The continuing crisis (not Covid-19)

I mentioned last week that I had liked parts of an esoteric book by DT Suzuki about Swedenborg.  Actually, it was mainly the translator's introduction, which gave a short account of the cultural concern in Japan in the early 20th century, as the nation came to the end of the Meiji era with its rapid industrialisation and social changes.

I thought it serves as a good reminder that:

a.  worrying about cultural and social change, as is common in the Western world today, is something that has been around a long time, and is shared by countries that don't have a Christian background.  (I generally like to think that the increasing number of atheists and agnostics in the West is a long lingering effect of the scientific revolution of Darwin, and the discovery of the vast age and size of the universe - remembering that the very nature of galaxies was only realised less than 100 years ago - but Eastern nations whose religion did not carry a key creation creation story had the same social worries); and/or

b. maybe at every period in history, people worry that things are changing for the worse and that they are in the midst of cultural or societal degradation of one kind or another.

Anyway, at the risk of upsetting a publisher, I am just going to cut and paste some relevant pages, and sorry about the size difference (I might try to fix this up later):

There's a gap now, but here's another high profile Japanese suicide from the period:

Well, I had not heard of either the famous suicidal teenager, or General Maresuke killing himself as a sign of loyalty to his boss.

Here's a different translation of the angsty teenager Misao's suicide poem, from Wikipedia:

Thoughts on the precipice

How immense the universe is!
How eternal history is!
I wanted to measure the immensity with this puny five-foot body.
What authority has Horatio's philosophy?^*
The true nature of the whole creation.
Is in one word – “unfathomable”.
With this regret, I am determined to die.
Standing on a rock on the top of a waterfall.
I have no anxiety.
I recognize for the first time.
Great pessimism is nothing but great optimism. 

I don't know - I guess you had to be in Japan at the time to understand why this would cause a sensation.   Also, as I have noted above, this guy is fretting about the size of the universe before scientists even had a clue as to how big it really was.    And that last line if a bit too Zen paradox-y for my taste. 


There is more from the book I want to talk about, but later.

A great take down of Fox News

At Slate, a good article:

Fox News During the Coronavirus Pandemic Is Awful Even by Fox News Standards 

accurately sums up the network  -

The Trump-boosting minimization of the novel coronavirus pandemic may well be a new low for Fox News—but it’s also a logical extension of the network’s decades-long war on objective reality. 

Ever since Fox News launched in 1996, the network has labored to construct its own closed epistemic system, underpinned by a variety of questionable “facts” and baseline assumptions that validate right-wing viewpoints while demonizing liberal values. The point is to prop up right-wing politicians by training its viewers to hate, fear, and distrust anyone who leans even the slightest bit left. Critical to the success of this initiative has been the discrediting of traditional authorities, such as mainstream journalists and academic scholars, that traditionally take a more liberal view on the world. Since Trump became president, this reflexive anti-intellectualism has redoubled as the network has engaged in an all-out campaign to support and bolster Trump by discrediting his many enemies. Who are Trump’s enemies? Anyone who contradicts, criticizes, or disagrees with him, for one thing; anyone who insists on citing objective, observable facts to challenge the president’s narcissistic, narrative-driven worldview. 

Seen through that lens, the network’s subpar coverage of the coronavirus is just another example of Fox doing what it does best: carrying water for a dangerously unqualified president by encouraging their viewers to believe that Trump’s personal grievances are and should be their own.

Virus watch

* As Axios notes:

Trump made 3 false claims in his Oval Office coronavirus speech

* Why aren't more mainstream media making this observation in their reporting on the Trump speech?:

Donald Trump looked sick and terrible during his recent coronavirus speech 

* The Trump travel ban means crowds rush counters in European airports, which is not exactly helpful from a contagion point of view:

'It's ridiculous': Trump travel ban sows panic in European airports

*  But Steve Kates, conspiracy nut and economics lecturer, has a theory:

The media’s hysteria about coronavirus is intended to destroy the American economy because media types are focused single-mindedly on defeating Trump.

There is therefore no longer any independent source of information you can trust since the media is now fully corrupted by its political messaging. Who can you turn to?

*  Tom Hywood in the SMH writes a totally tone deaf piece about how, despite the coronavirus giving him intense headaches for three days which were serious enough to have a heap of tests in a hospital to rule out a brain tumour, he wishes people would stop being "hysterical" about the fact they're worried they might have caught it from him(!).   As someone on Twitter summarises:

 And another:

Updates:

*  The transparent appeal to xenophobia by Trump in his speech is all about his ignorant "base", and is an embarrassment to all serious people.

Which means the Catholic who is only serious in the degradation he causes to the reputation of Catholicism, CL, has another go at his trademark "Whataboutism".   "Oh look, CNN once referred to it as the Wuhan virus, so it's OK for the President to keep pandering to xenophobia." 

*  You would have to suspect the virus would hit India hard, but so far, it's hard to know what is going on.  But nationalist Hindus with their faith in all things "cow" (promoted by government officials?!) indicates problems ahead:

India has conducted nearly 5,000 COVID-19 tests so far, according to the World Health Organization, which says that the “country is responding with urgency as well as transparency.” But so far, India has only reported 74 confirmed COVID-19 cases and one death, on Thursday. Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute tells TIME that count is “just not right.” He believes there must be many more cases, but they have just not been identified. “I’m deeply worried that there’s a lot of community transmission and we are just not aware of it because there is not widespread testing,” he says.

Jha expects there will be a large uptick in cases over the next two to three weeks as testing capabilities improve. Jha and other experts worry that misinformation from government officials and BJP lawmakers touting cow products and unproven homeopathic remedies as ways to prevent infection add to the country’s challenges in containing an outbreak.

The potential Tom Hanks crisis

I think it obvious.  If:

a.  Tom Hanks were to die of the coronavirus, and

b.  Donald Trump never catches it,

it would be a convincing proof that there really is no God.  Lisbon 1755 would have nothing on that inducement to a crisis of faith.

Depending on mood, my seriousness here ranges between 50 and 95%.

And by the way:  I just checked on Google Maps, and he's barely 62km from me as the crow flies.   I feel I should go and stand on the footpath with a sympathetic placard during the weekend.   I hope he tweets something positive about his treatment at what is, after all, a pretty new and modern hospital. 

And one final thing:  can you imagine what his death in Australia would do to our tourism industry after the appalling fire and smoke apocalypse of early 2020? I think we should all just start growing potatoes and chickens and back yard now, just in case Australia has to permanently close for business....

Virus has driven them mad

I am gaining some sense of schadenfreude from watching the wingnut residents of Catallaxy work themselves into a frenzy caused by the attempt to reconcile their fantasy belief that Donald Trump's presidency was and is a glorious success with the unavoidable reality that his performance in the face of a genuine emergency has been as terrible and utterly embarrassing as every Never Trumper always knew it would. 

Steve Kates hasn't been posting much, and seem truly confused as to who to believe, seeing his Dear Leader's early denial of seriousness of the issue has now been transformed into a foreign invasion crisis with an ill-considered response that has hurt the markets more.

Currency Lad, forever stuck in 1950's era nostalgia for Mums who stayed at home and men who went out in the world to do men's things, even said yesterday, after a brief uptick in the stock market, that "Looks like Trump was right again".  Hilarious.

[He operates now as a pathetically predictable, culturally anachronistic, unpaid, completely unconvincing political shill, whose speciality in all matters is "whataboutism." (He cannot write anything more that about 200 words on any Democrat without mentioning Ted Kennedy's unfortunate history.)  Sometimes I suspect he doesn't really believe some of the guff he writes, but then again, he might also write so to convince himself and starts buying into the one-eyed fantasies.  As I have often said:  pretend something for long enough and you can start believing it.]

There are many others who are crapping on there - some are critical of Trump on this issue, but very few.    And the nonsense that some are spouting is profound.

We also have the spectacle of waiting to see if the chronically insecure and needy Lizzie and her high risk husband can get to and from an American based cruise ship without catching the virus.  Look, they deny climate change and think all of Australia's eucalyptus forest should be replaced with foreign trees that don't burn as well - we're not talking sensible people here, but they have money to burn and are a living example of Dunning-Kruger incompetence to judge risk wisely.   They'll probably make it back, but it's clearly a high risk enterprise.  

Anyway, it's - sort of - entertaining.

Update:  here's a quality [sarc] contribution to the blog.  Literally, a man bragging about beating up a woman (petty thief or not - it's wrong.)  

Easiest money ever

Noted at the ABC:

Kristy Wildy did not know she could get paid for donating her poo, but it was an unexpected bonus for the 55-year-old who has been contributing for the past 12 months.

Ms Wildy has been a blood donor for years, and she said donating her stool was a no-brainer.

"I wanted to become a donor because I thought I was a fairly healthy person and I would have something to contribute," she said.

Ms Wildy donates about three or four times a week and said the process was quick and easy.

She said the $25-per-donation payment was a bonus and could be lucrative, depending on donation rates.

Who would have thought...

...that Democrats voting in the primaries might not care for the candidate who kept going on Fox News repeatedly to diss Obama and Hillary Clinton?:

Not a good look

Been meaning to note how Europe just had a remarkably warm winter, and Antarctica a remarkably warm summer (or at least, end of summer).

It's like something might be going on, globally.

Apparently Sinclair Davidson, of all people, recently went on a cruise to Antarctica.  I hope he was trying to make jokes with the (likely environmentally conscious) passengers about how he and the IPA had helped flame global warming denial, and that they considered leaving him stranded on an ice berg. 

I have also been watching some pleasant Youtube videos of an Antarctic cruise by one of the travelling couple vloggers who I have taken to watching recently:  Kara and Nate.  Their first one showing them getting on the ship is here.    I think they are quite likeable as travel vloggers, although I perhaps prefer the couple who do The Endless Adventure.   Both couples are very positive and take setbacks, or spiders or cockroaches in the room, on the chin.    

Viral conspiracies on the Right

Given that they have spent the best part of 20 years echo chambering themselves into believing that the most important long term global problem is a conspiracy by scientists and "leftist" media, is it any wonder that the American Right and its Australian counterpart is showing itself as swinging wildly from one bad take to another on Covid-19?   (And yes, I'm sure there will be people on Twitter on the Left with bad takes too, but I don't think they are any numerical match for nutball belief amongst Trumpers.)

Not that there is a consistent line from the Right - it's either all a media beat up of nothing worse than a flu, fuelled by Deep State operatives who only want to see Trump fail, or a devastating Chinese created bio-warfare planning gone wrong (or right) that will devastate the globe.   But there is also always time for "Chinese as filthy disease carrying foreigners who should be let into the country again" opinions too.   Many are excited by the End of Globalisation they think it heralds - ignoring, as they are wont, the obvious benefits that increased trade has brought both to the West and to helping the global poverty rate decrease.

It is incredible, though, how gullible they are in finding no fault in their Dear Leader.   In truth, the US response has been worthy of a (incompetent) tin pot dictatorship, which is what Trump followers want their country to be, anyway.

And isn't the "Dear Leader" praise of Trump that CDC and health officials feel obliged to give really creepy??  These takes are all accurate:

Update:  to watch the Australian wingnut Right take every conspiracy possible, of course you only need to read Sinclair Davidson's Respite Home for the Stupid and Offensive Right.    monty is there trying to be sensible, but why he bothers I don't know.  

Also, Will Hutton makes an interesting historical point on public health and the Left:

The lack of global public health capacity, standards and enforcement are crippling. The US’s problem is not only that it is led by a fool and a knave, but that its hugely expensive private healthcare system does not invest in public health capacity – such as isolation beds for patients stricken with a contagious virus.

Yet America’s problem – just like China’s problem over unregulated markets for wild animal meat – is our problem, too. One of the foundations of the rise of the left in the 19th and early 20th centuries was the growing recognition that no individual, however wealthy, was insulated from disease epidemics. Sanitation, clean water and immunisation were public goods necessary for everyone to stay alive. The left was their champion.

Now, one form of unregulated, free-market globalisation with its propensity for crises and pandemics is certainly dying. But another form that recognises interdependence and the primacy of evidence-based collective action is being born. There will be more pandemics that will force governments to invest in public health institutions and respect the science they represent – with parallel moves on climate change, the oceans, finance and cybersecurity. Because we can’t do without globalisation, the imperative will be to find ways of managing and governing it.

 

Some impressive sarcasm here...

Remarkable

You could be mistaken for thinking that this is so stupid, it must be a fake account.  But there is no sign of that, as far as I can see:

Another post preview

Hey, I had another weekend in which I had an hour to kill at St Lucia, so it's into the UQ library and up to the 4th floor to look at their (very comprehensive) collection of books on religion and stuff to try to pick out something interesting and get as much out of it as I can in 50 minutes.  (I have to allow for walking to and from my car.)

I am finding this an inordinately fun thing to do, probably because it has reminded me of the serendipity of browsing a library which I enjoyed as a young man, before the internet arrived.   (You can stumble across things on the net, of course, but the more evolved it has become, the more it seems the serendipity has been drained out by too many people - or companies - thinking they know what I might find interesting.)  

This week's choice was a very esoteric one - a translation of a book written in the early 20th century by the Japanese Zen Buddhism populariser DT Suzuki on the European mystic oddball Emanuel Swedenborg!    (Title - "Swedenborg - Buddha of the North".)

And yet I found stuff in it that was interesting and about which I want to post.

A detailed post is coming.

Late movie review - Logan Lucky

I think this might have only recently become available on Netflix Australia?

Watched it on Saturday night, and what a pleasant surprise.   I didn't think it had been very well reviewed when it came out, but it turns out I was wrong.   I was right, though, that it hadn't made much money ($48 million internationally - that's a crime.  Ha ha, a pun.)

It's a very enjoyable, well directed, light weight heist movie in an unusual setting.  Remarkably, I read afterwards, the screenplay was by a first time female writer - she should be really proud.   I wonder if she is from West Virginia, because she does not mock their bogan-ish interests at all.

There were a couple of things I realised about half way through - there is (I think) not a swear word to be heard in the entire movie, even though there are many characters who are crims or ex-crims.   And the style of somewhat eccentric humour is reminiscent of that in the good natured Coen Brothers comedies:  perhaps Raising Arizona and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (neither of which featured swearing either) are the closest comparisons.

[I love to excitedly point out to my son when there is an enjoyable movie that features modern adults but no swearing.  "Yet" - I like to say - "did it ever occur to you while watching that it wasn't realistic?   See - you can still make movies with realistic characters who do not swear!  We should have more of that!"]

I think some Americans say some of the Southern accents are a bit off, but I reckon if you're not from there, you aren't going to notice.  Even Daniel Craig seemed convincing to me.

So - highly recommended.

Another salmon recipe

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the successful recipe of grilled salmon on  mashed potato full of leek, and rocket and corn.  Last night I tried another recipe and it was pretty nice too...crispy skin salmon with bean puree and a (sort of) tomato salsa.  

This recipe was from Woolworths, and the only adjustment I made was a little olive oil and lemon on the salsa.  

Pretty nice, and although serving size for 4 looked a little small on the plate, the bean puree still made it a filling meal.  (We always get by on buying the 4 pieces of salmon for $13 pack at Coles or Woolies.  The pieces aren't  huge but its enough.)

Yesterday's toilet paper exchange

This is a close approximation to how a toilet paper exchange went in my workplace yesterday:

Nearby business person comes into our office [which is near a pharmacy and Coles]:  "The pharmacy and Coles have both got some toilet paper in! Coles have doubled the price, but the pharmacy is selling it at normal price but they'll only sell me 4 packets.  Can you go down and buy some more?" [She was speaking to a staff member - not me]

Me, calling out from my office:  "Can you stop trying to get other people caught up in your panic shopping?"

Panic woman (to me):  "What?  What's wrong with you?  You don't know when they'll next get some in.  They say Coles have ramped up the price, but the pharmacy is selling it but they'll only sell me four."

Me:  "If people keep doing what you're doing, we'll never get back to normal supply and stock.  Isn't that obvious?"

Panic woman:  "But my son and daughter have both run out!"

Me (internally dubious, but still):  "Well, OK, you might have an excuse for buying more than one packet then..."

Panic woman:  "Yes, and I mean 'who cares'?"

Panic woman (to the staff member she had started with):  "Does your daughter have any. Go buy some for your daughter."   [Staff member's daughter lives about 60 km from her.]

Staff member (who, mind you, had been complaining to me about the ridiculousness of the panic buying, sounding defeated):  "Yes, yes, OK I will get one packet for my home.  You want me to get another for you?"

Panic woman:  "Yes please. Get two."

PS:  that evening, I told my wife about it.  Her reaction "But if people keep doing that we'll never get back to normal."   Obviously, I married wisely.

Now they praise her..

I'm seeing a lot of pro-Warren comments on Twitter now that she is out of the race.  Thanks fellas, for coming out now.

I think I am probably also being persuaded by the moderate Democrats arguments that Sanders is just not as electable as Biden, because he is simply not carrying the more moderate states, and the ones that flip between red and blue, in the middle of the country.   Sanders even acknowledges that he is not increasing the youth turnout as he had hoped, which is what he needs to kick out the old white people from middle America (who are killing us - as I like to say.) 

I am also persuaded by the suggestion that, given the age of the two front runners and doubts their health, they should chose a VP runner now.

I had previously said Sanders/Warren may well work, but now I am leaning towards Biden/Warren (and, as someone on Twitter suggested, Biden also undertaking to only stay in for one term.)   I think that could keep both sides of the party happy enough (except for the more ratbag Sanders bros, but really, numerically they can probably be ignored.)

Oh, and I should note again how Tulsi Gabbard is a ridiculous, non serious show pony who is using her campaign to get a job on Fox News, as this article argues.

 

Hard to imagine the compulsion

Well, I was looking at The Straits Times for news about how COVID-19 is going in Singapore (I figure that soon the government will be offering to pay me to fly over as a tourist), and noticed this story: 

44 weeks' jail for man who took upskirt videos of women by hiding camera in shoe

This isn't usually the sort of story worth reading, but the details here are surprising:  he first started this behaviour in 2013, and has been arrested 5 more times for it between then and 2018!  He is only 27.

The guy not only has a clear sexual fetish compulsion, but he's really bad at executing it (assuming his goal is not to get caught, I suppose.)  I find it hard to understand how men develop such a specific sexual fetish, especially these days given the amount of free internet pornography that relates specifically to, well, actual sex. 

Anyway, the guy needs psychological help, clearly.

Do the shelves still carry disinfectant?

May this be a lesson to all teenagers of the benefits of room cleaning:

New research from Singapore published Wednesday showed that patients with the novel coronavirus extensively contaminate their bedrooms and bathrooms, underscoring the need to routinely clean high-touch surfaces, basins and toilet bowls.

On the other hand, the virus was killed by twice-a-day cleaning of surfaces and daily cleaning of floors with a commonly used disinfectant, which suggests that current decontamination measures are sufficient as long as people adhere to them.

The research letter was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and comes after cases in China where the pathogen spread extensively through hospitals, infecting dozens of health care workers and other patients.

This led scientists to believe that, beyond catching the infection through coughing, environmental contamination was an important factor in the disease's transmission, but its extent was unclear.

Researchers at Singapore's National Centre for Infectious Diseases and DSO National Laboratories looked at the cases of three patients who were held in isolation rooms between late January and early February.

They collected samples from their rooms on five days over a two-week period.

The room of one patient was sampled before routine cleaning, while the rooms of the other two patients were sampled after disinfection measures.

The patient whose room was sampled before cleaning had the mildest symptoms of the three, only experiencing a cough. The other two had moderate symptoms: both had coughing and fever, one experienced shortness of breath and the other was coughing up lung mucus.

Despite this disparity, the patient whose room was sampled before cleaning contaminated 13 of 15 room sites testing, including their chair, bed rail, the glass window of their room, the floor, light switches.

Three of the five toilet sites were also contaminated, including the sink, door handle and toilet bowl—more evidence that stool can be a route of transmission...

Air samples tested negative, but swabs taken from air exhaust outlets were positive—which suggests that virus-laden droplets may be carried by air flows and deposited on vents.

"Significant environmental contamination by patients with SARS-CoV-2 through respiratory droplets and fecal shedding suggests the environment as a potential medium of transmission and supports the need for strict adherence to environmental and hand hygiene," the authors wrote.

That phrase "fecal shedding" puts me in mind of a certain blog I am known to read.   "Australia's leading libertarian and fecal shedding blog" has the ring of accuracy about it.

But anyway - the report doesn't say what the "commonly used disinfectant" was.  Is spraying Glen 20 in copious quantities going to do it?  Or antiseptic wipes?  Or are both all sold out anyway?   Perhaps I should check my Coles. I was due to buy some anyway - honest!  

Einstein in Prague

Nature reviews a book with a very narrow focus:  the 16 month period starting in 1911 in which Einstein lived in Prague.  This is in the period between his publishing on special relativity and general relativity.  (When young, I had always assumed that general relativity came first, then special. Seemed a reasonable assumption.)

The reviewer finds the book to be surprisingly good, for the way it discusses the people around Einstein at that time.  For example:

There are quirky observations, almost worthy of playwright Tom Stoppard. For example, Einstein and writer Franz Kafka probably met at a 1911 cultural soirée in the house of Berta Fanta, a “philosophically ambitious” socialite who held a salon above her husband’s pharmacy in Prague’s Old Town Square.

And let's note this, which will no doubt attract some rubbish comment from a reader:

Take Oskar Kraus, a philosopher at the German University. Originally trained in law, he took against Einstein, writing countless articles in philosophy journals unpicking what he saw as egregious internal inconsistencies in relativity. His writing and stance foreshadowed the anti-relativity strand of the Deutsche Physik movement, an eviscerating force in German academia during the rise of the Third Reich. Kraus, who had been born into a Jewish family but converted to Protestantism, was arrested by the Gestapo and ultimately fled to Oxford, UK.

Country accountants are a menace to society

Why do accountants turned politicians from country electorates (such as Barnaby Joyce and this Rennick character from [groan] Queensland) think they know better than the CSIRO, NASA, and God knows how many professional scientific organisation?:

You may have to go to Twitter to watch the video.