Accidental Blogger

Visitors from beyond

On this Halloween, with nothing much on my mind, let me share some ghostly goings-on in Houston.

A houseful of visiting relatives - it's a classic mixed blessing.

Just ask businessman Tony Barton and his wife, Kim.

First came a relative, then the relative's friend, then relatives of relatives who lived with the couple. Soon, the trim, three-bedroom house at the end of a Pearland cul-de-sac was packed and life was a nonstop romp.

The real problem with these kinfolk, though, was that they were all dead. Tony Barton, 43-year-old ex-military man, salesman, and connoisseur of craft beer, was haunted.

It's the type of tale - filled with woooos, boos and goosebump-popping fright - that you'd expect to hear around Halloween, which, of course, is Monday. The Bartons say their woes started in the sunny days of summer.

"Nothing big happened right away. It was little accumulations," Barton says. "The wife and I both disregarded them - maybe hearing something, shadow movements, feelings of being watched. ... Only when things really escalated did we look at each other and say, 'Something's going on here.' "  (more here)

The Houston - Galveston area abounds with stories of hauntings. One of the more famous supposedly spooky sites here is the historic Hotel Galvez in Galveston.

Backspiration (Cyrus)

It has been a slow last few months, the way time always seems to be when it's full of variety rather than intense drive.  Sadly, my back has been full of intense pain, from general soreness during the day, to spasms when I try to get out of bed in the morning.  As a welcoming present upon my return to the U.S., I was denied health insurance, so I've largely been dealing with it myself.

Yoga, walks, and mornings that drift toward full movement around noon.  The last week has been better, largely thanks to these remedial cures, such that (until this morning) I had already started to think of the previous months as the "era of the bad-back," past tense.  Joy!

However, the bad posterior has been cause for much creative thought, or, more accurately, the annoying antagonist that reminded me to do things not only good for my back, but also my mind.  In particular, daily walks. Walking without immediate purpose almost always puts me in a contemplative mood, and the natural open space of Boulder does much to incite the inner voice.  Allora, backspiration, one of which I want to share.

I've always enjoyed soaking up the ambiance of a scene.  Or, maybe, it's the other way: I take in the ambiance when I'm relaxed.  The brain opens up and starts to notice things normally edited out in the name of concision.  As a aurally focused person, sound particularly brightens up. Birds, conversation, a distant flute.  Volume itself becomes fascinating, as people walk by, children scream joyfully, and the wind acts as DJ, mixing it all together.  Last week, one gust brought a sudden onset of bagpipes.

But I can only walk so far, only go to so many places.  You may have experienced similar problems with time and space.  How about recording it? Put it online, let others listen to it, and accept their donated wanderings in return?

Alone, this isn't a particularly interesting idea, but the advent of large, semi-public geoinformation databases opens up a range of fascinating possibilities.  The presence of GPS on most modern phones makes it easy for anyone to make a highly accurate track of their movements.  Put these together with the recorded audio, and you have a website that explores the interface between place, context, time, and sound.

Imagine two windows on the screen, one a time-line/audio player, the other a Google map widget.  As one plays the audio, a little figure on the map moves synchronously, following the GPS track.  Somewhere, the time is presented.  Hear something interesting?  Calm?  Calamity?  Cacophony?  Click the map, and the location will be looked up in the numerous public image databases, the resulting images revealing the context of the place.

I suppose this is somewhat related to Google's Street View, but two things things set it apart.  First, of course, the audio is the heart of the project.  A particular snapshot of time, I would hope that people would walk the same or similar routes multiple times, sampling them for their variance.  Second, each recording would be a path set upon not becuase streets happen to be there, but because a person, an individual chose to go there.  That agency adds something unique to every recording.  Does the person choose to speak, saying hi to strangers?  Do they spit?  Cough?

I'm almost convinced to build the thing in my spare time.  If only it didn't hurt to sit for extended periods of time.  Backspiration failing.

Quantum Fluctuations (Norman Costa)

Quantum Fluctuations (Norman Costa)

 

WARP SPEED NEUTRINOS

Neutrino detector: You're early. When did you leave?
Neutrino: In about 5 minutes.

Neutrino: Do what?
Neutrino detector: How did you do that?

mc^2 E=
 

 NEUTRINO DETECTORS ARE DEEP UNDERGROUND, SUBMERSED IN WATER.

Water molecule: What's going on? 
Neutrino detector: Nothing.
Water molecule: You look like you're standing around waiting for something to happen.
Neutrino detector: Yup!

Neutrino 1: Nice day to travel.
Neutrino 2: Sure is.
Neutrino 1: I could do this forever.
Neutrino 2: Yeah, me too.
Neutrino 1: You see how cleanly we passed through Mars?
Neutrino 2: Like a hot knife through butter.
Neutrino 1: Imagine, the chance of this trip being interrupted is so infinitesimally small.
Neutrino 2: You got that right.
Neutrino 1: In fact, you could...BAM...Son of a bitch!

Supervisor of neutrino detector crew: OK, who's the joker who released a bunch of fire flies in here?
 

MORE QUANTUM RELATIVITY

Observer 1: Your time is dilating.
Observer 2: No. Your time is dilating.
Observer 1: Not from where I'm standing.

Paradox Twin 1: You've aged.
Paradox Twin 2: No, you've aged.
Paradox Twin 1: Excuse me? You're older.
Paradox Twin 2: No, excuse me, old man.

"Time, time, time is on my side, yes it is."
Recorded in 1964 by Mick Jagger in anticipation of the 60th anniversary of Special Relativity the following year.

Greed, loyalty(?), chaat and three thousand year old "ola leaves"

The sentencing of Sri Lankan born hedge fund billionaire, Raj Rajaratnam to a lengthy jail term on charges of insider trading is big news in the financial world. The news has also proved to be of special interest to South Asian Americans who are used to seeing the conspicuous success of members of their community but not so much their downfall. I for one, cringed when I read the widely cited interview of Rajaratnam by Suketu Mehta in Newsweek and its sister web site The Daily Beast. The reason for my discomfort was not so much that I belong to the same community as most of the culprits of this gang. I once pointed out here that I rarely ever personalize the success or failure of people who share my ethnicity. What I found jarring in Mehta's otherwise very readable interview was the emphasis on the desi angle to Rajaratnam's crimes and subsequent arrest and conviction.

Rajaratnam is an immigrant, not American-born. He had grown up, as he tells it, in fear: of the Sinhalese majority in his homeland; of the skinheads in Britain where he’d studied; and of the established elites of Wall Street where he did business. At just about every stage of his life, there were people out to get him. “I saw myself as an underdog.”...

...Part of Rajaratnam’s narrative is that of a man from a smaller South Asian country seduced and betrayed by people from the Big Brother country. Kumar had introduced him to Rajat Gupta. The two of them wanted to start an Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. “I gave them [the school] a million dollars. I later found out they never contributed any of their money, and are listed as the school’s founders. And I’m not even a fucking Indian.”

The betrayal by the Indian associates hurts the most—he barely mentions the white government witnesses. He regrets doing a joint venture with the Indians.

The South Asian connection makes less sinister some of the allegations in the trial. For example, the prosecution noted that Rajaratnam would visit Goel’s house in Silicon Valley, presumably to talk about Intel. But the real explanation is more human. “His wife makes really good chaat[a savory snack]!” Rajaratnam and Goel were very good friends, so his betrayal hurts him personally.

“There are two types of plea bargains. One is, you cooperate with the government. You finger 10 other people. The other is a plea bargain without cooperation.” The white defendants all pleaded without cooperating; they did not wear a wire. “The South Asians all did the plea bargain with fingering,” he notes sourly. “The Americans stood their ground. Every bloody Indian cooperated—Goel, Khan, Kumar.” He puts it down to “the insecurity of being an immigrant, lawyers bullying them into that position.”

Rajaratnam has very deep pockets, lived in a Penthouse in Manhattan and stole like many other high rollers of Wall Street. That his network consisted mostly of Indians is not terribly germaine to the legal troubles he is in. After all, the prosecutor who went after him is also of Indian origin and one of the two FBI agents who arrested him is Asian. Do people feel more comfortable in committing crimes when they are among "friends" or cohorts who "understand" them? (Think of the Italian/Jewish/Irish Mafias of the mid 20th century) Perhaps. But it still makes them criminals. The fact that Rajaratnam and his partners are relatively new immigrants is relevant only if they were operating under the misguided notion that a) they would not be caught and b) that if caught, they could buy their way out as they may well have in the countries of their birth. Both Preet Bharara, the prosecutor and Rajaratnam himself hint that indeed the underlying mentality may have been a bit like that, even when it was clear that things don't quite work that way in the US for the most part and the American law can not accommodate a culprit's cultural background.

The whole story speaks to the South Asian–American community: its pursuit of success and money at any cost; the differences between immigrants and the first generation; and the immigrants’ incomplete understanding of the rigor of the law in the U.S.

“There are rules and there are laws, and they apply to everyone, no matter who you are or how much money you have,” says [Preet] Bharara. This is what was not easily understood by the South Asians named in the conspiracy. There are laws and rules in India and Sri Lanka, too, but they can be tested, ignored by those who have money or friends"...

As late as two weeks before the sentencing, Rajaratnam was still being asked by the government to turn on Gupta. But he wouldn’t wear a wire, he says, so he could sleep at night. “Anil Kumar’s son worked at Galleon one summer. I used to vacation with Rajiv Goel’s family. Their families knew my family. You don’t think this is going to haunt these guys? They wanted me to plea-bargain. They want to get Rajat. I am not going to do what people did to me. Rajat has four daughters.”

The Rajaratnam case can be seen as a metaphor of the difference between immigrants from South Asia, who have a more elastic view of rules and a more keenly developed art of networking, and their children, the first generation, schooled to play by American rules. Preet Bharara came to the U.S. when he was an infant. Yet for all his complaints about unfairness, Rajaratnam, surprisingly, still believes in American justice. “In Sri Lanka I would have given the judge 50,000 rupees and he’d be sitting having dinner at my house. Here, I got my shot. The American justice system is by and large fair.”

In your case too?” I ask. “I said by and large.” 

Suketu Mehta is a professor of journalism but he is also a successful fiction writer. Did the latter persona influence his interview in this case, emphasizing the "outsider" status of the players in a sordid case of corruption? In the end, what it really came down to was greed, opportunism, superstition about one's infallible luck and the lack of honor among thieves. There is no special ethnic angle to that age old story.

Follow up in the New York Times and a rebuttal in the San Francisco Chronicle .

Neither Corruption Nor The Appearance of Corruption (Norman Costa)

Neither Corruption Nor The Appearance Of Corruption (Norman Costa)

“We now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” --US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in "Citizens United.

Super-Soft Money: How Justice Kennedy paved the way for “SuperPACS” and the return of soft money.

By Richard L. Hasen

Soft money is coming back to national politics, and in a big way. And we can blame it all on a single sentence in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in 2010’s controversial Citizens United decision—a sentence that was unnecessary to resolve the case.

In this election cycle, “superPACs” will likely replace political parties as a conduit for large, often secret contributions, allowing an end run around the $2,500 individual contribution limit and the bar on corporate and labor contributions to federal candidates.* To understand how we got into this predicament, we need to go back briefly to the 1970s. In the wake of Watergate and other money-in-politics scandals, Congress imposed tough new campaign finance restrictions. Not only did the law limit contributions to federal candidates to $1,000 per person (an amount it eventually raised to $2,000 and indexed to inflation), it also limited independent spending—that is, no one person or group could spend more than that amount—to $1,000. In a Solomonic 1976 decision, the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo split the baby, upholding the contribution limits but striking down the independent spending limit as a violation of the First Amendment protections of free speech and association.

Read more HERE:

 

The Lord Is My Shepherd (Norman Costa)

Who is your shepherd? (select only one)

1. Adam Smith
2. The Lord
3. I am. 

Where is fairness manifested? (select as many as apply)

1. The free market
2. In higher primates
3. The clan 

The Lord Is My Shepherd (Norman Costa)

by STUART KAUFFMAN

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures; 
He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul; 
He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; 
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; 
You have anointed my head with oil; 
My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life, 
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. --Psalm 23

"The exquisite 23rd Psalm is one expression of what philosopher Karl Jasper called "The Axial Age." This period from about 800 BCE to 200 BCE is when, in China, India, Persia, Greece and among the Jews in Exile in Babylonia, civilizations seem to have gathered themselves up and found new expression through Lao Tzu, Buddha, Zarathustra, Plato, Socrates and the writing down of the Old Testament. It was a period of revision some 5,000 years after agriculture led to the beginnings of property rights and the creation of greater accumulated wealth. Civilizations arose in China, the Indus valley, the confluence of the Tigres and Euphrates, the Nile Valley and Abraham gave birth to three great monothestic religions.

"The Axial Age is said to have focused attention on the individual, witnessed in David's Psalm above, a paeon to the relation between the Lord and an individual. Emphasis on the individual is a cornerstone of our United States Constitution and Adam Smith in the Scottish Enlightenment, setting the foundations of modern economics with his famous "invisible hand," where each acting for his or her own purely selfish interests unwittingly, through the invisible hand of the market, achieves the benefit of all.

"Now, 2,500 years after the Axial Age, we have learned much that may be of use as we face what historian Thomas Cahill called a "hinge of history." Our many civilizations around the globe are being woven together as never before in history. We will partially shape what we become.

"I write to raise a large question: Do we need to examine our Axial Age anew? I think we do."

Read more HERE:

Stuart Kauffman is an experimental and theoretical biologist.

Kauffman has written about three hundred articles and four books: The Origins of Order (1993), At Home in the Universe (1995) and Investigations (2000), published by Oxford University Press. Most recently he published Reinventing the Sacred (2008), Basic Books.

Kauffman is well known for arguing, in Origins of Order and At Home in the Universe, that self organization, as well as Darwin's natural selection, are twin sources of order in biology. Thus we must rethink the becoming of the biosphere.

Read more about Stuart Kauffman:

The Work of Technology in the Age of Artistic Redundancy (Dean)

The passing of Steve Jobs understandably prompted a chorus of grief and eulogy among his fans, along with refrains of the usual hyperboles voiced during his lifetime in praise of his genius and technological vision. Although I admire the evident courage he exhibited during his final years as he struggled with his health, I have never much appreciated his or Apple's work. Like Charlie the Tuna, Apple tries to pass as the embodiment of good taste, when what I want is an Apple that tastes good, namely, a computer that works when you plug it in, turn it on, and try to make it do things. One day, probably not in my lifetime, the self-proclaimed revolutionaries will stride victorious beyond that distant milestone. Call me an idealist. Until then, I must settle for the available pretend versions, a la Fisher-Price.

Yet it's clear that many avid fans of Apple gear experience it as life-changing and itself the stuff of radiant beauty and fine design. Still more regard the Internet and the ubiquity of computing technology as cultural developments not only affording high utility but nearly biblically proportioned salvation. Pondering my own discontent with the trajectory of these tools and my disconnection with popular demand for them, it occurred to me that the gadgetry of technology now assumes the aura once regarded as imbuing the unique work of high art, a radiance formerly acknowledged even by those who had no personal appreciation for the work. This formulation is, of course, an adaptation of Walter Benjamin's famous essay examining the fate of art in the face of increasingly easy reproduction and dissemination. Benjamin doesn't signal such an adaptation, which is merely clever, but riddling the essay are numerous proclamations, typical of his oracular style, that speak pertinently to our own times before and after Jobs. For example, he attributes the "withering" of the aura to:

the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction.

It's easy to recognize this dynamic at work in the advance of social networking technologies. Reading Twitter streams from participants at an unfolding event in real time is a safe proxy for being there. But Benjamin was writing about art, and some proponents of digital technologies believe they promise opportunitites for new varieties of artistic creativity, facilitated by the rapid manipulation of readily available material into new configurations. Thus, for example, the mash-up or the remix, genres that dispense with coy Eliotic allusion in favor of flagrant copying. Their point is to restructure the familiar without disguising it. They are instances, for better or worse, of "free culture."

Six years and sickly - Happy Birthday A.B. :-)

I guess that is not a very nice thing to say in a birthday greeting, at least not if you still want people to remain interested in your enterprise. Every year on October 19^th, the anniversary musings come with sweet as well as bitter sweet reckonings about the health of the blog. It is increasingly evident that we are now in a completely different state of blogging regarding enthusiasm, frequency and readership volume from the heydays of just a couple of years ago.  

There is nothing terribly interesting to say this year about traffic, new authors or sensational links that created a lot of interest. The past twelve months have seen a real dip in new writings and naturally, in traffic. Of the dozen authors listed on our roster less than 50% have contributed on a regular basis in the past year. Often short links (something I don’t like very much) have filled up the space on the front page in lieu of substantive commentary. We have pivoted away from political blogging for the most part, current political events specifically, have not received much attention.

Time, as Sujatha pointed out in her anniversary post last year is a major obstacle to blogging for most authors. But that is not the only reason. As I once speculated and Sujatha pointed out, crowded and more interactive social media too have played a role in the reduction of readership and postings. 

My thanks to Sujatha, Norm and Omar for blogging here with some regularity on varied topics and to Dean for keeping the comment threads lively. I also appreciate the contributions of other authors (Dean, Prasad, Jesse and Cyrus) who have posted when time has permitted. Joe, Anna and Andrew have not been seen here for a long time. The former became busy with his new job and the latter two with their new baby. My own rate of blogging has fallen precipitously. I noted in a comment on Sujatha’s anniversary post last year that a lack of enthusiasm for the political scene is one of the many reasons why my blogging spirits have flagged considerably. Some of us think that is not necessarily a bad thing. Now with a messy election season coming up, our attention may once again turn to politics. Who knows, the urge to hold forth publicly on issues that matter to us may pick up once again.

Many thanks also to some regular readers who continue to drop by despite the paucity of new material and reduced frequency of posting. Some, like my friend Elatia, are invariably supportive and add to the discussion with their interesting and thoughtful observations. Despite the anemic condition, Accidental Blogger remains a comfortable zone for some of us to share our thoughts and talk to each other. Do continue to check us out.

Several times in the past whenever I felt (sometimes mistakenly) that the blog was in the doldrums, I used to weigh the option of closing down Accidental Blogger. Joe always said that he didn’t believe I would ever do that. He was right. I do not want to lose a huge and interesting archive of material contributed by many different authors and commenters who put in a lot of thought and effort in adding to the discussions.  The contents of the blog will be maintained as they are whether or not blogging ceases altogether here. I have decided that TypePad is as good a venue as any other on the web to maintain the blog in its original format. A.B. therefore will remain available to its authors and readers for the foreseeable future.

To add some color to the bland musings, let me share a painting of mine with you. The composition is a bit stark and bare. Perhaps the solitary musician is not entirely unsuited for the mood of this post. We are not quite whistling past the graveyard but sometimes it feels a lot like singing in the wilderness.

 (click to enlarge)

Van Gogh did not kill himself, authors claim (Norman Costa)

Van Gogh did not kill himself, authors claim (Norman Costa)

Vincent Van Gogh did not kill himself, the authors of new biography Van Gogh: The Life have claimed.

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith say that, contrary to popular belief, it was more likely he was shot accidentally by two boys he knew who had "a malfunctioning gun".

Dutch master Van Gogh died in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, in 1890 aged 37.

Read more HERE:

Texas DA fights DNA testing because exonerations override juries

Why let truth and reason interfere when you have the opportunity to kill?

The inimitable P.G. Wodehouse

On the occasion of his 130th birth anniversary, I urge you to read this early post of mine - a tribute to P.G. Wodehouse, one of my favorite writers who regaled his fans with endless hours of mindless fun.

 

The discordant sounds at the mall

Ever since I arrived in the US nearly thirty years ago, I have heard grumblings about immigrants not adhering to American ways. Exotic looks, clothes, foods, languages and religious practices raise many a native eyebrow. Of all these, the sound of a foreign language seems to be the biggest irritant. US immigration laws require all aspiring citizens to have a basic command of the English language. That is understandable and it is for the benefit and convenience of the new comer as well as the host nation.

In the last three decades, despite a proliferation of new immigrants from virtually every corner of the earth and a veritable Tower of Babel of languages within US shores, I see no threat to English being displaced as the official American language any time soon. Some older immigrants ("legal" and "illegal") or those who are employed in ethnically insular occupations never quite learn English.  But their children who grow up here, invariably become fluent English speakers. Yet the specter of Americans losing their culture and language due to the influx of foreigners is raised repeatedly by paranoid nationalist fear mongers. The agenda of the right wing Tea Party makes no bones about the America of its dreams.

Not much in the Tea Party manifesto is new. The changes in current day American society are deemed undesirable by many Americans. To the chagrin of the purists, too many other Americans (especially the "libbrals") are too accommodating of the increasing ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity. In their opinion, government organizations, schools and hospitals are bending over backwards to make life easy for the "lazy" foreigners at the cost of our tax dollars. Recently, I had the following exchange with a friend and neighbor whose xenophobic tendencies I was always aware of but that has not interfered so far with our friendship:

She: Have you been to the mall lately?

Me: No, why?

She: You hear all this chatter in foreign languages around you. Sometimes it is hard to believe that we are in America.

Me: Are the speakers talking among themselves or are they trying to conduct business in their native languages?

She: Speaking among themselves.

Me:  What's wrong with that?

She: Well, this is America. No one should be speaking a foreign language in public!

I was flabbergasted. It is one thing to expect that everyone in America should have some knowledge of  English but quite another to demand that no other language should be used in public even in private conversations. I for one, tend to speak English most of the time, even with my family members. But if I happen to be with someone who speaks Bengali or an older relative, I would more likely than not, use an Indian language in my conversations. I do make sure that an "English only" speaker is not present in the group when I launch into my native tongue(s). I had no idea that the sound of people speaking a non-English language in private conversations can be so upsetting for some Americans. By the way, during my trip to Hawaii a year ago, I discovered that many Hawaiians do not speak English very well, some older ones, not at all. I dare anyone to call them un-American. I normally do not like to remind Euro-Americans that they too were immigrants once upon a time and not all their ancestors spoke English. But expressions of such unwarranted hostility deserve a retort like "Why fret about what America was like once upon a time? I don't see you smoking a peace pipe."

 

"Thank you for 1944" - from China

A pleasant blast from the past for some WWII veterans. The story in the Houston Chronicle.

The postcard arrived in Ed Denzler's mailbox in Pearland last month, a mystery from his past nestled among the routine bills and coupons.

Addressed in neat block letters to Denzler, the handwritten note reads, in English: "It takes a strong man to save himself, a great man to save another. Thank you for 1944. From China."

On the front is a black-and-white photograph of U.S. and Chinese service members listening to an American with a fiddle accompany two Chinese soldiers on traditional stringed instruments called erhus

The card was mailed from China, postmarked Aug. 27, and had Chinese writing on the back that Denzler couldn't decipher.

The 88-year-old World War II veteran fought in Burma in 1944 with Merrill's Marauders, a famous volunteer unit, and served with the Chinese Combat Command in 1945. But he had no idea what would have prompted such a note more than 60 years later.

"I couldn't imagine where it came from," said Denzler.

.

The World's First Temple! Or ... Not? (Norman Costa)

The World's First Temple! Or ... Not? (Norman Costa)

October 13, 2011

by BARBARA J KING *

"In Turkey over 11,000 years ago, people created a massive structure at a hilltop site called Gobekli Tepe. After carving limestone pillars with all sorts of animal images, they hauled the 16-ton stones into multiple huge rings — without the help of wheeled vehicles or domesticated animals.

"I have been fascinated by this site for years. For one thing, Gobekli Tepe (the accepted story goes) was constructed by hunter-gatherers. When announced, this was major news. Ancient hunter-gatherers, who neither farmed nor lived in settled villages, had long been thought to be too simply organized to pull off anything on the scale of Gobekli Tepe.

"For another thing, the site is billed by German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt as the world's first temple. This provocative claim led to a National Geographic cover story last June. To pinpoint the dawn of religious ritual would, of course, be a fantastic accomplishment for anthropology."

Read more HERE:

The Better Angels of Steven Pinker's Nature (Norman Costa)

 

The Better Angels of Steven Pinker's Nature (Norman Costa)

Relative angels and absolute demons

By Razib Khan

My post below defending Steve Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature elicited some responses on twitter.  Robert Lee Hotz finds it odd that I defend a book I haven’t read. My logic here is simple: the outline of the argument in The Better Angels of Our Nature has been presented in shorter form. John Gray’s piece doesn’t even address this digest, so I am skeptical that it could address the data which is no doubt strewn across hundreds of pages. It is obviously theoretically possible that The Better Angels of Our Nature is thinner in results than the shorter essays and presentations I’ve seen over the years on the same topic from Pinker, but highly unlikely. If Gray does a disservice to the short form argument, I doubt he is being any fairer to a longer exposition.

Second, I already admitted that in many ways I’m more pessimistic than Steven Pinker when it comes to this issue. And from what I’ve seen I’m moderately skeptical of many of the rationales he presents for why violence has declined over time (though obviously I won’t be doing him justice if I come to any conclusion without reading the book with all its extended argumentation). But my issue with John Gray ultimately is not with his final assessment of Pinker’s argument on the net, but how he came by it. Steven Pinker is a serious thinker, who makes a good faith effort to arrive at the truth as he understands it. I don’t think he always succeeds, and I don’t always agree with his conclusions. But even if you disagree with him engaging someone like Steven Pinker can sharpen your own perspective, and refine your own models. Steven Pinker is not a fashionable intellectual whose aim in life is to receive adulation by the right people at the right time. He may be wrong, whether due to lack of background or faulty reasoning, but he’s a sincere person. I have friends and acquaintances who take great objection to his evolutionary psychology and representation of cognitive science, but even his false steps can serve as an opening to raise public awareness of your opposite perspective. Pinker’s stature, and the questions he shines the light upon, are opportunities to have a public discussion on the Big Ideas. If you’re going to criticize him, face his ideas full on, don’t just prance around preening so those with whom you already agree can see what a good and right person you are. That’s what John Gray did, and it disgusted me.

Read more HERE.

What if we win?

by Omar Ali

Pakistan’s predicament continues to draw comment from all over the world; in the Western (and Westoxicated Eastern) Left, the narrative remains straightforward(to such a degree that one is tempted to share an essay by Trotsky that Tariq Ali may have missed): US imperialism is to blame. In this story, US imperialism “used” poor helpless clueless Pakistan for its own evil ends, then “abandoned” them (it’s very bad when the imperialists go into a third world country, it’s also very bad when they leave) and they have now returned to finish off the job.  I have written in the past about my disagreements with this Eurocentric and softly racist narrative and have little to add to it. In any case, no one in authority in either the imperialist powers or Pakistan is paying too much attention to the Guardian or the further reaches of the Left. But even among those who matter (for better and for worse), there seems to be no agreement about what is going on and what comes next. Everyone has their theories, ranging from “lets attack Pakistan” to “let’s throw more money at them” and everything in between. I don’t know what comes next either, but I have been thinking for a few days about an outcome that many in the Pakistani pro-military webring think is around the corner: What if we win?

The fact that the US/NATO are in trouble in Afghanistan is no longer news. The fact that Pakistan is about to “win” may not be as obvious to many outsiders (or even to many Pakistanis).  but “strategic victory” in Afghanistan is now taken for granted by the Paknationalists. And one should take them seriously, since their theories are not only a product of GHQ, they are also the basis GHQ’s own decision making. The circle goes like this: psyops operators create the theory in the morning. It’s taken up by the paknationalist media through the day and is on GEO TV by nightfall. The generals hear it on the evening news and excitedly call up their friends: did you see what everyone is saying!

What does it mean for Pakistan to “win” in Afghanistan?

Most of my Pakistani friends think it’s a zero-sum game: what is bad for the US is good for Pakistan. Though some analysts have attempted warn that it may not be a glorious victory, but this kind of “negative thinking” is not the dominant mode in Pakistan. Even Pakistanis who expect some trouble are generally happy with the thought that the Americans will be escaping from the Kabul embassy hanging on to rope ladders. I disagree, and I disagree because I think that this defeat will not be fatal for the US, but it is very likely to be terrible for Pakistan. The US, while chastened and shocked (as after Vietnam?) will not be seriously wounded by defeat in Afghanistan; What happens to the economy at home will be far more critical than what happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan, neither of which have a big role in the economy, and the role they do have is entirely negative. The US will be better off getting out of Afghanistan. Pakistan will not escape that lightly.

First some clarifications: I am not talking about loss of US aid or the loss of vast sums of money that the US pays Pakistani contractors for supplying and sustaining their mission in Afghanistan. First of all, the US and NATO will need Pakistani help to get out safely and may pay more in defeat than they ever did in “victory”. And even when the taps are eventually turned off, the stoppage of US aid is not necessarily fatal. It’s a 200 billion dollar economy and while the poor may suffer some more as the upper classes squeeze them harder to make up for lost dollars, life is likely to go on. Severe sanctions are a more serious issue, but it’s possible that China can prevent those.  There will, of course, be the inevitable military coup (most likely a "hidden” one, in which a civilian caretaker regime is installed by the army) and that will itself lead to a temporary improvement in administration in the core region; In short, all will not be doom and gloom if the Western tap does get turned off, especially if the turning off is gradual and if China can be convinced to help the upper classes out a little more. The real problems will lie elsewhere.

First of all, this "victory" will not lead to instant peace in Afghanistan.  Even the paknationalists think Afghanistan will erupt in open civil war. Naturally, that’s a war they expect “their side” to win, but keep in mind that the Taliban, with full Pakistani support and little overt intervention on the other side, still could not conquer all of Afghanistan prior to 2001. After 10 years of western support, and with Iran, India and Russia already working on future scenarios, it is hard to see how the Taliban could easily roll back into Northern or Western Afghanistan. The civil war in Afghanistan will not be brief or decisive, and it will suck Pakistan into all kinds of trouble. Even in the best case scenario, it will be very tough. In the worst case scenario, Pakistan may collapse before the last American takes off from the embassy roof. The risks in case of "victory" are enormous.

Secondly, the jihadis will want their peace dividend within Pakistan too. Imran Khan and his admirers are waiting for the day when the Americans leave and we can talk to “our people” as brothers, but the brothers are not just fighting for America to leave. 
They had an agenda before America arrived in 2001 and they have not given up on it. Neither have their friends in the security services. The jihadi faction of the deep state did not train half a million jihadis just to needle India. Pakistan itself will have to be cleansed of undesirables. The first in line will excite little sympathy; Zardari’s cronies, ANP diehards and Baloch nationalists will be “sorted out” soon after the coup, to cheers from Imran Khan supporters wearng Microsoft T-shirts. Neither will the Ahmedis get much sympathy. But the Salafists will not spare Shias and that will mean problems with Iran and with the remaining Shia population within Pakistan. Next the westernized elite will be asked to join the glorious Islamic revolution. Most will choose to accept and may even think that the jihadis are only looking for public expressions of piety, but they will soon find out that the Jihadis are serious. And that they had no idea what was cooking under the radar in half a million madrasahs and an impoverished, disenfranchised and much abused population of desperately poor people. While the burger-jihadis are working on their Microsoft certification and jerking off to Imran Khan and Shahid Afridi speeches on youtube, the rest of the country has neither water, not electricity nor basic law and order. The revolution will not stop at public piety. Until one day, the red death will reach the innermost sanctum: GHQ itself will be invited to reform. At that point, as defense housing society plots are redistributed, the victory will become very bittersweet indeed.

Does this mean that the ruling elite in Pakistan will in fact bite the bullet and help the US out just to save themselves? After all, the US intervention did provide the elite with a chance to give up their dangerous jihadi policy and switch to some alternative route to capitalism. But in spite of Chinese hints that they may be better off taking this road, the “Indian threat” meme has overwhelmed all other considerations and they do not seem to possess the vocabulary to try anything different. Revising their strategic doctrine may have seemed logical, but that logic has not made it past their mental defenses. This is a genuine mess. The kind where nobody is sure what will happen next.

A joke from the nineties (originally a Khalsa joke, but recycled and put to many uses since then) suddenly seems prescient; Prime minister Nawaz Sharif in those days was portrayed as something of a simpleton, getting by on the advice of his shrewd father (Abba ji). Here is the joke: 
Nawaz Sharif: Abba ji, the economy is in terrible shape and nothing is working. What can we do now?
Abba ji: Son, there is only one solution. Start a war with America. They will bomb the country and utterly destroy it. Then they will occupy us and launch a Marshall plan and we will be rebuilt with their money. Look how rich Japan and Germany have become after losing a war to America.
Nawaz Sharif: But Abba ji, what if we win?

But maybe I am underestimating the corrupt but shrewd ruling elite. Maybe they have enough self-awareness to sneak out of this one? Notice that Pakistan is opening up trade with India. We delayed an American victory in Afghanistan for 10 years because we don’t want Indian influence in Afghanistan. We don’t want Indian influence in Afghanistan because the Indians are our eternal enemies. Now the Americans are threatening us, so we are going to make peace with India to relieve pressure on the economy. When we are friends with India, will we still need to deny them "influence" in Afghanistan? Enquiring minds want to know...

These thoughts about the possible shrewdness of the corrupt elite were rudely interrupted by the following post on the paknationalist webring:http://www.pakistankakhudahafiz.com/2011/10/02/2012-a-scientific-look-at-the-importance-of-the-year-2012-in-view-of-the-historic-events/#comment-124549. This is not a conspiracy site in some basement in Louisiana. This is the site closest to the mindset of our esteemed military elite and the "scientist" being quoted is one of Pakistan's "nuclear heroes". Hope may be premature.

 

 

 

Climate change and dieting (prasad)

The New York Times reports reports that a panel of scientists has recommended more research into geoengineering methods to control the Earth's temperature.

Members said they hoped that such extreme engineering techniques, which include scattering particles in the air to mimic the cooling effect of volcanoes or stationing orbiting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight, would never be needed. But in its report, to be released on Tuesday, the panel said it is time to begin researching and testing such ideas in case “the climate system reaches a ‘tipping point’ and swift remedial action is required.”

The 18-member panel was convened by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a research organization based in Washington founded by four senators — Democrats and Republicans — to offer policy advice to the government. In interviews, some of the panel members said they hoped that the mere discussion of such drastic steps would jolt the public and policy makers into meaningful action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which they called the highest priority.

There is a fair bit of alarm about the recommendation, both about the very plausible outcome that such research might further weaken efforts to reduce emissions, and your standard-issue Frankenstein-scientism-hubris stuff. I don't disagree that tampering with the climate would be pretty complicated stuff of course, but can't begin to imagine why anyone would be convinced we couldn't do it fruitfully in a hundred years time, excepting of course that they convinced everyone else at the outset that it would be "playing God" or something to even think about it. [My take on that horrible phrase has always been, "Someone's gotta do it." Don't know who it's picked up from, but I find it enjoyable.]

Nor is the the appeal to risk-aversion or the precautionary principle obviously in their favor. Does anyone think that green energy at reasonable output levels, costs and useful time frames is such a cert that we don't even need to think about alternatives? Could anyone say, for that matter, that it's not risky to tamper with rising third-world economies, on the scale that would be needed to keep Chinese or Indian emissions from becoming several times larger each than the American output? A paragraph giving Joe Romm's view caught my eye:

At the influential blog Climate Progress, Joe Romm, a fellow at the Center for American Progress, has made a similar point, likening geo-engineering to a dangerous course of chemotherapy and radiation to treat a condition curable through diet and exercise — or, in this case, emissions reduction.

This is a singularly infelicitous analogy. The big problem with climate change over the coming century isn't the US or Europe, it's India and China and South America and (one hopes!) Africa. None of those places are sanely characterized as requiring "diets." In a world where Romm and his readership didn't think about fighting climate change largely in moral terms, where the underlying conceptual framework wasn't getting Americans to be less fat and more continent, he wouldn't dream of saying something so bizarre.

In practice presentism or Luddism are always as obviously weighty in prospect as they often are flimsy in hindsight - consider how many people said, quite seriously, back in 2007 that e-books would destroy the true pleasure of reading, consisting as it did in the smell of paper. But hand-wringing about test-tube babies or kindles is relatively inconsequential; delaying important avenues of research by decades with the climate in the balance is not.

To PSA or not PSA (Sujatha)

Remember the great Mammo or no Mammo debate that erupted a couple of years ago? The task force is back in action again. This time they recommend 'No PSA', as the evidence builds up that the cure is worse than the disease.

"The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force examined all the evidence and found little if any reduction in deaths from routine PSA screening. But it did conclude that too many men are diagnosed with tumors that never would have killed them and suffer serious side effects from resulting treatment."

From the New York Times:

"As the P.S.A. test has grown in popularity, the devastating consequences of the biopsies and treatments that often flow from the test have become increasingly apparent. From 1986 through 2005, one million men received surgery, radiation therapy or both who would not have been treated without a P.S.A. test, according to the task force. Among them, at least 5,000 died soon after surgery and 10,000 to 70,000 suffered serious complications. Half had persistent blood in their semen, and 200,000 to 300,000 suffered impotence, incontinence or both. As a result of these complications, the man who developed the test, Dr. Richard J. Ablin, has called its widespread use a “public health disaster.”  (italics mine)

There is a flourishing industry whose success depends on treating the incontinence and impotence that is such a common side effect of those who have undergone treatment for the possible prostate cancer, whether slow-growing or fast.

The real question, at this point, given the weak economy, is whether the bending of the health care cost curve tthat comes from less aggressive testing for prostate and breast cancers is worth the loss of jobs in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. Maybe it is worth it, in terms of quality of life for say 48 out of 50 who might have been diagnosed on the basis of the test, and subjected to needless treatment. But the 2 who were saved will always be much more vociferous in their support of universal testing, as is very evident from the flurry of angry letters following the articles.

Or maybe, they should just let things be between men and their doctors, just as in the case of women and the mammogram recommendations.

India launches Aakash tablet computer priced at $35 (Norman Costa)

India launches Aakash tablet computer priced at $35 (Norman Costa)

In 2008, Tata Motors announced the Nano.

It is 3 metres long, seats four comfortably or five at a squeeze, does 65mph and aims to revolutionise travel for millions. The “People’s Car” is also the cheapest in the world at 100,000 rupees (£1,300) – the same price as the DVD player in a Lexus.

 

Today, India announces the Aakash tablet.

India has launched what it says is the world's cheapest touch-screen tablet computer, priced at just $35 (£23).

What happens when China or India start developing pharmaceuticals at a fraction of the cost of U.S. and German drug developers? How about heavy lift rockets that can compete with the Russians? We've been out of that game for a long time. In a generation both Europe and the U.S. will find it hard to compete with Russia in the commercial aircraft market. Within another generation, if not sooner, India, China, and Brazil, will be taking their own sizeable share.

Read more HERE.

Pathological Altruism

Today's NY Times has a discussion of 'Pathological Altruism', but is it truly 'altruism' to give till it hurts the giver?

Altruism, on the face of it, is the opposite of selfishness. The dictionary definition (Merriam Webster)

1: unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others

2: behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species

The NYT article starts with an interesting headline, but the very first example is poor: A physician insisting on heroic measures to save a dying patient, despite considerable pain and trauma to the patient, and resulting in a miserable death rather than a peaceful one. This seems to me not 'altruism' but a manifestation of selfishness, as in  the physician maintaining 'I am convinced beyond reason that I will save this patient, damn the costs.'

A far better example of the 'pathological altruism' occurs at the end of the article- the case of animal-hoarders. But there too, the question arises. How much of it is predicated on the person 'doing good'  doing it for the sake of the momentary rush of happiness at their perceived selflessness?

Mallory and Irvine: Should we solve Everest's mystery? (Norman Costa)

Mallory and Irvine: Should we solve Everest's mystery? (Norman Costa)

By Jon Kelly BBC News Magazine, 3 October 2011

As a tale of doomed, romantic endeavour, it has endured for decades.

It is also Everest's most persistent mystery - did George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine make it to the top in 1924, almost 30 years before it was officially conquered?

The pair, equipped with primitive climbing gear, were last sighted a few hundred metres away from the summit before bad weather closed in around them.

Wearing Burberry gabardine jackets and hobnail boots, and carrying a rudimentary oxygen supply, their gear was a far cry from the hi-tech protective clothing worn by modern mountaineers.

And historians have long argued whether or not they made it to the peak before succumbing to the freezing conditions.

A forthcoming expedition to Everest aiming to establish what exactly happened is just the latest in a series of attempts to solve the puzzle. But despite the continued speculation, many of those with a stake in the mystery hope it will never be resolved, fearing the prosaic truth could never match the legend.

Read more HERE.