Victorian Police and the Church

Jack the Insider has a very interesting take on the matter of the George Pell prosecution, which seems not to be behind the paywall, for now.  He points out a long standing history of the police force in that State turning a blind eye, or actively protecting, sex offending priests.   Jack wonders if the prosecution of Pell was undertaken with view towards diverting attention from the history of their previous protection.

Sinclair Davidson likes to believe that Pell was targeted purely for being a conservative figure hated by the Left.  I have never felt it likely that the Police were especially sympathetic to carrying out the wishes of political Left in such matters.  Jack's view adds some greater nuance to the matter.

[I should add - I am not in a position to argue the details of what various figures within the Victorian police have done in the Pell matter.   I have not followed it in that close a detail.  So sue me.  I do know, however, that the conservatives and culture war warriors at Catallaxy do not do nuance.  Their take that it is the greatest scandal in Victorian prosecution history is therefore virtually guaranteed to be wrong.]

Einstein in England

The TLS does a quick survey of some recent books on Einstein, some of which deal with his visits to England.  He quite liked the place, apparently.

This episode, of which we have a photo, sounds like a event you could perhaps write a fanciful movie around:

On September 9, 1933, something spooked Einstein, who was by then living in exile in Belgium. Apparently fearing for his life, he travelled alone to England at short notice. Einstein turned to Oliver Locker-Lampson, whom he had met on an earlier visit, for protection. A Conservative Member of Parliament and decorated former soldier, Locker-Lampson was “an impulsive romantic” and, according to Robinson, Einstein clearly liked the “commander’s can-do, gung-ho personality”.

Locker-Lampson took Einstein to his thatched holiday hut in Norfolk. In what sounds like an episode of Dad’s Army, he armed locals with shotguns to protect Einstein from Nazi assassins. Einstein used the “admirable solitude” of the countryside to continue working on his unified field theory, a project which would occupy him for the rest of his life. The sculptor Jacob Epstein came to model him and recalled his “wild hair floating in the wind”, like “the ageing Rembrandt”. His wonderful bronze bust of the scientist is in the Tate Gallery.

Before Einstein departed for America on October 7, he said “no matter how long I live I shall never forget the kindness which I have received from the people of England”. Once ensconced in the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, Einstein never returned to Britain.

And here's a staged photo from that time.  Not sure if that is part of the actual accommodation - it looks a bit like a hut, but a very rough one!:

A coupla interesting sites

A month or two ago, I stumbled across a blogspot blog by some older guy who just put up quotes from old books.  It seemed a rather esoteric exercise, with little readership (a familiar feeling), but some of the quotes were interesting.  Do you think I can find the blog again?   I think Google used to make it easy to search their own hosted blogs, but it seems harder now, even though there are probably fewer blogspot blogs around than ever before.   I think it might have had a latin name?  Anyway, I will keep looking.

Amongst other interesting sites recently found, try this one:  Res Obsura (a catalogue of obscure things).  It's run by an assistant professor of history at UC Santa Cruz, and although he posts infrequently, they are high quality and interesting posts on a range of unusual topics that seems to align closely with my interests. 

One other new site, Notches - (re)marks on the history of sexuality.  

Come on, who doesn't like considering the history of sexuality?   I think it's particularly interesting because of the remarkable changes anyone aged, say, 40 or over, has witnessed in their own lifetime. 

Here's from the "About" section:

NOTCHES is a peer-reviewed, collaborative and international history of sexuality blog that aims to get people inside and outside the academy thinking about sexuality in the past and in the present. Since its launch in January 2014, NOTCHES has attracted over 200,000 views, been profiled on About.com’s Sexuality site, the History News Network, and Freshly Pressed three times by WordPress. NOTCHES is sponsored by the Raphael Samuel History Centre, and we are committed to the centre’s mission of “encouraging the widest possible participation in historical research and debate.” Our goal is to create a collaborative and open-access blog that is intellectually rigorous and accessible, historical and timely, political and playful.

I see from the posts linked on the main page that there is a bias towards towards gay and queer topics, which is probably what you would expect, but a lot of it is to do with heterosexual behaviour, and particularly across different cultures.  Also abortion.

I haven't read a single post yet, but there is a lot that sounds interesting.

I suspect it will be providing grist for the mill for several future posts here.  

How absurd

More on India and COVID19

There's an interview of interest about this at the New Yorker.  I thought that this painted a grim picture of the country health wise, even without COVID19:

And it’s also got a population that has tuberculosis and respiratory issues and pneumonia and high rates of smoking and air pollution. So, the trajectory of the disease in this population is going to be unclear. The other thing is that India also has a lot of hypertensives. About a third of the country’s adults are hypertensive, and about one-tenth of them are diabetic. And, so, all of this is likely to compound the problem. Of course, we don’t know anything for sure until the numbers actually start going up. But these are all the reasons why people of India are worried.

But then I Googled the figures for diabetes and hypertension in America, and the figures are pretty much the same!

Very Japanese

Robots replace Japanese students at graduation amid coronavirus 

The photo:

Reminds me of one of the funnier episodes of Big Bang Theory in which Sheldon attended work in a very similar manner.

Then they shook hands, and parted ways

With the release of a statement by the complainant "J" in the Pell case, we now have statements by both of the key players.

I would love to know how many of the words in the complainant's statements are genuinely his, because it does read very well.  I would expect there was at least some lawyerly help in drafting it.

But assuming it is a genuine reflection of his attitude, the funny thing is that both he and Pell are being pretty damn gentlemanly about the outcome.   Pell, who doesn't exactly give the impression of being a "life of the party" type anyway, seems to indicate no great bitterness over a period in which he got to be like a religious hermit;  J got to say that he accepts the court decision and respects the need for the criminal burden of proof being set high, and (in a key point that makes me think he is actually a good example to people who have encountered sexual abuse) says that "this case does not define me."  That attitude should actually please conservatives, who dislike the intense victimhood claims common in identity politics.

So, it is a very peculiar situation, where both of them are being pretty stoic and (seemingly) leaving it up to other people to hyperventilate about what happened.

If they can do that, so should those on the extremes of commentary about the case.

Update:   perhaps it is not clear where I am getting my sense of Pell's reaction.  Here it is, from Pell talking to a Catholic media outlet:

The cardinal told CNA that he had lived his time in prison as a “long retreat,” and a time for reflection, writing, and, above all, prayer.

“Prayer has been the great source of strength to me throughout these times, including the prayers of others, and I am incredibly grateful to all those people who have prayed for me and helped me during this really challenging time.”

The cardinal said the number of letters and cards he had received from people both in Australia and from overseas was “quite overwhelming.”

“I really do want to thank them most sincerely.”

In a public statement at the time of his release, Pell offered his solidarity with victims of sexual abuse.

“I hold no ill will to my accuser,” Pell said in that statement. “I do not want my acquittal to add to the hurt and bitterness so many feel; there is certainly hurt and bitterness enough.”

Dear Leader doesn't like oversight

Yeah, what a stupid "if anyone has ever criticised me or my administration, it's because they are being politically biased" performance by Dear Leader Trump today.

Culture war warriors bouncing off the walls after Pell convictions overturned

I see that, reviewing my previous comments on Pell, I initially did not think it likely the High Court would readily overturn the conviction after a jury and three judges thought it could stand.   (I'm including the trial judge, who could in theory have directed the jury that the evidence was so weak that they must acquit.)

I've always been ambivalent about the likelihood of the allegation, and thought it wise that no one, on the either side of the culture wars, should be expressing certainty about the case.  I specifically said that David Marr should not have spoken as if he had complete vindication after the initial conviction - it was a bit of grandstanding.

But today I award my "nonsense Culture War reaction of the day" to - guess who - Sinclair Davidson, reverting to his "physically unimpressive man who compensates by talking like Conan the Barbarian when it comes to politics" mode with this silly claim:

CRUSHING DEFEAT FOR THE LEFT, THE ABC, THE VICTORIAN POLICE, THE VICTORIAN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.

Yeah - because every single person on the Left had exactly the same view of the matter, and this "defeat" will change the mind of every person who believes Pell was undoubtedly guilty.  

As it happens, I have talked to people who would never vote Labor (and are not, I think, especially big viewers of the ABC) who thought Pell was guilty after his initial conviction.    I have also spoken to people of Leftist persuasion who didn't know what to think.   There is also the possibility of ongoing civil action involving Pell - although how much there may be to gain from that, I don't know.

In a way, the process has given something that could be seen to "please" both sides:  those who were unduly certain of his guilt see that he still served a fair bit of time in jail; those who were convinced that this is the greatest injustice ever* get to jump around with the warpaint on a few days, although they'll soon enough be fuming again if civil actions proceed.

But what is 100% clear is that the final outcome will do nothing to remove the incredible loss of reputation of the Church over child abuse, or resolve its slow moving, painful internal conflict over its loss of credibility on all matters sexual, which really started with its disastrous 1960's decision on contraception. 

Good luck with the bigger picture, culture war warriors of the Right...

* It pales into insignificance compared to the Chamberlain case

The problem for other, poorer, countries

The BBC has a story about COVID 19 infections starting in a slum area in Mumbai. 

Just so hard to believe that efforts to contain it will be successful in that environment.

And in another "how can they possibly cope" story, I see that Jakarta Post is still reporting low total numbers in Indonesia, but a lot of doctors dying:

At least 18 doctors across Indonesia have died in the fight against COVID-19, the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) said on Sunday.

One of the 18 doctors died from exhaustion while fighting the pandemic while the others had tested positive or were under surveillance for COVID-19.

Wahyu Hidayat and Heru Sutantyo were the latest doctors confirmed to have died of COVID-19, the association announced on Sunday.

Wahyu, an otolaryngologist, died at Pelni General Hospital in Bekasi, while Heru, a doctor from Diponegoro State University, died at Pertamina Central Hospital.

Also, looks like the Philippines is claiming similar numbers as Indonesia (3,660 cases, less than Australia!), but again it's hard to believe.  

Hot contender for the most nonsensical comparison of the century

What a failure of a "gotcha"

Roger Franklin thinks that Sarah Ferguson should be embarrassed that she didn't do the research to see that one man who was on the show and speaking about his time as a child at a Ballarat orphanage, Peter Clarke, has once said that "it was great fun" growing up there.  On Revelation, about which I posted, his attitude was more nuanced, in that he said some nuns were good, some not; and that there was "no love" there, except that between the children.  He seemed to remember some mates there fondly enough.

So what?   The earlier comment and the present one are not necessarily inconsistent at all.

And if Roger thought it was a case that Ferguson was out to give an overall bad impression of the orphanage - she actually had the main guy who claimed he was the subject of some highly dubious attention and actions by Pell say that he was really happy living there!  He literally said he "loved it". 

The show, if anything, gave a very balanced picture of the place, just as you might expect from talking to a bunch of former residents:  Bernard (the main focus of the story) was clearly generally happy there; but some others said they didn't like the intense religiosity of daily life; some thought some of the nuns too strict; I think all acknowledged some nuns were fine and there was some fun to be had; and Clarke himself said he thought it a case that the nuns just weren't trained about how to deal with really troubled kids.   That observation would be undoubtedly true, for the era.

Franklin is just out to try to make any "gotcha" he thinks he can.     He instead just shows himself up as the stupid old duffer that he is. 

Trump Vs the doctors

Gee, I wish someone on a podium with Trump would just lose it during a press conference and yell at him "Mr President, you are simply wrong.  Shut up and listen to experts in the field.":

A strong piece on Trump and COVID19

Have a read of Fintan O'Toole's really great bit of analysis of Trump and his weird, contradictory impulses as to how to react to COVID-19.  Here are the opening paragraphs:

On July 4, 1775, just his second day serving as commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary forces, George Washington issued strict orders to prevent the spread of infection among his soldiers: “No person is to be allowed to go to Fresh-water pond a fishing or any other occasion as there may be a danger of introducing the small pox into the army.” As he wrote later that month to the president of the Continental Congress, John Hancock, he was exercising “the utmost Vigilance against this most dangerous Enemy.” On March 8, 2020, well over two months after the first case of Covid-19 had been confirmed in the United States, Dan Scavino, assistant to the president and director of social media at the White House, tweeted a mocked-up picture of his boss Donald Trump playing a violin. The caption read: “My next piece is called Nothing Can Stop What’s Coming.” Trump himself retweeted the image with the comment: “Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me!”

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Donald Trump is no George Washington, but his descent from commander-in-chief to vector-in-chief is nonetheless dizzying. Trump’s narcissism, mendacity, bullying, and malignant incompetence were obvious before the coronavirus crisis and they have been magnified rather than moderated in his surreal response to a catastrophe whose full gravity he failed to accept until March 31, when it had become horribly undeniable. The volatility of his behavior during February and March—the veering between flippancy and rage, breezy denial and dark fear-mongering—may not seem to demand further explanation. It is his nature. Yet there is a mystery at its heart. For if there is one thing that Trump has presented as his unique selling point, it is “utmost Vigilance,” his endless insistence that, as he puts it, “our way of life is under threat.”

If the United States is to be run by a man who has perfected the paranoid style, the least its citizens might expect is a little of that paranoia when it is actually needed. Yet even on March 26, when the US had surpassed China and Italy to become the most afflicted country in the world, Trump continued to talk down the threat from the virus.

Many people have it. I just spoke to two people. They had it. They never went to a doctor. They never went to anything. They didn’t even report it. . . . The people that actually die, that percentage is much lower than I actually thought…. The mortality rate, in my opinion . . . it’s way, way down.

 Oh, OK.  I can't resist posting a few more paragraphs further in, which really do point to deeply offensive attitudes held by Trump:

Trump has long characterized those who do not appreciate his genius as “haters and losers”: “Haters and losers say I wear a wig (I don’t), say I went bankrupt (I didn’t), say I’m worth $3.9 billion (much more). They know the truth!” runs a typical tweet from April 2014. In The Art of the Deal, Trump claims that “There are people—I categorize them as life’s losers—who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others.” But in Trumpworld, as in the rightwing ideology he embodies, life’s losers are not just hateful. They are a different species. Winners are one kind of human; losers a lesser breed. Trump— like so many of the superrich—believes that this division is inherited: “What my father really gave me,” he tweeted in June 2013, “is a good (great) brain, motivation and the benefit of his experience – unlike the haters and losers (lazy!).”

In How to Get Rich, Trump links his own germaphobia to the idea that some people are born losers. Winners are people who think positively—and positivity repels germs. “To me, germs are just another kind of negativity.” He then goes on to tell the story of an unnamed acquaintance who is driven home from the hospital in an ambulance after being treated for injuries sustained in a crash. The ambulance crashes and he has to be taken back to the hospital. “Maybe he’s just a really unlucky guy. Or maybe he’s a loser. I know that sounds harsh, but let’s face it—some people are losers.” The train of thought here is typically meandering, but the logic is clear enough. Losers are inevitably doomed by their own negativity, of which germs are a physical form. Infection happens to some people because they are natural losers.

In 2013 Trump suggested that there was an upside to the great recession caused by the banking crisis: “One good aspect of the Obama depression is that it will separate the winners from the losers. If you can make it now, you deserve it!” Apply this to Covid-19 and you get an instinctive belief that it too will separate the wheat from the human chaff. Great public crises are not collective experiences that bring citizens together. On the contrary, they reveal the true divisions in the world: between those who “deserve” to survive and thrive and those who do not. Faced with the threat of the coronavirus, this becomes an ideology of human sacrifice: Let the losers perish.

A not so late movie review: Knives Out

Saw this in Google Play on the weekend, encouraged by strong reviews (not that I read any - I was just going by the average on Metacritic and Rottentomatoes) and good word of mouth on Twitter.  I had seen the trailer at the cinema and didn't think it looked all that good, but I assumed that it was just a case of a poorly made trailer.

Turns out my trailer reaction was a bit closer to the mark.   Look, there is nothing wrong with it, really:  it kept my attention to the end and I hadn't worked out the resolution ahead of time (but I virtually never do in murder mysteries);  it's just that it was much more old fashioned and traditional in the "whodunit" genre than I expected.  For some reason, I was expecting something more innovative.

Sometimes funny, but not that often.   Whoever did the make up (and perhaps, the lighting) seemed to make no effort to make the big name stars look less than their age - in fact, I thought it was like they were made to look older.   Except perhaps for Chris Evans - he looked his age, whatever that is.

Overall, maybe it was just a case of the movie being oversold in its reviews that I felt under-whelmed.  Not trying to put anyone off watching it; and maybe I was just in the wrong mood.   But I think despite it being well directed and having a complex script, it's still pretty forgettable.

Update: it just occurred to me that I felt a similar way about the movie Spotlight.  Nothing wrong with it; well made, etc:  just it didn't meet the expectations indicated by reviews, and feels forgettable.  In fact, I already can't remember any "classic" scene from it. 

Not how things should work

In any normal presidency, a crank economist would not be shouting at a medical expert that he (the economist) knows more about how a drug has been proven effective. 

And a president would not be pretty much taking the side of the crank economist and encouraging people to try the drug.

Who is paying the Institute of Paid Advocacy to have this thought?

Anyone who has been paying close attention would know that the IPA (see title) ran a video a few days ago in which one its current gormless "I'm just waiting for pre-selection by the Libs" youngsters [geez, I wonder how much Roskam smarts over still being there] advocated for an immediate reduction of COVID-19 restrictions, all in the interest of not killing the economy and avoiding the unemployed killing themselves.   [Note how this advocacy kindly puts into the minds of the unemployed that they will soon be contemplating this.]

What I want to know is this:  the IPA's takes over the last couple of decades have virtually all been traceable to funding sources - the support of the tobacco industry, climate change denial, kill the ABC, etc.

Which of the current funders would be pressing a line that they know better than experts when it is safe to reduce restrictions?  

I suspect Gina Rinehart would - she has a family background of generic nutty ideas and is still devoted to climate change denial.  It is bad for business.   But it would be good to know who else.  Has Rupert made any statements to anyone?   It is very suspicious.

Anyway, about the only media outlet reporting on the IPA video that I can see is The Australian.   Of course it would. 

Genki desu

Because we cannot live on a diet of COVID19 news alone, let's consider this story of Japanese pop!

I'm not sure why, but Youtube was recently suggesting World Order music videos to me, and in a recent bit of late night curiosity, I watched quite a few. 

I was vaguely aware of them before: the Japanese "boy" band which shows a deep resolve to sticking to the formula of electro pop with robotic choreography done in public while wearing Japanese business suits.   I'll even put up (what I think is) their biggest hit, which is as intensely idiosyncratically modern Japanese as you can get:

Anyway, watching the videos made me curious about the leader of the group - especially as the song credits show that he writes them (sometimes in collaboration).  There was something a bit familiar with his odd set of characteristics:  a good looking, clean cut man heading a band, writing its thematically unusual songs and heavily into choreography as part of performance;  and I realised I was thinking of David Byrne.

Yeah, so I'm coming a couple of decades late to learn about him, but looking up the life story of this guy - Genki Sudo - was quite surprising.  While David Byrne is seen as a man of wide ranging interests and talents, he's got nothing on the career path of Genki.   He made his name as fighter in that mixed martial arts UFC competition, and was allowed to do over-the-top, theatrical (and somewhat amusing) entrance choreography.  I think it makes UFC look a lot less serious than I assumed it was, and a bit like WWF.  Here is an (apparently) famous example from 2006:

He went from that to form World Order, whose song titles indicate a strong interest in liberal internationalism, with a cynical attitude towards the American Right.  As its most recent example, have a look at this 2018 video, for the sarcastically upbeat anti-Trump song (turn on the captions to see the lyrics) "Let's Start WW3":

The video ends on Genki's long standing slogan "We Are All One" featuring all nation's flags.

And now - Sudo has now left the group to become a politician!   Here's his entry on the Japanese Diet website:

His political goals according to this website are:

As a politician, his three main goals is furthering food safety, helping global environment protection and “a foreign policy that involves peaceful and realistic negotiations (translated quote).”

Yep, he's definitely liberal.

Wikipedia says he has also been a successful wrestling coach, and has written 14 books! [David Byrnes has written quite a few books himself, and in another similarity, I see that they have both been married once and divorced.  Sudo has no kids, though, apparently.]

Quite the varied career, to put it mildly.  

Hope he does well as a politician, anyway.  I have no idea whether he is likeable in real life - there are not that many interviews with him around, that I can see.  But a pretty interesting character.

Oh - and the title for the post:  "genki" means healthy, lively or vigorous, and the Japanese greeting of "genki desu ka" (pretty much "how are you going"?) can be answered "genki" or "genki desu".  So I believe.  Genki Sudo does seem pretty "genki".  

So obviously,wildly, inappropriate

And yet, Fox News is trying to endorse it (mind you, this was prior to the above Trump performance, but still):

Quite frankly, if this virus doesn't manage to take out Rupert Murdoch as ironic revenge for his malignant effect on American politics, there ain't no justice.

This seems...a really bad idea

From the Jakarta Post:

Annually, some 20 million people from Greater Jakarta travel to their hometowns to celebrate Idul Fitri in a tradition called mudik (exodus). The tradition, public health experts say, could lead to massive COVID-19 contagion on Java, an island of 141 million people, where many regions have far worse healthcare systems than Jakarta....

 President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced that he would not officially ban people from traveling for the Idul Fitri holidays, ignoring warnings from public health experts that the consequences of failing to prevent people from leaving Jakarta, the epicenter of the outbreak in the country, could be dire.  

“[The President] underlines that there is no official ban on people going on the mudik during the 2020 Idul Fitri holiday period. The travelers, however, must self-isolate for 14 days, will be given ‘people under observation’ [ODP] status, as per the World Health Organization health protocol, and will be monitored by the respective local administration,” presidential spokesman Fadjroel Rachman said in a statement on Thursday, shortly after a speech by the President on the matter.

State Secretary Pratikno, however, later clarified Fadjroel’s statement, saying that the President actually called on people to stay in the capital, though he did not categorically state that the President would ban the mudik.

More about the mudik tradition, due in May this year, which until now I knew nothing about.