Monthly Archives: July 2021

Remember the Ever Given, the ship that blocked the Suez Canal? She’s finally free of all tangible troubles:

The SCA [Suez Canal Authority] announced on Sunday that it would sign a settlement agreement on Wednesday [7 July] with the owner of the Ever Given ship.

The ship will be allowed to depart the Suez following the signing of the agreement.

Shoei Kisen, the Japanese owner of the vessel and its insurers said last month they had reached an agreement in principle with the SCA.

The SCA had demanded $916 million in compensation to cover salvage efforts, reputational damage and lost revenue before publicly lowering the request to $550 million.

The giant Ever Given ship will leave the Suez canal accompanied with two tug boats and the guidance of two transit guides from the SCA. [ahramonline]

Did the SCA get anywhere near what they wanted? It’d be interesting to know the procedure used to determine the final sum – just a simple bargaining, or assessments of fault as might happen in US Courts?

Riparian:

: relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse (such as a river) or sometimes of a lake or a tidewater
riparian trees [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “Egypt will ‘uphold and protect its inherent right to life,’ FM Shoukry tells UNSC,” Dina Ezzat, ahramonline:

“This is a situation that Egypt cannot, and will not, tolerate,” [Egyptian Foreign Minister] Shourky said [to the UN Security Council]. He added, “Otherwise, if its riparian rights are jeopardized or if its survival is imperiled, Egypt will be left with no alternative but to uphold and protect its inherent right to life that is guaranteed by the laws and customs of nations and the imperatives of nature”.

The top Egyptian diplomat commended the statement that the European Union issued Thursday to express worry over Ethiopia’s execution of the second filling of the reservoir of the GERD in the absence of an agreement among the three concerned riparian countries. He called on the members of the UN Security Council to issue a similar statement and to adopt a draft resolution that Tunis had tabled to call on the three countries to resume negotiations under the AU umbrella in good faith and with a plan to reach an agreement in a reasonable timeframe.

The waterway in question is the Nile River. More here.

We’ve lost one of our hollyhocks, but we still have a few others. There’s this lovely pink hock:

With a bit of their future here:

Meanwhile, these white hocks are afflicted:

Apparently, they’re the consumable apartments of asiatic beetles. Which I suppose is better than when the beetles eat our raspberries.

I subjected my readers to a whine concerning the widespread & improper usage of the word deserves a few days ago. I was, perhaps inordinately so, pleased when reading George Orwell’s essay “POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE” to see his take on the subject is the same as mine:

[After giving five examples of bad political writing]

Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house. I list below, with notes and examples, various of the tricks by means of which the work of prose-construction is habitually dodged.

Apparently, bad political prose is nothing new. This is unsurprising as the use of certain words will subconsciously predispose readers to certain attitudes, even when their political response to a more accurate and neutral depiction of the issue at hand is otherwise. (Is this paragraph itself an example of bad writing? Yeah, probably.)

Thus, with deserves, the reader’s sense of self-importance is inflated, and their response to a societal policy which they deserve is more likely to be positive. It’s cheap, it’s skanky, and it’s more common than cockroaches.

And it’s a pity that such a dishonest approach is considered necessary, because, if it is uncovered, then the issue may be tainted for the comprehending individual; and if it had been framed properly, or honestly, it may prove to be a stepping stone to better arguments. Or, as Orwell puts it:

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.

Orwell’s essay is worth a read.

Periaqueductal gray:

The periaqueductal gray (PAG) is an anatomic and functional interface between the forebrain and the lower brainstem and has a major role in integrated behavioral responses to internal (e.g., pain) or external (e.g., threat) stressors. The PAG consists of distinct columns that receive selective inputs from the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hypothalamus, and nociceptive pathways. Via its connections with different brainstem nuclei, the PAG coordinates specific patterns of cardiovascular, respiratory, motor, and pain modulatory responses. [“Periaqueductal gray: An interface for behavioral control,” Eduardo E. Benarroch, Neurology]

Well. Caught me off-guard, didn’t it? Noted in the title of this Paul Fidalgo post on The Morning Heresy:

Maybe Something in Periaqueductal Grey

Yeah, there was nothing in the body of the post of relevance.

Last time we metaphorically visited Michigan, a special investigatory committee in the State Legislature, dominated by Michigan Republicans, had determined there was no reason to believe that systemic electoral fraud had taken place, or that candidate Donald J. Trump had won the state of Michigan in the 2020 Presidential election. This would have been in the face of the former President losing every lawsuit contesting the result in Michigan.

The former President was quite unhappy at this result.

But now there’s more drama to come, I suspect:

Michigan’s chief law enforcement officer, along with state police, will launch an investigation into those who have allegedly peddled disinformation about the state’s Nov. 3 election for their own financial gain.

A Republican-led report that found no evidence of widespread fraud recommended the probe.

The Michigan Senate Oversight Committee report, written by state Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, and adopted by all the Republican members of the committee, called on the attorney general’s office to consider investigating those “utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends.” …

After reviewing the oversight committee’s report, the attorney general’s office “accepted Sen. McBroom and the Committee’s request to investigate,” said Lynsey Mukomel, press secretary for Attorney General Dana Nessel.

Nessel’s office will be assisted by Michigan State Police, Mukomel said. [Detroit Free Press]

The former President should be howling at this action.

And AG Nessel is a Democrat. Of all the significant information in the Free Press‘ reporting, that may be the most significant.

Republicans officially calling on a Democrat in law enforcement to investigate the allies of Trump for criminal conduct.

This may mark the beginning of the end of a unified Republican Party lovin’ the former President. A report by Republicans to the public that suggests the entire Presidential election controversy is nothing more than a sophisticated grift taking advantage of Republican marks? That won’t go down well at all.

Look for vociferous protests from the Trump camp.

But if this does go somewhere, if certain grifters find themselves in court facing criminal charges, look to their associates to find the third- and fourth- raters. Not their defenders, because this sort of personality, the third-rate personality, doesn’t stick around to defend their associates when they’re in trouble. But those are the people who make up the Republican Party these days.

And, just perhaps, people like Republican committee member McBroom may be the foundation of the next respectable conservative party.

I’ll be visiting Michigan someday soon. While I don’t anticipate falling into any political discussions with Trump supporters, if that does occur I’ll try to report the results.

A tiger lily?

Transhumanism:

Transhumanism is a philosophical movement, the proponents of which advocate and predict the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies able to greatly enhance longevity, mood and cognitive abilities.

Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations as well as the ethics of using such technologies. Some transhumanists believe that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with abilities so greatly expanded from the current condition as to merit the label of posthuman beings. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “The Big Thing,” Paul Fidalgo, Near Earth Object:

Long story short, I buckled down and finished the damn thing, and it’s now the cover story for the April-May 2021 issue of Free Inquiry magazine. It’s 11,300 words-and-change comparing and weighing two views of humanity’s future: transhumanism (we’ll all be saved and improved by technology) and “collapsitarianism” (we’ve blown it and civilization will crumble).

Why these two? Because I feel pulled toward both so strongly, despite their disparate outlooks. It’s the longest piece ever published by Free Inquiry (for which I am immensely grateful) and its editor, Tom Flynn, says it “just might be one of the most profound” (for which I am immensely humbled).

Phonon:

At a quantum scale, temperature and motion are one and the same: the more a particle is vibrating, the hotter it is. Those packets of vibration, also called phonons, must be removed to bring an object into its ground state. So far, this has only been achieved with objects with masses of tiny fractions of a gram.

Now, Chris Whittle at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his colleagues have cooled a system with an effective massof 10 kilograms from room temperature down to 77 nanokelvin, marking a huge leap in the mass of a system that can be brought near its ground state. The full system consists of four mirrors, each weighing 40 kilograms, but together they vibrate as if they were a single 10-kilogram object. [“LIGO mirrors cooled to near absolute zero could probe quantum gravity,” Leah Crane, NewScientist (26 June 2021)]

A nanokelvin is 10^-9K. The Kelvin, or K, scale defines absolute zero as 0K, so this is awfully darn close to absolute zero.

And has nothing to do with phonons.

Jair Bolsonaro, the President of Brazil, is the Brazilian equivalent of former President Trump, a right wing populist who seemingly could say anything and advocate for any cause, no matter how retrograde, because of his popularity with the people who’ve, in the Brazilian case, watched other leaders corruptly take advantage of their positions.

But, as with Trump, Bolsonaro’s weakness may turn out to be the pandemic:

In recent weeks, large protests — some in favor of Bolsonaro, others opposing him — have traded off. Dozens of lawmakers last week filed what they call a “super-request” for Bolsonaro’s impeachment, combining more than 100 impeachment requests already filed against him. The president’s approval rating has cratered into the 20s. Some political analysts think it could go even lower.

“The problem has begun,” said Matias Spektor, an associate professor of international relations at Fundação Getúlio Vargas in São Paulo. “If this spins out of control, this could be big, big trouble for Bolsonaro.” [WaPo]

[Bold mine.]
If Bolsonaro is eventually ejected from his position, either through impeachment or resignation, or even just making a run for it, there will be an element of embarrassment for the United States. Twice, we had the gumption to put Trump in a position to be removed, and twice we failed. This inability to remove the obviously corrupt narcissistic Trump speaks to our basic political incompetence and inability to make judgments based on reality.

If the Brazilians do, in fact, find Bolsonaro guilty of corruption and remove him, I’ll applaud, but privately wonder if they will ever be able to select someone with good judgment and incorruptibility for the position.

And how much longer we’ll be able to do so.

I ran across this little guy a few days ago.

No, I have no idea.

Dammit, I hate Powerpoints!

Horrible choice of narration? Check.

Way too much blood? Check.

Turned vampirism from ghoulish horror into a frickin’ disease? Check.

Plot holes the size of swamp rats? Check.

A movie that really sucks?

Not so much.

Oh, Netherbeasts Incorporated (2007) isn’t a life-changing tale of monsters and their annoying health problems, not at all. Nor is the above list of defects hardly complete, I’m sure. But there’s a certain quirkiness to this story of what happens when the element that’s keeping a band of vampires alive is stolen, and eventually that quirkiness becomes charm in a minor key. The actors play it as straight as they can, and so the characters’ reactions to the diseases that can afflict their long-lived bodies, which, quite candidly, can wear out, is convincing.

Which is to say, it’s not overwrought. It’s just part of the litany of daily problems facing the office-dwelling people eaters who are being led by the slick Turner.

Who may be mad. After all, he did just stake Mike. Even Mike being an asshole isn’t a good enough excuse to just stake a guy. Right?

Right?

If you like quirkiness, or vampires who broke the mold when they were cast, Netherbeasts Incorporated may be for you. Just remember, you have to be patient.

And admiring of the First Lifers in their midst.

News sites have seen a drop in traffic since former President Trump left office and President Biden was sworn in, Axios reports:

In the months since former President Donald Trump left office, media companies’ readership numbers are plunging — and publishers that rely on partisan, ideological warfare have taken an especially big hit.

Why it matters: Outlets most dependent on controversy to stir up resentments have struggled to find a foothold in the Biden era, according to an Axios analysis of publishers’ readership and engagement trends.

By the numbers: Web traffic, social media engagement and app user sessions suggest that while the entire news industry is experiencing a slump, right-wing outlets are seeing some of the biggest plunges.

• A group of far-right outlets, including Newsmax and The Federalist, saw aggregate traffic drop 44% from February through May compared to the previous six months, according to Comscore data.
• Lefty outlets including Mother Jones and Raw Story saw a 27% drop.
• Mainstream publishers including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Reuters dropped 18%.

Axios has cool charts, you should go look at them. But what does it mean? Andrew Sullivan celebrates it:

It is also an unmitigated good that polarizing, dumb-as-rocks cable news is in such sharp decline. Part of the promise of Biden is that he would keep tribal drama in its place. And he has! Monthly traffic for far-left outlets has dropped 27 percent in the last ten months; for left-leaning media by 17 percent; and for the mainstream (effectively left) by 18 percent. But look at the collapse of far-right media traffic: down 44 percent.

I’m not so sure. I’d love to think that traffic to partisan sites is down because people have become repulsed by it, but how can we be sure? I’d be a lot happier if, say, broadcast news such as NBC, CBS, and ABC (think: 60 Minutes) was reporting concurrent jumps in ratings, as they were about a year ago.

But it’s worth noting that the 2020 Presidential Election campaign and its post-election consequences were extraordinary, between Covid-19, special changes to the voting laws, absurd denials of reality by Trump and his little mob of lawyers – yeah, you can’t call that group a team, and even lawyers is more than stretching a point, as they begin to lose their lawyering privileges – the January 6th insurrection and concurrent wild-eyed theories of Republican members of Congress determined to betray their oaths, and a few other factors.

This contaminates virtually any conclusion, absent more evidence.

But it also remains fascinating. NewsMax/OAN traffic down 44%? Fox News down 22%? Mother Jones down 42%? (As much as I’d like to attribute that drop to Kevin Drum’s retirement, I fear that’s beyond the realm of possibility.) (Yes, go look at the charts!) Did we all abruptly learn that the partisan sites are misleading?

Or are we all just exhausted?

Investors in stock markets have to accept that prices can go down as well as up, and if that’s not acceptable then they shouldn’t be investors. But there are good reasons for prices to go up and down, and bad reasons.

This is a bad, if salutary, reason:

Usually, I can restrain my impatience with bad semantics, but this is from the University of Minnesota (yes, yes, my alma mater) and set off all the red flags for dreadfully sloppy thinking. It’s an invitation to a webinar, and is sans original formatting:

Topic Why Everyone Deserves a Health and Wellbeing Coach

Description These unprecedented times bring many new challenges and stresses. Every one of us has faced changes in our responsibilities, our routines, and our expectations. People have reported levels of stress, anxiety, and depression are at record highs. We know that lifestyle behaviors and social determinants of health play a larger role in our overall health and wellbeing than any medical intervention does. These difficult times have created an opportunity for reflection that has brought to light the desire for new, intentional life choices for many people.

Of course taking action to make intentional changes in our beliefs and behaviors is not easy. Health coaches are trained to help people effectively navigate lifestyle changes; they partner with people seeking self-directed, lasting changes that are aligned with their values in order to enhance their lives. They hold unconditional positive regard for their clients and a belief in their capacity for change, and honor each person as the expert of their life. That’s where the magic happens.

In this webinar we will explore:
• What health coaching is and how to find a credentialed coach
• When health coaching can be particularly useful
• How health coaching can help you find optimal wellbeing in all aspects of your life

Yep, nowhere in that list is a reason why I deserve a health and well-being coach. They don’t recognize my self-awarded Nobel prize, or self-awarded Pulitzer prize, or the made up fact that I found a five pound diamond in my backyard. In fact, I cannot see anything in their communication that even approaches a justification for using the word deserves.

I feel like I should be sending them a book on Honest Communications, but I suspect they’d retreat into intellectual sophistry at the very idea that they’ve engaged in deceitful word choices. Perhaps I should endorse their communications style and send them a copy of The Persuaders, instead, just to be a contributing member of the team?

Ah, but I’m not a member of the team, now am I?

Wow. What an utter disappointment the University has just become.

Erick Erickson remains convinced that he’s part of a regular people movement:

After all, it is pretty obvious for most to see, there’s a level of ungrateful self-centeredness when a sitting elected member of Congress condemns the nation and the supposed paper of record declares flying the nation’s flag anathema. It makes it easier for conservatives to relate to people and harder for the left.

Most real people, sadly for Erickson, have no desire to associate with a Party whose members, by and large, endorsed an insurrection, whether it be by non-violent (objecting to the counting of the Electoral votes) or violent means.

And most people, when it’s pointed out to them, will not wish to be electorally associated with adults who act like 5 year olds:

A majority of Republicans, 56%, say they believe that the 2020 election was the result of illegal voting or election rigging, per an Ipsos/Reuters poll released last week, with about 6 in 10 agreeing with the statement that “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.” Republicans also say, 54% to 30%, that they agree with the myth that the January 6 riot at the US Capitol “was led by violent left-wing protestors trying to make Trump look bad.” The rioters who breached the Capitol were Trump supporters, and sources ranging from the FBI to alleged participants in the riot have shot down the notion that left-wing agitators were involved. [CNN/Politics]

Without evidence you think your candidate was cheated? Despite the testimony of third party,  Democratic, and Republican experts and responsible officials that there is no evidence of such systemic fraud?

That is the mentality of a five year old.

And most folks, once it’s pointed out, will not wish to be associated with what Erickson wants us to believe is the reasonable conservatives.

Because they’re not.

That’s not to absolve the left of their sins. I’m sure they’re multitudinous. I’m also sure Erickson uses a very ungenerous reading of what they write and say. But when Andrew Sullivan expresses concern, on multiple occasions, concerning the left and Critical Race Theory, then I figure there’s probably something worthy of concern and even refutation.

But, you know what? I have at least some confidence that the moderate left will do that – refute, that is. The left has a history of coming up with unacceptable theories and ideas, and then pruning them.

The right also has a history of unacceptable theories, but do they prune them? Look at them now.

The answer is No!

And that’s why I have far more confidence in the center and left than Erickson’s extremist right.

I found this oddly relaxing. I think it’s the frenzy of the string player contrasted with the ood player’s minimal movements.

Some lovely lupines and irises that I hadn’t gotten around to publishing.

Recently, a third mass grave of skeletal remains, 182 in number, alleged to be that of Indigenous children, was discovered in Canada in British Columbia, on the grounds of the former St. Eugene’s Mission School, a residential school operated by the Catholic hierarchy. The prior two discoveries, of 215 bodies at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia last week, and 751 bodies of probable Indigenous children in former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan in late June, had sparked anger among the First Nation tribes, and this latest discovery has only soured some people:

Since the first graves were discovered, more than a half-dozen churches across the country, including a number on Indigenous land, have been vandalized or burned. Authorities have cast the fires as suspicious.

“This is not the way to go,” he said. “The destruction of places of worship is unacceptable and it must stop.”

“Hate-inspired violence, burning down faith communities, targeting them with these acts of violence and intimidation is not reconciliation,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney told reporters as he toured the charred remains of a century-old church in the town of Morinville.

Bellegarde, the First Nations chief, urged restraint.

“I can understand the frustration and the anger and the hurt and the pain,” he said. “But to burn things down is not our way.” [WaPo]

But I find it hard not to sympathize with the First Nations members who may be involved.

The actions of the Canadian government of the era and, more importantly, the Catholic hierarchy was atrocious. But the government agency is transitory and changes as understandings change; the Catholic Church subscribes to a moral system that is universal, doesn’t change, and is supposedly the rules put forth by a Divine creature.

This result, an evil to the grieving First Nations, is yet another blow to a Catholic Church which has lost prestige in Europe and North America due to a moral system which gives little practical reason to sympathize with it, has protected pedophiles in its own ranks.

The article states that there’s been no formal apology as of yet:

Pope Francis, who has expressed sorrow over the graves but stopped short of apologizing for the Catholic Church’s role, has agreed to meet with residential school survivors. The Canadian government and some Catholic groups, as well as the country’s Presbyterian, Anglican and United churches, which also ran the schools, have apologized for their roles in the abuse.

And if none comes, I suspect the Catholic Church in Canada will take another long step towards irrelevance. Does it realize that, much like its structures, it’s on fire? Pretending to some sort of moral perfection is a hubris which it cannot risk, because the world has taken long strides away from such positions. Today, recognition of past mistakes and institutional fallibility is part of what makes these institutions plausible players on the national stage, whether it’s here in the United States or in Canada.

The situation of the Nile River and Egypt, Sudan, and, most importantly, Ethiopia continues to deteriorate. AL-Monitor reports:

Egypt has so far played the Nile Dam dispute with Ethiopia straight by the diplomatic book, seeking a solution via mediated negotiation, working with and through trusted partners and institutions such as the United States, the World Bank and the African Union.

Egypt depends on the Nile, which originates in Ethiopia, for more than 90% of its water needs. Ethiopia’s decision to proceed with the second filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) this month, without an agreement on management of the downstream flow of the Nile waters, could reduce the flow of water to both Egypt and Sudan.

Eleven countries share water from the Nile Basin. The major chokepoint is the Blue Nile tributary in Ethiopia, where the GERD is being built.

The current crisis is not just about this month’s second filling of the dam, which may be less impactful than expected, because the GERD is still in development.

For Cairo and fellow Nile-dependent neighbor Khartoum [capitol of Sudan], this is a top-tier and existential national security matter. Without an agreement on the allocation of the Nile waters, Egypt and Sudan anticipate an endless cycle of uncertainty about the flow of the vital Nile waters to their countries.

[Bold mine.]

Critically:

Egyptian Ambassador to the United States Motaz Zahran wrote in April, “At stake is the future of the Nile, a lifeline for millions of Egyptians and Sudanese,” adding that “the GERD could inflict incalculable socioeconomic and environmental harm downstream in Egypt and Sudan.”

And is there a reason that Sudan and Egypt would put up with this uncertainty? Neither is notoriously pacifist countries; nor is Ethiopia.

Certain war-gaming departments at the countries in question, as well as many others, have doubtless been running simulations of the situation. Why?

Just to the east of the Nile is the town of Suez, marking the southern end of the Suez Canal. Remember the international hubbub when the Ever Given got itself stuck in the Canal earlier this year? An airstrike on the Canal by Ethiopia wouldn’t just impact Egypt, it’d impact much of the world, economically.

There may be nothing us little people can do to avert such a war, but at least we can prepare for any impact it might have on you.

Don’t be surprised if a war breaks out in this area in the next three years.

The Empress’ hair was kinda nice, but this poster is better.

It’s … it’s … Atragon (1963). Whee.

This is not a plot free movie, but it’s not something to get the audience fired up. There’s a missing Japanese submarine captain, his long-retired Admiral, the captain’s daughter, the usual gaggle of reporters, the evil Mu Empire and their God-creature Manda, which is unusually ineffectual. The submarine captain has his brand-new, self-developed submarine, which might be named Atragon, which not only cruises the ocean’s depths, equipped with a freeze ray, but also, ah, flies.

And it’s all very awful.

Retraction Watch notes the retraction of a paper “… claiming two deaths from COVID-19 vaccination for every three prevented cases,” and the defense of the authors, lead by Harald Walach:

We are happy to concede that the data we used – the large Israeli field study to gauge the number needed to vaccinate and the LAREB data to estimate side-effects and harms – are far from perfect, and we said so in our paper. But we did not use them incorrectly. We used imperfect data correctly. We are not responsible for the validity and correctness of the data, but for the correctness of the analysis. We contend that our analysis was correct. We agree with LAREB that their data is not good enough. But this is not our fault, nor can one deduce incorrect use of data or incorrect analysis.

The title of this paper?

The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy

And my point is that if you’re writing a paper that recommends a course of action, of course you’re responsible for using data that meets adequate standards of dependability and applicability. Shrugging those responsibilities off on someone else also means losing the moral authority to recommend a change in the course of action.

Especially when the analysis conclusion is sending up red flags such as these.

This is the scene where we play Who’s that chambermaid?

Gaslight (1944) is what might be called a sneaky, artless story, wandering about at random as an insistent sense of malevolence overtakes the audience, until an abrupt exponential sense of anxiety impinges on their otherwise amiable sense of placid activities. The young Paula Alquist is bereft of family, the last of it, her world-famous opera singer Aunt Alice, murdered by an unknown assailant in her townhouse, her sad body found in the flickering gaslight of 1800s London.

But Paula doesn’t live there any more. She lives in Europe, where ten or more years later, Paula meets an attractive stranger. A whirlwind romance follows, and marriage, and then the newly minted husband mentions a new destination, a home, where he knows of an empty townhouse.

Paula agrees, albeit reluctantly.

Once there, her husband, a composer, withdraws nightly to a separate residence to work on his music. This does not leave the days open for exploring London or exchanging visits, though, because Paula is exhibiting symptoms of mental illness: noises from the closed-off uppermost floor that only she can hear, events and appointments forgotten, a most unattractive worry that she’s taking leave of her senses.

And a husband with a volcanic temper.

But the plot really tightens up when a policeman, seeing in Paula her Aunt Alice, takes an interest – especially as the murder of Alice remains unresolved. Apple carts are upset, tempers dislodged, and eventually all is revealed, with the husband tied up, begging his wife to release him so that he may flee the nefarious powers that pursue him.

But she has a knife, and a murderous lust in her eyes. Much like the plot itself, there are unseen currents buffeting her reason, and the tricky riptides caused by mendacity are swirling about in vicious anticipation of yet another victim. But who will mendacity claim and carry away this time?

There is deception everywhere, from pacing to personality, and, at first, it’s so well done as to leave the audience wondering why they are watching. But the little glitches begin to accumulate, and by the end the seat of their chairs are all that’s left of the audience’s contact with reality.

Recommended.

This time lapse video of the heat dome of the west coat of the North American continent is weirdly beautiful.

I don't usually post imagery of high pressure systems because they're typically less visual 👀 than storms… but this über #ridge aloft has been the product of an epic case of "anticyclonic Rossby wave breaking" 🤓 and is responsible for the historic heat 🌡️ pic.twitter.com/6hLRMnVY2r

— Stu Ostro (@StuOstro) June 28, 2021

More on the upcoming hurricane season here.