“Lake Erie was another matter, though. In September 1813 Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, a twenty-seven-year-old officer who had begged to be transferred from the tedium of commanding gunboats at Newport, Rhode Island, sailed from Presque Isle with his two new twenty-gun brigs and seven schooners and other small vessels, most of them converted merchant vessels mounted with one or two 24- or 32-pound carronades. At daylight on September 10, near Put-in-Bay at the western end of the lake, he spotted the British squadron and signaled his other vessels to close with the enemy. Perry’s flagship the Lawrence locked in a close-quarter carronade slugfest with the two largest British ships for two hours, fighting both sides of the ship simultaneously and taking 80 percent casualties until Perry was reduced to calling the surgeon’s assistants one by one away from their post helping the wounded in the wardroom below and then calling down, “Can any of the wounded pull a rope?” Then Perry rowed through a hail of fire to the as-yet-undamaged Niagara as the Lawrence, reduced to fourteen sound men, struck her colors, and the commodore brought the second ship into close action and carried on the battle for another forty-five minutes until the British commodore surrendered.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Can any of the wounded pull a rope?
From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 253.
Data Talks
Long term orientation (LTO (or, low time preference) is associated with a country's success
— Whyvert (@whyvert) February 29, 2020
e.g. here with economic growth pic.twitter.com/qP8AeRaVnQ
I see wonderful things
A cool physics thing - Spontaneous Synchronization pic.twitter.com/Z1kjPny8Fv
— Roberto Alonso González Lezcano (@robertoglezcano) February 29, 2020
But the lesson was foreign and sometimes he forgot it.
From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 61.
Mutinies in the army were not uncommon, though, nor were they considered by Indians the fearful crime which they were thought to be by Englishmen. The word used in Hindustani, 'ghadr', does not convey the meaning that 'mutiny' conveys to English ears; it has no more pejorative sense than 'faithlessness' or 'ingratitude'.
So long as the Colonel was the father and mother of his regiment and had the power to deal with most grievances, this was what mutiny was - but as the Colonel's power diminished, as the decisions which mattered to the sepoy were more and more taken by distant people whom he had never seen, the word came less and less to represent what the sepoy felt he was doing. Even if his officers listened, no one at headquarters seemed to take much notice; it must sometimes have seemed that if he was to get anyone to pay attention, his only course was to refuse duty. He learnt in the army that in this, as in so many other things, the English had strange ideas, and as a rule he remembered to behave as they expected. But the lesson was foreign and sometimes he forgot it.
Golden Retrievals by Mark Doty
Golden Retrievals
by Mark Doty
Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh
joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then
I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you never can bring back,
or else you’re off in some fog concerning
—tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:
to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,
a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.
Get thee gone
From Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare.
Get thee gone: I see thou art not for my company.On learning to say no to impugners.
Monday, March 30, 2020
The worst general on either side in the war, and probably the worst general in all of American history
From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 252.
In the east, a disorganized plan to march on Montreal began late in the summer and almost immediately fell apart under the disastrous command of Major General James Wilkinson, whom one historian has called the worst general on either side in the war, and probably the worst general in all of American history. Winfield Scott thought Wilkinson an “unprincipled imbecile,” and Major General Wade Hampton, who was supposed to cooperate in the invasion with a force of 4,500 men under his command, simply refused to obey Wilkinson’s orders. During the campaign Wilkinson’s officers observed with increasing alarm the general’s attempts to treat his dysentery with massive doses of laudanum, which left him “very merry,” singing and garrulously repeating stories but hardly inspiring confidence.
Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die)
Joe Diffie, country singer and native Tulsan, passed away Sunday from complications of Corona virus.
Double click to enlarge.
Double click to enlarge.
Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die)
by Joe Diffie
Well I ain't afraid of dying it's the thought of being dead
I want to go on being me once my eulogy's been read
Don't spread my ashes out to sea don't lay me down to rest
You can put my mind at ease if you fill my last request
Prop me up beside the jukebox if I die
Lord I want to go to heaven but I don't want to go tonight
Fill my boots up with sand put a stiff drink in my hand
Prop me up beside the jukebox if I die
Just let my headstone be a neon sign
Just let it burn in mem'ry of all of my good times
Fix me up with a mannequin just remember I like blondes
I'll be the life of the party even when I'm dead and gone
Prop me up...
Just make your next selection and while you're still in line
You can pay your last respects one quarter at a time
Prop me up...
Prop me up...
Oh prop me up beside the jukebox if I die
The wet markets of 1800s London
The Lattings, my mother's line, originated in Belgium in the 1400s, arriving in Britain as merchants in the 1500s. The branch of the family located in London were associated with the medieval church, St. Dionis Backchurch. It was located at the intersection of Fenchurch Street and Lime Street as indicated in this map of Lime Street Ward from probably late 1700s or early 1800s. At the center bottom.
Click to enlarge.
All well and good and ancient history.
However, if you look more closely, you something immediately topical. Zooming in on the southern area around the church.
Click to enlarge.
There you go - Fish Market and Flesh Market, just the north of the Church (along with the Herbe Market). Wet markets in London circa 1800. Not a surprise to see them there. They are well recorded and reasonably prominent in various history texts. Just striking to come across them at this very point when the risks and dangers of wet markets are more top of mind than they normally are.
All well and good and ancient history.
However, if you look more closely, you something immediately topical. Zooming in on the southern area around the church.
There you go - Fish Market and Flesh Market, just the north of the Church (along with the Herbe Market). Wet markets in London circa 1800. Not a surprise to see them there. They are well recorded and reasonably prominent in various history texts. Just striking to come across them at this very point when the risks and dangers of wet markets are more top of mind than they normally are.
Old memories of Stockholm
Using the lock down to clean out old files. Here are some post cards of my haunts from my youth in Stockholm, Sweden in the early 1970s. These are photos from postcards when my wife and I visited in the late-1980s.
The Royal Palace, 1984 by Leo Dobrowsky
Click to enlarge.
Stortorget, Gamla Stan, also by Leo Dobrowsky
Market Square, Old Town. The Non-denominational church we attended, run by Lutheran ministers from America, was in the northwest corner of the Square and this view is to the east. The old story I recall, without vouching for its accuracy, was that there was a hidden message in the tawny red building in the center. Apparently the royal family had had a period of dispute, there was a riot, citizens fired upon and killed. Followed by a period of repression when nothing was allowed to be said about the massacre. At some point in the following years, this red building was constructed on Stortorget and if you look closely, you can see each window is accented by some white blocks. Supposedly, if you count all the accent white blocks, it totals the number of citizens killed in the massacre which in turn was represented by the red paint. To be discounted by the fact that I heard the story when I was a 10-12 year old unfamiliar with the language.
Click to enlarge
Stortorget, Gamla Stan by David Bracken.
This is in winter and pretty much the view of the square from the entrance of our church. Around Christmas, the square was filled, not just with snow by with the traditional jul marknad - stalls selling traditional crafts, art, Christmas decorations, grill korvs (hot sausages), and the like. Loved the jul marknad.
Click to enlarge.
Storkyrkan and Borshuset (The Great Church and the Borse) Painting by David Bracken
Click to enlarge.
Österlånggatan by David Braken
Loved the road at the top of the triangle. It led towards Stortorget and was lined with art galleries, antique stores, antique book stores and the like. A visual feast for window shopping, nothing being open on Sundays.
The Royal Palace, 1984 by Leo Dobrowsky
Stortorget, Gamla Stan, also by Leo Dobrowsky
Market Square, Old Town. The Non-denominational church we attended, run by Lutheran ministers from America, was in the northwest corner of the Square and this view is to the east. The old story I recall, without vouching for its accuracy, was that there was a hidden message in the tawny red building in the center. Apparently the royal family had had a period of dispute, there was a riot, citizens fired upon and killed. Followed by a period of repression when nothing was allowed to be said about the massacre. At some point in the following years, this red building was constructed on Stortorget and if you look closely, you can see each window is accented by some white blocks. Supposedly, if you count all the accent white blocks, it totals the number of citizens killed in the massacre which in turn was represented by the red paint. To be discounted by the fact that I heard the story when I was a 10-12 year old unfamiliar with the language.
Stortorget, Gamla Stan by David Bracken.
This is in winter and pretty much the view of the square from the entrance of our church. Around Christmas, the square was filled, not just with snow by with the traditional jul marknad - stalls selling traditional crafts, art, Christmas decorations, grill korvs (hot sausages), and the like. Loved the jul marknad.
Storkyrkan and Borshuset (The Great Church and the Borse) Painting by David Bracken
Österlånggatan by David Braken
Loved the road at the top of the triangle. It led towards Stortorget and was lined with art galleries, antique stores, antique book stores and the like. A visual feast for window shopping, nothing being open on Sundays.
Rain at Shinobazu Pond, 1938 by Shiro Kasamatsu
Rain at Shinobazu Pond, 1938 by Shiro Kasamatsu
Click to enlarge.
I see wonderful things
Might we call this Granular Flow? 😲😲
— NESTA-US🌎 (@NESTA_US) February 28, 2020
Heavy Rain From Cyclone Gita Turns Rakaia River into a River of Rock#geology #EarthScience #Weather #Idontwanttogetcaughtinthat #physics pic.twitter.com/IASNDZs8yh
Data Talks
Animated map shows how five of the major world religions spread across the globe https://t.co/iwRX8B2HjE HT @businessinsider pic.twitter.com/ODLTL3ygtk
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 29, 2020
Most British officers in native regiments refused to believe that their own men could possibly be misled by such stupid, idle talk
From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 61.
Most British officers in native regiments refused to believe that their own men could possibly be misled by such stupid, idle talk. But there were a few who could not share the general confidence. Sir Charles Napier, who had resigned as Commander-in-Chief soon after the annexation of the Punjab in 1849, had been convinced that the sepoys of the Bengal Army were dangerously unsettled. The annexation had been a great blow to the sepoys from Oudh who were then in the Punjab because they had received extra pay while serving outside the Company's territories; but now that the Punjab belonged to the Company this extra pay was withheld. Some of it which they had already received was, in fact, declared repayable. Such had been the resentment at this unfair order that twenty-four battalions had seemed on the verge of refusing their pay altogether and one, the 66th, after ninety-five of the men had been tried for mutiny, had been disbanded, its number and colours being given to a regiment of Gurkhas. Worse than this, Sikhs from the Punjab had now been enlisted in native regiments, much to the disgust and anger of the sepoys of Oudh who not only considered Sikhs unclean and complained that they smelled horribly because of their habit of using curds to dress their long hair, but who also felt that their own special relationship with the East India Company was coming to an end. Having quarrelled with the Governor-General over the methods adopted to deal with the sepoys' complaints, Sir Charles Napier had resigned, protesting that the whole army was on the verge of mutiny, a view by which Dalhousie had professed himself utterly astonished and from which he recorded his 'entire dissent'.This is one of the striking things to me in most the accounts I have read of the Great Mutiny. The confidence of the British regimental officers in the loyalty of their Indian soldiers. Even up to the point of death. And the reverse was often true as well. Accounts from Indian soldiers who were confident in their own loyalty right up until the point when they were swept up in the mutiny.
Law school education as a case study.
A revealing report from Law School Transparency. Their findings are pertinent across the higher education sector but the specifics with regard to Law Schools are striking.
Especially for those of us who came through higher education in the 1980s. For about a two decade period, law schools were the darling's of Universities. High revenue, low costs - they were the cash cows of university systems and the institutional challenge was how got to keep the greater part of the excess profits, the university or the law school.
How the times have changed. Both universities and laws schools fell victim to administrative bloat. Both fell victim to mission creep, shifting focus from preparing future leaders to fixing perceived social ills through education. Both donned the repressing ideologies of political correctness and micro-aggressions; ideologies which ensured that no one could discuss the real problems in public.
And now the consequences are with us. The returns on education are plummeting. For the best students from the best families at the best schools, it is still a worthwhile investment, indeed a critical investment. For everyone else? An increasingly risky investment. And increasingly, doing the most harm to those favorites of diversity and equity policies.
From LST's 2025 Vision. They open with a roll calling of indicting facts and trends.
As long as federal loan guaranties continue to flow, we will have a substantial misallocation of tax revenue, human capital, and personal capital into low productivity, low value add professions and hitting the most socially and financially vulnerable the hardest.
This is not what is intended, but that is what is happening.
Especially for those of us who came through higher education in the 1980s. For about a two decade period, law schools were the darling's of Universities. High revenue, low costs - they were the cash cows of university systems and the institutional challenge was how got to keep the greater part of the excess profits, the university or the law school.
How the times have changed. Both universities and laws schools fell victim to administrative bloat. Both fell victim to mission creep, shifting focus from preparing future leaders to fixing perceived social ills through education. Both donned the repressing ideologies of political correctness and micro-aggressions; ideologies which ensured that no one could discuss the real problems in public.
And now the consequences are with us. The returns on education are plummeting. For the best students from the best families at the best schools, it is still a worthwhile investment, indeed a critical investment. For everyone else? An increasingly risky investment. And increasingly, doing the most harm to those favorites of diversity and equity policies.
From LST's 2025 Vision. They open with a roll calling of indicting facts and trends.
Law school tuition has exceeded inflation for decades. Private and public law school tuition is 2.8 and 5.9 times as expensive as it was in 1985—after accounting for inflation. In 2019, tuition topped out at $72,360. The average tuition at top-performing law schools is much higher than the rest. But prices do not scale with job outcomes. The average tuition at the lowest-performing schools is similar to the average for mid-range schools.I think the latter couple of points are worth elaborating. The whole law school sector is essentially a make-work scheme by the federal government to support the economics and ideologies of otherwise unviable or unsustainable universities.
While law schools typically discount the sticker tuition price for a portion of the class, 25% of J.D. students paid full price in 2018-19. Students who pay full price or close to it are more likely to come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds or be underrepresented racial minorities. Their tuition dollars subsidize the scholarships that their more advantaged classmates receive. These disparities enhance persistent inequity in law practice.1
Students borrow to pay these high prices. Three in four graduates borrow for law school at high interest rates. Among borrowers, the average 2018 graduate borrowed $115,481. This person is likely to have roughly $130,000 in debt from law school alone when they start repayment six months after graduation because interest accrues immediately on law school loans. As with scholarships, underrepresented racial minorities—not to mention women—borrow more on average for law school.2
When factoring in graduate salaries, students borrow excessively for law school. One common-sense rule in student lending provides that students should not borrow more than they expect to earn after their first year. At 94% of law schools, the median amount borrowed exceeds the median earnings in the first full year after graduation. The median debt-to-income ratio is 1.86. One in six law schools have a ratio of 3.0 or higher, which means that the median amount borrowed exceeds the median earnings by 200%.
Another common sense-rule in student lending recommends that a graduate should not devote more than 10 or 15% of income to monthly student loan obligations. The median borrower across all law schools ranges from 10.7% to 78.7% using the standard loan ten-year repayment term and the median income. The median percentage of pre-tax income devoted to debt service is 29%.3
A graduate who owes $130,000 at first payment has a monthly payment of about $1,450 on the standard plan—nearly 50% higher than the median mortgage in the United States.4 To remain in range of the recommendation, the graduate must make between $116,000 (for 15%) and $174,000 (for 10%). The median entry-level salary for 2019 graduates was $70,000. That average is generous due to non-responses and nearly double-digit unemployment.5
Changes to the federal student loan program would devastate many law schools. Law schools depend on tuition to meet their budgets. Across all law schools, 69% of revenue comes from tuition. A quarter of law schools receive at least 88% of revenue from tuition.6 With so many students borrowing, law school tuition dependency is really federal student loan dependency. Major changes to the loan program would mean major problems for law schools. Both President Obama and President Trump proposed significant changes to the federal loan program that would be less generous and thus more likely to make students stay away from law school.7 This might sound good in theory, but the reality is that it would make our profession less racially and socioeconomically diverse. We also happen to need new lawyers.
But even if the federal student loan program does not change, the cost of law school is indefensible. Law school is expensive and it is insufficient to return to prices and borrowing levels from a decade ago. The status quo threatens the long-term health of the legal profession and the legal system.
As long as federal loan guaranties continue to flow, we will have a substantial misallocation of tax revenue, human capital, and personal capital into low productivity, low value add professions and hitting the most socially and financially vulnerable the hardest.
This is not what is intended, but that is what is happening.
There is no honesty in such dealing
From Henry IV, Part 2 by William Shakespeare.
I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing.On the experience of dealing with local government.
Hey, maybe we can get some synergy between our bad vaping reporting and our bad Covid-19 reporting?
From Media is Woefully Irresponsible on Supposed Link Between Vaping & COVID-19 by Elizabeth Sheld. It is kind of piling on when the mainstream media are doing such a woeful job reporting on a quintessentially unknowable event. Covid-19 may or may not end up being sufficiently lethal in its contagion and fatality rates to warrant doing massive damage to the economy, and particularly to those most economically fragile and precarious.
It is easy to recommend extreme quarantines if you are of a class with sufficient funds and credit that it is an inconvenience from which you will recover. And especially so if you are within a social networking bubble which prevents you seeing the 50% of the population who live paycheck to paycheck.
However, I am not sure any amount of warranted criticism is actually sufficient to motivate the mainstream media to improve their reporting. When normally admired Scandinavian countries (culturally homogenous, high productivity, sophisticated education, etc.) have such variant strategies for dealing with the same condition, it should be a warning to journalists to show at least some humility about the certainty with which they declare policies to be dangerously foolish. See The Science Behind Sweden's 'Relaxed' Coronavirus Strategy by Peter M. Nilsson & Paul W. Franks.
Sheld's report, however, is a useful reminder. The media was terrible in reporting the institutional effort to shield corporate profits, and more importantly state tax revenues arising from tobacco smoking. The powers that be went after vaping with a vengeance on the most meager of science and the press, accustomed to unquestioning press release reporting, and being innumerate, went right along with it. They were the mouthpieces of statist-corporatist interests. Useful idiots in Stalin's terminology.
The same litany of errors and motivated reporting on display with the vaping fiasco is now on display with the Covid-19 reporting. The same press release journalism, the same ideological motivated reasoning, the same partisanship, the same innumeracy, the same absence of fact-checking or useful contextual knowledge.
Like a dog returning to its vomit, the mainstream media returns to its same bad practices.
Doubles down even. "Hey, maybe we can get some synergy between our bad vaping reporting and our bad Covid-19 reporting?" seems to be the thought. From Sheld.
It is easy to recommend extreme quarantines if you are of a class with sufficient funds and credit that it is an inconvenience from which you will recover. And especially so if you are within a social networking bubble which prevents you seeing the 50% of the population who live paycheck to paycheck.
However, I am not sure any amount of warranted criticism is actually sufficient to motivate the mainstream media to improve their reporting. When normally admired Scandinavian countries (culturally homogenous, high productivity, sophisticated education, etc.) have such variant strategies for dealing with the same condition, it should be a warning to journalists to show at least some humility about the certainty with which they declare policies to be dangerously foolish. See The Science Behind Sweden's 'Relaxed' Coronavirus Strategy by Peter M. Nilsson & Paul W. Franks.
Sheld's report, however, is a useful reminder. The media was terrible in reporting the institutional effort to shield corporate profits, and more importantly state tax revenues arising from tobacco smoking. The powers that be went after vaping with a vengeance on the most meager of science and the press, accustomed to unquestioning press release reporting, and being innumerate, went right along with it. They were the mouthpieces of statist-corporatist interests. Useful idiots in Stalin's terminology.
The same litany of errors and motivated reporting on display with the vaping fiasco is now on display with the Covid-19 reporting. The same press release journalism, the same ideological motivated reasoning, the same partisanship, the same innumeracy, the same absence of fact-checking or useful contextual knowledge.
Like a dog returning to its vomit, the mainstream media returns to its same bad practices.
Doubles down even. "Hey, maybe we can get some synergy between our bad vaping reporting and our bad Covid-19 reporting?" seems to be the thought. From Sheld.
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided the media another opportunity to foment vaping-related panic. Little is known as to why some victims of this new virus are more afflicted than others. Such ambiguity presents an opportunity for the media to pick up where they left off only months ago when they were ginning up anti-vaping hysteria via a different culprit: illegal, counterfeit THC cartridges. Journalists frightened the public only to be proven wrong after thorough investigation by the CDC. Have they learned their lesson? Let’s have a look at what they are reporting about vaping and COVID-19.A very good article highlighting an institutional failure with a very specific example of flawed reporting.
A New York Post article entitled “Doctors say vaping could make coronavirus worse for young people” tells us that “US doctors are reportedly eyeing vaping as a possible factor in the alarming number of hospitalizations among young adults diagnosed with COVID-19.” Who are these doctors supposedly “eyeing” vaping in COVID-19 diagnoses? The Post offers only one “doctor,” Stanton Glantz, who isn’t a medical doctor but rather a Ph.D. And Glantz isn’t a disinterested scientist, he’s an anti-vape activist whose “scientific” paper linking vaping with heart attacks was recently retracted by a prestigious medical journal. The Journal of the American Heart Association explained, "The editors are concerned that the study conclusion is unreliable." Why should an expert of Glantz’s dubious reliability be referenced in a news report?
CNN recently published “How smoking, vaping and drug use might increase risks from Covid-19.” The article cites Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Volkow wrote on the agency’s blog that “[b]ecause it attacks the lungs, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could be an especially serious threat to those who smoke tobacco or marijuana or who vape.” (Italics mine.) Volkow’s comment is speculative, but CNN brings in the familiar Glantz to support Volkow’s conjecture. In a phone interview, Glantz told CNN that "[s]ome of my pulmonary [colleagues] have noted people under 30 [with Covid-19] ending up in hospitals and a couple were vapors [sic]." CNN notes that Glanz qualified his assertion, as “there hasn't been enough research or evidence to support whether there's a link.” So why write about it?
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Money talks
From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 220.
Secretary Jones complained bitterly about the “palpable and criminal intercourse held with the enemy’s forces blockading and invading the waters of the United States,” noting that both neutral foreign-flagged vessels leaving American ports and American coasting vessels “with great subtlety and treachery” were conveying “provisions, water, and succours of all kinds … direct to the fleets and stations of the enemy, with constant intelligence of our naval and military force.” Block Island, at the end of Long Island Sound, and Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod, became virtual British ports, where ships of the blockading squadron regularly put in for water or other supplies. At Provincetown the squadron received fish, vegetables, and water, and the British captains furnished passes to several local owners of schooners allowing them to sail across Massachusetts Bay, through the British squadron to Cape Ann, to procure loads of firewood for them.
Even many stalwart Republicans winked at the illicit commerce when they were the beneficiaries. One prominent Maryland Republican from the Eastern Shore, Jacob Gibson, engaged in a pugnacious public correspondence defending himself after selling cattle, sheep, and hogs to the British. It did not help his case when it also became known that he had personally entertained Admiral Warren to dinner at his plantation on Sharps Island in the Chesapeake, and had received in return a protection from the admiral safeguarding his property and slaves and allowing safe conduct of his wheat crop to the mainland. But Maryland congressman Robert Wright, the same who had demanded “hemp and confiscation” for traitors, loudly offered his support for Gibson’s patriotism and assured him that “the enemies of your country” had signaled him out for attack only because of the conspicuous figure he cut in the Republican ranks. Other local Republicans acknowledged, however, that if Gibson had been a Federalist, “he would have been tarred and feathered and his house pulled down.
The control of the temper he deemed one of the most important conditions of health
This is pretty wonderful.
A number of years ago I was reading some account and stumbled across the fact that some superannuated general on the French or German staff in World War 1 had also been an observer at the American Civil War. I do not recall which General it was but certainly someone recognizable. All the European members of the conflict tended to have ancient generals at the very beginning of the war. Still, it was arresting to make a human connection between those two wars 69 years apart.
For whatever reason, it crossed my mind today as to whether it was possible that any veteran of the American Revolution might also have served in the later American Civil War. The numbers are a stretch, say from 1783 to 1861, 78 years. Highly unlikely, but just on the border of possible.
Well, it does not appear that that happened but there were at least a handful of American Revolution veterans who survived into the Civil War. Just.
They were, Elias Hillard, Samuel Downing, Daniel Waldo, Lemuel Cook, and Alexander Milliner. There story is here, The Last Men of the Revolution.
An example:
A number of years ago I was reading some account and stumbled across the fact that some superannuated general on the French or German staff in World War 1 had also been an observer at the American Civil War. I do not recall which General it was but certainly someone recognizable. All the European members of the conflict tended to have ancient generals at the very beginning of the war. Still, it was arresting to make a human connection between those two wars 69 years apart.
For whatever reason, it crossed my mind today as to whether it was possible that any veteran of the American Revolution might also have served in the later American Civil War. The numbers are a stretch, say from 1783 to 1861, 78 years. Highly unlikely, but just on the border of possible.
Well, it does not appear that that happened but there were at least a handful of American Revolution veterans who survived into the Civil War. Just.
They were, Elias Hillard, Samuel Downing, Daniel Waldo, Lemuel Cook, and Alexander Milliner. There story is here, The Last Men of the Revolution.
An example:
Remarkable.
Rev. Daniel Waldo
101 Years Old. Born in Windham, Connecticut on September 10, 1762. Died July 30, 1864. Drafted into the Continental Army in 1778. Taken prisoner by the Tories a year later in Horseneck, Connecticut.
His connection with the Revolution began when he was 16 years old. A year after he was drafted into the army he was taken prisoner by the Tories. He was brought to New York where he was confined in the Sugar house in New York together with 20 or more members of his company. Sugar House Prisons were sugar refineries, sturdy stone and brick buildings. They were used by the British as prisons where captured American soldiers and civilians were confined. Two months later he and his whole company were exchanged for British prisoners and released. Rev. Waldo said he never saw Washington or La Fayette. A minister in the Congregational Church, he served for a short time as chaplain at New London. In his later years, at the age of 96, he was chosen chaplain of the House of Representatives. "In his personal habits Mr. Waldo was very careful and regular. His standing advice was to 'eat little.' He drank tea and coffee. The control of the temper he deemed one of the most important conditions of health, declaring that a fit of passion does more to break down the constitution than a fever. His memory was excellent, differing from that of most aged people, in that he retained current events with the same clearness as the earlier incidents of his history."
I see wonderful things
Wow, that is some seriously amazing camouflage 😮 [🔊 on] https://t.co/5rNQviJmXH pic.twitter.com/2Gr9uW1y5I
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 28, 2020
Data Talks
Super interesting! My qualitative data confirm that this is not a faulty survey measurement & indeed the *desire* to look at porn is often framed as addictive in conservative Christian communities. This is a lesson for all sides of porn / porn addiction debates. https://t.co/TY5UQHjVqn
— Kelsy Burke (@kelsyburke) February 25, 2020
Everything will become red
From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 60.
There were rumours that lotus flowers, leaves of brinjal and bits of goats' flesh were also being passed from hand to hand within the sepoy regiments; that an ominous slogan 'Sub lal hogea hai' ('Everything will become red') was being whispered everywhere; that magical symbols, their meaning unknown even to those who scrawled them, had appeared on the walls of many towns; that protective amulets were being sold in the hundreds in bazaars ; and that fakirs and maulvis were moving about the countryside, gathering crowds of villagers around them, warning them of the designs of the Firinghis, urging them to stand firm, to resist all pressures, and to fight for their faith. Certainly agents of dispossessed princes, agitators and trouble-makers were at work, reminding the sepoys that the British were not invincible, as had been shown in the Afghan War; telling them that, since the Crimean War, Russia had conquered and annexed England, and that the total population of England was less than 100,000, so that - even if the Russians let them - the English could not reinforce their regiments in India; assuring them that Queen Victoria had sent out Lord Canning with the express purpose of converting them to Christianity; warning them that, now nearly all India was British, they would in future only be needed to fight overseas where their caste would be broken; aggravating their fears and suspicions. The word was spread that the new cartridge was meant to defile the sepoy and destroy his caste; that muskets were also being defiled by being packed in cows' fat; that civilians were to be polluted as well as soldiers by the dust of ground cow-bones which was being secretly mixed with the flour on sale in the markets; that one day when the sepoys were assembled on their parade-grounds mines would explode beneath them and blow them all up; that the widows of British soldiers killed in the Crimean War were being shipped out to India where the principal zemindars would be compelled to marry them, thus ensuring that their estates would eventually fall into Christian hands.
It's been a long road getting from there to here
I enjoy the match of the lyrics to the video in the Star Trek: Enterprise series.
Double click to enlarge.
Double click to enlarge.
Where My Heart Will Take Me
by Russell Watson
It's been a long road
Getting from there to here
It's been a long time
But my time is finally near
And I can feel the change in the wind right now
Nothing's in my way
And they're not gonna hold me down no more
No, they're not gonna hold me down
'Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
I've got faith
I've got faith, faith of the heart
It's been a long night
Trying to find my way
Been through the darkness
Now I finally have my day
And I will see my dream come alive at last
I will touch the sky
And they're not gonna hold me down no more
No, they're not gonna change my mind
'Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
I've got faith, faith of the heart
I've known the wind so cold, I've seen the darkest days
But now the winds I feel, are only winds of change
I've been through the fire and I've been through the rain
But I'll be fine
'Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
'Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got strength of the soul
No one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
I've got faith
I've got faith, faith of the heart
It's been a long road
AAA Vacation Guide by Ernest Hilbert
AAA Vacation Guide
by Ernest Hilbert
“Philadelphia isn’t as bad as Philadelphians say it is.”
—Billboard on Interstate 95
Paris in the Spring, Autumn in New York,
Singers pair a city with a season
As though it belonged to it all year long.
They should try to put a few more to work:
Trenton in winter needs a good reason;
Scranton in summer seems so very wrong.
How about Cincinnati in the spring?
Autumn in Passaic, or in Oakland?
Some cities just lack glamour and appeal,
And there is no point arguing the thing.
No one reads through stacks of brochures to spend
A honeymoon in Allentown. Let’s get real.
Most places on the map, you must believe,
No one wants to visit, only to leave.
He's poor in no one fault.
It is claimed by the ignorant and uninformed that there is no room in today's educated head for Shakespeare. He is archaic and difficult to understand. He talks of old and ridiculous things. He is no longer relevant.
I profoundly disagree. I think people just fail to match his words to our experiences. He speaks to us and our issues as I hope to make clear in a series of quotations and their contemporary relevance.
From Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
I profoundly disagree. I think people just fail to match his words to our experiences. He speaks to us and our issues as I hope to make clear in a series of quotations and their contemporary relevance.
From Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
He's poor in no one fault, but stored with all. Especially in pride. And topping all others is boasting.On public intellectuals.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Best of the Bee
Chick-Fil-A Temporarily Changes Slogan To 'Eat Fewer Bats' https://t.co/1tK3gfitKv
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 27, 2020
There had been no want of courage but there was a want of skill
From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 218.
The same day’s mail from New York brought news of the return of James Lawrence in the sloop of war Hornet from his cruise along the coast of South America. On January 24, 1813, the Hornet had been chased off the blockade of the Bonne Citoyenne at São Salvador by the arrival of a British seventy-four, but Lawrence had nimbly slipped away from the much more powerful enemy and stood out to sea. On February 4 he captured an English brig carrying $23,000 in specie. And then on February 24, nearing the mouth of the Demerara River, the Hornet fell in with the sixteen-gun British brig sloop Peacock and in fourteen minutes left her a sinking wreck, her captain dead along with thirty-seven other casualties to the Hornet’s three. The Peacock had been long known as “the yacht” for her resplendent appearance and immaculately polished fittings, and the accuracy of her crew’s gunnery in the brief fight had been abysmal. Although a subsequent British court-martial ran true to form in underscoring that there had been no want of courage displayed by the Peacock’s officers and men, and “honorably acquitted” the survivors, the court frankly attributed her defeat to a “want of skill in directing the Fire, owing to an omission of the Practice of exercising the crew in the use of the Guns for the last three Years.” It was the fifth American victory in a single-ship engagement. Joshua Keene, the Peacock’s steward, kept a small notebook of clippings he saved while a prisoner in New York, and one included the words of a chantey that Keene noted was making the rounds “about the Streets of New York”:
Yankee sailors have a knack
Haul away! yeo ho, boys
Of pulling down a British Jack
’Gainst any odds you know boys.
The Vicarage at Nuenen, 1885 by Vincent van Gogh
The Vicarage at Nuenen, 1885 by Vincent van Gogh
Click to enlarge.
I see wonderful things
Mobula rays, also known as flying rays, are cousins of the mantas and close relatives of sharks. Periodically, they gather together in large groups and start propelling themselves out of the water, perhaps as a way to attract mates. https://t.co/hRiGGVtL34 pic.twitter.com/bVTsNcvIcd
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 27, 2020
Data Talks
Incredible – something to contemplate next time you’re flying over open ocean (or maybe not)... https://t.co/U6YUG3RStg pic.twitter.com/RvOLY5LXpT
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 21, 2020
It is called "the chupatty movement"
From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 59.
'There is a most mysterious affair going on through the whole of India at present,' Dr Gilbert Hadow wrote home to his sister towards the end of March 1857.' No one seems to know the meaning of it. . . It is not known where it originated, by whom or for what purpose, whether it is supposed to be connected with any religious ceremony or whether it has to do with some secret society. The Indian papers are full of surmises as to what it means . . . It is called "the chupatty movement".'
One morning that month Mark Thornhill, Magistrate of Muttra, found four of these chupatties, 'dirty little cakes of the coarsest flour, about the size and thickness of a biscuit', laid on the table in his office. He discovered that a man had come out of the jungle with them, had given them to the watchman with instructions to make four like them and to take these to the watchman of the next village who was to be told to do the same. Other officials reported that the number of chupatties was five and that that number had been sent on to the watchmen of five neighbouring villages who in turn had each been told to send five others on to five other villages. By this means, it was said, chupatties were travelling all over the North-Western Provinces at the rate of about a hundred miles in twenty-four hours. George Harvey, Commissioner for the Agra Division, thought that they were being distributed over a distance of between 160 and 200 miles in a single night.
Some believed that the distribution of chupatties was a magical rite to avert some impending catastrophe; others that it was a practice adopted to appease gods responsible for epidemics of cholera; yet others that it was a call to the people to resist the imposition of Christianity. There was a widespread belief among the natives that the British Government themselves were responsible for it, that the distribution was intended as a warning of the Government's determination to join everyone in India together, to make them eat the same food and to force them to become Christians. But' no one could say why such a curious method had been adopted' for conveying this determination to them. Certainly the village watchmen did not know why they had to run through the night with chupatties in their turbans, though they obviously felt some calamity would befall them if they should break the chain. The native police were as mystified as anyone. Mainuddin Hassan Khan, a thannadar in Delhi, was 'astonished' by the reports to which he nevertheless attached the utmost importance, since the distribution of chupatties 'undoubtedly created a feeling of great alarm in the native mind throughout Hindustan'. Asked by the joint magistrate at Delhi to report privately what he believed to be the origin of the matter, he could offer no explanation other than that his father had once told him that upon 'the downfall of the Mahratta power, a sprig of millet and a morsel of bread had passed from village to village, and that it was more than probable that the distribution of this bread was significant of some great disturbance which would follow immediately'.
The familiar incommensurability problem
From The Psychology of the Unthinkable: Taboo Trade-Offs, Forbidden Base Rates, and Heretical Counterfactuals by Philip E. Tetlock, Orie V. Kristel, S. Beth Elson, Melanie C. Green, and Jennifer S. Lerner. From the Abstract:
Five studies explored cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to proscribed forms of social cognition. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that people responded to taboo trade-offs that monetized sacred values with moral outrage and cleansing. Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that racial egalitarians were least likely to use, and angriest at those who did use, race-tainted base rates and that egalitarians who inadvertently used such base rates tried to reaffirm their fair-mindedness. Experiment 5 revealed that Christian fundamentalists were most likely to reject heretical counterfactuals that applied everyday causal schemata to Biblical narratives and to engage in moral cleansing after merely contemplating such possibilities. Although the results fit the sacred-value-protection model (SVPM) better than rival formulations, the SVPM must draw on cross-cultural taxonomies of relational schemata to specify normative boundaries on thought.If that is somewhat opaque, this is clearer.
Trade-off reasoning is widely viewed as a minimal prerequisite for economic rationality (Becker, 1981). Utility maximization presupposes that people routinely factor reality constraints into their deliberations and explicitly weigh conflicting values. Indeed, economic survival in competitive markets requires that people make at least implicit trade-offs between objectives such as work versus leisure, saving versus consumption, and consumption of alternative products. The moralist-theologian metaphor warns of sharp resistance to efforts to translate all values into a common utility metric. Fiske and Tetlock (1997) documented that, in most cultures, people are chronic "compartmentalizers" who deem some trade-offs legitimate (goods and services routinely subject to market-pricing rules) but vehemently reject others—in particular, those that treat "sacred values" like honor, love, justice, and life as fungible.
This sharp resistance is rooted, in part, in the familiar incommensurability problem. Decision theorists have long stressed that people find interdimensional comparisons cognitively difficult and resort to noncompensatory choice heuristics such as elimination-by-aspects to avoid them (Payne, Bettman, & Johnson, 1992). The moralist-theologian framework, however, treats this explanation as incomplete. Apple-orange comparisons are difficult, but people often make them when they go to the supermarket Moreover, people do not find it shameful to make trade-offs between money and consumption goods. The moralist-theologian framework traces opposition to reducing all values to a single utility metric to a deeper, more intractable form of incommensurability: constitutive incommensurability, a pivotal concept in modern moral philosophy (Raz, 1986) as well as in classic sociological theory (Durkheim, 1925/1976). As Tetlock, Peterson, and Lerner (1996) argued, the guiding idea is that our commitments to other people require us to deny that we can compare certain things—in particular, things of finite value with things that we are normatively obligated to treat as infinitely important. To transgress this boundary, to attach a monetary value to one's friendships, children, or loyalty to one's country, is to disqualify oneself from the accompanying social roles. Constitutive incommensurability can thus be said to exist whenever comparing values subverts one of the values (the putatively infinitely significant value) in the trade-off calculus. Taboo trade-offs are, in this sense, morally corrosive: The longer one contemplates indecent proposals, the more irreparably one compromises one's moral identity. To compare is to destroy.
Friday, March 27, 2020
Shipping by land was slow, laborious, and prohibitively costly
From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 216.
But the tightening British stranglehold on the American coast was telling everywhere. Two ships of the line and two frigates loitered off Sandy Hook and Montauk Point, sealing off Decatur in New York with the United States and his refitted prize the Macedonian. At Norfolk, the Constellation was for the moment safely holed up behind a floating gun-ship battery of thirty-four guns, a hastily erected artillery emplacement on Craney Island at the mouth of the harbor, and a line of blockships that had been sunk in the channel off Lambert’s Point barring the entrance to the Elizabeth River; but the natural and artificial facts that made Norfolk hard for the British to get into made it equally hard for the Constellation to get out of, and ever escape to sea. The Constellation’s captain, Charles Stewart, reported to Jones that many residents of Norfolk had fled in anticipation of a British attack on the town, and that some of the local militia had deserted from an apprehension that they would be ordered to serve on the undermanned gunboats. Jones replied promising all assistance and authorizing a reasonable recruitment bounty to make up the deficiency of crews for the gunboats, but cautioning that defense everywhere against a superior force was impossible: “The presence of a powerful hostile squadron is naturally calculated to excite alarm, thus we have urgent calls from Maine to Georgia, each conceiving itself the particular object of attack.”
The blockade had almost completely shut down the coasting trade, forcing shipments to go by land and creating commercial gluts and shortages. Philadelphia was cut off from the lower Delaware, and Baltimore was completely isolated from the sea; flour from the mid-Atlantic states that sold for $10.50 a barrel before the war was now going for $18 in Boston and $6.50 in Baltimore, where fifty thousand barrels piled up in warehouses. Baltimore newspapers began facetiously listing the movement of wagons in the style of shipping news items, telling how many days they had been on their journeys and reporting “no enemy cruisers” sighted on the way, but the thin humor could not mask the grim reality that shipping by land was slow, laborious, and prohibitively costly. One item that was reported without any attempt at jocularity read “Four wagons loaded with dry goods passed to-day through Georgetown, South Carolina, for Charleston, forty-six days from Philadelphia."
I see wonderful things
The world's most detailed scan of the brain's internal wiring https://t.co/oPJyRBN6oJ pic.twitter.com/TrryK9uPPW
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 26, 2020
Data Talks
Map showing the homeland of every character in Homer’s Iliad https://t.co/e7LzQ91D7f
— Sir Geechie (@Sir_Geechie) February 23, 2020
He could make his men roar with laughter or shake in their shoes as he pleased
From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 57.
In his young days at the beginning of the century, in contrast to the 1850s, the colonel of Sita Ram's regiment was a familiar figure to everyone, responsible for discipline, not forbidden, as he subsequently was, to award a punishment more severe than five days' drill without obtaining higher authority. He was 'well known all around' as well as in the regiment, Sita Ram said; and 'the villagers came from as far as thirty miles away to inform him where the game was' when he wanted to organize a tiger hunt to which he would, perhaps, invite a local landholder. Contemporaries of his, who appear in other memoirs of the time, wrestled with their men or fenced with them or took them out hawking. One colonel is described as sending a non-commissioned officer ahead of him on the march to discover the best chess players in the village nearest his camping-ground. Another, who knew ' how to treat the sepoys in their own way', who was not one 'of your pipe-clay rigid disciplinarians who would utterly extinguish the native in the soldier', could make his men roar with laughter or shake in their shoes as he pleased. Like most British officers in India then he had a native mistress, and made no attempt to interfere with her ancient faith which he was prepared to respect until God saw fit to change it. It was not until the 1830s and 1840s, when marriage to white women became more common, that living with a native mistress was considered to be rather disreputable. By then it was 'fashionable to admire what came from England and to eschew everything "black"; increasingly the figure of fun became, not the griffin . . . but the peppery colonel with his hookah, his mulligatawny and his Indian mistress'.
Unchecked innumeracy
An excellent example of something I have been observing and commenting for a long time.
Click for the thread.
The NYT journalist misunderstood the analysis he was reading and ended up misreporting the findings. The mainstream media does this a lot. On average, their journalists have a narrow and shallow portfolio of life experience, they are innumerate, they are only average in their cognitive abilities though they assess themselves as significantly above average and they no longer have anyone reviewing their work to catch even the most obvious blunders. With spellcheckers and grammar checker tools in MS Word, they are good to go, straight from the uncluttered brain of the journalist into print with nary a fact check or reality test.
It is empirically observable that most journalists are college educated, urban located, overcompensated, younger, harder left than the American population at large. This of course leads to skewed reporting, marred by fallacious reporting owing to innumeracy, etc.
The great challenge is that when you combine innumeracy with bias, you get markedly skewed fake news.
The question is whether this is 1) emergent order from contextual circumstances, 2) deliberate and intentional bias, or 3) pure laziness and unprofessionalism.
These three hypotheses could each plausibly explain the manifest poor quality of reporting. Right leaning commentators incline towards Hypothesis 2. Left leaning commentators deny that there are any errors in reporting.
The right position is bolstered and the left position undermined when obvious shenanigans such as this go on.
I subscribe to Hypothesis 1 with a dash of Hypothesis 3.
I don't think there is much that is deliberate in the implausibly inaccurate and skewed reporting. It is mostly the product of the combination of innumerate and inexperienced reporters in a bubble reporting on things about which they do not know (but think they do) in a context where the business fundamentals are such that there is no quality control and an overwhelming pressure to generate clicks over valuation of accuracy. It is unconscious emergent order. And of course, as a human system, Hypothesis 3 always has relevancy.
It is not easily proven. But in the above case of the ever evolving headlines, it is worth noting that the first version, for a hard left leaning organ such as the NYT, could only have been generated in error. The later rewrites were obvious intentional efforts to mask the initital truth reported, but there is no way that the first headline was printed on purpose. It was a simple accident that the truth slipped through.
Click to enlarge.
1/ "There are at most 200K ventilators in the US. One million are expected to be needed." This horrifying news comes from my old employer @nytimes; it's sourced to the Society of Critical Care Medicine.
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) March 26, 2020
Only the SCCM didn't say that. At all. Let's see what it did say... https://t.co/TEqlshAewI
Click for the thread.
The NYT journalist misunderstood the analysis he was reading and ended up misreporting the findings. The mainstream media does this a lot. On average, their journalists have a narrow and shallow portfolio of life experience, they are innumerate, they are only average in their cognitive abilities though they assess themselves as significantly above average and they no longer have anyone reviewing their work to catch even the most obvious blunders. With spellcheckers and grammar checker tools in MS Word, they are good to go, straight from the uncluttered brain of the journalist into print with nary a fact check or reality test.
It is empirically observable that most journalists are college educated, urban located, overcompensated, younger, harder left than the American population at large. This of course leads to skewed reporting, marred by fallacious reporting owing to innumeracy, etc.
The great challenge is that when you combine innumeracy with bias, you get markedly skewed fake news.
The question is whether this is 1) emergent order from contextual circumstances, 2) deliberate and intentional bias, or 3) pure laziness and unprofessionalism.
These three hypotheses could each plausibly explain the manifest poor quality of reporting. Right leaning commentators incline towards Hypothesis 2. Left leaning commentators deny that there are any errors in reporting.
The right position is bolstered and the left position undermined when obvious shenanigans such as this go on.
Please join me on this incredible journey. pic.twitter.com/OM7zFzSNeO
— JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) March 23, 2020
I subscribe to Hypothesis 1 with a dash of Hypothesis 3.
I don't think there is much that is deliberate in the implausibly inaccurate and skewed reporting. It is mostly the product of the combination of innumerate and inexperienced reporters in a bubble reporting on things about which they do not know (but think they do) in a context where the business fundamentals are such that there is no quality control and an overwhelming pressure to generate clicks over valuation of accuracy. It is unconscious emergent order. And of course, as a human system, Hypothesis 3 always has relevancy.
It is not easily proven. But in the above case of the ever evolving headlines, it is worth noting that the first version, for a hard left leaning organ such as the NYT, could only have been generated in error. The later rewrites were obvious intentional efforts to mask the initital truth reported, but there is no way that the first headline was printed on purpose. It was a simple accident that the truth slipped through.
Cry me a River by Julie London
Cry me a River by Julie London
Double click to enlarge.
Double click to enlarge.
Cry me a River
by Julie London
Now you say you're lonely
You cry the whole night thorough
Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river
I cried a river over you
Now you say you're sorry
For bein' so untrue
Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river
I cried a river over you
You drove me, nearly drove me out of my head
While you never shed a tear
Remember, I remember all that you said
Told me love was too plebeian
Told me you were through with me and
Now you say you love me
Well, just to prove you do
Come on and cry me a river, cry me a river
I cried a river over you
I cried a river over you
I cried a river over you
Best of the Bee
Quarantined Journalist Really Starting To Annoy Family By Calling Them Racists All Day https://t.co/Z8EdrKivud
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 26, 2020
Why should their families be spared the experience of the nation?
Soybeans by Thomas Alan Orr
Soybeans
by Thomas Alan Orr
The October air was warm and musky, blowing
Over brown fields, heavy with the fragrance
Of freshly combined beans, the breath of harvest.
He was pulling a truckload onto the scales
At the elevator near the rail station siding north of town
When a big Cadillac drove up. A man stepped out,
Wearing a three-piece suit and a gold pinky ring.
The man said he had just invested a hundred grand
In soybeans and wanted to see what they looked like.
The farmer stared at the man and was quiet, reaching
For the tobacco in the rear pocket of his jeans,
Where he wore his only ring, a threadbare circle rubbed
By working cans of dip and long hours on the backside
Of a hundred acre run. He scooped up a handful
Of small white beans, the pearls of the prairie, saying:
Soybeans look like a foot of water on the field in April
When you're ready to plant and can't get in;
Like three kids at the kitchen table
Eating macaroni and cheese five nights in a row,
Or like a broken part on the combine when
Your credit with the implement dealer is nearly tapped.
Soybeans look like prayers bouncing off the ceiling
When prices on the Chicago grain market start to drop;
Or like your old man's tears when you tell him
How much the land might bring for subdivisions.
Soybeans look like the first good night of sleep in weeks
When you unload at the elevator and the kids get Christmas.
He spat a little juice on the tire of the Cadillac,
Laughing despite himself and saying to the man:
Now maybe you can tell me what a hundred grand looks like.
Thursday, March 26, 2020
The cultural foundations of modern democracies
From The cultural foundations of modern democracies by Damian J. Ruck, Luke J. Matthews, Thanos Kyritsis, Quentin D. Atkinson & R. Alexander Bentley. Not definitive by any means but an interesting data point. From the Abstract:
National democracy is a rare thing in human history and its stability has long been tied to the cultural values of citizens. Yet it has not been established whether changing cultural values made modern democracy possible or whether those values were a response to democratic institutions. Here we combine longitudinal data and cohort information of nearly 500,000 individuals from 109 nations to track the co-evolution of democratic values and institutions over the last century. We find that cultural values of openness towards diversity predict a shift towards democracy and that nations with low institutional confidence are prone to political instability. In addition, the presence of democratic institutions did not predict any substantive changes in the measured cultural values. These results hold accounting for other factors, including gross domestic product per capita and non-independence between nations due to shared cultural ancestry. Cultural values lead to, rather than follow, the emergence of democracy. This indicates that current stable democracies will be under threat, should cultural values of openness to diversity and institutional confidence substantially decline.
A guerilla war of the seas
From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 209.
In one sense this was all well and good, but the new navy secretary had another idea entirely about the best way to counter the Royal Navy on the high seas, and that was not to try to beat them at their own game. The American navy could never win a sustained war of attrition against the British, fighting warship to warship, “man to man and gun to gun,” as Jones would later put it, no matter how thrilling and encouraging the three single-frigate victories had been.45 Nor could America directly oppose the British blockade or protect American commerce from the overwhelming might the enemy could bring to bear upon the coastline.
On February 22, 1813, Jones sent a circular to all his captains in port, laying down the strategy of hit-and-run raiding the American navy would henceforth pursue. Rather than strike the enemy where he was strongest, the American navy would seek to draw away as much of his force as possible by striking him where he was weakest, going after British commerce on the high seas, from the southern tip of Africa to the southern tip of Ireland:
There is good reason to expect, a very considerable augmentation of the Naval force of the enemy on our coast the ensuing Spring; & it will be perceived that his policy will be to blockade our Ships of War in our own harbors; intercepting our private cruisers, prizes and trade, and Harass the seaboard.
Our great inferiority in naval strength, does not permit us to meet them on his ground without hazarding the precious Germ of our national glory.—we have however the means of creating a powerful diversion, & of turning the Scale of annoyance against the enemy. It is therefore intended, to dispatch all our public ships, now in Port, as soon as possible, in such positions as may be best adapted to destroy the Commerce of the enemy, from the Cape of Goodhope, to Cape Clear, and continue out as long as the means of subsistence can be procured abroad, in any quarter.
If any thing can draw, the attention of the enemy, from the annoyance of our coast, for the protection of his own, rich & exposed Commercial fleets, it will be a course of this nature, & if this effect can be produced, the two fold object of increasing the pressure upon the enemy and relieving ourselves, will be attained.
Cruizing singly, will also afford to our gallant Commanders, a fair oppertunity of displaying distinctly their Judgement, skill & enterprize, and of reaping the laurel of Fame, and its solid appendages.
The Stairs of the Castle in Winter, 1926 by Tavik Frantisek Simon
The Stairs of the Castle in Winter, 1926 by Tavik Frantisek Simon
Click to enlarge.
I see wonderful things
How suitcases are made
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 26, 2020
Source: https://t.co/XbUIbu0h9H pic.twitter.com/xXLa4vJdME
Informed and value-based decision-making versus Mandarin Class hysteria
This is what I was talking about the other day. The propensity of so many to depart from standard tactical and strategic decision-making. Instead of defining the problem carefully, putting some empirical measures to it, assessing the causal processes (which may not be direct or linear), evaluating a range of the alternative approaches or solutions and then estimating the relative near term costs and benefits and long term costs and benefits (net value tactically and net value strategically) and only then making a best estimated choice, it is all "shoot from the hips" based on strong opinions, cherry-picked experience and poor analogies. And don't even talk about establishing a societal consensus or even informing the public about the problem, causes, goals, solutions and measured outcomes. And lord, let's talk about which segments of society differentially benefit or suffer. None of that.
Click to follow the thread. Important points made on almost every tweet.
I suppose it is worth noting that the original tweet came from a blue check Mandarin Class, NYT bloviator. No value-add other than self-regard.
This is a good example of why it's useful to understand some economics and statistics. The thread makes two basic errors. 1/ https://t.co/FYU2TDrlUO
— Peter G. Klein (@petergklein) March 24, 2020
Click to follow the thread. Important points made on almost every tweet.
I suppose it is worth noting that the original tweet came from a blue check Mandarin Class, NYT bloviator. No value-add other than self-regard.
Data Talks
"middle-class students attend elite institutions at rates lower than students from the lowest income quintile...middle-class students are underrepresented at elite colleges, and the report refers to them as the 'missing middle'" https://t.co/zxMgthths9 pic.twitter.com/Rkmq80FmgE
— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) February 23, 2020
Misaligned incentives
From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 56.
The lack of understanding between the British officers and the sepoy was aggravated by regimental life in India being considered by many officers as a kind of purgatory to be endured while waiting to pass on to a higher calling. There were far from enough suitable civilians to fill the growing number of responsible posts in the East India Company's Civil Service; and for many of these posts a man with a military training might well be considered better suited than a civilian, so that regiments were frequently being asked to supply officers for the civil service as well as for the army staff. Since the pay was so much higher - and the chances of promotion so much greater than in his regiment where a capable man might still be a captain at fifty - officers were naturally anxious to accept the civil appointments offered them. And the native regiments became so short of officers in consequence that many of them regularly had seven or eight absent from their full complement of twenty-four. 'Every young officer who comes out now,' one cavalry colonel complained, 'says " my father is a Director [of the East India Company]" and so [on] and so [on], "directly I have passed my examination I shall be off and care nothing for the regiment." And no wonder when the threat of being sent back to one's regiment is held out as a punishment for mis- conduct or misbehaviour.' Sita Ram Pande said:
Any clever officer was always taken away from his regiment, and he never came back for years . . . When he did come back he knew very little about the men . . . I have known four Commanding Officers come to a regiment within a year, and three Adjutants and two Quartermasters . . . It takes us a long time to learn the ways of a sahib and once the men have got used to him it is wrong to have him removed.
Data, even bad data, shapes what questions we ask.
This is interesting. We are still in the data netherworld where data is patchy, incomplete, inaccurate, unrepresentative and subject to definitional issues. Nothing can be stated reliable certainty.
But this is an interesting case. One country but three cultures, presumably three population profiles, presumably three dietary customs. While the there might be some single procedural and medical standardization at the national level, it seems that local variances in genetic profile, cultural customs, and/or dietary customs might be more determinative of outcomes than previously suspected.
Click for the thread.
Of course it may be simpler than the above three candidates. Perhaps there is greater commercial and traffic Italy and the Italo-Swiss region and between the Italo-Swiss region and the Franco-Swiss Region than between either of those and the Germano-Swiss region.
All good questions at this point.
But this is an interesting case. One country but three cultures, presumably three population profiles, presumably three dietary customs. While the there might be some single procedural and medical standardization at the national level, it seems that local variances in genetic profile, cultural customs, and/or dietary customs might be more determinative of outcomes than previously suspected.
A strange pattern has emerged in COVID-19 CFRs in Switzerland.
— Trevor Sutcliffe (@TrevorSutcliffe) March 26, 2020
COVID-19 has been twice as likely to kill patients in French-speaking cantons of Switzerland than in German-speaking, and more than twice as likely to kill patients in Italian speaking cantons than in French ones. pic.twitter.com/cTJ4m5xfsR
Click for the thread.
Of course it may be simpler than the above three candidates. Perhaps there is greater commercial and traffic Italy and the Italo-Swiss region and between the Italo-Swiss region and the Franco-Swiss Region than between either of those and the Germano-Swiss region.
All good questions at this point.
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
No inconsistency
From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 208. Our national reluctance to make trade-odd decisions was there from the very beginning.
A surprisingly large number of Republicans still saw no inconsistency in opposing new appropriations for the navy even as they denounced opposition to the war as tantamount to treason.
Data Talks
From @epkaufm, between 1960 and 2008, the use of the term "racist" increased 15x in English books, 10x in German, and 5x in French, Spanish, and Italian. It remained constant in Russian. Google searches show much more use of "racist" in Swedish than Hungarian or Polish. pic.twitter.com/YNAHSSwbzL
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) February 22, 2020
The British had been far more tolerant then.
From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 50.
The policies which Dalhousie had adopted towards the Indian princes had proved equally unpopular, and had not only made the princes feel insecure and resentful but had also undermined their subjects' confidence in British justice. Believing that the rule of all Indian princes was likely to be corrupt and was certainly an affront to English standards of justice, Dalhousie had annexed their territories whenever these could be shown to be seriously misgoverned or their ruler did not have an heir of whom the Government approved. It had long been recognized by Hindus that a father could adopt an heir if he had no natural son. It was a particularly treasured right amongst them because no part of their faith was more firmly held than that a man was saved from punishment after death by a son's sacrifices and prayers which could be performed as efficaciously by an adopted as by a natural heir.
This threat to the Hindu custom of adoption was seen by Indians as part of a concerted attack upon their religions as a whole. Muslims shared with Hindus this fear for their religion. Indeed, the Commissioner of Patna reported that there was a 'full belief' among even 'intelligent natives', especially 'the better class' of Mohammedans, 'that the Government was immediately about to attempt the forcible conversion of its subjects'. The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal considered that the suspicion had taken such deep root that he must issue a proclamation denying it, which, far from subduing the people's fears, served merely to aggravate them.
There had been no such widespread fear in the eighteenth century. The British had been far more tolerant then. Their officials had contributed to Mohammedan processions; they had administered Hindu temple funds and supervised pilgrimages to holy places; their officers had piled their swords, next to their soldiers' muskets, round the altar at the Hindu festival of Dasehra, to be blessed by the priests. It had been perfectly well understood that the obligations and restrictions that caste imposed upon a Hindu soldier's behaviour were all-important to him, that he would have to throw away his food if the shadow of a European officer passed over it, that it would be better to die of thirst - as some soldiers did die - than to accept a drink from a polluted hand or vessel. But since then all had changed. Indian culture was less inclined to be respected than to be mocked by British officials who agreed with Lord Macaulay that it consisted of nothing better than 'medical doctrines that would disgrace an English farrier - Astronomy, which would [be laughed at by] girls at an English boarding school - History, abounding with kings thirty feet high, and reigns thirty thousand years long - and Geography, made up of seas of treacle and butter'.
Data Talks
Diseases like covid-19 are deadlier in non-democracies. Great example of an important truth: The free flow of information is almost always a very good thing. https://t.co/EwX9Amg4bF https://t.co/CLMAARmQ3e pic.twitter.com/cZaBeiogAP
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 19, 2020
I see wonderful things
Tiny snowplough of the day. pic.twitter.com/LYMlrW7g6O
— Dick King-Smith HQ (@DickKingSmith) February 20, 2020
Postmodernists distorted language with self-important opacity and inflated small ideas into giant, groaning bladder-bags
There is an admirable power and directness to Camile Paglia's opinions. From Real Inconvenient Truths by Camille Paglia.
Jean Baudrillard recently passed away. Do you have any thoughts or opinions about this influential French thinker. I'm especially interested in your opinion of his idea regarding hyper-reality.
Conor Ryan
I suspect Dante designing his Inferno would have had a very special little hot spot for poststructuralists and postmodernists (see above letter), who distorted language with self-important opacity and who inflated small ideas into giant, groaning bladder-bags.
I never encountered a single sentence by Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan or Michel Foucault that drew or held my interest. As for Baudrillard's dizzy maunderings about mass media, they made no sense whatever to me as a professor of media studies or as an American who grew up on pop and whose vibrant patron saint was Andy Warhol.
Good riddance to that whole crew!
Mother to Son By Langston Hughes
Mother to Son
by Langston Hughes
Well, son, I’ll tell you,
Life for ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor –
Bare.
But all the time,
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So, boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now –
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
Sun Has Risen over the Dnipro, 2004 by Ivan Marchuk
Sun Has Risen over the Dnipro, 2004 by Ivan Marchuk
Click to enlarge.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Some things never change.
From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 208. Some things never change.
The first weeks of the session were filled with a furious debate on the war that brought all other business to a standstill. In June 1812, when the declaration of war was being considered, Federalists in the House had refused to participate in that debate as a protest against the Republicans’ insistence on a secret session; now, as war hawk John A. Harper of New Hampshire complained, the Federalists were taking the “opportunity to deliver themselves of their war speeches with which they were pregnant last session.” In long tirades, members of each party accused the other of exploiting the war for political ends. Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, charging that for twelve years the country had been mismanaged by “two Virginians and a foreigner”—meaning Jefferson, Madison, and the Swiss-born Gallatin—said that the real purpose of the war was to ensure that the Virginian dynasty remained unbroken with Monroe (“James II”) succeeding Madison (“James I”).
I see wonderful things
Amazing product of natural selection narrowly escapes the clutches of another amazing product of natural selection. This time... https://t.co/wfiuuMTgcH pic.twitter.com/9Rc1NcAv7A
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 25, 2020
Data Talks
College graduates are losing ground: Wages for the bottom 50% of college graduates are lower today than they were in 2000.
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) February 20, 2020
7/n pic.twitter.com/DkTr5DcFMe
Data Talks
What contributes to happiness? Money and children, according to recent research https://t.co/n9uibzYCLZ
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 20, 2020
Drink was the rage in India
From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 43.
Much as they enjoyed these women, the soldiers were even fonder of drink. Immediately on his arrival in camp, Quevillart was sent to the regimental stores to collect his bedding. On his way there he saw some men carrying two huge barrels of stout back to their barracks from the native canteen. By the time he himself returned to the barracks with his bedding - having paused on his way to buy two pints of goat's milk from the camp milkman who swindled him in giving change - the men were all helplessly drunk, twenty of them lying unconscious by the empty barrels in one of which another lay stupefied amidst the dregs. Many other soldiers described drunken escapades in the lines and bazaars. 'The native police, under the superintendence of a European Inspector, would make haste to the scene of the disturbance and endeavour to put a stop to it,' Corporal Alexander Morton recorded. 'If a row was continued the native police carried nets which they threw over the drunkards' heads, knocked them off their feet and rolled them up.'
There was never any 'want of grog' in India, wrote Sergeant Pearman of the 3rd Light Dragoons in his memoirs.
The canteen was open all days . . . and you could buy [over] three pints of [spirits] for one rupee or two shillings, and this arrack or rum was over-proof . . . In the canteen you could have as much as you liked to drink [but] carry none away to barracks [though] we had plenty of men who made 'bishops', a sort of bladder to fit into their shirt, inside their trousers, to hold about eight drams and smuggle it out . . . There was men dying every day from the effects of drink [which] . . . did more for death than the fever ... At the time the batta money was served out there were about thirty men in hospital from drink. The Regimental Sergeant-Major died, Sergeant-Major Kelly died; Sergeant Jones and many of the privates died . . . Drink was the rage in India.