Meet the Spartans

Oh look, that increasingly rare thing - an interesting and fully free article at Slate about something other than an odd sex kink/relationship.

It's about ancient Sparta, by the author of a new book about them.  It starts:

Many self-professed champions of freedom throughout the centuries have looked to ancient Sparta as an inspiration. The doomed stand of 300 Spartan warriors against the Persian Empire at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.E.—the subject of Zack Snyder’s 2006 film 300—has been particularly influential for figures ranging from Lord Byron rallying support for Greek independence from the Ottomans to Cold Warriors mythologizing the virtues of the “West” against the Soviet Union. It’s easy to ridicule such a simplistic view of history, and to point out that the Spartans might not have deserved their reputation as invincible warriors. But the blunders and brutalities of today’s champions of “Western civilization” follow Sparta’s example remarkably closely. This should give us pause.

Sparta’s famous militarism was inseparable from the all-consuming fear the Spartans had of their oppressed neighbors. Unlike other Greeks, who only took up the spear when their city went to war, the Spartans trained as soldiers full time. The skill acquired over years of drill and exercise made the Spartans unbeatable for centuries in any straightforward clash of infantry. This professional army, however, was possible only because the Spartans enslaved their neighbors, called the Helots, and forced them to take care of the farming and other necessary tasks to keep the community functioning while the Spartans honed their soldiering talents.

 

Today's news

I presume Haley will soon be out, and then we get to watch the pathetic line up of "yes, his attacks on me were humiliating and on the same level as a high school bully, but sure, I can work with him."

Update:  here's another bit of amusing Trump commentary -

 

Expansive thoughts for a Friday...

Over at Aeon, an essay on the likelihood of the universe (or at least, a large chunk of it) being taken over by self replicating spacecraft.

It starts with this provocative paragraph:

Some time late this century, someone will push a button, unleashing a life force on the cosmos. Within 1,000 years, every star you can see at night will host intelligent life. In less than a million years, that life will saturate the entire Milky Way; in 20 million years – the local group of galaxies. In the fullness of cosmic time, thousands of superclusters of galaxies will be saturated in a forever-expanding sphere of influence, centred on Earth.

I think that start date is definitely way too early, given the bumbling around it is taking to even get back to the Moon.   But still...

I'm old enough to remember when they went on about how a blurry shot of Hilary's mouth showed she had syphilis...

What goes around comes around, I guess:

 As to the Hilary has it story, here's a link.

Update:  By the way, of all the theories that have been swirling around what the hand injury is, I reckon a likely one is that he grabbed a frozen hand rail (while getting off his plane?) in Iowa and bits of his skin stuck to it.    Because that is a dumb mistake to make, he hasn't rushed to admitting it.   

Just a theory...

All so obviously true

Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post talks about how it is absolutely clear that Trump acts the way he does in court not to win the cases, but to play to his "base":

We know he views courtrooms as campaign appearances where appeals are made for their political value, not legal strength. Trump would rather be in courtrooms than on the campaign trail. In the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, he was in a Manhattan courtroom for closing arguments in the New York civil case. He was not required to be there. But he makes more headway with Republican voters by appearing as an aggrieved defendant than by staging and attending campaign events....

Though Trump does not necessarily want to lose, he does not maximize his chances of winning. Legal experts Norman Eisen, Joshua Kolb and Andrew Warren, for example, pointed out at the Daily Beast that he did not make cogent arguments, let alone the best ones, in the New York fraudulent evaluation case. “Looming over the arguments made by both parties was what could have actually been Trump’s best argument against the intent to defraud: that any mistakes were accidental,” the authors noted.

Why spend time arguing irrelevant points or rearguing rulings the judge already made (e.g., the disclaimer on the evaluations doesn’t absolve him of fraud)? “The undisciplined and unhinged defenses Trump propounded today reflect the approach he has taken in the criminal cases,” they suggested. “Given the weakness of his legal position, it looks like Trump is aiming his arguments not at the court but at a different audience: the public. But that won’t be successful, in either the civil case or the criminal prosecutions.”  ...

Trump eagerly creates chaos, looks for opportunities to disrupt and continues to threaten judges, court personnel and witnesses. Indeed, in advance of the current trial, Carroll’s lawyer implored the judge to consider his outburst in the New York civil case and take steps to prevent another attempt to “sow chaos.” Trump is prohibited from rearguing the facts of the sexual assault — although he might try anyway. Expect outbursts in his criminal trials, ludicrous arguments (even those the judge already ruled on) and other stunts that a normal defendant might fear would be off-putting to a jury. That has always been his style: delegitimize entities and defy the rules because he seems to consider himself above the law.

Chait on the current political situation in the US

Jonathon Chait can be a bit hit or miss in his analysis, and I see on Twitter some have immediately accused him of writing this to assist Trump.   But I don't think that is at all fair, and even a progressive like David Roberts (who was recently fighting with more centrist Noah Smith on Twitter) thinks it a good column.

It's a long read, but here it is.

A quite nice column on ageing

It's in the Washington Post, and starts with a quote I don't recall reading before.  (I hope it's not a myth quote!):

Every so often, even in heartbreaking times, the soul hears something so true out of the corner of its ear that it perks up, looking around like a meerkat for the source. Mine did this when, decades ago, I read a quote of Albert Einstein’s: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

By the way, not to go all Buddhist on you, but the importance of gratitude is an aspect of (at least Pure Land?) Buddhism which aligns nicely with the above attitude:

I visit a lot of Buddhist temples and groups in North America, and it’s pretty common for people to ask, “So, what’s your prac­tice?” It’s a sort of icebreaker in the Bud­dhist world. I think my answer tends to surprise some folks, though. As a Shin Buddhist, my primary practice isn’t meditation, sutra study, ritual, or precepts. All of these can be valuable, of course, but in Shin Buddhism our main focus is the practice of gratitude. This sets us apart from many other Buddhists. We don’t practice to achieve anything—not enlightenment, good karma, a favorable rebirth, or material rewards. We practice simply to give thanks for what we have received. It’s a small shift in one’s perspec­tive, but when pursued, it can be transformative.

From the point of view of the dharma, we can see that each being exists within an inconceivable network of support from all things. Whether it’s the attainment of buddhahood or the simple act of drawing a breath, our every action is assisted by forces beyond the ego-self. As we become aware of our interconnectedness, we gain some perspective of our karmic limitations. Accom­plishments we counted as our own successes turn out to be due to the myriad benefits received from others. Pulling on our bootstraps, we discover that someone else made the boots and the straps, and fed and nurtured us until we were ready to pull. Our own efforts are imperfect and cannot succeed unless countless others are involved. This awareness gives rise to a sense of humility about our limitations and patience in the face of others’ imperfections. It also cultivates a sense of humor about our shortcomings and those of others.

For Shin Buddhists, being aware of our interconnectedness involves being aware of how power-beyond-self is always nurturing and sup­porting us. Part of the Pure Land tradition, Shin Buddhists believe this power that comes from beyond the ego-self is provided by Amida Bud­dha, the limitless compassion and wisdom that benefits us all. Naturally, thankfulness wells up inside of us as we awaken to this ever-present gift.

With this awareness, Shin Buddhists say the nembutsu in gratitude. The nembutsu is a phrase, Namu Amida Butsu, that expresses our happiness and thankfulness. It isn’t a mantra or a prayer—it doesn’t accomplish anything other than letting out that bottled-up gratitude in a joyful utterance. When we say Namu Amida Butsu, we aren’t begging to get into the Pure Land or trying to win favors with the Buddha. We are saying, “How wonderful to receive so bountifully! Thank you very much!” I find that Buddhists in lineages other than the Pure Land schools often misunderstand this point.

 

I foresee a failed Apple product

I think I've only watched him on Youtube once or twice, but this guy's is big in the world of tech reviews, I believe:

 

Why does this seem to happen in Sydney, in particular?

Say this just now:

Almost 1,000 recently completed apartments in Sydney’s north are at risk of collapsing due to “serious damage” to concrete in the basements caused by defective workmanship, according to the New South Wales building watchdog.

The developer Greenland has been issued with urgent rectification orders over the four apartment buildings at the Lachlan’s Line development at 23 Halifax Street in Macquarie Park.

The Building Commission NSW found there was “serious damage and spalling of the concrete slab at the joint locations in basements and the ground floor caused by defective workmanship” after inspections last year.

“This is a defect in a building product or building element that causes or is likely to cause the basement slab to fail, namely, to fracture and collapse, leading to the destruction of the building or any part, or the threat of collapse of the building or any part,” the rectification order said.

This is another example over the last few years of relatively new high rise apartment blocks in Sydney being found to have structural issues making them dangerous.  It would seem, from the list noted in this article in 2019, to be the fourth block that it has happened to.

What puzzles me is why these disasters seem particularly centred on Sydney constructions.

There was an ABC (perhaps Four Corners) show about the high rise residential building industry a year or two ago, in which they seemed to indicate that Queensland and other states had a more rigorous independent inspection regime during construction than NSW.  But surely these faults are related to engineers and certifiers who are engaged by the builder to check the work, too?   

I mean, I don't really understand how they can risk their professional reputation over certifying shoddy work that will come to light in the near future...

Some details on the Trump Iowa win

From the Washington Post:

Republican front-runner Donald Trump added Iowa’s most religious regions to his strongholds in Monday’s caucuses. He combined religious areas with the state’s lower-income and less educated counties to pull a majority of all caucus voters, more than double what he earned eight years ago.

Trump dominated the caucuses in the style of other Republican winners of the past 20 years, a pattern that works in Iowa but did not propel them to win the nomination. Meanwhile, Trump’s weakest performance was in the parts of Iowa that more closely resemble the rest of the country, with fewer White evangelical Christians, fewer farmers and more people living in cities with higher education and more income.

It's the details like this (as well as his continuing court cases, and his dubious health) which convince me there is no need to sweat about Trump winning another term.

The perfect "Labor isn't Left enough" faux crisis

I reckon this story:

 

...is pretty much the perfect example of an issue that only excites political commentators who have no perspective at all of what really does, and should, interest the broader public.   

I find it very hard to get excited about it.  

Why no one should be panicking about US poll numbers at the moment

Here's a useful article at The Conversation on the above topic.

 

Homing dogs

A propos of nothing, as they say:  an article in the Guardian about the remarkable homing abilities (some) dogs have been able to display.

Mealy mouthed Trump analysis, continued

Once again, we seem to be witnessing editorial decisions at the major mainstream print media to not go out of their way to offend people who would vote for Trump. 

This has driven some online commentators nuts ever since Trump was campaigning in 2016.  As it should. But it's pretty appalling that it is still going on. 

I offer these examples.

From the Washington Post, an article headed ‘Ordained by God’: Trump’s legal problems galvanize Iowa evangelicals (gift linked), we get these lines:

In several ways, Trump is an unlikely hero for those who identify as deeply religious Christians given his history of committing adultery, promoting falsehoods, and uttering vulgar comments and insults about women and people who cross him. But many have overlooked these indiscretions and questionable morals.

Now, it's true, the next paragraph speaks more strongly - but it is using the words of a commentator, not the newspaper itself, which, I think it fair to say, takes a "two sides-ing approach":

“The support has gone from begrudging to enthusiastic. Many evangelicals now see Trump as their champion and defender — perhaps even savior,” said Barry Hankins, a history professor at Baylor University who is an expert in evangelicalism. “Unwittingly, in my view, many evangelicals are welcoming authoritarianism and courting blasphemy.”

More from the article:

Standing outside a commit-to-caucus rally in Clinton, Iowa, recently, Paul Figie, a pastor and a Trump caucus captain, said Trump is “ordained by God.” He pointed to how he has seen Trump as being mistreated by the justice system and Democrats, equating the former president to a martyr. He dismissed the viability of other candidates, saying he was convinced that a higher power would put Trump back in office.

“Trump is the guy to be in there, and amen,” he said.

Trump has accused the Biden administration of discriminating against people of faith, suggesting at a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, that “Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before.” Fact-checkers, however, have debunked that claim. Experts on religious liberty, such as John Inazu from Washington University in St. Louis, cite multiple major religion-related Supreme Court cases and say religious freedom is perhaps more protected than ever.

Trump has leaned into biblical comparisons. He recently shared on Truth Social a nearly three-minute-long video depicting him as a messiah — and played it at a rally. A narrator intones that “on June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump” as a baby picture of Trump fills the screen.

See what I mean about "two sides-ing"?   "Trump often claims X.  Factcheckers say it isn't true.  Evangelicals would prefer to believe Trump."   It ends:

On a recent Sunday outside Walnut Creek Church in downtown Des Moines, Mark McColley, 71, explained why he is backing Trump.

“I am very disappointed that this country has been so brutal on Donald Trump,” he said. “It’s really brutalized him for the last six to eight years. And I don’t think that that’s warranted. I think he cares about this country. And I think that’s an important thing that we need to have.”

Over at the New York Times, meanwhile, we are getting headlines like this:

Election 2024 On Eve of Caucuses, Trump Casts Iowa as a Battleground for Victory Over ‘Cheaters’

The former president assailed his rivals before a rally crowd that braved subzero temperatures to see him. Nikki Haley got a boost from Maryland’s former governor.

And beneath that:

Democrats Fret That Biden’s Power Players Are Not at His Campaign Base

And also on the on-line front page, more "let's try to understand Trump supporters" guff:

How College-Educated Republicans Learned to Love Trump Again

Blue-collar white voters make up Donald Trump’s base. But his political resurgence has been fueled largely by Republicans from the other end of the socioeconomic scale.

In which we read  more mealy mouthed stuff:

Their surge toward the former president appears to stem largely from a reaction to the current political climate rather than a sudden clamoring to join the red-capped citizenry of MAGA nation, according to interviews with nearly two dozen college-educated Republican voters.

Many were incredulous over what they described as excessive and unfair legal investigations targeting the former president. Others said they were underwhelmed by Mr. DeSantis and viewed Mr. Trump as more likely to win than former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina. Several saw Mr. Trump as a more palatable option because they wanted to prioritize domestic problems over foreign relations and were frustrated with high interest rates.

And look at some of the voters they quote!:

Ruth Ann Cherny, 65, a retired nurse from Urbandale, Iowa, said she was turning back to Mr. Trump after considering whether the party had “a younger, dynamic guy.”

She considered Mr. DeSantis, but decided she couldn’t support him because “dang, his campaign is such a mess.” She wanted to support Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and political newcomer, but concluded he was too inexperienced and could not win.

“Trump has been in the White House once, and maybe he has a better lay of the land this time and will know who’s who and what’s what,” Ms. Cherny said.

Yolanda Gutierrez, 94, a retired real estate agent from Lakewood, Calif., whose state votes in the Super Tuesday primaries on March 5, expressed similar views.

“I know Trump’s got a lot of baggage,” she said. “But so much of it is make-believe.”

Ms. Gutierrez, who studied education in college, said she had voted twice for Mr. Trump but had been leaning toward Mr. DeSantis because she liked his record as governor of Florida and thought the party needed a younger leader.

“But now I prefer Trump because Democrats are trying to find any way they can to jail him,” she said.

Are the editors at these papers a bit thick??   As I said above, online commentators have been talking for years about how important "framing" an article is, and how treating supporters of authoritarianism as just "reasonable people who need to be understood" is completely useless when they are under the sway of a character who, to them, is effectively a cult leader for whom reality doesn't matter, and for whom a large sway of self serving media barons (both mainstream and smaller) have pledged allegiance.  

The New York Times has also graced us recently with a column by Brett Stephens along the lines of "hey, you know I don't support Trump, but today I'm going to try to paint the best possible picture of him to explain why he still appeals to people."    

And Ross Douthat offered his opinion to try to held the Supreme Court rule that no court can find that Jan 6 was an insurrection attempt - he wrote a piece for subscribers entitled Why Jan. 6 Wasn’t an Insurrection.

He's quite the fool at times. 

Douthat has had plenty of pushback, including from columns at Reason and The Atlantic.  And on Twitter:

 

But it's still terrible that his trademark "excusing the authoritarian I personally don't like" comes under the New York Times banner.

Finally, while I should say that I actually do not think it likely that Trump will win an election against Biden, and think it much, much more likely that Biden might lose against an alternative runner, I nonetheless find it frustrating that the key US media outlets are still just "trying to understand" Trump supporters when they should be attacking them and not giving default endorsement to them as worthy of serious consideration that "they might have a point". 

UPDATE:

Cult members, remember to die for your leader:

Can you imagine the Right wing media machine going off its collective brain if Biden said something like that?   And for Trump, to the MSM, it's just "Just Trump being Trump".

UPDATE 2

Here's a couple of tweets making the point I did in comments (pretty much).

UPDATE 3:

Heh.

Co-sleeping, considered

I'm not sure I've learnt much that I hadn't read before here, but it's still a somewhat amusing article on how, until modern times, "co-sleeping" was quite the norm.  Some extracts:

Sharing a bed did not have the same sexual connotations that it does today. In the medieval era, the Three Wise Men from the Christian bible were often depicted sleeping together – sometimes nude, or even spooning – and experts contend that any suggestion they were engaging in carnal acts would have been absurd.

Sociable sleeping was so desirable, it even transcended the usual barriers of social class. There are numerous historical accounts of people bunking down each night with their inferiors or superiors – such masters and their apprentices, domestic helpers and their employers, or royalty and their subjects. In 1784, a parson wrote in his diary that a visitor had specifically requested to sleep next to his servant. Night-time tussles over blankets and hours of strange bodily noises tended to afford a certain equality that didn't exist outside of the bedroom.

Well, I think it certainly a good idea that an employee no longer has "sleeping right beside your unpleasant boss" as a work condition!

The article goes on to mention Samuel Pepys's diaries:

In addition to the minutiae of daily life and frequent lewd descriptions of womanising, the diary records just how often he slept in the same bed as friends, colleagues, and perfect strangers. And they reveal the many nuances of successful – and unsuccessful – bedsharing.

On one occasion in Portsmouth, Pepys went to bed with a doctor who he worked with at the Royal Society in London. In addition to laying "very well and merrily" together, presumably talking late into the night, the doctor had the added advantage of being peculiarly delicious to fleas, who consequently left Pepys alone. (It's also been speculated that the pests didn't like his blood – and perhaps this helped him to avoid catching the plague.)

Tucked up under several layers of blankets, with their nightcaps resting on their heads, Ekirch explains that well-suited bedfellows might exchange stories well into the early morning – perhaps even waking to analyse their dreams between their first and second sleeps. (Learn more about the forgotten medieval habit of biphasic sleep.)

These hours spent chatting in the blackness of night helped to strengthen social bonds and provided a private space to exchange secrets. Handley cites the example of Sarah Hirst, a young gentlewoman and tailor's daughter, who had several favourite sleeping partners for whom she developed great affection. When one of her regular bed mates died, she wrote a poem expressing her grief.

Oh, I don't think I knew this:

Though she had many beds at her disposal, it's thought that Queen Elizabeth I never slept alone once during her 44-year reign. Each night, she retreated to her bedchamber with one of her trusted attendants, with whom she would unburden herself and dissect the day's activity at court. These women also provided her with protection.

 

I'm sure Boeing really appreciates this guide in the Washington Post...

 Update:

And this amused me: 

This is a very odd story

Here's the New York Times version:

Secret Synagogue Tunnel Sets Off Altercation That Leads to 9 Arrests

Videos showed a tumultuous scene as young Hasidic men clashed with the police in the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitcher movement in Brooklyn.

Makes it seem like peoples from a certain part of the world share part ant genes, or something.  (I've been watching quite a few ant keeping videos on Youtube lately!)

Hiding in plain sight

Yeah, this a very appealing idea because it's both cool and kind of funny. (Not that the post mentions AI in particular, but I mean the idea that an AI could be hiding within a computer network used for other purposes.)

Made me laugh

Maybe this has been around for a while?  (Hope I haven't actually posted it before!)  But I think I only notice today:

 

Everyone likes a tidying mouse

House-proud Welsh mouse may be ‘tidying’ for fun, say scientists

The rodent was filmed repeatedly gathering objects and placing them in a tray in a shed in Builth Wells

And in more pro-rodent discussion, this is on the ABC:

Why author James Mackinnon says our perception of rats and their role in the Black Death is wrong

No one thinks this was a good idea

This is not exactly the world's most important story, but it is interesting how the New York Times running a 5,000 word opinion piece by a "queer" staffer explaining why they are sure - positive! - that Taylor Swift has always been queer and has been sending cryptic messages along those lines in her lyrics since forever has been hit with near uniform criticism from both the Right and Left.   I mean, even in the comments following the article, the great majority were saying "Really?  Why is the NYT running this fangirl speculation at such length and with no thought to how annoying it could be to the person whose privacy has always been invaded?"

 

El Nino and dry weather

I'm getting a bit sick of the media coverage about "why is this summer so wet across Australia when the weather bureau said it should be dry because of El Nino?"

I mean, I was sure that I had read often in the past that El Nino does not necessarily guarantee a dry summer, and it took all of one Google search to find a BOM page from 2016 that confirms this:

El Niño is often, but not always, associated with drought in Australia. But the drying influence of the 2015–16 El Niño was initially tempered somewhat by very warm temperatures in the Indian Ocean. From April to August, above-average rainfall fell over parts of inland Western Australia, New South Wales and eastern Victoria.

But by spring, the Indian Ocean was helping El Niño, resulting in Australia's third-driest spring on record, limiting growth at the end of the cropping season. A record early heatwave in October further reduced crop production in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Yes, I get that the BOM late last year did give a seasonal forecast of dry conditions because of El Nino, but I have always assumed seasonal forecasts are "rubbery" because they fall into the "bumps along the way" gap between short term weather forecast (pretty accurate, but only up to about 7 - 8 days) and long term predictions of certain climate changes, like increasing global average temperature (also pretty accurate because it's based on physics and the bumps along the way are averaged out).  

I thought this was pretty obvious, but media with its "BOM got it wrong - why?" style headlines are not helping much.

 

I think this article came out the day before the "hole in the plane"

 Boeing is asking federal regulators to exempt a new model of its 737 Max airliner from a safety standard designed to prevent part of the engine housing from overheating and breaking off during flight.

The story ends:

The 737 Max went into service in May 2017. Two of the planes crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. All Max jets were grounded worldwide for nearly two years while the company made changes to an automated flight-control system that pushed the nose down based on faulty sensor readings.

More recently, Max deliveries have been interrupted to fix manufacturing flaws, and last month the company told airlines to inspect the planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system.

 

 

Guardian, don't give me false hope

Are tattoos about to become uncool?

On the upside:  the writer claims that tattoo parlours are facing tough times, with reduced demand for their services.   (Seems just anecdotal, though.)

On the downside:  one just opened within about 800 m of my house, whereas before that I would guess the nearest would have been good 3 or 5 km away.

On the upside:  it's a bit like suicide prevention, it seems (sorry for the OTT comparison) - if you can delay the first urge, it reduces the risk:

Even a short delay in your first tattoo can set a person on a path of no tattoos.

Just over 50% of Australians get their first tattoo aged 18-25. And tattoos beget tattoos – most Aussies who have a tattoo have more than one. So if you make it to 25 without your first ink, you’re far more likely to keep your skin as is forever.

On the downside:  people in their 50's or older getting one under the influence of the younger cohort's fashion ideas seems to be a thing.    

And what to do about the head tattoo and employability?  Yesterday, I saw a guy, perhaps in 20's or early 30's, with hair trimmed on his head so short so that you could see that his skull was covered in tattoos, extending around to his face.   (Not to mention heavily tattooed arms and legs.)   He was Caucasian, and the tatts were not of any "tribal" design anyway, so that excuse didn't apply.   Is this a "don't bother employing me" tactic taken by men who want to live on welfare all their life? 

Another recent example of one of my big objections to tattooing - the kitch nature of so many tattoos as art - an attractive enough looking young woman, a bit overweight but not too much, with a prominent tattoo on (I forget where exactly) her upper arm or leg of the famous The Shining twin ghost girls - but with no face.  Seriously, what's the point of that as a permanent feature of your body?

 

More on that Catholic problem

At the New York Times (gift link):

Blessing of Same-Sex Couples Rankles Africa’s Catholics

It is out of step with the continent’s values, many bishops say, and threatens to derail expansion in the church’s fastest growing region in the world.

Also, as noted in a CNA report:

Catholic bishops in some countries, particularly in Africa, have expressed various degrees of dissent over the Dec 18 declaration, known by its Latin title Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust), which was approved by Pope Francis.

The fact that the Vatican needed to issue a five-page clarification of an eight-page declaration - little more than two weeks after it was issued - appeared to underscore the extent of the confusion it caused in many countries.

Further down:

Last week, Burundi's President Evariste Ndayishimiye called on citizens to stone gay people.

Uganda passed a law last May that carries the death sentence for certain categories of same-sex offences and lengthy jail sentences for others - a move that was widely condemned by Western governments and human rights activists.

On a side note:   do the "anti-colonial" academics - many of whom seem to be LGBT activists (if not LGBT themselves) really expect us to believe that it is the past colonialism that has caused a persistent culture of harsh anti-gay attitudes in much of Africa?

Airplane issues

Feels hard not agree with the sentiment expressed here:

This latest accident seems particularly ill timed for Boeing given that the whole world, virtually, just watched an Airbus deal successfully (from a passenger safety point of view, at least) with being drenched in fuel and lit alight.  (Admittedly, though, I didn't realise carbon fibre could burn away so thoroughly.). 

Whenever Airbus vs Boeing comes up, I am also reminded how some of the "rah-rah American free enterprise/European socialism stinks" crowd at the old Catallaxy blog used to dismiss Airbus because of their "how can you trust Europeans working together to get anything right?" attitude.

A long term concern for Singapore

Singapore's mean sea level may rise by up to 1.15m by 2100, exceeding previous estimates

According to updated projections from Singapore's third National Climate Change Study released on Friday (Jan 5), the mean sea level around Singapore will rise even higher than previously expected.

The study is based on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) sixth assessment report.

Previous projections forecast a mean sea level rise of up to 1m by the end of the century, but this third version of the study has revised the figure to 1.15m.  

The study has also gone beyond the end of the century, projecting a mean sea level rise of up to 2m by 2150 under a high carbon emissions scenario. The projected figures are relative to the baseline period of 1995 to 2014. 

Even though it will take decades to happen, this is still a major issue.  But if ever there was a country that I would trust to make some good long term planning decisions to try to mitigate this, it would be Singapore.

Genes and sexual behaviour, yet again

A news story at Science about a new study, which is summarised adequately in the title:

Bisexual behavior genetically tied to risk-taking, controversial DNA analysis finds

Study also finds different genes drive bisexuality versus other same-sex sexual behavior, but scientists split over data and potential for stigma

The first couple of paragraphs:

Politically and ethically fraught, research into what leads to bisexual behavior or exclusive homosexuality typically sparks controversy. The latest study, published today in Science Advances, is no exception. By mining a DNA database of some 450,000 people in the United Kingdom, a research team has concluded that the genes underlying bisexual behavior are distinct from those driving exclusive same-sex behavior, and may be intertwined with a propensity for taking risks. This connection to risk-taking, the authors suggest, may also explain why men with a history of bisexual behavior still have a reasonably high number of offspring, albeit fewer than heterosexual men, possibly explaining why the genes driving such sexual behavior have persisted.

The work has drawn a mix of strong reactions. Some scientists called the findings valuable, whereas others found fault with the underlying data. Still others argued the research could potentially stigmatize sexual minorities. The result that bisexuality is tied with risky behavior, some scientists say, could be used by others to discriminate against, and further perpetuate false narratives about, bisexual people.

I would have thought that part of the problem may be the way "risky behaviour" is used.  Here further down there is a line:

These DNA patterns were linked to taking risks in life and being open to new experiences.

Well, seems almost a given that you could describe a key aspect of bisexuality as "being open to new experiences".  If that was the extent of the DNA influence, it would surely count as "unsurprising".

There are some other parts of the article which are of interest, though:

From one stark evolutionary perspective, sex without the prospect of producing children could be seen as waste of time and energy—behavior that might be selected against. Yet population surveys have consistently found that about 2% to 10% of people engage in sex with others of the same sex. Studies of twins have suggested such sexual activity is at least partly heritable, and therefore has a genetic component. And scientists have proposed several evolutionary theories explaining why same-sex sexual behavior may persist.

In 2019, a research team used data from the UK Biobank, a large genetic and health database of half a million people of European ancestry in the United Kingdom, combined with data from the consumer DNA testing service 23andMe to pinpoint gene variants linked to sexual behavior. In what is still the largest genome-wide association study (GWAS) on this topic, the researchers found that having certain genetic variants could explain up to 25% of same-sex sexual behavior.

The 25% figure sounds surprisingly low?   I suppose the issue of exposure to hormones in utero could take up a lot of the slack?  

Anyway, the article notes that there is a lot of criticism of the study, and yeah, that issue of the use of the term "risk taking" is one of them:

Steven Reilly, a geneticist at Yale School of Medicine, and others note the use of the UK Biobank’s data itself is problematic. Most of the people in it are more than 50 years old and grew up during a time when same-sex sexual encounters were illegal in the U.K. and homosexuality was considered by many a mental disorder. That history of stigma could have affected how they responded to questions about their sexual history, he notes. He adds that because the risk-taking behavior trait used in the study comes from the answer to a single question, it’s not clear, scientifically, what “risk-taking” entails.

So, overall, sounds more than a tad dubious, but it is interesting if it does provide reason to definitely accept bisexuality as a "genuine" thing. They have complained forever that both straight and gay people get up their nose (not literally!) when they label them as just "gay in denial".   And this is blackly funny:

Important formative work has been conducted that aims to understand the concept of bisexuality in the consciousness of the general population. One study, using a feeling thermometer technique, found that bisexual men and women were viewed less favorably than all other comparison populations provided (including religious, racial, political and sexuality groups), save for injection drug users.31

I've always found this modern "disbelief" in bisexuality hard to understand - I would have thought that the ancient world of Greece and Rome, not to mention China and Japan, and various other societies at various stages of history, (not to mention more modern high profile individuals like Oscar Wilde), provide plenty of evidence that some men, in particular, were open to sexual activity with both genders, and didn't get hung up on categorising their behaviour.   

Don't bother, it won't...

The New York Times:

What if Dance Could Save the World? 

Mind you, I think poetry has an even smaller chance.  :)

An odd detail

Of course, drug taking at raves is not something which marks anyone as a deserving target of an appalling terrorist attack.   But I still don't like the drug taking aspect of raves.  From The Guardian, an Israeli (I think) talking about the attack on 7 October:

Nadav Hanan was at the smaller of the dance stages at the Nova dance festival in southern Israel when Hamas attacked.

It was the beginning of an extended nightmare for the 27-year-old that saw him zigzag more than 15 miles of rough ground barefoot, surviving seven ambushes by Hamas attackers along the route to safety.

“It was after 6am. It was the peak of the party,” Hanan recalled in a bar in the Israeli city of Rehovot last month. “A lot of people time their drugs to kick in for sunrise at these parties. It should be one of the best moments.

“The people at the main stage couldn’t see what was happening but we had a clear view of Gaza. We could see Iron Dome [the Israeli anti-missile defence system] working. I knew the party was over.”

 

An unusual hotel problem in Singapore

I'm thinking of having a quick trip to Singapore soon, and have been checking out the cost of budget hotels.  I've learnt to avoid Hotel 81, as it seems that many Singaporeans treat it effectively as their "love hotel" chain, where rooms can be hired for a couple of hours.  (While that may make little difference to me in my room, at least if the walls are soundproof enough, it would indicate a lot of housecleaning goes on all day, which can make the corridors untidy.)  

There are many Ibis budget hotels, though, and one is a bit out of the way but close to the big Vivo shopping centre which I visited last time.  (It's just across from Sentosa Island, too - which I have yet to actually visit.)

Anyway, two reviews of this particular hotel make complaint about the wild chickens of Singapore waking them up!:

Rooms are tiny, overpriced, and the chickens wake you up every morning at 3 am. Staff is friendly, but that is the only thing good.

And:

Dont stay here if you want to sleep. There are dozens of wild chickens and at least 6 roosters that start around 4am every day, they will drive you crazy.  

The hotel replies to the last comment with this:

 Many of our guests have found the fowls to be interesting as our natural surroundings provide a very different vibe away from city. This is the first time we have received a feedback from our guests that they found them to be noisy.

I have posted before about my surprise at seeing attractive wild chickens even around the very built up Tanjong Pagar area.  They are pretty, but yeah, I would prefer not to be woken up by them...

Depressing but interesting

That's how I would describe this lengthy New York Times Magazine article about the controversial topic of how ethical it is to let treatment resistant anorexia patients go onto to "palliative care" instead of forcing treatment.

But one aspect of the disease surprised me:

And the sickest of patients can still get better — even after decades of failed treatment. One study of adult patients with anorexia, published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in 2017, found that nine years after the start of their illness, only 31.4 percent had recovered — but that by 22 years, the recovery rate had doubled to 62.8 percent. “These findings,” the study’s authors wrote, “should give patients and clinicians hope that recovery is possible, even after long-term illness, suggesting that even brief periods of weight restoration and symptom remission from anorexia nervosa are meaningful and may be the harbingers of more durable gains to be made ahead.”

I didn't know that...

And people mock me for my fear of lightning

I really dislike being outside if there is any lightning happening, and close house windows too during storms even if the rain is not coming in.  I've always said though that my precautions are just sensible, and it's likely that more people are hurt by lightning than is commonly realised.  (News stories of people hurt by lightning often get little attention, compared to roofs blown away or trees on houses that makes for more visual news stories arising out of storms.)   Here's some evidence to back me up:

Over the weekend, Queensland Ambulance Service transported two patients to hospital after being struck by lightning within hours of each other, one while inside a car at Burpengary on the Bruce Highway and one in Eudlo while on an excavator.

In late December, two patients were taken to Mareeba Hospital in a serious condition after being hit while at a private residence.

In mid-December, a 10-year-old girl was taken to Sunshine Coast University Hospital in a critical condition after being struck — the following day a man was taken to Gold Coast University Hospital after he was struck in Biggera Waters....

Mr Kirkby — who has worked in lightning protection services for more than 20 years — said while it was rare for people to be struck directly, there was still a significant risk of injury and death.

"This is one of the biggest fallacies out there, only three to five per cent of all statistics are people that are struck directly," he said.

"The majority of the injury and fatality statistics are from people that have been exposed to indirect strikes [when] the ground becomes highly electrified from a nearby lightning strike or if you're touching something which has been electrified."

My grandmother got a shock via her landline telephone, in fact, although as far as I know it led to no long term injury.   (One good thing about mobile phones replacing landlines is that this must happen much, much less often now.)

Conservative Catholic culture wars

It was remiss of me to not post about two recent events of note:

1.    That crank, the (former) former gay, self-promoting, conservative (Trad?) US Catholic Michael Voris has resigned/been sacked from his own organisation for some unspecified moral impropriety which remains undisclosed, but if you want a fast way to lose money, put it on "nothing to do with gay sex".  Here's my 2013 post in which I criticised him and his ilk - it reminded me that I hadn't looked up that Father Z character for a long time too.  He's still blogging, I see.  (I think he's not allowed to do much within the church, so he has a lot of time on his hands?)   

Look, the state of the American Catholic church with its willingness to play footsy with Trump is still dire.  Pew reported in 2021:

White Catholics, meanwhile, follow yet another pattern. About six-in-ten White Catholics who attend Mass monthly or more often (63%) supported Trump in the 2020 election, while 36% supported Biden. Less frequent Mass attenders expressed less support for Trump (53%) and more support for Biden (47%).

 But at least there is now some pushback from the Pope himself.

I could be wrong, but my impression overall is that the Trad/conservative Catholic Right has peaked in influence in the US and the West generally.  That's a good thing, in my opinion.  

However:

2.    The recent kerfuffle about "blessing gay couples" shows that it's not as if the rest of the Church really has any idea where it is going, and continues to get tied up on not knowing how to handle the issue of sex and sexuality.   Pope Francis does seem to delight in making statements that sound as if they are sympathetic to a change in attitude, while issuing instructions that don't really make any technical difference at all.   Look at the convoluted explanation given at the Vatican News website about the thinking behind allowing priests to give a spontaneous blessing to a gay couple:

The third part of the Declaration (paragraphs 31-41) opens then to the possibility of these blessings that represent a sign for those who “recognizing themselves to be destitute and in need of his help—do not claim a legitimation of their own status, but who beg that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit” (par. 31).

These blessings should not necessarily become the norm, the Statement notes, but entrusted to “a practical discernment in particular circumstances” (par. 37).

Although the couple is blessed but not the union, the Declaration notes that what is blessed is the legitimate relationship between the two people: in “a brief prayer preceding this spontaneous blessing, the ordained minister could ask that the individuals have peace, health, a spirit of patience, dialogue, and mutual assistance—but also God’s light and strength to be able to fulfill his will completely” (par. 38).

So - it's OK to bless the "legitimate" aspects of the relationship, while always bearing in mind that there is no way the relationship status can be "legitimised" per se.   Rather, it needs to be healed.

I think it fair to say that gay couples asking for a blessing are not wanting it to be one which conveys the message that their relationship is fundamentally flawed and against God's will - yet really, that is what is still what the Pope is at pains to retain.   

Anyway,  the Church will continue to be full of contradiction and tension on this, and teachings which  most laity won't follow, and I don't really know the way to resolve it all, short of something which would cause a permanent structural fracturing. 

Ghostly interest returns, and what is their significance?

Good thing I read The Guardian, otherwise I would have no idea that (according to one person, at least), discussion of ghostly experiences is in vogue again, probably due to a podcast series.   (In fact I had been meaning to comment here in recent months that I really miss reading about any good, spooky, real life stories of ghosts or similar experiences.  It seemed to me that interest in the supernatural was in fact at a particular low point, perhaps crowded out by some pretty stupid and gullible stuff on UFOs that has been dominating Twitter/X.)

From The Guardian article in question:

Everybody seems to be talking about ghosts right now. I turn up to dinners with friends, we’re talking about ghosts. I sit in the office, the conversation is dominated by ghosts again. I’m scrolling through Facebook groups and reading ghost stories that I then try to tell my boyfriend about (he ignores me). It feels as if ghosts are suddenly having a moment, a strange little resurgence into the mainstream. I think ghosts may be in vogue.

As for how and why ghosts have started to creep into polite conversation, there is a clear culprit. A few months ago the Amazon-owned podcast network Wondery published Ghost Story, a seven-part series hosted by the journalist Tristan Redman. Ghost Story focuses on a murder that occurred two generations ago in Redman’s wife’s family and, by absolute coincidence, took place in the house next door to where Redman grew up.

Redman details unnerving and inexplicable experiences that he had in his childhood bedroom and explains that his investigation into his wife’s family story was launched by news that two families who had lived successively in the house after his own family moved out had also experienced similar – seemingly paranormal – activity.

Apparently Redman tries to take a rational approach to it all and is all the more convincing because of that.   Certainly sounds like something that I should listen to.

The article writer then considers generally why ghosts have appeal:

Stress can increase our awareness of the little bumps and quirks of life that we may have previously walked past without a second thought. And of course it is entirely possible that talking about ghosts with friends primes us to pay attention to the dark corners of our apartments that previously felt perfectly comfortable and didn’t have to contain malevolent spirits or anything. This could be a rather self-perpetuating cycle.

But it’s also fair to say that telling ghost stories can be a simple comfort and form of escapism that we shouldn’t completely denounce. After all, many of us grew up in cultures where ghosts were part of the spiritual landscape and, in the vast universe of bizarre things to believe in, ghosts have to be among the most benign and least politically bothersome. They don’t lend themselves particularly well to the construction of conspiracy theories, they don’t have any troubling racist undertones and they’re not going to lead people to attempt an insurrection at the Capitol Building any time soon.

We should always remain vigilant about the emergence of pseudoscience and perhaps Carl Sagan would argue that even humouring ghost stories is a slippery slope towards a total collapse of scientific knowledge. But I think we can all agree that people can be much more discerning than that and, in the troubling year of 2023, maybe we all deserve a few ghost stories, as a treat.

Fair enough, I guess.

But I think it underplays the actual significance that any proof of a supernatural realm would entail.

I mean, I have always felt that given the way the scientific materialist view of the world has no explanatory framework at all for the existence of supernatural events, whether they be ESP, psychokinesis, reincarnation or an un-embodied entity (be it poltergeist or someone's soul), this makes any credible evidence that anything paranormal or supernatural exists incredibly significant.  It would blow a gigantic hole in the current scientific (and psychological?) way of understanding the universe.

I mean, the absolute most that science can try to squeeze into its current framework is retro-causation and the weird nature of time as possible explanation of what might otherwise be considered ghostly events.   (See the movie Interstellar - that aspect was the only thing I thought somewhat interesting and  novel in that grossly over-rated film.)

Because it (scientific materialism) has no framework at all for explaining how a personality could survive death and live in an invisible world and sometimes appear within ours (the multiverse ideas really don't allow it either - given their absolute quarantining of the different universes), this is actually a great incentive to pay attention to any evidence of ghosts.   And while an Occam's Razor approach to personal anecdotes (to conclude that a ghost story is more likely an invention or mistake than something "real") is generally very wise, I hate the way that it means (for many people) that they simply refuse to believe that there could ever be anything to personal experiences that seem inexplicable without something supernatural.  

I did try explaining this in a conversation with an old (atheist) girlfriend decades ago, and her response was "well, if ever there was proof of life after death, it still wouldn't be supernatural - it would just mean that there is a part of nature that we didn't realise was there.  So it still doesn't mean that there's a God or anything."    While this is technically true, especially on the point of God (see Buddhism), this still struck me as a massive attempt at "cope" for how mindblowing proof disembodied personalities should be for the scientific materialist.

I have the feeling I may have made a similar explanation to this before, but perhaps in not as much detail.   But it is why any credible sounding story of a paranormal or supernatural event gives me a bit of a thrill to this day, and why I feel somewhat disappointed when it seems there that parapsychology had hit a dead end in terms of convincing proof of anything that can't fit into the current paradigms.

Now, to find that podcast....

 

Various thoughts, sacred and profane, I guess you could say

*   I've finally gotten used to reading at length on a tablet - specifically my cheapo Lenovo 10.6 inch model that I've had for a year - and I see now that you can pick one up for $80 less than when I bought it.  (Now costs $247.)   The thing that has made a small but significant difference was downloading books in .epub format and reading them on the Google Play Books app.  (I've previously only tried reading .pdf format books on various .pdf reader apps - it was OK, but the Play Books app with an .epub book just works so well, especially if reading a book full of footnotes.)   And a 10.6 inch screen tablet is just the right weight and size for single page reading.  I've never been interested in a Kindle due to the inadequate screen size.  

*  So, what have I been reading?   I finished the (admittedly short) book on Pure Land Buddhism;  had a quick scan through "No Self - No Problem" (about neuroscience "confirming" Buddhist ideas of "no self") but it felt a bit dated, even though it is only from 2018;  and have been reading large slabs of "Nietzsche and Buddhist Philosophy" - which was found via a question to an AI search engine which took me to a forum on Buddhism and someone who recommended it.   It is pretty interesting, to be honest, despite my long term scepticism of paying much attention to Nietzsche's ramblings.  

*  There are various threads from this recent reading (and Youtube viewing) swirling around my brain, and I feel the need to try to "pin down" some of it by compiling a long essay/post for it to fit together.   But there's always a distraction around the corner.  This sense of stumbling around towards an important key insight has only been going on for about 40 years, though, so obviously I don't believe in hurrying such things!  (It also reminds me a bit about reading Philip K Dick's VALIS trilogy back in the 1980's - was some insight that all made sense of Life, the Universe and Everything about to be revealed?  Not really, as it turned out, but the possibility of it was part of the fun...)

*  As for other things I did over the Christmas/New Year break - nothing much, as the weather here was storms (mostly) only interrupted by a couple of days of debilitating heatwave (37 or 38 degrees with high humidity.)   Fortunately, my part of Brisbane didn't get significant damage, although some suburbs not too far away did (from storm wind, mainly.)   I feel very sorry for the residents of Mount Tamborine, which is a very pretty part of the world but has suffered the worst destruction from which it looks likely to take many months to recover.  

*  The most enjoyable thing I watched on Netflix over the break - don't laugh, but it was the Puss in Boots - The Last Wish.   This entry in the Shrek universe, so to speak, got very good reviews at the time, and it really is well written and surprisingly mature in theme.   (I see someone called it a "meditation on the inevitability of death" - which I suppose it is, as told by fairy tale characters who end up feeling more "real" than most recent superhero characters!)  

*  Summer breaks are about the only time I watch any bits of quiz shows on TV, and I have to say that I don't understand how The Chase has lasted this long.  It certainly must be cheap to make, given that the impression from my occasional viewing is that they must only have to pay anything to a contestant once every year (or two?)    I don't understand the appeal of a show in which the chances of winning seem so remote.    

And as for the other puzzling quiz show - I have been meaning to say ever since it began last year that the advertisements for "The 1% Club" on channel 7 are pretty remarkable because of the way the host (a comedian, apparently) comes across as an old fashioned jerk with dated material.  (A lot about bad marriages, and general put downs that feel like slightly warmed over insult comedy of the Don Rickles variety.)   Surely this won't work, I thought.  Yet to my great surprise, I see from the latest advertisements that the show is a ratings hit, and it seems they aren't lying.   Now that I look into it more, I see that in fact the Daily Mail ran a story when the show first started about the host being derided on social media as having no charisma.  (For once I agree with that august journal.)  Yet people are watching it.

Maybe it's me - I've never enjoyed "serious" quiz shows, really (the ones with contestants playing for money);  but it still seems to me that they have become worse as the decades progress.   (I last derided one in 2016 - the truly pointless and dull Pointless.) 

And now when I Google the recent shows, I see a common theme - they are all Australia versions of shows originating in England.   Ah well, that fits in with the general degradation of all cultural content coming out of that country over the last 30 or 40 years.

      

 

 

New Year amusement

Andrew Mark Henry is the guy who makes great YouTube videos at Religion for Breakfast.