Category Archives: Uncategorized

Bilious:

1. a biology : of or relating to a yellow or greenish fluid that is secreted by the liver and that aids especially in the emulsification and absorption of fats : of or relating to bile (see bile 1b)
   b biology : marked by or suffering from liver dysfunction and especially excessive secretion of bile • a bilious attack • a bilious patient
   c : appearing as if affected by a bilious disorder • a sickly bilious face
2. : of or indicative of a peevish ill-natured disposition • bilious commentary • her bilious humor
3. : sickeningly unpleasant • the bilious weather
   • with clapboards painted red and bilious yellow —Sinclair Lewis

[Merriam-Webster]

My Arts Editor’s opinion of the inside of a holiday envelope: “Oh, it’s a bilious green!” I thought it was rather harmless.

I was a little appalled at this passage from a print-only column from the Archaeological Institute of America President Jodi Magness in Archaeology (January/February 2018):

Recently I returned from Jordan, where I was hosted by Hungarian colleague named Gyõzõ Vörös who directs excavations at Machaerus, a fortified palace of King Herod the Great that overlooks the Dead Sea. It was a Machaerus that Herod’s son Antipas had John the Baptist beheaded. During one of our visits to the site, Gyõzõ pointed to several men illegally excavating on the hill opposite, which we had surveyed the previous day. Another carload of men shadowed us, waiting until we left to begin digging. The latter group, Gyõzõ informed me, was not impoverished locals but affluent individuals who had driven from Amman in their luxury car. The trunk was loaded with hoes and other digging equipment. Both groups, however, shared a common goal: to find gold. My heart broke as we climbed around the pockmarked slopes of Machaerus and the surrounding hillsides.

One of the precepts of archaeology should be the ability to protect the finds made from illegal excavation. Perhaps this is impractical, or perhaps the scientist’s lust for knowledge (their equivalent of gold) is as much power as these local folks who lust for wealth and power, but the results are the same: irreparable damage to the archaeological record.

Concerning the damage being done to the country by the current leadership, my reader has a fascinating rejoinder:

I also refer you to this article: https://www.vox.com/…/donald-trump-plato-democracy… And also to any reference which talks about Plato’s 5 regimes. We’re headed directly for tyranny from the vestiges of our democracy.

The cited article discusses the parallels between Plato’s Republic, which is on my list of books to read that I never get to, and the rise of Trump. From the Vox article:

Plato thought political regimes followed a predictable evolutionary course, from oligarchy to democracy to tyranny. Oligarchies give way to democracies when the elites fail, when they become spoiled, lazy, profligate, and when they develop interests apart from those they rule.

Democracies give way to tyrannies when mob passion overwhelms political wisdom and a populist autocrat seizes the masses. But the tyrant is not quite a tyrant at first. On the contrary, in a democracy the would-be tyrant offers himself as the people’s champion. He’s the ultimate simplifier, the one man who can make everything whole again.

Sound familiar?

With Trump, we have a glimpse of what this sort of evolution looks like: A vulgar right-wing populism emerges out of a whirlwind of anti-establishment hysteria; a strongman fascist promises to stick it to the elites and says only he can make the country great again; he gives the people a familiar boogeyman, some alien other, on whom they can dump their resentment.

The author, Sean Illing, doesn’t push the analogy too far, I thought, and this is important because I doubt Plato would have possibly foreseen the institution of conservative talk radio or Fox News, the two most important factors in shaping the modern “conservative” through the exclusion of facts from their knowledge base – not that I mean to reference the technology, but the deliberate hobbling of significant parts of the populace by maleficent or simply self-centered citizens.

This, too, was interesting:

Oligarchies become democracies for predictable reasons: “As the rich grow richer and richer, the more they think of making a fortune and the less they think of virtue.” The inequality and corruption spread like a disease. “Democracy comes into power,” Socrates says, “when the poor are the victors, killing some and exiling some, and giving equal shares in the government to all the rest.”

Democracy, for all its charms, is said to be a poor substitute for oligarchy. It’s an “agreeable form of anarchy,” Socrates tells us. Like every other regime, a democracy collapses of its own contradictions. It’s full of freedom and spangled with every kind of liberty imaginable.

It’s a clear statement of the motivation of oligarchies, and even more importantly, we need to remember that the rise of Trump, the tyrant, reportedly is funded by the oligarchy. Again, this is outside of Plato, at least from what I can tell in this article, but it’s an important thought in that oligarchies and tyrants may co-exist, but it’s an uneasy co-existence because the base of power is confused. Who is really in control? Maybe neither. And that leads to chaos.

The article is somewhat vague on the triggers of these phase transitions, and perhaps Republic was itself. Perhaps we need to have more public conversations on the many facets of our current form of government – and why it’s superior to tyrants and oligarchies.

This guy is morose.

Before I Hang (1940) explores the researcher’s worst nightmare, the unexpected consequence. Dr. Garth is on death row because he helped a terminally ill patient, in terrible pain, kill himself. But the doctor at the penitentiary, Dr. Howard, has heard of Garth’s attempts to save that patient by inventing a serum which will stop death, and he persuades the institute’s warden to allow Garth’s research to continue, with Howard’s help.

They have one month before Garth is to be hung.

So they scurry about their business, and in the waning hours of Garth’s last night on Earth they have a serum, derived in part from the blood of an executed prisoner, that may work. Who better to test it on? Dr. Garth, scheduled to die in less than an hour. They administer the serum, take notes on how it should affect the body, and Dr. Howard will perform an autopsy to confirm their expectations.

Aaaaaaaaaaand then the phone rings. The governor has commuted Garth’s sentence to life in prison.

Garth collapses.

Next thing we know, Dr. Howard is observing that Garth appears to be aging in reverse in his hospital room, from his former age in his 60s to now his 40s. He no longer needs glasses, Even his hair is changing color. Naturally, the next test subject will be Dr. Howard himself, as he’s quite aged. But he never receives the serum, as Dr. Garth violently kills him and a prisoner who stumbles into their laboratory. Dr. Garth calls for help and collapses, and, conveniently, the dead prisoner is blamed for Howard’s death.

Garth is released from prison for his efforts towards the betterment of mankind, but all goes nauseatingly wrong, and soon he knows why: the blood taken from the nameless executed prisoner carries a taint that forces Garth to kill anyone who is a candidate for the serum. His friends start dying of strangulation, his daughter is endangered, and soon Dr. Garth dies, basically of shame.

It could have been a better movie. The various characters could have existed for reasons other than the plot. The plot could have had an interesting theme. I liked the acting and the cinematography was quite nice. So there were some good things going for it, but in the end it’s just a bit of fluff.

MPR has a fascinating report on that iconic Minnesota animal – the moose – and how it’s shrinking:

When scientists at Michigan Tech University examined the skulls of 662 moose killed by wolves over the past four decades at Isle Royale National Park, they discovered something surprising.

Over those 40 years, the size of those skulls had shrunk by 16 percent, even as the moose population on the Lake Superior island flourished, tripling in the past decade to about 1,600 this year.

The findings, published recently in the journal Global Change Biology, are part of a long-running study on the predator-prey dynamics between moose and wolves on the remote island, located about 25 miles off the tip of northeastern Minnesota.

The biggest reason researchers attributed to the decline in moose size is the increasing density of moose on the island, as the wolf population has collapsed. Researchers now say there may only be one wolf remaining on the island.

The study found that skull size was smaller for moose born in years when moose were more abundant, because more moose means less food for each animal.

Adaptation at work. I wonder how much more they have to shrink before they are considered a new species. This reminds me of the study of the pygmy mammoths of the Channel Islands of California, who also shrank down until they were roughly 1/20th the size of their ancestors.

I’m amazed at what I’m seeing. But perhaps you haven’t heard – in the recent election of a few weeks ago, several Virginia state elections went through a recount, and one went from a ten vote victory for the incumbent Republican to a one vote victory for the Democratic challenger – to a tie, on the basis of the reappraisal of a single ballot. WaPo provides a picture of it:

If you look at the top of the middle column, clearly – VERY CLEARLY – both ovals are filled in. There can be no doubt that both are filled in and thus the voter’s selection is invalidated. And if you’re going to try to divine the mind of the voter, it’d be for Simonds, the challenger.

I’m utterly appalled that this ballot is being counted for a race this close and controversial. The panel of judges should be ashamed and resign from their positions.

It’s a modern call to subtle rebellion against the ancient world of gods and stasis, for all that it hides behind a grin and a chuckle. Ghostbusters (1984) is the story of three New York City scientists who study the supernatural, beginning with reports of ghosts. Using technologically arcane instruments and tools, they capture the troublesome spirits, storing them in a custom prison, but begin catching hints of an imminent major supernatural incident.  When it breaks upon the city, they are the ones called upon to face down and destroy the ancient and savage Sumerian God Gozer.

Throughout the history of religious myths, mankind has rarely been more than a play toy for the divine multitudes, whether those are the Hindu gods, the Roman/Greco crew, those who inhabit Valhalla, or the more modern religions such as Christianity. At best, we can hope to join them if we play our cards just right. But in Ghostbusters, we see a modern take on what might be the reality of how a divine being would traditionally treat its subjects, and how we’d react, for Gozer is an unrepentant representative of the old divinities, with the attributes of arrogance, disdain, and self-confidence on full display as she makes a New York City skyscraper her gateway into the modern world.

But we can push her and her fate aside for a moment, for in more than one way this movie attacks the old model of the human plaything, and the submission to the religious hierarchies implied in that mythos. It’s rare that Gods discard their dignity and ambiance of power in the face of their human subjects. (Perhaps the Hindu god Ganesha might be an exception, although I’m not very familiar with that pantheon; another exception would be the drunken Pan of the Greek mob). But while we might excuse the excesses of the ghosts captured and restrained as nothing more than playfulness on the part of the storytellers, the depiction of the actual divinities is more important.

A sweet puppy, no? But is it a gate or a key?

For Gozer to enter the modern world, her supernatural representatives, the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster who forcefully possess the bodies of modern humans, must come together to open the way. The Gatekeeper is deliciously divine.  When possessed, she becomes a sexual hottie ready to sleep with whomever is available; but the Keymaster? He, played by comedian Rick Moranis, is a chronically ineffectual and socially awkward accountant with a grating voice who, upon becoming possessed, may have become quite powerful, but loses none of his other characteristics.  He is still ineffectual and socially tone-deaf. It’s only through luck that he finds the Gatekeeper and gets to do, well, whatever it is when a key meets a  lock that holds a divinely mad creature at bay.

But it’s also worth taking a look at the scientists, who are distinctly non-stereotypical. Recently kicked out of their university jobs, and thus deprived of funding, they are forced to turn to the commercialization of their recently conceived technology, capturing those ghosts who trouble the living and restraining them in a powerful laser grid. While the initial three all hold doctorates, their leader, Dr. Venkman, might be considered the Everyman, and is the hero of the movie – not so much because of what he does, but because of who he is, a man full of hormones who doesn’t bother to conceal it, a cowboy ready to chase the ghosts without restraint, even if without understanding. As such, he is very much an anti-expert, and his success at his work might be attributed as much to his trying as to his knowledge – which appears spotty. His fellow scientists, perhaps more accomplished, are somewhat less distinctive characters. (It occurs to me to wonder how Ghostbusters would have done had it been paced much like Once Upon A Time In The West (1968), with its long, significant pauses and slow dialog delivery.)

But their opponents are not confined to the supernatural realm. A representative of the EPA shows up, demanding access to their work. Much like the priests of old, the scientists’ denial of his demands spark a self-righteous anger and a mad belief that the official can do no wrong.  When he shuts off the power to their ghost-prison, causing not only a release of ghosts, but the near-destruction of the building, he denies all responsibility and doubles down at his game. It’s clear that he represents the old clerical hierarchy at its haughty, offended worst, and I suspect is a hint of what was to come for the Catholic Church: humiliation at the long-delayed revelations concerning pedophilia and its coverup, and the destruction of its Irish branch. Just as the EPA agent does not come to a happy ending, nor do those in the religious hierarchy in real-life.

But now let us return to Gozer, because the mocking of this divinity, and divinities in general, comes in three ways.

First, her aforementioned attributes of arrogance, disdain, and over-weening self-confidence are a slap and a reminder to the audience that divinities have rarely treated humanity well, assuming the former ever existed. This makes sense.  Gods are created in order to explain the world.  A world of ease and comfort needs little explanation, but a world of famine, disease, and war; the death of  the innocent and the sudden destruction of cities and civilizations by the hand of man or Nature, these need explanations – and those explanations need not be pretty. A child-killer isn’t a nice God, no matter which pantheon you favor.

Second, the gibes of our movie’s heroes, the defenders of humanity, reflect the sensibilities of the era in which the movie was made. It’s a deliberate reminder of the self-centeredness of humanity and how the supposed eternal moralities of the divine, which include the divine’s supremacy, prove to be inferior to the technology of humanity. One might say that this is a optimistic jab at religious orders and their ever-unseen divinities.

It’s Mr. Stay Puft to you!

Third, and I scarcely need to mention it, but transforming the visually impressive Gozer into the monstrous “Stay Puft Marshmallow Man” for a rampage through New York City is a mockery difficult to exceed.  Upon Gozer’s destruction, a white slime (a sly dig at manna?) rains down upon a citizenry rapturous with victory over this God.  It would be a delicious moment if it weren’t for the slime in everyone’s hair.

Think about that for a moment. A victory over a God – a God bent upon exercising her usual privileges, much to the disservice of humanity. It gives the audience hope, I should think.

All that said, Ghostbusters suffers from some brittleness, much like that of British movies of a certain era, and the special effects are spotty. But the story is fairly organic, with interesting dialog and plot twist choices, particularly for Dr. Venkmann, whose lust for the lady soon to be the Gatekeeper is a lot of fun, especially when he must admit to his fellows that, after an unfortunate transformation, she is a dog.

Not a god.

Taken just as a fun movie, it’s OK. Thinking about how it plays with the religious sensibilities of millions of Americans? A lot more fun.

Enjoy!

When Memphis took down some Confederate statues:

That law said that “No statue, monument, memorial, nameplate, or plaque” erected “on public property” in honor of certain military conflicts and their heroes may be removed without the permission of two-thirds of the board of the commission. In October, the commission denied Memphis a waiver that would have allowed the city to remove the Confederate statues. The city was in the process of challenging the decision. …

Focusing on the law’s key phrase, protecting statues on “public property,” Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner and others set up a private nonprofit corporation called Memphis Greenspace Inc.

On Wednesday, without fanfare, the City Council approved a measure authorizing the mayor to sell the two parks with the statues to the private group, for $1,000 each, which he promptly did.

In the morning, they were on public property. By the afternoon, they weren’t.

By nightfall, the parks with the statues had been sold to the newly minted nonprofit, which sent in the cranes. …

A cheering crowd sang as Davis was placed in the back of a truck at 10:45 p.m. and driven away. Among the songs, according to the Commercial Appeal, was that old standby: “Na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey, goodbye.” [WaPo]

Needless to say, the Tennessee Division of the Sons were furious. Tough shit, boys. Traitors deserve no honor.

Remember former disgraced Alabama Supreme Court Justice and losing candidate for the Senate seat formerly held by Jeff Sessions? He doesn’t think he lost. From the AP:

In the roil following the decision to recognize the capital of Israel to be Jerusalem, I suppose this constitutes President Trump “hitting back ten times harder.” From The New York Times:

President Trump issued a threat on Wednesday to cut off American aid to any country that votes for a resolution at the United Nations condemning his recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Mr. Trump’s statement, delivered at a cabinet meeting in which he exulted over the passage of a tax overhaul, followed a letter to General Assembly members from the American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, in which she warned that the United States would take note of countries that voted in favor of the measure.

“All of these nations that take our money and then they vote against us at the Security Council or they vote against us, potentially, at the Assembly, they take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars and then they vote against us,” Mr. Trump said.

“Well, we’re watching those votes,” he added. “Let them vote against us; we’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

It is difficult to see how Mr. Trump can make good on that threat because it could involve cutting off financial assistance to the country’s most strategic allies in the Middle East. Some of those programs, like Egypt’s, are congressionally mandated. While the president can hold up aid unilaterally as a form of leverage, canceling it would require new legislation.

Just how much, maximally? WaPo had an article on the final Obama budget proposal, from October of 2016, which I can’t resist using as the numbers will be similar to the current budget, and the graphic is astonishing. I mean, I can tell you the entire budget proposal was for $4.15 trillion, of which $42.4 billion was foreign aid – roughly .1% of the budget. But I like the image better.

The inexperience of the President once again shines through. We’ll save a lot betrays his origins in the private sector and his inability to grow beyond them. This results in an inability to see that influence is a far more important commodity than money in the international arena, where the sharks aren’t cruising to make a bigger profit at your expense- but to do real, tangible damage to those seen as standing in the way of their national goals. Some of these attacks are obvious, such as China’s striving to be #1 in Artificial Intelligence, and the consequences of holding such a strategic position – whatever those might be. Others are far more subtle, such as Russia’s attempts to undermine our faith in our system of government.

But it does raise the question of the purpose of foreign aid. Why do we help other countries? Well, we’re not buying control over them. That’d be akin to colonialism, and we generally try to avoid such foolishness.

No, we’re doing a couple of things. First, as WaPo says, we’re shoring up strategic allies. Second, we’re buying good will. We’re showing that we’re willing to help out.

How does this square with the current incident? Friends can have honest differences of opinion. Do they halt the friendship? Of course not. Now, it’s somewhat problematic to use this analogy with nations, but it’s really going to happen anyways. The violent creation of the State of Israel at the end of World War II is not without controversy, especially as it involved the movement of Jewish refugees from Europe to Israel. It should be no surprise that a number of nations with religious or ideological objections plan to vote for the resolution.

And trying to blackmail them into supporting us will simply dissipate all that good will.

He just can’t grow out of his origins, can he?

Former White House Counsel Bob Bauer on Lawfare gets quite exercised about a couple of lawyers who think the proper use of power insulates President Trump from impeachment:

Josh Blackman, in three successive postings for Lawfare, and co-commentators David Rivkin and Lee Casey in a separate piece for the Wall Street Journal, have been developing the case that a president firing an FBI director or other senior law enforcement official may not subject to impeachment for obstruction of justice. Their approaches are somewhat different: Blackman is working out a more fully developed, nuanced theory of how we should see a conflict between congressional impeachment power and claims of executive authority. But these authors have all offered support for the proposition that, however corrupt or (as Rivkin and Casey put it) “nefarious” a president’s motive may be, his constitutional authority necessarily includes removing from office those officials who presumptively answer to him. Congress, they say, must stand down.

Mr. Bauer’s development of his argument is long, I became bored and confused, and then it occurred to me there’s a much more convincing argument, if not entire respectable and permissible in the realm of the law.

It’s an analogy.

Suppose I have a rifle. I operate it in the prescribed manner – turn off the safety, put the stock to my shoulder, do whatever it is you do with your breath, and squeeze the trigger. I own the rifle legally, and I know how to operate it.

And I hit my target, some innocent civilian minding his own business.

My ownership and operation of the rifle cannot be criticized, I do it all perfectly.

But my target was execrable, impossible.

That’s the analogy. Maybe President Trump has the right to fire some of his people. But if that results in shielding him from investigations which may reveal hanky panky by the yankee, then shit, of course it’s impeachable as obstruction of justice. It’s just stupid to think otherwise. The operation and the character of its results are not atomic; each is separate.

Continuing our shamelessly critical coverage of Wells Fargo, now they’ve found another way to cash in: the new tax change bill. From Vox:

Wells Fargo in 2016 was fined $185 million for issuing millions of fake credit card accounts. In 2017, it was caught overcharging clients on currency trades and improperly charging homebuyers to lock into low mortgage rates.

And in 2018, it could be about to get the best tax deal of all the big banks.

The Republican tax bill, which seeks to lower the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, would lead to an average 14 percent in earnings growth for seven of America’s largest banks next year, according to a Monday note from Goldman Sachs analyzing the plan’s implications. (Goldman does not include itself in its analysis.) The biggest winner: Wells Fargo, which would see its earnings jump by 18 percent thanks to the GOP proposal.

I would not believe this is accidental.

After a dully lit day of clouds and snow, we had a glimpse of glory.

Vox‘s Emily Stewart spends a lot of time speculating on why this tax change bill was rushed so quickly through Congress. This particular quote is an epic shrug of the shoulders:

“This was manufactured urgency,” said Joseph Thorndike, a tax historian and director of the Tax History Project. “There was nothing urgent about this at all, not even the reconciliation instructions required this kind of urgency. The urgency here was completely willful.”

Nowhere in the article do they touch on recent history, which I believe invalidates Mr. Thorndike’s remark.

That history?

Think the last failed Republican endeavour, the AHCA. Remember the townhall meetings which humiliated and pressured Republican Representatives and Senators? For this tax bill, the Republicans learned that even their thumb-puppets could bend and break; and when they didn’t, they tended to look like fools. Remember Rep. Paul Labrador (R-ID)?

“You are mandating people on Medicaid accept dying,” one audience member said.

To which Labrador responded, “No no, you know that line is so indefensible. Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” [Politifact, and the article goes into more detail on how Labrador defended his remark.]

It made the Republican, and his Party, look like idiots. The Republicans learned their lesson and took away the opportunity for public pressure to interfere with their sordid plans.

That’s the entire reason, in my view. Knowing the demographics are against you, you remove them from the equation. Now the Republicans can rejoice in that, reportedly, their rich donors who desired this tax bill will continue to fund their election efforts.

No matter how wretched and manipulated this bill might be.

Let’s hope the Trump Recession doesn’t come spilling out of it and hurt a whole lot of poor people. While there’d be a silver lining and I personally wouldn’t be hurt, it’d be very rough for the working poor, those hanging on by their fingernails.

I’d rather have an atheist as an elected representative in government than a devout person, because if the atheist is going to make trouble, it’ll almost certainly be towards personal gain or, at worst, deliberate treason; both are detectable and can be punished, and perhaps even remedied.

But the devout? He or she will vote for a bill because God or his pastor or the Party has told him to do it. He doesn’t examine the bill, he doesn’t consider conflicting analyses, because he’s learned, he’s conditioned, by his “spiritual experiences,” to believe and have faith that this is a good law. And if it’s a piece of harmful junk, there’s no real recourse, no restitution, not even, in many cases, a lesson learned. “Because God willed it” conceals a multitude of sins.

And that’s what we are seeing these days.

Every legislator should view every bill that crosses her desk with deep skepticism and demand the author of the bill, or their delegates, make the case for it and to be convincing – and, it should go without saying, have those against it also make their case.

And if it’s a close case, vote against.

A conservative friend of mine likes to always include the concept of “Big Government” in any political discussion; it’s probably his touchstone and may be in his campaign literature (he’s run unsuccessfully for the state House a couple of times). That led me to wonder how the size of government correlates – or should hypothetically correlate – to the size of the population.

But that’s a context-less question, and we know that leads to bad answers, so let’s add a minimal but realistic context – a population in a country with static boundaries.

Let’s set up an analogy. Think of the game Tetris, which is the game where you have a box and an assortment of differently shaped objects are falling from the sky; it’s your task to fit in as many objects in the box as possible. During the early stages of the game – when the population of objects is low – there’s little management necessary. But as the box starts to fill up, more and more work is necessary until the player is overwhelmed and the game ends with your failure.

Similarly, when a country is mostly empty, the actions of the individual only have a local importance, and the Big Government at the national capitol can occupy itself most properly with international affairs, such as foreign invaders and that sort of thing, leaving the citizens mostly alone.

But – and assuming human life is considered to have a certain high value in and of itself, which I think is necessary simply to keep society stable – as the population grows, the actions of the aggregate individuals begin to interact with the supporting ecology in a substantial manner. And, as the ecology tends to diffuse the effects of these activities through its natural processes, such as rivers and air circulation, the effects build as the “box” fills up. For example, consider a coal-fired power plant on the East Coast, spreading its mercury-laced soot to the West Coast via air currents.

A similar argument can be made concerning the natural conflict of individual civil rights and where they end – one’s “nose” tends to get shorter and shorter^[1]. Crowding closer and closer, our “rights” impact other’s more and more. A vivid example is the right to not accept vaccinations. The greater the population density, the less this “right” can be accepted, as it causes epidemics^[2].

Assuming current societal norms, I think that as we near our box boundaries in terms of population, the larger government must become larger to keep the societal piece – and quite possibly at a pace that is greater than our approach to our box limits. It becomes a self-reinforcing loop.

And what happens when the box is full? Rats start eating each other, I’ve read.

¹Referring to the old saying, “Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.” The source appears to be uncertain.

²This, of course, assumes epidemics are bad. I fear I stray out of the mainstream, because I’m willing to consider that an open question in the context of overpopulation, even though its benefits in the improvement of the human condition are obvious and beyond argument. The conundrum is obvious (and worth a novel or two). It occurs to me that humanity is but a single bubble in the foam of evolution.

Carbuncle:

1. Pathology. a painful circumscribed inflammation of the subcutaneous tissue, resulting in suppuration and sloughing, and having a tendency to spread somewhat like a boil, but more serious in its effects.
2. a gemstone, especially a garnet, cut with a convex back and a cabochon surface.
3. Also called London brown. a dark grayish, red-brown color. [Dictionary.com]

Heard during a conversation with my Arts Editor, who, to paraphrase, said “Some Christmas decorations are ‘festoonery’, and some are ‘carbuncles.'” I am unsure just which of the above definitions would apply.

A reader responds to the turf damage the GOP is doing as it does donuts throughout our country:

However, in the mean time, their behavior is dramatically damaging the fabric of society, including the ability of a democracy to exist at all. When facts cease to exist, and no one knows what to believe, and we’ve fractioned into numerous factions, signs all point towards the country becoming an authoritarian, second-rate economy.

Yep. Today Steve Benen suggested that the GOP is practicing “faith-based governance”. I think when we descend into “faith-based arguments”, aka fact-free debates, then we’re well and truly fucked. And that appears to be where the GOP wants to go. Their lust for power is shameless and seems to know no bounds.

A reader remarks on Kim Jong-un’s needs:

Interesting idea but I don’t think Kim will go for it. He obviously doesn’t care about his people or the country’s welfare. His ego requires constant stroking, not unlike 45’s. That, coupled with paranoia, is what drives him. Again, not unlike 45.

Yet his paranoia is not unjustified, given the belligerent tone of the United States and others over the decades. Add in the failure of the United States to continue agreements begun in the Clinton era, and to call him paranoid is to suggest his concerns are unjustified – an argument which I believe is unsustainable.

Intercessory prayer:

Intercession or intercessory prayer is the act of praying to a deity on behalf of others. In Western Christianity, intercession forms a distinct form of prayer, alongside Adoration, Confession and Thanksgiving. [Wikipedia]

Noted in this press release from the Center For Inquiry, which is a Freethought, or atheist, organization:

“And it is the right thing to do, is to pray in moments like this because you know what? Prayer works,” [House Speaker Paul] Ryan asserted. “And when you hear the secular left doing this thing, no wonder you’ve got so much polarization and disunity in this country when people think like that.”

“There is no evidence that intercessory prayer has any effect on earthly events, as numerous controlled studies have shown, and it won’t save anyone from future atrocities,” said Robyn Blumner, President and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. “So instead of dismissing legitimate criticism, the Speaker should work toward evidence-based solutions to the pressing national issue of gun violence.”

This press release has sparked some discussion. Eric Owens in the right-wing Daily Caller, under the headline, “Sad, Lonely Atheists Insist Prayer Is Dumb As They Stare Hopelessly Into Desolate Cosmic Abyss,” remarked:

One of the world’s largest atheist organizations has declared that praying to God or any other supernatural deity is a useless, stupid endeavor that will not lead to “evidence-based solutions.”

And that’s it. I think he’s just lazily preaching to the choir, as there’s no real argument present. Not that there’s likely to be a convincing argument, truth to be told – you believe or you don’t. The fun begins with the material that is present behind each belief system, that is, the system of belief you have towards the structure of the Universe. Ed Brayton on Patheos has a similar, if somewhat nastier, response to Owen as well.

Studies of intercessory prayer are difficult to study at double-blind standards. For one thing, there are religious groups that continuously offer up prayers for the beset world-wide, and persuading them to desist is a fool’s errand. I did a little research and found a few studies. “Intercessory prayer for the alleviation of ill health” concludes:

It is not sensible to interpret any of the interesting results with great confidence. However, for women hoping for successful IVF treatment there are some data suggesting a favourable outcome of prayer but these data are derived from only one of the smaller trials. On the other hand, one of the larger studies suggests that those undergoing operations may not wish to know of the prayer that is being offered on their behalf. Most data are equivocal. The evidence presented so far is interesting enough to justify further study into the human aspects of the effects of prayer. However it is impossible to prove or disprove in trials any supposed benefit that derives from God’s response to prayer.

I am not qualified to interpret their results, so I’m not sure the they’re interesting enough to actually continue investigation. But it seems clear this study has no solid results for the success of prayer. I do recall reading, 20+ years ago, about a study in Skeptical Inquirer in which positive results were reported. However, this was from the perspective of several years later: one author had disowned the study, one had been jailed for fraud, and the final author refused to discuss the issue. The study was considered an example of how not to study intercessory prayer.

Philip Bobbitt of Columbia Law School has a suggestion for the North Korean situation. He published it on Lawfare:

There is, however, an available strategy that has not been considered and may promise success: a nuclear guarantee for the North Korean regime from China. If China were to give a credible nuclear guarantee to North Korea in the case of a U.S. invasion or preemptive strike against Pyongyang, there would be little point in North Korea risking the survival of its regime by developing long-range nuclear weapons. Such a policy should not be confused with the current mutual defense pact between North Korea and China, one cornerstone of which is China’s no-first-use policy. From Kim’s point of view, there is much security to be gained by such a guarantee of deterrence against the U.S. and much security to be lost if North Korea continues its present course when further technological revolutions in the U.S. render the North Korean arsenal ever more vulnerable. Our aim must be to reorient Kim Jong Un’s paranoia, making him more afraid of losing a unique opportunity for security in the eyes of his own people than he is afraid of dependence on China.

I am somewhat dubious that Kim would follow such an option. While it certainly has some positives, it also results in him being disarmed. And from history we know that Communist states do tend to be aggressive towards their neighbors, so what Kim would be doing is casting his lot with a state with an ideology that has a history of gobbling up weaker neighbors: China. China may be today’s sort-of ally, but it could easily become tomorrow’s invading force. Especially with the United States led by a vacillating idiot who has no idea how to operate in the Far East.

There are costs to having nuclear weapons, costs that exist in the diplomatic and technical sectors, and if they are large enough I could see Kim considering such a move. But the fact that they’ve clawed their way this far up the cliff of nuclear weaponry, well, you’d have to wonder if Kim would really want to give up all these gains and make himself more vulnerable to the huge country directly on their northern border.

Fascinating scenes fired by the imagination of Maurice Sendak beset the characters of Nutcracker: The Motion Picture (1986), the classic ballet as performed by Pacific Northwest Ballet. For the most part, this is as  you might have seen it on the stage in all its messy splendor, from the leggy grace of the lead ballerina, to the monsters done up in Sendak’s signature style, prancing to the classic music, although a few attempts are made to take advantage of the fact that it’s a movie.

I’m hesitant to say much more, as I’m not a ballet enthusiast (although I couldn’t resist watching this when I stumbled across it), nor do I know the story of The Nutcracker in any detail. With respect to the latter statement, I must say that the story conveyed through the ballet is somewhat vague and, lacking in interesting thematic material. I see from Wikipedia that I’m in good company:

The Nutcrackers I’ve seen have all been dull. You have a simpering little girl, a Christmas party, a tree that gets big. Then you have a variety of people who do dances that seem to go on and on ad nauseam. Technically it’s a mess, too; Acts I and II have practically nothing to do with each other. … What you don’t have is plot. No logic. You have lots of very pretty music, but I don’t enjoy it because I’m a very pedantic, logical person. I want to know why things happen. – Maurice Sendak

I still found it fun, if sometimes mystifying. Watch at your own risk.

There’s been some puzzlement concerning the about-face of Senator Bob Corker, who had declared he could not vote for a tax change bill which added to the national deficit – and then a few days later executed an about-face and announced his support for the bill without achieving any modifications which would remove the additions to the deficit. But an article in the International Business Times lays bare a possible explanation:

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the majority whip, on Sunday said a tax provision, which could personally enrich key Republican lawmakers, was added to the final tax bill as part of an effort to “cobble together the votes we needed to get this bill passed.” Cornyn was pressed about the provision onABC’s “This Week,” after an International Business Times investigationshowed that Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee suddenly switched his vote to “yes” after GOP leaders added the provision, which could boost Corker’s real estate income. A top Democratic senator, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, responded to Cornyn’s explanation by saying the language put into the bill also “would be a windfall to Donald Trump.”

As IBT first reported, the provision potentially enriching Corker, Trump and a handful of other top Republican lawmakers, was not part of the House- or Senate-passed bill, but was added by GOP lawmakers to the final bill, which was publicly released on Friday afternoon. Corker, who is not seeking re-election and is considered a crucial swing vote due to his criticism of President Trump, suddenly said he would support the final bill. He initially voted against the original bill in the Senate, which did not have the provision. Corker subsequently asserted to IBT that he did not know about the provision being added to the final bill, and he also declared he has not even read the tax bill he announced he is voting for.

Let’s step back. Waaaay back. For the conservative reader who has been sucking down the directives from President Trump about the mainstream media, sit down and think about this. Think about the possible corruption going on here. Think about the whole swamp metaphor. This is what the mainstream media does – it keeps tabs on the swamp, it keeps an eye on the behaviors of the legislative members, regardless of ideology, it keeps you up to date on what’s happening.

If you’re willing to keep up with the mainstream media.

This is what President Trump doesn’t want you to see – members of his own Party behaving badly. Do you approve of being mislead in this manner? If so, please, hit that mail button up on the right and tell me why you approve. (Don’t go off on a tangent, that just irritates me.) I am eternally mystified that any adult would buy into the fake news meme.

And thank you for the explanation.

Murmuration:

1. A flock of starlings.
2. literary [mass noun] The action of murmuring.
   ‘the murmuration of a flock of warblers’ [Oxford English Dictionaries]

Noted in a book review of A New Map of Wonders, by Caspar Henderson, reviewed by Mary Halton, NewScientist (2 December 2017, paywall):

Henderson’s own sense of wonder at phenomena both natural and manufactured is pervasive, from marvelling at a murmuration of starlings to admiring advances in solar power. Wonder, we then conclude, is a very personal experience, while scientific fact is often presented as a very universal one.