Sunday, July 31, 2022

History

 

Groaning Oldies

From Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by Barry Dougherty.

This guy went to the zoo one day. While he was standing in front of the gorilla’s enclosure, a gust of wind blew some grit into his eye. As he pulled his eyelid down to dislodge the particle, the gorilla went crazy, bent open the bars, and beat the hapless fellow senseless. When the guy came to, the zookeeper was anxiously bending over him, and as soon as he was able to talk he explained what had happened. The zookeeper nodded sagely and explained that in gorilla language, pulling down your eyelid meant “fuck you.”

The explanation didn’t make the gorilla’s victim feel any better, and he vowed revenge. The next day he bought two large knives, two party hats, two party horns, and a large sausage. Putting the sausage in his pants, he hurried to the zoo and over to the gorilla’s cage, into which he tossed a hat, a knife, and a party horn. Knowing that the big apes were natural mimics, he put on a party hat. The gorilla looked at him, looked at the hat, and put it on. Next he picked up his horn and blew on it. The gorilla picked up his horn and did the same. Then the man picked up his knife, whipped the sausage out of his pants, and sliced it neatly in two.

The gorilla looked at the knife in his cage, looked at his own crotch, and solemnly pulled down his eyelid.

Lines written under the conviction that it is not wise to read Mathematics in November after one’s fire is out

Despite decades of warnings from all corners not to become too dependent on Russian gas and to maintain and expand their nuclear infrastructure, European leaders from the 1990s on have turned away from dependable nuclear power, towards renewables (which feel virtuous but are not reliable) and are now hoisted on the long predicted petard.  Russia is shutting off the gas and Europe has no energy supplies to make up the deficit. 

Crash programs are coming in to focus during the summer in anticipation of fall and winter and it sounds like the solutions are largely along the lines of "get wool clothing, its going to be cold."  

In that context I read this poem by James Clerk Maxwell who, in addition to being a pioneer in physics, was also a dab hand at poetry.  I love the title.  

Lines written under the conviction that it is not wise to read Mathematics in November after one’s fire is out
By James Clerk Maxwell

In the sad November time,
When the leaf has left the lime,
And the Cam, with sludge and slime,
      Plasters his ugly channel,
While, with sober step and slow,
Round about the marshes low,
Stiffening students stumping go
      Shivering through their flannel.

Then to me in doleful mood
Rises up a question rude,
Asking what sufficient good
      Comes of this mode of living?
Moping on from day to day,
Grinding up what will not “pay,”
Till the jaded brain gives way
      Under its own misgiving.

Why should wretched Man employ
Years which Nature meant for joy,
Striving vainly to destroy
      Freedom of thought and feeling?
Still the injured powers remain
Endless stores of hopeless pain,
When at last the vanquished brain
      Languishes past all healing.

Where is then his wealth of mind—
All the schemes that Hope designed?
Gone, like spring, to leave behind
      Indolent melancholy.
Thus he ends his helpless days,
Vex’t with thoughts of former praise—
Tell me, how are Wisdom’s ways
      Better than senseless Folly?

Happier those whom trifles please,
Dreaming out a life of ease,
Sinking by unfelt degrees
      Into annihilation.
Or the slave, to labour born,
Heedless of the freeman’s scorn,
Destined to be slowly worn
      Down to the brute creation.

Thus a tempting spirit spoke,
As from troubled sleep I woke
To a morning thick with smoke,
      Sunless and damp and chilly.
Then to sleep I turned once more,
Eyes inflamed and windpipe sore,
Dreaming dreams I dreamt before,
      Only not quite so silly.

In my dream methought I strayed
Where a learned-looking maid
Stores of flimsy goods displayed,
      Articles not worth wearing.
“These,” she said, with solemn air,
“Are the robes that sages wear,
Warranted, when kept with care,
      Never to need repairing.”

Then unnumbered witlings, caught
By her wiles, the trappings bought,
And by labour, not by thought,
      Honour and fame were earning.
While the men of wiser mind
Passed for blind among the blind;
Pedants left them far behind
      In the career of learning.

“Those that fix their eager eyes
Ever on the nearest prize
Well may venture to despise
      Loftier aspirations.
Pedantry is in demand!
Buy it up at second-hand,
Seek no more to understand
      Profitless speculations.”

Thus the gaudy gowns were sold,
Cast off sloughs of pedants old;
Proudly marched the students bold
      Through the domain of error,
Till their trappings, false though fair,
Mouldered off and left them bare,
Clustering close in blank despair,
      Nakedness, cold, and terror.

Then, I said, “These haughty Schools
Boast that by their formal rules
They produce more learned fools
      Than could be well expected.
Learned fools they are indeed,
Learned in the books they read;
Fools whene’er they come to need
      Wisdom, too long neglected.

“Oh! that men indeed were wise,
And would raise their purblind eyes
To the opening mysteries
      Scattered around them ever.
Truth should spring from sterile ground,
Beauty beam from all around,
Right should then at last be found
      Joining what none may sever.”

An Insight

 

I see wonderful things

 

Expected to make $100 billion and then lost $200 billion. Where is the accountability?

Shocking, even if unsurprising.  From The True Cost of Federal Student Loans by Meghan Brink.  The subheading is The Education Department said the federal student loan program is generating billions in income for the federal government. A new report from the GAO shows that it is causing billions in lost revenue due to flaws in budget estimates.

In theory, the program is supposed to increase access to a university education for all citizens.  In theory, it was supposed to be cost neutral to the government or profitable.

In practice, and as with most such well-intentioned federal programs, it has not turned out that way.

It costs far more than projected.  It subsidizes universities which translate the windfall into bloated administrative staffs.  It shackles students to unsustainable debt burdens.  It subsidizes those who would already have attended university (the gifted poor and the middle class).  Those not gifted, end up with debt but no degree.  It is a shocking and tragic fraud on the Republic and a tragedy for many of the student participants.  And now it is becoming clearer that it is also a tragedy for financial rectitude and for taxpayers.

The Education Department projected that student loans would generate $114 billion in income over the last 25 years. However, a new report shows that federal student loans have actually cost the government $197 billion, a $311 billion difference.

The findings come from a Government Accountability Office report released today that undermines a narrative from the department that the federal student loan program is generating income. The study, analyzing data on student loans between 1994 and 2021, found that the Education Department greatly underestimated how changes to loan programs and borrower behavior have impacted the federal student loan balance.

It would appear that indeed, the dismantling of the Department of Education might in fact be beneficial to everyone concerned.

The U-Boat War 1914-198 by Edwyn A Gray

The U-Boat War 1914-1918 by Edwyn A Gray.  This is a re-read, having first read it some 25-30 years ago.  It was well worth the second read as it covers not only an interesting naval period (dreadnoughts and submarines) but also a period of astonishing industrial technological evolution.

Submarines were, at the beginning of World War I, an unproven naval concept, generally tiny in terms of tonnage, crew and offensive capacity, and largely unproven.  

It is a fascinating period, especially the evolution of the historic rules of naval warfare in the face of technological change.  One of the critical strategic advantages of submarines is their capacity to launch attacks without detection.  However, the prevailing naval rules of engagement called for enemy warships to stop merchant ships, inspect their paper and cargo, and, if appropriate for sinking, then ensure the safety of the merchant ship crew.  

These earlier rules of engagement were highlighted because both England and Germany sought to starve out the civilian population and strangle the trade of the opposing combatant.  This on its own was a shaky moral position.  But given their respective fleets and technology, the upshot was that Britain was, by the traditional rules, allowed to starve Germany with its surface fleet, but Germany was not allowed to starve Britain with its submarine fleet.

Gray is also good in his descriptions of the war patrols and the adventures and close calls of the submarine aces.  It is, as implied by the term U-boat, largely an account of German submarine warfare though the British, French and Italian submarines do occasionally get some coverage.  

I recommend to those with an interest in war, World War I and maritime history.  

Data Talks

 

Gardens, Wordsworth Road, Penge by Ronald Woolley

Gardens, Wordsworth Road, Penge by Ronald Woolley
























Click to enlarge.

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Groaning Oldies

From Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by Barry Dougherty.

Warren worked for a small mining operation, so he was used to the desolate little towns of the Southwest. But when he was sent to Dry Gulch for a couple of months, something seemed strange from the very beginning. One night when he was in the local saloon, he realized what it was.

“Say,” he said to the bartender, “aren’t there any women in this town?”

“Nope,” admitted the bartender. “The men here had so little to offer that all the women packed up and left years ago.”

Warren’s face fell. “That’s pretty grim. What do the guys do on a Saturday night?”

“They do it with pigs,” was the bartender’s cool reply.

“Yecch!” Warren retched and left in disgust. But after a few weeks of total boredom, he found himself back in the saloon, and casually inquired as to where the pigs in question were to be found.

The bartender was free with the information. “Just behind the farmhouse at the top of the hill.”

One look at the pigs slopping around in the muddy pen was almost enough to send Warren back down the hill. But just as he was turning away, he spotted the cutest pig you could ever hope to see, with big brown eyes, a bow on the top of her head, and not a bit of mud on her little pink trotters. Quite smitten, he led her out of the sty, down the hill, and into the saloon for a drink. But to Warren’s surprise his arrival caused quite a commotion, and all the seedy types backed away from him into the far corners of the bar. “Hey, what’s up?” asked Warren angrily of the bartender. “You told me everyone in the place goes out with pigs.”

“True enough,” admitted the bartender, “but we weren’t expecting you to take the sheriff’s girl.”

History

 

For pity's sake

You go along thinking that the City Mayor and City Councilmen and City workers can't be as bad, corrupt and incompetent as they seem.  There's got to be more to the story.  

Then you encounter something like this and all your nightmares about city governance are validated.

Newly installed.

























Click to enlarge.

An Insight

 

I see wonderful things

 

Data Talks

 

Distant Thunder, 1961, by Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917 - 2009)

Distant Thunder, 1961, by Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917 - 2009)























Click to enlarge.

Friday, July 29, 2022

The General, a long, haggard man, with limbs like a skeleton, and Madame la Generale, a short, fat dumpling, bobbing opposite each other like half-drunken Indians.


A few days after the announcement of peace, Jackson’s wife, Rachel, and their adopted son, Andrew, Jr., arrived in New Orleans, much to the general’s delight. Rachel had grown into an extremely stout, dark-complexioned, forty-seven-year-old woman whose religious views bordered on fanaticism. In no time at all she came to regard the city as a veritable “Babylon-on-the-Mississippi,” given over to every sin in the Decalogue. At one grand ball which she was obliged to attend with her husband, complete with transparencies, flowers, colored lamps, a sumptuous dinner, and dancing, Rachel could scarcely believe the brilliance of the setting. After dinner, Jackson and his lady led the way to the ballroom and there treated the guests to “a most delicious pas de deux,” country-style. “To see these two figures, the General, a long, haggard man, with limbs like a skeleton, and Madame la Generale, a short, fat dumpling, bobbing opposite each other like half-drunken Indians, to the wild melody of ‘Possum up de Gum Tree,’ and endeavoring to make a spring into the air, was very remarkable, and far more edifying a spectacle than any European ballet could possibly have furnished“

It was a grand finale to a spectacular victory. A few days later, on April 6, 1815, Jackson, Rachel, and their son left New Orleans and returned to their home in Tennessee.
 

Groaning Oldies

From Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by Barry Dougherty.

The first grade class gathered around the teacher for a game of “Guess the Animal.” The first picture the teacher held up was of a cat. “Okay, boys and girls,” she said brightly, “can anyone tell me what this is?”

“I know, I know, it’s a cat!” yelled a little boy.

“Very good, Eddie.  Now, who knows what this animal is called?”

“That’s a dog!” piped up the same little boy.

“Right again. And what about this animal?” she asked, holding up a picture of a deer.

Silence fell over the class. After a minute or two, the teacher said, “I’ll give you a hint, children . . . it’s something your mother calls your father.”

“I know, I know,” screamed Eddie. “It’s a horny bastard!”

History

 

An Insight

 

Offbeat Humor

 

Data Talks

 

The Sea Maiden, 1897 by Arthur Hacker

The Sea Maiden, 1897 by Arthur Hacker






















Click to enlarge.

Thursday, July 28, 2022

When he died in 1854 he bequeathed half of his estate to all the Hebrew congregations in the country . . . and the other half to the man who had saved his life on January 1, 1815


One low-ranking American soldier attached to the Louisiana militia, by the name of Judah Touro, volunteered to help carry ammunition from the magazine to Humphrey’s battery. Despite the missiles soaring over his head and on either sides of him he diligently kept at this task, seemingly oblivious to the danger that surrounded him. Then, suddenly, he took a twelve-pound shot in the thigh, which tore off a large mass of flesh. He was removed to a wall of an old building well behind Jackson’s lines and nearly demolished by the British bombardment. A doctor dressed the wound but held out little hope for him. Touro’s best friend, Rezin D. Shepherd, who had been assigned to Patterson’s marine battery but had recrossed the river to find two masons to help complete the building of the battery, heard what had happened to his friend and rushed to the stricken man’s side. The doctor told him there was no hope of recovery. But Shepherd would not accept that verdict. He obtained a cart and drove the wounded man to the city, administering brandy very liberally along the way to his prostrate and semiconscious friend. When he reached the city he carried Touro into his house and summoned the women who had been caring for the army’s sick and wounded and begged them to attend his friend and provide him with all their nursing skills. He then returned to his assignment.

Touro miraculously survived, and after the war the two men became millionaires, gave freely of their money to many charitable causes, and were regarded as “patriarchs” of the New Orleans community. Touro was known as “the Israelite without guile.” When he died in 1854 he bequeathed half of his estate to all the Hebrew congregations in the country and other charitable and religious organizations, and the other half to the man who had saved his life on January 1, 1815. Shepherd used the money to restore a street in New Orleans where the two men had lived most of their lives. Then he had the name changed to Touro Street.

Sixteen years and what do you get? A bunch of bad research and deeper in debt.

From Ruining It For Everyone by Zvi Mowshowitz.  This just builds on my earlier post that the longstanding recommendation to take Vitamin D supplements was not based on any rigorous research and that new research suggests there is no benefit from Vitamin D supplements for the general population.  

The revelation here is much deeper and more far reaching.  It appears that 16 years of Alzheimer's research has been misdirected owing to obvious frauds and false reporting in the original research.  

Remember that super-expensive ($56k/dose) Alzheimer’s drug that got approved by the FDA because it fights “amyloid plaques” in the brain but without any evidence that it, ya know, helps with the progression of Alzheimer’s?

And how drugs for Alzheimer’s keep not, what’s the word for it, working?

Over the last two decades, Alzheimer’s drugs have been notable mostly for having a 99% failure rate in human trials. It’s not unusual for drugs that are effective in vitro and in animal models to turn out to be less than successful when used in humans, but Alzheimer’s has a record that makes the batting average in other areas look like Hall of Fame material.

And now we have a good idea of why. Because it looks like the original paper that established the amyloid plaque model as the foundation of Alzheimer’s research over the last 16 years might not just be wrong, but a deliberate fraud.


In 2006, Nature published a paper titled “A specific amyloid-β protein assembly in the brain impairs memory.”


The results of the study seemed to demonstrate the amyloids-to-Alzheimer’s pipeline with a clarity that even the most casual reader could understand, and it became one of—if not the most—influential papers in all of Alzheimer’s research. Not only has it been cited hundreds of times in other work, roughly 100 out of the 130 Alzheimer’s drugs now working their way through trials are directly designed to attack the kind of amyloids featured in this paper. Both Ashe and Lesné became neuroscience rock stars, the leaders of a wave based on their 2006 paper.

What intrigued Schrag when he came back to this seminal work were the images. Images in the paper that were supposed to show the relationship between memory issues and the presence of Aβ*56 appeared to have been altered. Some of them appeared to have been pieced together from multiple images. Schrag shied away from actually accusing this foundational paper of being a “fraud,” but he definitely raised “red flags.” He raised those concerns, discreetly at first, in a letter sent directly to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Only when that letter failed to generate a response did Schrag bring his suspicions to others.

Now Science has concluded its own six-month review, during which it consulted with image experts. What they found seems to confirm Schrag’s suspicions.

“They concurred with his overall conclusions, which cast doubt on hundreds of images, including more than 70 in Lesné’s papers. Some look like “shockingly blatant” examples of image tampering, says Donna Wilcock, an Alzheimer’s expert at the University of Kentucky.”

After reviewing the images, molecular biologist Elisabeth Bik said of the paper, “The obtained experimental results might not have been the desired results, and that data might have been changed to … better fit a hypothesis.”

Should this fraud turn out to be as extensive as it appears at first glance, the implications go well beyond just misdirecting tens of billions in funding and millions of hours of research over the last two decades. Since that 2006 publication, the presence or absence of this specific amyloid has often been treated as diagnostic of Alzheimer’s.

This does not seem, if this report is accurate - and I saw no pushback that it wasn’t - like a ‘Theranos level fraud.’ It seems much, much bigger than that.

Once again this also confirms the principle of obvious fraud. Whenever fraud is caught or revealed, it turns out to be very simple, very dumb, and remarkably easy to spot once you look. In this case, ‘shockingly blatant’ image tampering, and simple ‘dissolve the data that isn’t giving the result we wanted and appoint a new one.’

This would be akin to a construction firm erecting a major building with only a cursory check of the foundational geology.  Sixteen years of Alzheimers' researchers went chasing off after solutions without even checking that the original research was even valid.  

There was an original research study, bedecked with red-flags.  Everyone celebrated the study and ignored the red-flags and then spent sixteen years investigating the wrong things.  

The original reporting seems to be from Daily Kos, Two decades of Alzheimer's research may be based on deliberate fraud that has cost millions of lives by Mark Sumner.  It is the beginning of the news cycle.  Maybe Sumner is wrong.  But several reputable researchers seem like they believe there is a real thing here.  Real and bad.  

Multi-decadal recommendation on vitamin supplements with no underpinning research to support it and then a two decade long fraud that misdirects an entire field of research and dozens or hundred of researchers into wrong areas of investigation for at least sixteen years and at the cost of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives.

And it all passed before out universities, our national medical agencies, all the peer review literature and no one ever noticed or was willing to speak out.  The foundations for being an "expert" and for belonging to the meritocratic class seem to be getting more and more tenuous.

Groaning Oldies

From Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by Barry Dougherty.

Did you hear about the veterinarian and the taxidermist who went into business together?

Their slogan was, “Either Way, You Get Your Pet Back.”

Follow the science they said but there was no science to follow


The idea made so much sense it was almost unquestioningly accepted: Vitamin D pills can protect bones from fractures. After all, the body needs the vitamin for the gut to absorb calcium, which bones need to grow and stay healthy.

But now, in the first large randomized controlled study in the United States, funded by the federal government, researchers report that vitamin D pills taken with or without calcium have no effect on bone fracture rates. The results, published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, hold for people with osteoporosis and even those whose blood tests deemed them vitamin D deficient.

These results followed other conclusions from the same study that found no support for a long list of purported benefits of vitamin D supplements.

So, for the millions of Americans who take vitamin D supplements and the labs that do more than 10 million vitamin D tests each year, an editorial published along with the paper has some advice: Stop.

“Providers should stop screening for 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels or recommending vitamin D supplements and people should stop taking vitamin D supplements in order to prevent major diseases or extend life,” wrote Dr. Steven R. Cummings, a research scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, and Dr. Clifford Rosen, a senior scientist at the Maine Medical Research Institute. Dr. Rosen is an editor at The New England Journal of Medicine.

We are accustomed now to the medical community being wrong.  Dramatically wrong and sustainedly wrong.  Still, it is startling that even basic stuff is being revisited and found wrong.

It was an entirely plausible hypothesis that Vitamin D would have the proposed benefits.  But I had assumed that the recommendations were being based on real world research, not mere plausibility.  I was wrong.

Kolada is a little less than clear but it sounds like the existing guidelines were essentially guesses.

Dr. Rosen said those concerns led him and the other members of the National Academy of Medicine’s expert group to set what he called an “arbitrary value” of 20 nanograms per milliliter of blood as the goal for vitamin D levels and to advise people to get 600 to 800 international units of vitamin D supplements to achieve that goal.

Labs in the United States then arbitrarily set 30 nanograms per milliliter as the cutoff point for normal vitamin D levels, a reading so high that almost everyone in the population would be considered vitamin D deficient.

The presumed relationship between vitamin D and parathyroid levels has not held up in subsequent research, Dr. Rosen said. But uncertainty continued, so the National Institutes of Health funded the VITAL trial to get some solid answers about vitamin D’s relationship to health.

From this new research, they now believe that other than for a few people with special conditions, no one should be taking Vitamin D supplements.  

It is wonderful that the research is being conducted to validated long established protocols.  But it remains astonishing to me that the existing protocols were essentially guess work.

History

 

An Insight

 

The Marrow Song (Oh, What a Beauty!)

The passing today of an English actor, Bernard Cribbins, representative of an earlier and earthier, English actor and comic, with echoes of the old English Music Hall.


The Marrow Song (Oh, What a Beauty!)

Down the road there lives a man I'd like you all to know
He grew a great big marrow for the local flower show
And when the story got around, they came from far and wide
And when the people saw the marrow, everybody cried
 
(Ooooh! What a beauty!), I've never seen one as big as that before
(Ooooh! What a beauty!), It must be two feet long or even more
It's such a lovely colour, and nice and round and fat
I never thought a marrow could grow as big as that
(Ooooh! What a beauty!), I've never seen one as big as that before

(Oh-Oh-Ooooh! What a beauty!, we've never seen one as big as that before)
 
He was leaning on the garden gate the other day
And beckoned to a lady who lives just across the way
He took her down the garden path and showed it her with pride
And when she saw the size of it, the little lady sighed
 
(Ooooh! What a beauty!), She'd never seen one as big as that before
(Ooooh! What a beauty!), It must be two feet long or even more
It's such a lovely colour, and nice and round and fat
I never thought a marrow could grow as big as that
(Ooooh! What a beauty!), I've never seen one as big as that before

(It's stupendous!)
(It's colossul!)
(It's gigantic!)
(It's bigger than that!)
 
And then the flower show was held and everybody went
To see the great big marrow, lying there inside the tent
Soon the judges came along to give the prizes out
They only took one look at it and then began to shout
 
(Ooooh! What a beauty!, we've never seen one as big as that before)
(Ooooh! What a beauty!, it must be two feet long or even more)
It's such a lovely colour, and nice and round and fat
I never thought a marrow could grow as big as that
(Ooooh! What a beauty!, we've never seen one as big as that before

Oooo-oooo-oooh! I've never seen one as big as that before.

Offbeat Humor

 

Offbeat Humor

 

Dyhdration of Herring, 1942 by Robert Sivell

Dyhdration of Herring, 1942 by Robert Sivell

















Click to enlarge.

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

In possession of that post, we should have kept the entire southern trade of the United States in check


The day after Jackson’s withdrawal, Christmas, at 11:00 A.M., there was a stir in the British encampment. Salvos were fired into the air and the troops shouted their welcome on “the unexpected arrival” of their new commander, Lieutenant General Sir Edward Michael Pakenham, who had finally caught up with his army. He “was admired and beloved by both officers and men,” said Gleig. On the eve of the Battle of Salamanca during the Peninsular War, Wellington ordered him to lead the 3rd Division and “take the heights in front and drive everything before him.” Pakenham turned to Wellington with the cry “Give me one grasp of that all-conquering hand . . . and I WILL.” And with that pledge he charged forward and completely routed the defending French. Nothing less was now expected of him by both his officers and men. Notwithstanding all the recent hardships these troops had endured, “the city of New Orleans, with its valuable booty of merchandise,” said Captain Cooke, “was craved for by the British to grasp such a prize by a coup de main.”

“It was rumored among the troops that Pakenham had the commission to serve as governor of Louisiana once he captured it and had been promised an earldom when he completed his assignment. It was also believed that a lady waited aboard one of the ships in Lake Borgne and expected to become the general’s wife once the battle had been won.

Not only would the conquest of Louisiana enrich Pakenham but to the English mind it “would have proved beyond all comparison the most valuable acquisition that could be made to the British dominions, throughout the whole western hemisphere,” claimed Gleig. “In possession of that post, we should have kept the entire southern trade of the United States in check; and furnished means of commerce to our own merchants, of incalculable value.”

Lieutenant General Sir Edward Michael Pakenham's sister, Kitty, was Wellington's wife.  They were brothers-in-law.

Groaning Oldies

From Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by Barry Dougherty.

A little old lady is starved for companionship, so she buys a couple of monkeys. The years go by and she becomes very attached to them. As happens, both monkeys die one day. Not wanting to part with them, she takes the dead monkeys to a taxidermist. The taxidermist asks her, “Would you like them mounted?”

The old woman replies, “No, just holding hands.”

— Gregory Peck

History

 

An Insight

 

I see wonderful things

Data Talks

 

In the Garden by Bernard Lamotte (French,1903-1983)

In the Garden by Bernard Lamotte (French,1903-1983)

























Click to enlarge.

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

The Road to Babylon

Manfred Mann's Earth Band, The Road to Babylon.


Double click to enlarge.


The Road to Babylon
Song by Manfred Mann's Earth Band

By the waters of Babylon
We lay down and wept and wept for these I am
We remember, we remember, we remember these I am 
 
A golden helmet blinded minds
Among ten thousand swords along the road to Babylon
A golden thunder silenced songs 
Among ten thousand voices on the road to Babylon

Well, well, well,
Beware that golden helmet
Well, well, well
There's no easy way to go
Well, well, well
No easy road to follow
Well, well, well

A golden ocean turned to fire 
And burned ten thousand ships along the road to Babylon
Golden dreamer touched the sky 
Alone in empty silence on the road to Babylon

Well, well, well
Beware that golden thunder
Well, well, well
That dreamed and sang the song
Well, well, well
The empty sound of sorrow.

A golden helmet blinded minds
Among ten thousand swords along the road to Babylon
A golden thunder silenced songs
Among ten thousand voices on the road to Babylon

Well, well, well
Beware that golden helmet
Well, well, well
There's no easy way to go
Well, well, well
No easy road to follow
Well, well, well 

He learned the art of bowing as British bullets whistled around his head.

Finally, Jackson gave the order to advance. A company of the 7th Infantry rushed forward as far as the boundary of Lacoste’s plantation and were met by brisk fire from a British outpost consisting of eighty men. In a volley that was “absolutely murderous,” the Americans drove them back to a defense line along a ditch and a fence. Additional British troops rushed to support the outpost, and their heavy fire proved very destructive.

The American artillery also advanced. Covered by the marines, it moved up the high road alongside the river and blazed away at the enemy’s outpost. It was met with such heavy return fire that the marines fell back. In a bold move, a reinforced British contingent made a rush for the artillery guns. At that moment Jackson and his staff rode by amid a shower of bullets, and when he saw what was happening Old Hickory called out, “Save the guns, my boys, at every sacrifice.” The marines rallied, and with the help of a company of the 7th Infantry they hustled the guns to safety.

It was later reported that Jackson was complimented on his ability to bow at social occasions with extraordinary grace. Supposedly he replied that he learned the art on the night of the 23rd when he bowed and ducked as British bullets whistled around his head.

Groaning Oldies

From Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by Barry Dougherty.

“What did one Hawaiian shark say to the other?

“Oh, no—not airplane food again.”

History

 

The Secret People

As the establishment drifts away from the great majority, Chesteron's poem from 1908 is a reminder that that gulf has always existed to a greater or lesser degree.

The Secret People
by G.K. Chesterton

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget,
For we are the people of England, that never has spoken yet.
There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,
There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.
There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.
There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes;
You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:
Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.

The fine French kings came over in a flutter of flags and dames.
We liked their smiles and battles, but we never could say their names.
The blood ran red to Bosworth and the high French lords went down;
There was naught but a naked people under a naked crown.
And the eyes of the King's Servants turned terribly every way,
And the gold of the King's Servants rose higher every day.
They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind,
Till there was no bed in a monk's house, nor food that man could find.
The inns of God where no man paid, that were the wall of the weak,
The King's Servants ate them all. And still we did not speak.

And the face of the King's Servants grew greater than the King:
He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring.
The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey's fruits,
And the men of the new religion, with their Bibles in their boots,
We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss,
And some were pure and some were vile; but none took heed of us.
We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale;
And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale.

A war that we understood not came over the world and woke
Americans, Frenchmen, Irish; but we knew not the things they spoke.
They talked about rights and nature and peace and the people's reign:
And the squires, our masters, bade us fight; and never scorned us again.
Weak if we be for ever, could none condemn us then;
Men called us serfs and drudges; men knew that we were men.
In foam and flame at Trafalgar, on Albuera plains,
We did and died like lions, to keep ourselves in chains,
We lay in living ruins; firing and fearing not
The strange fierce face of the Frenchman who knew for what he fought,
And the man who seemed to be more than man we strained against and broke;
And we broke our own rights with him. And still we never spoke.

Our path of glory ended; we never heard guns again.
But the squire seemed struck in the saddle; he was foolish, as if in pain.
He leaned on a staggering lawyer, he clutched a cringing Jew,
He was stricken; it may be, after all, he was stricken at Waterloo.
Or perhaps the shades of the shaven men, whose spoil is in his house,
Come back in shining shapes at last to spoil his last carouse:
We only know the last sad squires ride slowly towards the sea,
And a new people takes the land: and still it is not we.

They have given us into the hands of the new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger and honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evenings; and they know no songs.

We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia's wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God's scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.

I see wonderful things

 

The silence seems to say a lot.

Listening to NPR the other day, on the way to a meeting, I heard for a second time a tag line to the effect that drinking wine and taking oxycodone posed a significant risk of drug overdose death.  

This seemed profoundly improbable.  Unwise, certainly, as is the mixing of any alcohol with any drugs.  And especially unwise when combined with other co-morbidities (heart problems, obesity, diabetes, etc.).  NPR was clearly, for unknown reasons, trying to scare their wine drinking listeners, with a murky association between drug overdose deaths and wine.  Possibly they are running low on listeners and are that desperate that they are trying to ensure survival of donors (a nearly 20% decline in listeners since 2017) 

Since it was the second time I heard them make that improbable claim, I looked into the data.  

Which seems patchy, unstructured, intermittent, ill-defined.  Specifically, I was searching for deaths from drinking wine with oxycodone or any opioid (death from wine with oxycodone).  Certainly there are many appropriate warnings about the combination of alcohol and opioids given that both are depressants.

But any actual data about how many people actually die from wine with oxycodone (or alcohol with opioids)?  I am not seeing anything except warnings under multiple variants of the query.  

Lots of articles talking about how risky the combination is but with none either estimating the degree of risk or measuring the magnitude of the consequences.  

There are a couple of papers or studies which deal with the issue at the margin, ( e.g. here).  There's one study from 2017 that does a lot of speculating based on lab experiments which only support a highly constrained finding Mixing opioids and alcohol may increase likelihood of dangerous respiratory complication.  "May" lead to complications.  But no reported alcohol/opioid deaths.

I am not denying that it is unwise to mix alcohol and opioids and other medications, particularly when combined with other co-morbid conditions.  But that is basically covered by the perennial wisdom "Don't be stupid."

NPR seems to be making the claim that there are a lot of deaths from moderate alcohol intake in combination with prescribed opioid pain medications.

What does come across clearly in the research and data reporting is that we are in the midst of a national crisis of drug overdose deaths driven by mixing fentanyl with other drugs.  100,000 dead per year and rising.  And this is a relatively recent phenomena, starting its meteoric rise in 2014.  

At first it was concentrated among the lower middle class white rural and suburban populations but is now spreading to cities and minorities.  

It is unclear whether drug use per se has increased materially.  

As best I can tell, sometime in 2014, fentanyl started pouring into the US and has been mixed with the panoply of existing controlled drugs to produced a higher effect.  So high, that it causes a lot of deaths.  

Our mainstream media and national health organizations seem insistent that these increase in drug overdose deaths are due to people on prescription pain medications but all the data seems to point towards fentanyl as the driving agent.  Overwhelmingly fentanyl mixed with black market drugs.  In other words, I see no evidence that people with oxycodone prescriptions are dying from having mixed them with fentanyl and certainly not from having gone on a wine bender with oxycodone in their system.

This seems almost like a studied misdirection.  

Why? I am guessing there are many reasons ranging from MSM innumeracy to MSM scientific illiteracy.

But I can't help but wonder at a different scenario.  Were I an ambitious other nation wishing to handicap the leading nation in the world without invoking an economic crisis and without invoking a war, how might I do that?  One way would be to flood that other nation with a cheap chemical substance (fentanyl) which is easily manufactured and easily combined with other drugs to engender a more intense and prolonged high.

Basically it is a strategy to exploit an existing societal weakness.  The US has been only marginally successful at controlling/reducing or eliminating the drug trade despite fifty one years of effort (War on Drugs, 1971).  We also have not been effective at convincing our population about the real risks of drug use.  In part by squandering credibility at the beginning of the war with outlandish over-claiming of the otherwise real dangers.  

Were I that other country, I might calculate that an effective way to sabotage the successful American culture might be by killing 100,000 Americans a year from overdoses with a cheap and easy chemical (fentanyl) that would be easy to dissociate from.  Even if caught red-handed, the claim would be that the deaths are from drug addicted Americans rather than due to the fentanyl additive.

Since most of the fentanyl seems to be sourced from China and imported via Mexico, this seems like a plausible scenario.  And no one in the MSM or in the establishment political parties would want to bring attention to it owing to the exhausting failure of the 51 year old war on drugs and because (so far) almost all the victims have been among the bottom 60% of the socio/economic divide.

Public Health and MSM not discussing China and fentanyl as the drivers in the surge in drug overdose deaths (and distracting with stories about the mortal risks of wine benders and oxycodone) seems similar to another phenomenon that is under-discussed.

Think about all the divisive and destructive progressive movements of the past forty years.  Callout Culture, Cancel Culture, Identity Politics, Intersectionality, Wokeness, Social Justice Theory, Critical Race Theory, Postmodernism, the Frankfurt School, Deconstructionism Theory, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter,  etc.  What do they all have in common?

They are all derivatives of Marxism.  They feel like the ultimate Gramscian destructive artifact from the Soviet Union.  The Soviet act of war on the West which survived the fall of the Soviet Union.   

I can understand nobody wants to sound like some McCarthyite cretin sounding the alarm.  Still, the profound silence on the fact that all these alternate philosophies are mere derivations of Marxism seems striking.

For whatever reason, neither our MSM nor our establishment parties want to talk about a silent attack killing 100,000 Americans a year from fentanyl mixing; nor do they want to talk about the divisive, destructive, and polarizing movements with whom academia, corporations, non-profits, and government agencies are all flirting which are all off-shoots of Marxism and anathema to freedom, individualism, and human rights.

Very striking.