronomical data. I also recommend for its immediacy her 1968 interview for the American Institute of Physics oral-history programme, conducted by Harvard astronomer and historian Owen Gingerich (see go.nature.com/37nm0vr). It captures her essential briskness and rare ability to talk in complex and nuanced sentences.
Some observations
* Last night's Foreign Correspondent, about Saudi Arabia's attempt to open up to foreign (well, Western) tourism actually showed the place to be of much more archaeological and geographic interest than I realised. (Call me ignorant, but I didn't expect some of the mountain-y bits in the country. I usually just imagine it as all sand dunes with a handful of cities.) I still don't want to go there, though. It's one of my Rules of Life: do not holiday in countries where you can be charged with witchcraft.
* I really think American pundits spend too much time trying to analyse the potential performance of Presidential candidates. Polling is difficult in the country, with their voluntary voting and weird system of voter registration into categories that people may not follow on the day anyway; international and domestic events are quite unpredictable; and with any luck it would be Trump, who appears to get no sleep anymore and slurs regularly at rallies and speeches, who might have a health crisis before November. Hence I am cynical about this study, indicating that Sanders can only do win if he gets a surge of new young voters, and the way people like David Roberts are already certain that with Sanders, who they don't mind, is still bound to lose.
* That Malaysian king seems pretty considerate, for a king:
By the way, Jason - do you follow that Erin Cook on Twitter? She seems to combine smart, informed, on the ground commentary on South East Asia together with a fragile personal life in which she is always broke and emotionally just scrapping through.
* Oh, and here is some analysis of what is going on in Malaysia at CNA. It includes this bit:
* I really think American pundits spend too much time trying to analyse the potential performance of Presidential candidates. Polling is difficult in the country, with their voluntary voting and weird system of voter registration into categories that people may not follow on the day anyway; international and domestic events are quite unpredictable; and with any luck it would be Trump, who appears to get no sleep anymore and slurs regularly at rallies and speeches, who might have a health crisis before November. Hence I am cynical about this study, indicating that Sanders can only do win if he gets a surge of new young voters, and the way people like David Roberts are already certain that with Sanders, who they don't mind, is still bound to lose.
* That Malaysian king seems pretty considerate, for a king:
* Oh, and here is some analysis of what is going on in Malaysia at CNA. It includes this bit:
Professor James Chin, director of the Asia Institute Tasmania at the University of Tasmania, told CNA that Dr Mahathir’s decision to resign on Monday was purely tactical as he never wanted to hand over the baton to PKR’s president Anwar Ibrahim.
He said Dr Mahathir had agreed to the PH succession pact to hand over the premiership to Mr Anwar before the May 2018 polls because he needed the help of PKR, Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) to overthrow former prime minister Najib Razak and his Barisan Nasional coalition.
“Prior to the election, everybody got together because everybody wanted to get rid of Najib. You can’t really hold them to what they agreed on before the election because back in 2018, it was widely understood that Najib had damaged Malaysia because of the 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad) corruption case,” he said.
Prof Chin said the bitter history between Dr Mahathir and Mr Anwar suggested that the succession would never have happened between them.
“The general consensus in Kuala Lumpur is that Anwar will not be prime minister this year or next year and will probably miss his chance to be prime minister in the future as well.
“As long as Mahathir is in charge, he will try to hand over the prime minister position to somebody else,” said Prof Chin.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
More reason to admire Singapore
CNA may be the Singaporean government's PR outlet, but I still say that watching it always shows that there is much to admire in the whole technocratic/economic interventionalist/social-engineering-for-multicultural-harmony approach of the Singaporean government. As I have said before, watch any Singaporean government (or even corporate) spokesperson or minister on CNA, and you can't help but be impressed with their apparent intelligence, reasonableness and the general tone of optimism.
The latest example: Singapore tourism is taking a hit already due to the COVID-19 problem, so the government has offered to increase payments for tourism workers to get training while their sector suffers. Don't just lay them off, they are telling hotels, etc, but we pay for them getting additional or other training during this down time. You can view the CNA video version of the story here.
For those who want more detail, and get a feeling of sad longing for the way the city state manages to show the way government should be, more details are here:
The latest example: Singapore tourism is taking a hit already due to the COVID-19 problem, so the government has offered to increase payments for tourism workers to get training while their sector suffers. Don't just lay them off, they are telling hotels, etc, but we pay for them getting additional or other training during this down time. You can view the CNA video version of the story here.
For those who want more detail, and get a feeling of sad longing for the way the city state manages to show the way government should be, more details are here:
To help mitigate the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) and Workforce Singapore (WSG), together with the Singapore Hotel Association (SHA) and the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union (FDAWU), have jointly announced various support measures for the tourism sector.Gah. That sounds such a reasonable thing to do. And supported by government, unions and business. I know that a tiny city state may find it easier to quickly come up with such proposals - they don't have to run it across a bunch of States like in Australia - but still, I find it impressive.
As part of the Stabilisation and Support Package announced by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat on 18 Feb during the Budget 2020 statement, these measures were introduced today by Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Manpower, and Mr Chee Hong Tat, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Education, during a learning journey to Copthorne King’s Singapore. At the event, SHA and FDAWU had also signed an MOU to commit to working together to save jobs, build confidence and deepen capabilities of employees to prepare for recovery and growth. The MOU was facilitated by STB.
Such ground-up efforts and commitment from the employers and the union, together with the support measures rolled out by the various government agencies, make up the latest wave of relief measures to minimise potential retrenchment, upskill workers and redesign jobs to prepare the sector for when business demand returns. Businesses will also continue to receive support in defraying the costs involved in business transformation and job redesign, such as the Hotel Job Redesign Initiative and the Lean Enterprise Development Scheme.
Encouraging tourism sector to leverage downtime to reskill and upskill
To provide tourism companies with more support to upgrade the capabilities of their workers, STB will be enhancing the Training Industry Professionals in Tourism (TIP-iT) fund to fund up to 90% of training course fees and trainer fees, up from the previous cap of 50%. In addition, funding for absentee payroll will be increased from $4.50/hour to 90% of the worker’s hourly basic salary, capped at $10/hour.
In support of STB’s measures, SSG will also be providing time-limited, enhanced training support for the tourism sector. Employers in the tourism sector who send their workers for selected sector-specific training programmes in the next three months will receive: (i) enhanced Absentee Payroll (AP) support at 90% of hourly basic salary capped at $10 per hour, and (ii) enhanced course fee support at 90% of course fees. SSG will work through appointed training partners to ramp up training capacity for such programmes. Training programmes will include courses in digital marketing and SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace programmes.
Some thoughts on COVID-19
* COVID-19: I have said very little about it, because I guessed there was a good chance that it would be SARS-like in its limited expansion. Now that this seems a wrong guess, how dangerous is it compared to other famous pandemics?:
* I feel very sorry for Japan and its Olympic organisers, and every person working for a business that has made specific plans assuming the event proceeds.
* Of course, the oddball nation of South Korea would have a specific issue related to its propensity for cultish, nutty religions:
Fourteen percent of confirmed cases have been “severe,” involving serious pneumonia and shortness of breath. Another 5 percent of patients confirmed to have the disease developed respiratory failure, septic shock, and/or multi-organ failure—what the agency calls “critical cases” potentially resulting in death. Roughly 2.3 percent of confirmed cases did result in death. ....OK, I don't want to risk getting it, but still, this doesn't sound like it carries the same sort of demographic and economic issues as the Spanish flu.
The latest data from China stem from an analysis of nearly 45,000 confirmed cases, and on the whole suggest that the people most likely to develop severe forms of COVID-19 are those with pre-existing illnesses and the elderly.
While less than 1 percent of people who were otherwise healthy died from the disease, the fatality rate for people with cardiovascular disease was 10.5 percent. That figure was 7.3 percent for diabetes patients and around 6 percent for those with chronic respiratory disease, hypertension, or cancer.
While overall, 2.3 percent of known cases proved fatal—which many experts say is likely an overestimate of the mortality rate, given that many mild cases might go undiagnosed—patients 80 years or older were most at risk, with 14.8 percent of them dying. Deaths occurred in every age group except in children under the age of nine, and, generally speaking, “we see relatively few cases among children,” World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week.
This pattern of increasing severity with age differs from that of some other viral outbreaks, notably the 1918 flu pandemic, for which mortality was high in young children and in people between 20 and 40 years of age. However, it’s broadly consistent with records of the SARS and MERS coronavirus outbreaks, notes Lisa Gralinski, a virologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “If you’re over fifty or sixty and you have some other health issues and if you’re unlucky enough to be exposed to this virus, it could be very bad,” she says.
* I feel very sorry for Japan and its Olympic organisers, and every person working for a business that has made specific plans assuming the event proceeds.
* Of course, the oddball nation of South Korea would have a specific issue related to its propensity for cultish, nutty religions:
Health authorities are also focusing resources on the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, founded in 1984 by charismatic pastor Lee Man-hee, whose followers, estimated at up to 240,000 worldwide, believe he is the messiah. Shincheonji is Korean for "new heaven and earth." Its critics say it's a cult.
Authorities are not sure how the disease was first transmitted to the group, but investigators have been looking into it. More than 9,000 Shincheonji members have been put under quarantine, and the government plans to test all of them for the virus.
Critics say the disease may have spread within the church quickly because of the way that it worships. "Shincheonji followers hold services sitting on the floor, without any chairs," packed together "like bean sprouts," says Shin Hyun-uk, director of the Guri Cult Counseling Center, an organization in Gyeonggi province that works to extract members from the church. Shin was a member of the Shincheonji group for 20 years, managing the church's Bible study instructors, until 2006.
"A bigger problem is that they shout out 'amen' after every sentence the pastor utters, pretty much every few seconds. And they do that at the top of their lungs," sending respiratory droplets flying everywhere, he adds. These droplets are believed to transmit the coronavirus.
He says that group members proselytize in secret, without revealing their identity. This is because many Koreans are wary of the group and its reputation. As a result, this makes it difficult for people who may have been targeted to know whether they've been in contact with a member of the sect. "Because Shincheonji members cannot reveal themselves, they make it impossible for others to be cautious and self-quarantine themselves."
Monday, February 24, 2020
What was I saying about Queensland police?
I don't generally like commenting on media reporting of criminal actions, including sentencing decisions, as the report will virtually be guaranteed of not painting a complete picture of all factors and all material put to the court. But even so, this seems a very surprising situation:
As I said a few posts back, you have to wonder about the Queensland police...
A Queensland man has admitted to splashing petrol on his former partner and threatening to burn their house down, in a court case successfully prosecuted by the victim because the state’s police refused to bring domestic violence charges.
In 2017 police told the victim, Dani*, that there was a prima facie case against her former partner for threatening violence, but because there was “a low level of public interest” they would not bring a charge.
Dani then took the rare step of hiring a barrister and prosecuting the criminal case herself.
Her barrister, Clem van der Weegen, said the private prosecution and guilty plea should “deeply embarrass” the Queensland police.
At a hearing last year, a Queensland magistrate’s court was told that officers had refused to cooperate with the case and had declined to make written witness statements. They eventually supplied statements after Dani’s legal team complained directly to the police commissioner, Katarina Carroll.....
The man had previously pleaded guilty to a property offence – wilful damage – that occurred on the same night, but was not charged in relation to his domestic violence.So, the police thought, and still seem to be arguing, that because the guy was charged with property damage, they didn't have to worry about charging him with an assault type offence for getting petrol on her and threatening to set it alight? Was he just saying the splash on her was an accident, and he wasn't going to light it until she got out of the house?
At Dani’s urging, police conducted a “factual review” of the incident in 2017.
The officer who conducted the review recommended no domestic violence charges against her former partner....
As I said a few posts back, you have to wonder about the Queensland police...
Stoic sex and marriage, considered
As I warned last week, I wanted to write about the strange world of ancient Greek sexual ethics, and that of the Stoics in particular. Why? Because I would have assumed that Stoic attitude would be to suck it up and be indifferent as to whether you are having an active sex life or not. And in fact it seems that later Stoics, particularly of the Roman variety, were pretty conservative on the topic. But to my surprise, the original Stoics were about as "stoic" when it came to sex as Austin Powers.
So, let's start extracting from the book "The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity" by Kathy L Gaca. (I'm not sure why so much of it is available via Google Books, but there is a lot):
OK. That "sex as a means of training in reason and ethics" is a worry, but we'll get to that. First of all, they thought eros was all about "the making of friends". This sounds pretty laid back, and kind of modern:
Already, you can see, things are taking a turn for the weirdly ancient Greek worse when they agree with the practice of mentors getting it on with their students:
....yeah, so we have heard of this before, but at least Zeno didn't think it should be all older men wanting a "friendly" rub up against adolescent boys. No, girls should expect to be talked into educational sex with their wiser ones too:
Am I the only person to find such a faux high-minded attitude aligning sex with virtue inadvertently funny? Did parents mock their son if he wanted to change careers to become a professional "wise man" because they knew the job came with far more sex than being something more useful, such as local potter or baker? "No Mum, I think it's really important, the development of virtue in our city." "Yeah, sure, son"
Anyway, how did they think the adults should ideally act between themselves? Here we get into the 1960's "free love" bit:
As is common in these radical revisions of how the world of sex and reproduction should be, the kids are to be raised communally too (and, by the sounds of it, not having a clue as to who their true parents may be):
Stupid Greek hippies! And reminiscent of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's free love ideas, too.
Things get even worse when they argued that the importance of communality meant that incest prohibitions were silly:
OK, so I presumably have convinced everyone that early Stoicism was one of the early cases of highfalutin' philosophising getting in the way of common sense and biology. But how did they get to think this way?
Well, remember I recently mocked the way tantric sex was a silly Indian/Asian fetishisation of the (alleged) enormous mystical power of semen? The early Stoics were probably ahead of them:
I'll skip a bit, til we get to this key part, which apparently shows how a philosophy can make a disproportionately big deal out of a bit of, well, Temple porn:
I've read somewhere (maybe I will turn it up again for a link) that this mural or painting (in a temple to Hera at Argos, I think) puzzled most Greeks because their mythology didn't have a story of Zeus and Hera, um, interacting that way. As such, it's meaning, and whether or not Chrysippus was even being serious in reading so much into it, was much debated at the time:
Anyway, I suppose I should add in that early Stoics weren't the only ones with extreme ideas on marriage - Plato in The Republic had the "guardians" of his ideal state actually run as a eugenic farm:
And here is advice from Epictetus that lots of Christian parents would be very comfortable with:
So, let's start extracting from the book "The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity" by Kathy L Gaca. (I'm not sure why so much of it is available via Google Books, but there is a lot):
OK. That "sex as a means of training in reason and ethics" is a worry, but we'll get to that. First of all, they thought eros was all about "the making of friends". This sounds pretty laid back, and kind of modern:
Already, you can see, things are taking a turn for the weirdly ancient Greek worse when they agree with the practice of mentors getting it on with their students:
....yeah, so we have heard of this before, but at least Zeno didn't think it should be all older men wanting a "friendly" rub up against adolescent boys. No, girls should expect to be talked into educational sex with their wiser ones too:
Am I the only person to find such a faux high-minded attitude aligning sex with virtue inadvertently funny? Did parents mock their son if he wanted to change careers to become a professional "wise man" because they knew the job came with far more sex than being something more useful, such as local potter or baker? "No Mum, I think it's really important, the development of virtue in our city." "Yeah, sure, son"
Anyway, how did they think the adults should ideally act between themselves? Here we get into the 1960's "free love" bit:
As is common in these radical revisions of how the world of sex and reproduction should be, the kids are to be raised communally too (and, by the sounds of it, not having a clue as to who their true parents may be):
Stupid Greek hippies! And reminiscent of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's free love ideas, too.
Things get even worse when they argued that the importance of communality meant that incest prohibitions were silly:
Well, remember I recently mocked the way tantric sex was a silly Indian/Asian fetishisation of the (alleged) enormous mystical power of semen? The early Stoics were probably ahead of them:
I'll skip a bit, til we get to this key part, which apparently shows how a philosophy can make a disproportionately big deal out of a bit of, well, Temple porn:
I've read somewhere (maybe I will turn it up again for a link) that this mural or painting (in a temple to Hera at Argos, I think) puzzled most Greeks because their mythology didn't have a story of Zeus and Hera, um, interacting that way. As such, it's meaning, and whether or not Chrysippus was even being serious in reading so much into it, was much debated at the time:
I find it very odd, and amusing, that so much deep philosophical discussion could arise out of questioning the meaning of a piece of art. Presumably, the guy who created it wasn't around to explain what he meant, so early Stoics just put their own spin on it.Chrysippus’ interpretation of the sexual union of Zeus and Hera belongs toone of the most infamous pieces of ancient allegoresis. The extravagance of thisinterpretation has even prompted some scholars to question the seriousness ofChrysippus’ hermeneutical attempts. Thus, for example, A.A. Long in his semi-nal paper has expressed some doubts as to whether Chrysippus’ was earnest in hisallegorical interpretation of the Samos (or Argos) mural. Such an assessment, nev-ertheless, does not sit well the testimonies that present Chrysippus’ interpretationas a serious, albeit scandalizing, allegorical suggestion. Origen, who provides uswith the most important testimony here, insists that Chrysippus “misinterprets”(παρερμηνεύει) the painting, but he clearly regards it as a serious hermeneuticalattempt. In a similar vein, Clemens Romanus3and Theophilus Antiochenus4con-sider Chrysippus to be in earnest, even if they abominate the view he advocates.
Anyway, I suppose I should add in that early Stoics weren't the only ones with extreme ideas on marriage - Plato in The Republic had the "guardians" of his ideal state actually run as a eugenic farm:
A great idea (I say sarcastically) that finally got to more-or-less be tried out by the Nazis:Socrates then discusses the requirement that all spouses and children be held in common. For guardians, sexual intercourse will only take place during certain fixed times of year, designated as festivals. Males and females will be made husband and wife at these festivals for roughly the duration of sexual intercourse. The pairings will be determined by lot. Some of these people, those who are most admirable and thus whom we most wish to reproduce, might have up to four or five spouses in a single one of these festivals. All the children produced by these mating festivals will be taken from their parents and reared together, so that no one knows which children descend from which adults. At no other time in the year is sex permitted. If guardians have sex at an undesignated time and a child results, the understanding is that this child must be killed.To avoid rampant unintentional incest, guardians must consider every child born between seven and ten months after their copulation as their own. These children, in turn, must consider that same group of adults as their parents, and each other as brothers and sisters. Sexual relations between these groups is forbidden.
In 1935, Himmler began a propaganda campaign inviting any unwed mother who fit the racial profile to give birth inside a Lebensborn home.Anyway, back to the Stoics. As I said at the beginning, the later Roman Stoic philosophers, who are more influential now anyway under the current revival of interest in Stoicism, were right regular romantic conservatives compared to Zeno. Here's Hierocles:
It was an ambitious pledge, as it sought to turn a centuries-old attitude about unwed mothers on its head. No longer was having a child out of wedlock a source of shame — instead, the Nazi regime would celebrate the birth of any Aryan child, regardless of its parents’ marital status....
Yet even the government’s open-arms approach to unwed mothers wasn’t enough to dramatically change the numbers. So Himmler took the Lebensborn program one step further.
He began arranging secret meetings in which “suitable” women could meet S.S. soldiers and, if both parties were amenable, create more babies for the Nazi party — with no offer of marriage on the table.
“The whole of our race is naturally adapted to society … cities could not exist without a household; but the household of an unmarried man is truly imperfect … a life accompanied by wedlock is to be precedaneously chosen by the wise man; but a single life is not to be chosen, except particular circumstances require it … Nature herself, prior to the wise man incites us to this, who also exhorts the wise man to marry. For she not only made us gregarious, but likewise adapted to copulation, and proposed the procreation of children and stability of life, as the one and common work of wedlock … In the first place, indeed, because it produces a truly divine fruit, the procreation of children, since they will be assistants to us in all our actions … I also think that a married life is beautiful. For what other thing can be such an ornament to a family, as is the association of husband and wife? … For there is not anything so troublesome which will not be easily borne by a husband and wife when they are concordant, and are willing to endure it in common … but when we marry those whom we ought not, and, together with this, are ourselves entirely ignorant of life, and unprepared to take a wife in such a way as a free and ingenuous woman ought to be taken, then it happens that this association with her becomes difficult and intolerable.” (Fragment V, On Wedlock)That's quite nice, and has quite the ring of common sense compared to proto-hippy Zeno.
And here is advice from Epictetus that lots of Christian parents would be very comfortable with:
“As for sex, abstain as far as possible before marriage, and if you do go in for it, do nothing that is socially unacceptable. But don’t interfere with other people on account of their sex lives or criticize them, and don’t broadcast your own abstinence.”As the person who posted that quote writes:
Basically, try to be responsible and mind your own business. Not a bad way to live.So, maybe the lesson of the whole post is this: ignore most Greek philosophising on sex and marriage, and don't base theology on porn.
There’s no reason to be a pleasure-hating moralist (that is its own passion, anyway). There’s not much to admire in the stories we hear from Greece and Rome about slaves and prostitution and pederasty either. Worse still are the hypocrites who say one thing and do another.
Epictetus’s formula is almost a perfect Aristotelian Mean: Don’t abstain and don’t overdo. Leave other people to their own choices. Keep your own choices private. And don’t think you’re better than anyone else—because you’re not.
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Movie review - 1917
Finally caught with it yesterday, and yes, it's a great film.
Like Parasite, there is not much you can say about it without risking spoiling a little the pleasure that others may take from it on first viewing. Let's just say that in both films, when unexpected things happen, they can come with quite a surprise/shock.
I do think it was snubbed at the Oscars in terms of the number of awards it got - and while I would agree that there was more to contemplate after viewing Parasite (it was thematically more complex), I wasn't moved by that movie in the same way I was in parts of 1917.
So personally, I would have liked to see Parasite get best international film and screenplay, but 1917 best director and best film. Sam Mendes is extremely talented.
One further comment: I wonder how the film went over in Germany. Did Sam once buy a really bad German car, or something? He co-wrote the screenplay, and it contains nothing in the way of a sympathetic or humanising portrait of the German fighters, as you find in some World War One films. (It is an easy war in which to show the common soldiers on both sides as victims of their bloody minded political and/or military leaders. But this film has none of that.) That doesn't detract from the film - I just thought it a little unusual and interesting to note.
Like Parasite, there is not much you can say about it without risking spoiling a little the pleasure that others may take from it on first viewing. Let's just say that in both films, when unexpected things happen, they can come with quite a surprise/shock.
I do think it was snubbed at the Oscars in terms of the number of awards it got - and while I would agree that there was more to contemplate after viewing Parasite (it was thematically more complex), I wasn't moved by that movie in the same way I was in parts of 1917.
So personally, I would have liked to see Parasite get best international film and screenplay, but 1917 best director and best film. Sam Mendes is extremely talented.
One further comment: I wonder how the film went over in Germany. Did Sam once buy a really bad German car, or something? He co-wrote the screenplay, and it contains nothing in the way of a sympathetic or humanising portrait of the German fighters, as you find in some World War One films. (It is an easy war in which to show the common soldiers on both sides as victims of their bloody minded political and/or military leaders. But this film has none of that.) That doesn't detract from the film - I just thought it a little unusual and interesting to note.
The most pleasing vegetable (and a Saturday night recipe)
I have shared this with my kids, who thought it an unusual confession. Now for the world:
I find cooking sliced leeks in butter on the stovetop a fantastically pleasing experience. It's the combination of the bright and cheerful green/white colour with the gentle smell of onion that doesn't overpower the kitchen the way onions can. I can't think of any other vegetable which gives the same aesthetic pleasure in its combination of sight and smell.
I know - doing garlic (especially with some chilli flakes) in a pan with olive oil can be pretty intensely pleasing too, from an olfactory point of view. I even love the smell of virgin olive oil heating up by itself. But you don't get any substantial aesthetic pleasure from the colour. (Yes, I know, some olive oils have a nice colour - but it's not the same cheerful palate as leeks.)
Anyway, now that that's out of the way, I was very pleased with the result of more-or-less following this recipe last night:
Seared salmon with mashed potato and leeks
The ingredient list I modified a little, so I will write my version that worked well:
* Enough potato for a generous serving of mash for four
* One large leek (you want to get at least a cup when its sliced)
* Butter (and a bit of olive oil)
* Corn, fresh, sliced off the cob (I used one big cob's worth for 3 people last night - yes, I had left over potato - but I would say you probably want a cup and a bit for 4)
* small amount of garlic (minced out of a jar is ok)
* baby rocket (a couple of cups)
* skin on salmon pieces
The great thing about mashed potato is the way they reheat so well in the microwave. I did this yesterday - did the mash after lunch, went to a movie, came home and the rest of the cooking was very quick.
So: make your mashed potatoes the way you like, but while the potatoes are cooking, cook the sliced leeks in a couple of tablespoons of butter (perhaps more, because I use a substantial amount of butter in mashed potato anyway.) Mix the leeks into the mash and there you have it - mashed potato with a sweeter, more intense flavour than the blander variety. Just plain mash with salmon is a bit dull, I think.
Cook the salmon fillets with some butter and a little olive oil. Take them out, perhaps drain off some of the butter/oil, put in the corn kernels and garlic, with a little bit more butter if you want, and they soften with a few minutes. While waiting, mash on plate, salmon on top. Throw rocket in with the corn, just to wilt them (only takes a minute), add a bit of salt, and onto the salmon and mash.
I still served a lemon wedge with the salmon. I think its often a bit tricky finding the right side vegetables with pan fried salmon, as you want some moisture somewhere, and I can't be bothered doing a sauce. This worked well.
You can thank me later.
I find cooking sliced leeks in butter on the stovetop a fantastically pleasing experience. It's the combination of the bright and cheerful green/white colour with the gentle smell of onion that doesn't overpower the kitchen the way onions can. I can't think of any other vegetable which gives the same aesthetic pleasure in its combination of sight and smell.
I know - doing garlic (especially with some chilli flakes) in a pan with olive oil can be pretty intensely pleasing too, from an olfactory point of view. I even love the smell of virgin olive oil heating up by itself. But you don't get any substantial aesthetic pleasure from the colour. (Yes, I know, some olive oils have a nice colour - but it's not the same cheerful palate as leeks.)
Anyway, now that that's out of the way, I was very pleased with the result of more-or-less following this recipe last night:
Seared salmon with mashed potato and leeks
The ingredient list I modified a little, so I will write my version that worked well:
* Enough potato for a generous serving of mash for four
* One large leek (you want to get at least a cup when its sliced)
* Butter (and a bit of olive oil)
* Corn, fresh, sliced off the cob (I used one big cob's worth for 3 people last night - yes, I had left over potato - but I would say you probably want a cup and a bit for 4)
* small amount of garlic (minced out of a jar is ok)
* baby rocket (a couple of cups)
* skin on salmon pieces
The great thing about mashed potato is the way they reheat so well in the microwave. I did this yesterday - did the mash after lunch, went to a movie, came home and the rest of the cooking was very quick.
So: make your mashed potatoes the way you like, but while the potatoes are cooking, cook the sliced leeks in a couple of tablespoons of butter (perhaps more, because I use a substantial amount of butter in mashed potato anyway.) Mix the leeks into the mash and there you have it - mashed potato with a sweeter, more intense flavour than the blander variety. Just plain mash with salmon is a bit dull, I think.
Cook the salmon fillets with some butter and a little olive oil. Take them out, perhaps drain off some of the butter/oil, put in the corn kernels and garlic, with a little bit more butter if you want, and they soften with a few minutes. While waiting, mash on plate, salmon on top. Throw rocket in with the corn, just to wilt them (only takes a minute), add a bit of salt, and onto the salmon and mash.
I still served a lemon wedge with the salmon. I think its often a bit tricky finding the right side vegetables with pan fried salmon, as you want some moisture somewhere, and I can't be bothered doing a sauce. This worked well.
You can thank me later.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
The New Zealand problem
I see courtesy of Sinclair Davidson that there is some kind of ban filter working to prevent getting onto this blog in New Zealand. At least on the network he was using. The reason it's listed is apparently for "hate and racism"!
I would love to know whether it is because of things I quote from Catallaxy.
(By the way, Sinclair, I am pretty sure that after I had a go at you for not filtering "chinks" on your block list for comments, you started to do so. Can I claim credit for controlling your blog from here? I'll send other recommendations as I see fit.)
Or is because I don't always delete Graeme Bird's anti-Semitic ramblings in comments fast enough.
Sinclair ought to at least tell us if Catallaxy suffered the same fate. If people could get to that site from NZ, but not to mine, there would be something seriously wrong!
I would love to know whether it is because of things I quote from Catallaxy.
(By the way, Sinclair, I am pretty sure that after I had a go at you for not filtering "chinks" on your block list for comments, you started to do so. Can I claim credit for controlling your blog from here? I'll send other recommendations as I see fit.)
Or is because I don't always delete Graeme Bird's anti-Semitic ramblings in comments fast enough.
Sinclair ought to at least tell us if Catallaxy suffered the same fate. If people could get to that site from NZ, but not to mine, there would be something seriously wrong!
The predictably appalling Arndt
I was going to write a post about how the odd looking Queensland detective heading the Clarke murder investigation could not possibly stay in charge after making his utterly gormless comment which carried the extremely strong suggestion that, who knows?, maybe the mother could be the one who should be blamed for making her husband so distraught that it led to him killing her and their kids.
The statement was completely and utterly unjustifiable - one that only the stupid, usually divorced, misogynists of Catallaxy could endorse - and I was pleased to see the guy step down voluntarily. I don't want to be mean, as they sometimes have an awful job which I would not want to do myself; but this guy's inability to avoid saying there are "two sides" to such a enormously malevolent act seems to confirm that you don't have to be very sharp to be a police officer at any level, in Queensland in particular (although other States' forces give us a run for the money at times, too.)
Anyway, I thought it was all over, but then Bettina "Not a Psychologist, I just like being introduced that way" Arndt fulfilled my prediction that she would come out and say something stupidly offensive:
And she was saying this after the media was reporting the guy had a DVO against him already at the time he killed his family!
Even worse, she doubles down after the guy voluntarily stood aside:
And worse still - she apparently claims in a grubby newsletter that someone who was "close to the family" rang her to spill the beans on "the background to Baxter's actions" - which she hopes will come out in a coroner's hearing.
How despicable is this? Leading her "men are the real victims here - even when they kill" loser followers in a un-sourced whisper campaign that, yeah, the dead mother was a real bitch??
I was looking at her website the other day, and one of the things that annoyed me was that, sometimes, there has been a tiny kernel of a worthwhile argument in some of her attitudes, but she blows her credibility so completely out of the water by her unhinged culture war against feminism attitude that she is now the last person to listen to any sex or relationship topic.
She needs to retire from the public discourse. That severe head tilt she shows on her social media profile pic (something Tim Blair would mock if she were a Lefty figure) must be giving her a headache by now.
The statement was completely and utterly unjustifiable - one that only the stupid, usually divorced, misogynists of Catallaxy could endorse - and I was pleased to see the guy step down voluntarily. I don't want to be mean, as they sometimes have an awful job which I would not want to do myself; but this guy's inability to avoid saying there are "two sides" to such a enormously malevolent act seems to confirm that you don't have to be very sharp to be a police officer at any level, in Queensland in particular (although other States' forces give us a run for the money at times, too.)
Anyway, I thought it was all over, but then Bettina "Not a Psychologist, I just like being introduced that way" Arndt fulfilled my prediction that she would come out and say something stupidly offensive:
And she was saying this after the media was reporting the guy had a DVO against him already at the time he killed his family!
Even worse, she doubles down after the guy voluntarily stood aside:
And worse still - she apparently claims in a grubby newsletter that someone who was "close to the family" rang her to spill the beans on "the background to Baxter's actions" - which she hopes will come out in a coroner's hearing.
How despicable is this? Leading her "men are the real victims here - even when they kill" loser followers in a un-sourced whisper campaign that, yeah, the dead mother was a real bitch??
I was looking at her website the other day, and one of the things that annoyed me was that, sometimes, there has been a tiny kernel of a worthwhile argument in some of her attitudes, but she blows her credibility so completely out of the water by her unhinged culture war against feminism attitude that she is now the last person to listen to any sex or relationship topic.
She needs to retire from the public discourse. That severe head tilt she shows on her social media profile pic (something Tim Blair would mock if she were a Lefty figure) must be giving her a headache by now.
Friday, February 21, 2020
A good take on the "reocons"
From the Niskanen Centre, a rather good explanation of the people surrounding Trump: "Meet the Reocons". The subheading:
On the American right, a growing group of intellectuals are using acute cultural fears to secure an illiberal future. It’s reactionary politics at its most explosive and unpredictable.
Another book to be written about how Trump created a departmental shambles
One of the more interesting things to read about the Roger Stone sentencing is this article at the Washington Post, explaining that the prosecutor appeared not to really be endorsing the revised sentencing submissions, and wouldn't confirm who had written them!
It really sounds like a Justice Department in complete internal disarray, all due (of course) to Trump and his enabler Barr.
While on the topic of Trump, I was trying to find live streaming of the Democrat debate on Youtube yesterday lunchtime, and there was none to be found. (I think it was still on while I was looking, but maybe I was a little late.) Instead, I ended up watching a little live streaming of Trump at a rally, and once again I find his cult status completely puzzling.
The 10 minutes I watched were mostly bragging about how his election night went, and how TV pundits couldn't believe it when he started to win. It was a story he has presumably told scores of times before, and people behind him did not look all that engaged. Finally, he moved onto "Democrats are the parties of high crime and late abortion, ripping the babies from the mother's womb", and the audience got a little animated again. And he threw in some clearly dubious bragging about medical advances. It seems, incidentally, that Trump cultists are really pleased that if they get a deadly illness, they can try some pre-approved drug. The fact that the vast majority of new drugs never get approved (only 14% make it, apparently) would surely indicate that very few of them going to have a benefit from the drug, let alone be saved by it. (Not all new drugs would be actual life saving ones in any event.)
My point is - it is extremely difficult to understand why his followers think it is worth going to his rallies. He speeches are rambling, clearly vain, off the cuff efforts by someone who would be given a poor rating as a high school orator let alone as an adult, and the audience itself does not look highly engaged during the more repetitive sections. He doesn't attempt theatrical drama and practised emotional high points, like Hitler. Yet people still, presumably, get some emotional lift from being there.
Although I have never been to a cricket match in my life, I think it might be like the odd way you sometimes see a cricket crowd start to amuse themselves during tedious play, with Mexican waves, etc. What they came to watch is not all that great at the moment anyway, but they all know they all like the same thing when it is great.
And I am still inclined to believe that they are clinging together because they know they are on the losing side of long term social and economic change.
It really sounds like a Justice Department in complete internal disarray, all due (of course) to Trump and his enabler Barr.
While on the topic of Trump, I was trying to find live streaming of the Democrat debate on Youtube yesterday lunchtime, and there was none to be found. (I think it was still on while I was looking, but maybe I was a little late.) Instead, I ended up watching a little live streaming of Trump at a rally, and once again I find his cult status completely puzzling.
The 10 minutes I watched were mostly bragging about how his election night went, and how TV pundits couldn't believe it when he started to win. It was a story he has presumably told scores of times before, and people behind him did not look all that engaged. Finally, he moved onto "Democrats are the parties of high crime and late abortion, ripping the babies from the mother's womb", and the audience got a little animated again. And he threw in some clearly dubious bragging about medical advances. It seems, incidentally, that Trump cultists are really pleased that if they get a deadly illness, they can try some pre-approved drug. The fact that the vast majority of new drugs never get approved (only 14% make it, apparently) would surely indicate that very few of them going to have a benefit from the drug, let alone be saved by it. (Not all new drugs would be actual life saving ones in any event.)
My point is - it is extremely difficult to understand why his followers think it is worth going to his rallies. He speeches are rambling, clearly vain, off the cuff efforts by someone who would be given a poor rating as a high school orator let alone as an adult, and the audience itself does not look highly engaged during the more repetitive sections. He doesn't attempt theatrical drama and practised emotional high points, like Hitler. Yet people still, presumably, get some emotional lift from being there.
Although I have never been to a cricket match in my life, I think it might be like the odd way you sometimes see a cricket crowd start to amuse themselves during tedious play, with Mexican waves, etc. What they came to watch is not all that great at the moment anyway, but they all know they all like the same thing when it is great.
And I am still inclined to believe that they are clinging together because they know they are on the losing side of long term social and economic change.
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Japanese architects still trying to kill people
This takes me back: a decade ago I was mocking the way Japanese architect designed houses seemed to disproportionately feature stupid, unsafe stairways. A reminder:
I particularly like the touch of the sharp cornered metal step in the last photo. Perfectly suited to slicing open a calf.
It's really just nuts.
I’ve mentioned here before the fondness modern Japanese architects seem to have for precipitous stairways without rails, balcony levels with low walls, and generally anything that any sensible client would recognize as a death trap for them or their house guests.Well, they are still at it, if this post at Dezeen is anything to go by:
Well, I think this distinctive set of apartments in Tokyo probably takes the cake. Why bother waiting for the resident to slip off the edge of rail-less stairs when you can actually build large holes in the floor!
As I said in a comment at Dezeen, the next logical step is hidden, spring loaded trap doors in the floor, to keep clients on their toes.
A series of triangular and rectangular platforms create numerous floor levels inside this house in Osaka, Japan.
Imagine negotiating this. I keep getting images of cartoon/slapstick characters falling down various ledges from top to bottom:Designed by Tato Architects, House in Takatsuki is a three-storey building containing 16 different floor levels.
I particularly like the touch of the sharp cornered metal step in the last photo. Perfectly suited to slicing open a calf.
It's really just nuts.
In Trump news
* I see that some on Twitter are pointing out that the media should perhaps show some scepticism about the self-seving nature of the "I have considered resigning over the Trump tweets" story from Barr. I think they are right: it does have a air of "how can I ensure that I stay here, helping my dumb-ass boss whose heart is in the right place, while maintaining a semblance of independence to be recorded in the history books."
* Seems that Trump has decided to try to neuter the intelligence services by installing a complete flunky as their acting head (which apparently means the Senate can do nothing about it, even if they wanted to.) What's that sound in Russia? Putin popping champagne, no doubt.
Someone else on Twitter, though, says that this will have a chance of backfiring, as Grenell''s direct, partisan interference is likely to result in lots of leaking against him. But will that concern Trump cultists? Probably not.
* Seems that Trump has decided to try to neuter the intelligence services by installing a complete flunky as their acting head (which apparently means the Senate can do nothing about it, even if they wanted to.) What's that sound in Russia? Putin popping champagne, no doubt.
All the best people
I knew that if I wanted to see the worst possible take on a horrific domestic violence murder suicide by an estranged husband*, I could wait for Bettina Arndt to comment, or go to the open thread at Catallaxy.
News reports are saying that no Family Court proceedings re the children were underway yet, so perhaps Arndt is finding it hard to come up with a "bias against men in the Family Court leads to despair" aspect yet. But that doesn't stop a regular at Catallaxy:
While the thread is not exactly full of endorsement of his take on the matter, several take the opportunity to chime in on his subsequent comment that Rose Batty (son killed by father) is an appalling person for campaigning against domestic violence.
I've said before that there are lot of psychologically damaged, bitter-after-all-these-years divorced blokes on the site: and it when it comes to domestic violence, their takes are the worst in the nation.
Update: you might want to sit down while you read this one (from a different, regular Catallaxy commenter):
He was challenged, by one of the women so stupid as to want to appear in that community, to which he responded:
News reports are saying that no Family Court proceedings re the children were underway yet, so perhaps Arndt is finding it hard to come up with a "bias against men in the Family Court leads to despair" aspect yet. But that doesn't stop a regular at Catallaxy:
push anyone hard enough and they will snap. the article mentioned that she had withdrawn the children from him, probably on advice of lawyers. its a standard trick before a family report, make the kids not use to being around dad. the family report will note awkwardness, the judge will use that to decide custody. my ex did it to me. she has probably been provoking him for months, again on the advice of lawyers so that bad reactions can be documented. ex did that to me as well and it went on for a whole year. by the end of it I was ready to kill someone. the first would have been her lawyers, but in the end I kept it together, just.He wrote that before he knew the wife/mother had died in hospital too, obviously. Also before he knew anything at all about the reasons the mother left home and was, apparently, not letting the kids stay with him.
the system is easy to rort and is heavily biased against men.
this woman now has to live the rest of her life, physically and mentally scarred knowing she could have avoided it all.
the left has weaponised women’s hypergamous behaviour. might sound heartless but I have zero sympathy for her.
While the thread is not exactly full of endorsement of his take on the matter, several take the opportunity to chime in on his subsequent comment that Rose Batty (son killed by father) is an appalling person for campaigning against domestic violence.
I've said before that there are lot of psychologically damaged, bitter-after-all-these-years divorced blokes on the site: and it when it comes to domestic violence, their takes are the worst in the nation.
Update: you might want to sit down while you read this one (from a different, regular Catallaxy commenter):
He was challenged, by one of the women so stupid as to want to appear in that community, to which he responded:
* mind you, only recently estranged. It looks like it is barely a couple of months since the wife left the matrimonial home with the kids.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Producers only have themselves to blame
I announced last year that I was well and truly "over" My Kitchen Rules. I'm sort of happy to see that I am not alone - this year the show has gone into a ratings downwards spiral so bad that it looks like it won't recover.
Noticing that they have apparently changed the format a little this year, I'll fess up to having had a look at it for perhaps 20 minutes last week. It is no wonder the ratings are tanking. At least in previous years, if there was a contestant who was really annoying, you knew they weren't going to be back the following year. So what do I find this year - the guy last year assigned the role of "bitchy, apparently gay, dude" is back, along with quite a few others from last years' contestants. And as for audiences being over it being played as a personal conflict drama, I tuned in just at the right time to find a room in which there was some confrontation going on about whether that episode's cooks were being "honest" or not about their past experience with cooking for a living, with tears and upset from one of the accused. I assume Pete and Manu had gone outside for a breath of fresh air (something the audience was wishing they could have as well) because they were no where to be seen in trying to calm down the room. (Not that I have any doubts that the producers were involved in making this happen.)
People are over the faked up inter-contestant conflict aspects of the show, I reckon; even though that was always part of the format, it was clear the producers thought that ramping it up would attract more viewers. I think it has backfired spectacularly. A little bit of "who are going to play this year's 'baddies'?" could be fun - but push it too far and it just starts looking manipulative, too transparent and as bad as most other reality TV.
Noticing that they have apparently changed the format a little this year, I'll fess up to having had a look at it for perhaps 20 minutes last week. It is no wonder the ratings are tanking. At least in previous years, if there was a contestant who was really annoying, you knew they weren't going to be back the following year. So what do I find this year - the guy last year assigned the role of "bitchy, apparently gay, dude" is back, along with quite a few others from last years' contestants. And as for audiences being over it being played as a personal conflict drama, I tuned in just at the right time to find a room in which there was some confrontation going on about whether that episode's cooks were being "honest" or not about their past experience with cooking for a living, with tears and upset from one of the accused. I assume Pete and Manu had gone outside for a breath of fresh air (something the audience was wishing they could have as well) because they were no where to be seen in trying to calm down the room. (Not that I have any doubts that the producers were involved in making this happen.)
People are over the faked up inter-contestant conflict aspects of the show, I reckon; even though that was always part of the format, it was clear the producers thought that ramping it up would attract more viewers. I think it has backfired spectacularly. A little bit of "who are going to play this year's 'baddies'?" could be fun - but push it too far and it just starts looking manipulative, too transparent and as bad as most other reality TV.
England, flooding and Conservatives
So, large parts of England are under water again.
Attributing any particular flood to climate change is a tricky thing, given the range of factors that help contribute to flooding generally. (Look, even an opinion piece at The Guardian complains that a lot of current flooding is causing by poor infrastructure decisions.) But the more floods that appear the more it's fair to assume that the attribution studies will confirm the connection with increased flooding generally.
Fortunately, for England, their brand of conservatism is not tied to culture war denial of climate change:
Attributing any particular flood to climate change is a tricky thing, given the range of factors that help contribute to flooding generally. (Look, even an opinion piece at The Guardian complains that a lot of current flooding is causing by poor infrastructure decisions.) But the more floods that appear the more it's fair to assume that the attribution studies will confirm the connection with increased flooding generally.
Fortunately, for England, their brand of conservatism is not tied to culture war denial of climate change:
The warnings came as George Eustice, the new environment secretary, admitted that the “nature of climate change” means the government cannot protect every household from extreme weather, such as recent storms which have brought flooding to parts of the UK.Why did Australian conservatism decide to follow the line of American conservative denialism, instead of the European path? Probably the IPA I would say - and at heart, the American and Australian conservative path was likely formed by mining interest funding to "think tanks". I would assume that limited mining (at least on land) in England means they have never been targeted in the same way.
“We’ll never be able to protect every single household just because of the nature of climate change and the fact that these weather events are becoming more extreme,” Mr Eustice told Sky News.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Fornication soon
For those disappointed that there is no new post yet - all 3 of you - things are busy at work and personally.
But I am working on a post about how early Stoics were not very "stoic" at all about sex, and how odd it seems that a pornographic painting of Zeus and Hera played a role in justifying their views.
This is what happens when you have an hour to kill at St Lucia, as I did last Saturday, and you go to the University library and notice a book on the shelf entitled: The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity.
More to come...
Update: it just occurred to me that story of the sexual grooming of a young student by an old sports coach of St Kevin's College which featured on last night's 4 Corners (and it was a very sordid case) was the sort of stuff which [some] Greek philosophers would have thought was actually appropriate; almost noble. Ancient Greece was a very different place, and one that it's hard to get your head around.
Update 2: OK, my update should be qualified, as I reminded myself about the massive contradictions in ancient Greek writings about how homosexuality was viewed - including those around the nature of the teacher/mentor and student relationships. I am sure I read this article many years ago, and linked to it in a post.
But I am working on a post about how early Stoics were not very "stoic" at all about sex, and how odd it seems that a pornographic painting of Zeus and Hera played a role in justifying their views.
This is what happens when you have an hour to kill at St Lucia, as I did last Saturday, and you go to the University library and notice a book on the shelf entitled: The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity.
More to come...
Update: it just occurred to me that story of the sexual grooming of a young student by an old sports coach of St Kevin's College which featured on last night's 4 Corners (and it was a very sordid case) was the sort of stuff which [some] Greek philosophers would have thought was actually appropriate; almost noble. Ancient Greece was a very different place, and one that it's hard to get your head around.
Update 2: OK, my update should be qualified, as I reminded myself about the massive contradictions in ancient Greek writings about how homosexuality was viewed - including those around the nature of the teacher/mentor and student relationships. I am sure I read this article many years ago, and linked to it in a post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)