Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Modicum:

a small portion :  a limited quantity : had only a modicum of mathematical skills [Merriam-Webster]

Just a word of which I was not precisely aware.

I don’t keep a good eye on the various NASA sites, and for that I apologize, as they are inspirational and remind you there’s more to this Universe than some pack of idiots in Washington, or the sick friend who you’re worrying about. So, in that tradition, here’s a latest picture of Jupiter from NASA‘s Juno probe:

Yep, that’s on purpose.

Was she so awful?

A movie in the category of The Lost City of Z (2016) is a little harder to evaluate than most because, as a biography, the story is dictated by the actual events of history. In this case, this is the story of British Army officer Percy Fawcett, dispatched to Bolivia to map the border between Bolivia and Brazil by following a river. At its source, he finds advanced pottery and other signs of an unknown civilization.

Several years later, having returned to his family, he gives a presentation at the Royal Geographic Society on the subject, and proposes a return investigation. Along with his former traveling companions, a Shackleton companion also makes the trip. Another two or three years are spent in travel, only to have the companion become a nuisance and a burden; he is eventually sent back on a horse with an injury. Only after his departure do they find he sabotaged the expedition, although why he’d do such a thing is a little mysterious. The damage is done, and they fail to make it to the head of the river. They return to England, and soon their erstwhile companion shows up, full of brimfire for being abused and abandoned; the dispute is invigorating.

World War I then intervenes, and Fawcett spends several years serving in France, eventually being severely injured by chlorine gas. Upon his recovery, however, the war is finished, and his son persuades him to make one more trip up the river in search of that civilization. They disappear into the forest, and once the letters stop, there is only one more communication received, a wordless message indicating only that success has been achieved. Nothing more is ever heard from them.

Why? Why go the second and third times? Because adventure calls? Because they enjoy risking death by disease or snakebite or hostile natives? Each trip takes several years, and the movie portrays him as deeply attached to his wife in an enlightened relationship – so why virtually abandon the family? One may infer that today’s society would be quite unlike that of the naughts of the 2oth century, but a little work on the motivations of men & women back then would have made the story more engaging.

Those frustrations aside, it’s a technically competent movie, and sometimes the tableaus can be breathtaking, as when they discover an opera in full blast in the middle of the jungle. But the central question of why, why, why? distracts too much from an otherwise fine movie.

Insouciant:

free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant. [Dictionary.com]

My Arts Editor often remarks that the many rabbits in our yard have become quite insouciant due to the passing of three of our cats, and the aging of the two survivors.

… then, according to this article in NewScientist (1 July 2017), eat termite-processed mud.

“The important thing is that this isn’t just any mud, it’s termite-processed mud,” says team member Mrinalini Watsa at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. Analysis showed that the mud can absorb cations – positively charged particles – so could mop up potentially toxic metal ones from other substances in the monkeys’ diet (Primates, doi.org/b82k).

“This was key,” says Adams. “A large part of a saki’s [a small primate] diet is seeds from unripe fruit, and these are packed with toxic chemicals.”

The region’s [Amazonian Peru] other major seed eaters – macaws and parrots – fly to clay-rich soils on riverside cliffs for stomach-calming intestinal mudbaths. Sakis have found a solution closer to their homes.

Next question: instinctual or cultural behavior?

Which is exactly what came to mind as I read Greg Fallis’ furiously satirical piece concerning gunners, the NRA, and gun manufacturers:

Wait, that’s not all! They are going to use their ex-president (you know, that Negro one? The one from Kenya, with the funny ears?) to “endorse the resistance”! That guy, he doesn’t even have a birth certificate thing, and they are going to use him for endorsing! Probably on an award show! Where he’ll be given an award for assassinating the real news to death! And an actor — or maybe even a singer — will give him the award!

Is that what you want? Do you want your children to grow up in a country where singers give awards to ex-presidents for assassinating real news? Then you’d better go out RIGHT NOW and buy as many guns as Jesus wants you to buy. If you think I’m kidding (I’m totally NOT kidding…would I kid about this?), just listen to what this extremely angry woman has to say.

I’ll omit the video. Given the reported scarcity of gun ammunition encountered during the Obama Administration as gun owners, frightened by the pronouncements on high of how they’d have to fight off rabid Democrats coming for their guns (for those with bad memories, it never even came close to happening – only the mass killings happened), bought all the ammo in site, it’s hard to see NRA members as anything but sheep.

Sheep armed with guns.

Oh, Gary Larson, we miss ye with a vengeance.

Battlefield weapons continue to edge towards the use of AI as controllers, since autonomous weapons may be necessary given how the recent rash of improvised drone weapons are being countered. Christian Borys comments on costs and defenses in NewScientist (1 July 2017, paywall):

Islamic State (ISIS) has deployed consumer drones carrying grenades in the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul, creating the most daunting problem US Special Operations Command troops faced in Iraq during 2016, according to their commander Raymond Thomas.

Groups around the world are taking advantage of the increasing accessibility of drone technology to build and deploy them as weapons (see “Home-grown drones“). And it’s not hard to imagine them being used in an attack in the West; the bomber responsible for the May attack on a concert in Manchester used parts purchased locally and may have been trained in Libya. …

And now, according to Thomas ISIS is using drones in an “almost swarm level capability” – deploying multiple fliers to the battlefield that can act and move as one. …

On the battlefield, even basic drones are proving to be such a problem that militaries are going to absurd lengths to shoot them down. In March, the BBC reported that a US ally had used a $3 million “Patriot” missile to shoot down a $200 quadcopter drone.

That’s why the hunt is on for an alternative take-down method. One possibility is the Drone Defender produced by Battelle, a military contractor based in Ohio.

The device has a range of 400 metres and looks like a rifle with a radio mast for a barrel. It was first spotted on the battlefield in Iraq in 2016. It operates by shooting a directed radio pulse, disabling the operator’s control of the drone or disrupting its link to GPS satellites, causing it to fall out of the sky.

Which points to the attraction of building an autonomous weapon. The more it can operate on its own, the more attractive it’ll be to militaries around the world – and the closer to an AI it must become, with the attendant uncertainty which I believe will accompany such a development.

A dismal future.

President Trump’s decision to strike our membership with the Paris Climate Agreement was just one step of the United States’ withdrawal from our world-wide leadership position.  Given the distaste of the current occupants of the White House and majorities in Congress for, well, the study of reality, I suppose it’s unsurprising. It tastes like someone lost their nerve.

But the world isn’t stopping in the face of American intransigence, and the latest sign that the world began accelerating away the moment we stepped off the podium comes from France, as reported by The Guardian:

France will end sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040 as part of an ambitious plan to meet its targets under the Paris climate accord, Emmanuel Macron’s government has announced. …

Nicolas Hulot, the country’s new ecology minister, said: “We are announcing an end to the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040.” Hulot added that the move was a “veritable revolution”.

Hulot insisted that the decision was a question of public health policy and “a way to fight against air pollution”. The veteran environmental campaigner was among several political newcomers to whom Macron gave top jobs in his government.

Pascal Canfin, the head of WWF France and a former Green politician who served in François Hollande’s government, said the new policy platform to counter climate change went further than previous administrations in France. “It places France among the leaders of climate action in the world,” he told France Inter radio.

As later noted, Norway is also moving in this direction, and similar noises are erupting across Europe and India. Seeing that car makers such as Ford and General Motors are global in nature, this will impact them, and hopefully they are preparing for it even now. But it’s important to note this is happening without American leadership. While it’s tempting to blame this on the GOP incompetence and provinciality in Washington, there is a second factor to consider:

The European nations have recovered from World War II and the Cold War.

For those unfamiliar with history^[1], World War II was physically and spiritually devastating for nearly all the European countries; one might argue that Sweden and Switzerland, avowed neutrals, escaped damage, but even they had their losses, intangible as they might have been. The rebuilding was more than physical, for in the cases of the Axis powers, entire governing structures had to be redesigned and implemented. The Allies, so sorely pressed, needed to query themselves as to their errors in the run-up to the War, and how to avoid repeating them. These are blows to efficiency, certainty, and national self-confidence.

Then the Cold War came on the heels of World War II, casting a foreboding backdrop on the events of the world as China’s warlord system collapsed and reformed into the image of the deadly Cultural Revolution.  The mutual menace of the Cold War and North Korea’s invasion of South Korea forced two countries, the Soviet Union and the United States, into the leadership positions of their sides, the former due to its aggressive nature, the latter because of its size, immense resources, and superior strength relative to its allies outside of the Communist world. The United States’ strength, due to its geographical isolation during World War II, made it the natural leader through the conflicts which have occurred since, as well as the responses to catastrophes, both real and hypothetical, during that time.

But now, I think, the United States has entered a period of exhaustion. The free enterprise system, whatever you may think of it, has increasingly brought change in its role as the purveyor of creative destruction, to borrow a libertarian term. That change is at odds with the temperament of much of America, those who have invested themselves in the old ways of doing things – in the old power structures, be they religious hierarchies, fossil fuel industries, or moral systems based on old assumptions. Even the stock exchanges of today do not resemble, in implementation, those of 20 years ago.

And in a country often described as one of the most religious, this is a problem, because religion does not teach change; religion teaches stasis. It speaks of eternal morality systems, not of improving and evolving morality systems. If the reader doubts it, consider the reaction to every attempt to improve our public morality since the beginning of the Republic. When Northern public opinion turned against slavery, did the slave-owners politely dispense with their slaves?

No. The forces of conservatism rallied and instigated a Civil War, calling upon Biblical references to justify their position that slavery is good.

Therefore, for those who have been taught and absorbed the ideas of the eternal and changeless, the changes brought by the Internet, science, and by those obsessed with selective justice, reek of something else: immorality is as good a word as I can imagine at the moment.  But depending on the issue, a multitude of negatively connoted words apply.

Scientists, seeing change in their data collections and worrying about its negative effects for current civilization, are disbelieved by those who have been taught that what we have done for 100 years has been good.

Gay marriage, unimaginable in the 1980s, is now permitted. In some states, a majority of the citizens even voted to allow it prior to the Supreme Court decision. Yet, from pulpit and podium, homosexuality has long been a target of those embodying “right” thinking.

Some industries depart, others arise. Where are the good old days, of working in the steel mills or descending into the coal mines? Even a black President came, who somehow survived constant rhetorical assault to resolve a host of problems.

And then arose, as we all know, the man who promises to bring back all the good times. Coal miners: we’ll use coal again. We’ll build a wall to keep out those bad immigrants who steal our jobs. We’ll reduce taxes and increase military spending because, by God, our military just sucks. Old, good jobs sound so great, and when they’re impossible, at least a finger can be pointed at something tangible. And military spending? That plays so well to those who remember the Cold War, the constant armament building, and how that brought money flooding into communities, and honor as well – contributing to the nation’s defense is always honorable, no?

As an agnostic, I find the roots of religion repugnant, but I do recognize that it brings a morality to the citizen which does not require the hard work of building a secular philosophy that compels what we call moral behavior. At its best, religion brings the simplicity of the Golden Rule to society; at its worst, it espouses a ridiculous theology resulting in the condemnation of millions of people for a multitude of dubious sins, thus hindering that same society. But the underlying teaching of stasis, of an eternal set of rules leading to Godly approval, is a dismaying facet of the institution of religion, for two reasons.

First, it leads to a brittle citizenry, a citizenry trained to expect stasis in a world of change, a training so strong that, when faced with contrary evidence, a howl of disbelief and scorn is raised, rather than the sober, mature reflection necessary for good decision making.

Second, when that brittleness snaps, the citizens tend to toss away all the rules, even as they continue their devotions. We saw this in the vote for our current President, a man of dubious public morality, who lied and lied and lied.  And the Christian nation approved him anyway because he promised a return to stasis, when times were good and they could bask in their Godly approval.

That generation, I fear, is too old to change. We may see another twenty years of GOP fumbling in governance, in combination with Democratic incompetence, before enough of its current base dies off to force it to change – or perish. Younger generations, for the most part not heavily invested in a holistic mythos venerated by this older generation, may not replenish the ranks of the GOP to any great extent, although many currently isolated in areas where conservative ideology and news organizations hold sway may be lured into the fold.

And the question will be whether or not we inadvertently  cause the destruction of the current civilization, or if the rest of the world can contain and ameliorate the damage while the exhausted generation dies off. In the latter case, I am thinking of car-makers forced to abandon fossil-fueled cars because the world outside of the United States has ceased demanding them, and as a response, manufacturers begin to phase them out even within the United States. But that is speculative and narrow; those same manufacturers, recognizing the climate change catastrophe approaching, may switch of their own accord. Some commerce actually employs strategic vision and recognizes the necessity of change.

The aphorism still holds true: change or die.

But, in the meantime, we should expect to see European and Chinese leadership taking over for the increasingly timid Americans. The simple denials of reality, the pursuit of false fantasies, are simply not acceptable in world leadership circles. So leadership returns across the ocean, most vividly to France and Germany, and China. And the United States regenerates, and relearns the lessons of fantasies.

¹As I become more decrepit with age, the temptation to shout Well, get educated about history! greatly increases.

In this case, from Carl Reiner to Justice Kennedy, in The New York Times:

I would like to start with congratulatory wishes on your forthcoming 81st birthday.

As someone who has almost a decade and a half on you, I can tell you this: It may well be that the best part of your career has just begun. As a nonagenarian who has just completed the most prolific, productive five years of my life, I feel it incumbent upon me to urge a hearty octogenarian such as yourself not to put your feet up on the ottoman just yet. You have important and fulfilling work ahead of you.

I am still aiming at making it to the year 2100.

In a sad finale to this vision of transportation, Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com reports that the Transit Elevated Bus appears to have simply been an illusion:

Source: Jalopnik

And now, it turns out, it’s a scam. According to the Financial Times,

On Sunday Chinese authorities said they had launched a probe into the company for alleged illegal fundraising through Huaying Kailai, an online financing platform founded by Mr Bai. [CEO of the Transit Elevated Bus Company]

He was one of 32 people working for Huaying Kailai arrested for using the bus to raise money illegally, after buying the rights to the bus from its inventor, probably the poor uneducated Song Youzhou. The authorities claim that this was not a vehicle for transporting people but for transporting money from investors to Mr. Bai.

A pity. Ambitious visions should be pursued by the obsessed. It keeps the unbalanced out of politics, if nothing else.

The lead-off paragraph of this post by Professor Aaron Brantly, Army Major Nerea M. Cal, and Army Major Devlin Winkelstein on Lawfare sparked a thought:

Most Americans might consider the events occurring in Ukraine—a distant conflict somewhere along the border between the Russian Federation and Western Europe—to be someone else’s problem. What that perspective fails to appreciate, however, is how these seemingly distant events set the stage for a new form of hybrid warfare that is already targeting Western citizens. Many of the techniques we are observing in Ukraine, especially those in the digital realm, are not meaningfully constrained by international borders; if left unchecked they could significantly undermine Western digital, physical, and political structures.

That lack of constraint remark made me wonder: are we talking about a single organism? Does the Internet have a meaningful analogy in the idea of it being a single organism, made up of smaller, contingent pieces, perhaps a creature of emergent evolution, but also subject to attack by other organisms?

It certainly seems so to my untrained eye. The Internet, much like any fair-sized critter, is often physically unaware that it is hosting many other organisms, many of which have a purpose unconnected to that of the host (these are the parasites, biologically speaking, or the spammers, scammers, and associated criminals), while others have a purpose connected to that of the host (these, the symbiotes, and, in terms of the Internet, the various computers and associated organizations dedicated to the survival and promotion of the network, as well as, to greater or lesser extents, the commercial operations which benefit, in part or in whole, from the qualities of the Internet). The analogy may be unsurprising.

But an analogy can lead to beneficial conclusions drawing from the known case. Can we appraise our knowledge of processes and approaches to disease, for example, and find application to the problems of the Internet? Perhaps, if they exist, medical philosophers might have some thoughts on how to approach some of the problems with criminals on the Internet. It’d be an interesting project to pursue.

Source: Wild About Harry

For a movie which focuses on a supposed fixation with death, Houdini (1953) misses a bet. A Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh vehicle, the movie presents a rags-to-riches story of the life of Harry Houdini and his wife, Bess, beginning with his start as a performer in a Coney Island carnival, where he meets Bess, through the simple magic circuit, until he begins his famous escape stunts, which gain him fame and fortune.

In the midst of his success, tragedy strikes when his beloved mother passes away, and he stops his tour in order to investigate mediums, attending seances in order to attempt communication with his late mother – all for naught, though.

Finally, he returns to the escape tricks, and Bess threatens to leave him if he attempts the “Torture Cell”, feeling that it is emblematic of a death wish on his part, a death wish that started when his mother died. He promises to discard the trick, but an audience, having seen the advertising for it, demands he attempt it, and he nearly dies in the attempt. Fin.

For me, what made the man was his public persona, because it embodied his impulses, thoughts, even his philosophies, and while his escape tricks are displayed (mostly without the insiders’ view, darn it), the obsession with mediums is only barely touched upon. It could have been so much more, an investigation into the credulousness of the common man, perhaps. After all, it’s reported that Mr. Houdini scorned the common shyster medium as a plague on mankind. But because nothing more than a single seance and some newspaper headlines are deployed, its importance in his life is effectively downplayed.

In the end, though, the missed bet relates to his own real-life death, which was the famous punch to the stomach which supposedly ruptured his appendix (if you’re interested, Wikipedia has a belabored section on his death). Having death thrust upon him makes for an interesting juxtaposition to the death wish he harbored.

If, indeed, he did. Not being a Houdini enthusiast, although I enjoy what I do run across in my readings, I do not know if this is from his life, or merely from the writers’ imagination.

In the end, it’s a movie that explores the Houdinis, and yet doesn’t really seem to show us a great deal, perhaps because this movie feels like it’s more in the tradition of star vehicles than of biopics. I was left wondering as much about Houdini’s motivations as I was about how he performed many of his tricks.

Couscousier:

The couscousier is a two-piece steamer with a lid. A stew of meats or vegetables is simmered in the bottom part of the pan. The upper pan has small holes and as the steam rises from the lower pan it cooks the couscous which is placed inside the upper pan. [Gourmet Sleuth]

Noted in Sephardic Cooking, Copeland Marks, p. XV:

In my collection I have a beautiful copper antique couscousier, which is shaped like an hourglass and is in two sections. The bottom half is a container for the meat, fish or poultry stew. The top half has many round holes, quarter inch in diameter, which allow steam from the stew to permeate the couscous deposited in the top.

On National Review, Charles Krauthammer indulges in a spotty view of history while analyzing the North Korean situation:

Nukes assure regime survival. That’s why the Kims have so single-mindedly pursued them. The lessons are clear. Saddam Hussein, no nukes: hanged. Moammar Qaddafi, gave up his nuclear program: killed by his own people. The Kim dynasty, possessing an arsenal of ten to 16 bombs: untouched, soon untouchable.

Here’s the problem: The Soviet Union. In one of the most awesome empire dissolutions of the last 500 years, perhaps rivaled only by the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, the nuclear armed and ready Soviet Union fell peacefully apart. Mostly.

Why does this matter? After all, Charles himself doesn’t really have any recommendations. For me, though, it indicates, first, intellectual laziness, and all that implies.

Second, it suggests a possible misunderstanding of the Kim’s (I’ll specify them as a family or clan, since this is a multi-generational project) motivations. After all, I see no mention of the East Asian practice known as saving face, or more generally the idea of gaining and keeping respect.

And, third, his failure to mention the Soviet Union – and the resultant gap in the knowledge of the trusting reader – deprives both Krauthammer and that reader of the lessons learned from the Soviet Union experience, whatever they may be.

Charles, time to retract that column. It could have been so much more.

Andrew Summers in New York comments on the nature of the GOP:

And in [Trump’s] latest war against the media, he is clearly winning. Close to 90 percent of Republicans believe the most patently mendacious president in history over the flawed, but still generally earnest, CNN. More to the point, as one new paper suggests, they support him even when they know he’s lying. And he has used this near-blind support to construct, in just six months, the close equivalent of a disciplined state-run media, across various platforms, from Fox to TMZ, to Sinclair and One America, from the National Enquirer to talk radio across the country, and potentially even Time Inc. in the future. In some ways, this media complex operates for Trump the way RT does for Putin. Yes, in America, unlike Russia, there’s a vibrant alternative, but, in some parts of America, that alternative barely peeks through …

At one time, the GOP would at least pay lip service to the importance of the truth. Indeed, the Clintons were demonized as terrible liars. But now? The GOP base idolizes power over truth.

That can have terrible consequences for the country.

In case you were wondering if it’s actually legal for President Trump to leave a lot of Executive Branch jobs empty, here’s  Christopher Fonzone and Joshua Geltzer on Lawfare to answer that question – with a sophisticated version of It Depends. Then they get to the heart of the matter:

But these questions, to our mind, are secondary; they are about the redressability of the president’s illegal conduct, not about the conduct itself. Many “[c]laims concerning constitutional violations . . . cannot be addressed to the courts,” but understanding the legal nature of those issues helps all of us appreciate their significance. The first and most important point, as laid about above, is that the president’s desire to leave certain Executive Branch jobs unfilled “because they’re unnecessary” raises significant statutory and constitutional questions that shouldn’t be overlooked. If he feels otherwise—if, for example, he regards these statutes as properly read not to demand the filling of these roles, or if he views such a demand as unconstitutional—then he owes it to the American public to make explicit his understanding of the statutes and the requirements they impose on him as well as the legal reasoning behind that understanding. Without that, he’s not just failing to govern—he’s actively defying the law.

A reader protests an observation concerning the ghosts of each side of the political spectrum:

“while the left has the bloody spectre of Stalin, Mao, and full-throated Communism looking over their shoulder.” There is absolutely nothing leftist about the real policies and behavior of Stalin and Mao, who were just totalitarians like so many before and after them. Nor has Marx’s communism ever been implemented as described, and so-called communist regimes in the world barely pay lip service to real ideas — ideas which are mostly flawed by their agrarian/industrial revolution worldview.

A couple of thoughts concerning the left side of the political spectrum and Communism.

First, I’ve put forward the popular viewpoint. I’m hesitant to get into a discussion about the familial connections of the various political ideologies, since I would no doubt show a lot of ignorance, not being a political science junkie. I also haven’t read the Communist Manifesto in at least 25 years, if not more, and don’t remember a word of it. And, beyond the Manifesto, I have not actually read Marx. I’ve seen copies of Das Kapital and was daunted (horrified?) by the size of the text; I’ve heard it’s fairly unreadable.

That said, it’s not hard to observe a relevant similarity: the nationalization of many industries by the Brits during their socialist past (and future? Mr. Corbyn‘s views are quite retro), are akin to baby steps compared to the wholesale takeover of virtually every business in the Soviet Union. The same cannot be said for the National Socialists, or, for that matter, the various authoritarians of South America, excepting perhaps Nicaragua during the Sandinista days. Granted, a business that went against the authoritarians risks its independence, but I do not see there being an ideological requirement that the means of production be secured for the good of the workers.

The poppies may be monochromatic, but they’re still fun!

On 38 North, Leon Sigal comments on the recent South Korean summit in Washington and the overall situation concerning North Korea. I found this of interest:

Meanwhile, North Korea has continued to launch ballistic missiles and to test-fire rocket engines. Pressure alone will not compel it to stop without giving it something in return, most likely a scaling back of joint US-ROK military exercises. It is utterly unrealistic to think that the North can be compelled to suspend arming up without having some of its security concerns satisfied.

Indeed, Washington has adjusted the intensity and scope of joint exercises over time to the perceived threat from North Korea. It beefed up the size and intensity of joint exercises after the 2010 sinking of a South Korean navy corvette, the Cheonan, and resumed flying nuclear-capable B-52s into Korean airspace only after the North conducted nuclear tests. In a subtle response to the North’s recent restraint on testing, however, it substituted B-1s, which are not wired for nuclear delivery, for the B-52s in recent flights.

Indications are that a suspension of North Korean missile and nuclear testing and fissile material production may yet prove negotiable. Moving beyond a suspension to dismantle the North’s nuclear and missile programs will take much more of an effort. Past attempts at denuclearization foundered when Washington proved hesitant to move toward full political and economic normalization and Pyongyang resumed arming.

So how will the North Koreans respond to a subtle change such as flying B-1s rather than B-52s? The ICBM launch makes me wonder if that’s a return remark in the dialog – or an exclamation point. Defense Secretary Mattis put his best face forward on the subject, as noted by ABC News:

He repeatedly said that the Trump administration will use diplomacy first in dealing with North Korea’s new ICBM capability. Though he noted that the U.S. military stands ready “to provide options if they’re necessary, but this is purely diplomatically led, with economic sanctions and buttressed by the military position, that we’re taking right now.”

Asked about such diplomatic efforts, which have so far proved unsuccessful in containing North Korea’s missile program, Mattis referred to comments made yesterday by Gen. Vince Brooks, the commander of U.S. troops in South Korea.

“Diplomacy has not failed,” Mattis said. “As Gen. Brooks said it so well, it is our self-restraint that has prevented war in the face of provocations.”

“As [Winston] Churchill put it, it’s better to jaw-jaw than war-war,” said Mattis.

Supposedly, US and South Korean forces responded with missile fire into the sea off North Korea’s coast. Perhaps a couple of missiles should hit a beach. We can call it a test.

Former White House Counsel Bob Bauer on Lawfare has little use for President Trump’s “modern Presidency,” nor comparisons to earlier Presidents:

It also stands to reason that Trump would express his unhappiness with CNN by retweeting a bit of staged violence at a professional wrestling show. Edward Luce has recently written about the president’s fascination with this brand of entertainment, and he notes a change over time in the stylized drama offered the audience: “Good and evil were replaced with dramas based on nasty personal disputes.” This is how Trump perceives his conflict with the media, as he does other conflicts he encounters in his public role—nasty personal disputes, and to be portrayed as such to his public. The president’s response that he is defending against personal attacks on him invites the obvious answer he should appreciate: he’s president and they’re not.

The presidency as an institution, rather than as a vehicle for the incumbent’s exercise of personal will, runs on disciplined process. President Roosevelt’s fireside chats, his version of “intimate” dialogue with the public, passed through several drafts as they were “fact-checked and re-written six or more times by a team of secretaries, speechwriters, and press specialists.” Roosevelt worked hard for a personal connection with his audience, but he remained squarely within his official role, supported by advisers and staff. Roosevelt understood that he was discharging a public function, and his process reflected his sense of that responsibility. Contrast with this the early morning Trump tweet bursts: issued at will, notable for misspellings, and marked the occasional deletion of the message from the public record when he concludes he hit “send” in haste.

Trump remains an incurious man with little interest in how the responsibilities of government differ from that of business.

Which does lead to the thought that future Congressional and Presidential candidates should have to face that foundational question: Please detail the key differences between government and business.

Don’t watch Frogs (1972) sober. At least, if you’re sober at the start, don’t be sober at the end. That’s the measure of awfulness of this horror flick featuring the revenge of Nature on polluting ol’ humanity.

Take a drink at every bad costume.

Take a drink at every clumsy death.

And if you like lizards and other cold-blooded critters, stay a little bit sober during the first half, where there’s quite a few good close up shots of monitor lizards, snakes, caimans, alligators, and no doubt a few other things.

Try not to mistake Ray Milland for a lizard. I know, I know, in this one he has about as much affection for humanity as a dodo might. But save a drink for the death of his character. Lord knows, he deserved it.

Gak.

Insert snide remark here. At your own risk.

Skiptracing:

Skiptracing (also skip tracing, or debtor and fugitive recovery^[1]) is the process of locating a person’s whereabouts for any number of purposes. A skiptracer is someone who performs this task, which may be the person’s primary occupation. The term “skip” (as a noun) refers to the person being searched for, and is derived from the idiomatic expression “to skip town”, meaning to depart (perhaps in a rush), leaving minimal clues behind to “trace” the “skip” to a new location. [Wikipedia]

Noted in an interview with Frank Ahearn, NewScientist (24 June 2017):

How did you become a “skip tracer”, finding people who have run out on their lives?

I was doing undercover work for a detective agency in the 1980s when I saw the skip tracer at work and it fascinated me. I told my boss I wanted to do the job, and he said, “Sure, if you can get me a copy of my phone records.” That night I went to a payphone, called the phone company pretending to be my boss and said I needed to go over my calls. They told me every place my boss had called in the last few months. The next day I became a skip tracer.

I got really good at “pretexting” – essentially tricking people into handing over information. Later, I had my own firm of skip tracers.

In the arena of arbitration replacing civil litigation, Nicholas Bagley on The Incidental Economist notes how the Obama Administration decided to handle arbitration requirements in contracts in the arena of nursing homes – and the reaction of the Trump Administration:

In October 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) decided to push back on mandatory arbitration. By rule, CMS adopted a novel “condition of participation” for Medicare and Medicaid. Nursing homes that participate in the programs—which is to say, all nursing homes—could no longer ask their residents to sign away their right to sue upon entering the nursing home. (The rule covered only pre-dispute arbitration; residents could still agree to arbitration once a dispute arose.) …

Predictably, the nursing home industry sued, arguing that the rule exceeded CMS’s authority. In November, a federal judge in Mississippi sided with the plaintiffs, and entered a preliminary injunction prohibiting CMS from applying the rule. The agency promptly appealed. In the meantime, for reasons I don’t fully understand—and perhaps for no good reason at all—the agency chose not only to comply with the ruling in Mississippi, but across the country.

Then President Trump took office. In early June, with little fanfare or notice, the administration dismissed the appeal and proposed to undo the change altogether. “Upon reconsideration, we believe that arbitration agreements are, in fact, advantageous to both providers and beneficiaries because they allow for the expeditious resolution of claims without the costs and expense of litigation.” The comment period is open through August 7, and the rule is likely to be finalized in 2018.

With health reform dominating the news, this volte-face has been overlooked.

Nicholas plans to explore the academic research on arbitration and nursing home safety, so if you’re looking at a nursing home in your future, you may wish to keep an eye on Nicholas. I know that no one wants to go into a nursing home, but for some of us this will be an inevitability. I’d certainly be OK with a consumer option of using arbitration; but a contractual requirement just sticks in my craw. If nursing homes are not faced with the possibility of being sued out of existence, well, I fear there is not an over-supply of ethics in this country.

At least, not based on the current crop of officials in the White House.

The nonsensically titled^[1] Blood & Chocolate (2007) was a frustrating mix of promise and predictability, with a nice plot twist from which the screenwriter shrank. Vivian is a young and unhappy Loup-Garou, the Romanian version of a werewolf, with its apparently only variance from the traditional werewolf being an inability to make anyone else a Loup-Garou. According to the tradition of the pack, they are descended from the royal line of Romania. The Loups-Garous have been mercilessly hunted and are down to a couple dozen, occasionally taking a human victim for a ceremonial, if vicious, hunt, run by Gabriel, their pack leader.

Vivian helps her aunt, a pack member, run a chocolate shop, an occupation of little impact to the story. One night, as Vivian meditates in a church, she crosses paths with an American graphic novel artist, Aiden, who is fascinated by the wolf-associated iconography in the church. Over the next few days, he pursues her in a gentlemanly manner. Gabriel, learning of his interest in the Loups-Garous, decides he must be frightened out of Romania, or killed, and dispatches his own son to do the job.

But his son fails and dies. A thoroughly frightened Aiden is taken prisoner and subjected to the ceremonial hunt, but survives it. Vivian attempts to defend him at its termination, and is accidentally injured with a silver knife. Aiden helps her survive by taking her for special treatment, but they are pursued. In the climactic ending, a number of pack members die, including Gabriel. Vivian and Aiden escape.

From that summary we can see the surprises are the survival of the fully human being Aiden, refusing to succumb to the sudden attack of Gabriel’s son, and ultimately winning the inevitable  knock-down drag-out fight. That was the exciting, interesting part, as humans don’t win such fights. In fact, at that point, as the Loup-Garou panted his last breaths, I waited to see if Aiden would save him, perhaps starting his own mutant pack. But, no. The scriptwriters suffered a failure of imagination, perhaps only capable of that one little surprise, and the Loup-Garou dies.

And, from then on, the movie is as dull as my plot summary – there’s a lot of action, but nothing new, no commentary on how relations between differently capable groups might be harmonized – or how such is not possible. Instead, it’s just a lot of running and knifing and even shooting.

And that’s a shame. It was nicely set up to take a standard werewolf tale down a different, thought-provoking, even wickedly smart path. Instead, the most clever thing is a concealed knife. And that’s awfully dull.

All the other facets were adequate or even good – visuals, audio, acting. Too bad the story couldn’t jump from its ruts.

¹Since we saw this on TV, it’s possible the title made sense without the inevitable TV editing.