Tuesday, April 30, 2024

“When one breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust, he must do it openly, he must do it cheerfully, he must do it lovingly, he must do it civilly — not uncivilly — and he must do it with a willingness to accept the penalty.”

Colleges Have Gone off the Deep End. There Is a Way Out by David French.  

There is profound confusion on campus right now around the distinctions among free speech, civil disobedience and lawlessness.

[snip]

Noise limits can protect the ability of students to study and sleep. Restricting the amount of time any one group can demonstrate on the limited open spaces on campus permits other groups to use the same space. If one group is permitted to occupy a quad indefinitely, for example, then that action by necessity excludes other organizations from the same ground. In that sense, indefinitely occupying a university quad isn’t simply a form of expression; it also functions as a form of exclusion. Put most simply, student groups should be able to take turns using public spaces, for an equal amount of time and during a roughly similar portion of the day.

Civil disobedience is distinct from First Amendment-protected speech. It involves both breaking an unjust law and accepting the consequences. There is a long and honorable history of civil disobedience in the United States, but true civil disobedience ultimately honors and respects the rule of law. In a 1965 appearance on “Meet the Press,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described the principle perfectly: “When one breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust, he must do it openly, he must do it cheerfully, he must do it lovingly, he must do it civilly — not uncivilly — and he must do it with a willingness to accept the penalty.”

But what we’re seeing on a number of campuses isn’t free expression, nor is it civil disobedience. It’s outright lawlessness. No matter the frustration of campus activists or their desire to be heard, true civil disobedience shouldn’t violate the rights of others. Indefinitely occupying a quad violates the rights of other speakers to use the same space. Relentless, loud protest violates the rights of students to sleep or study in peace. And when protests become truly threatening or intimidating, they can violate the civil rights of other students, especially if those students are targeted on the basis of their race, sex, color or national origin.

That last segment after "especially" is why I don't read French often.  He is steeped in the Woke platitudes and cannot apparently hear himself.  He is on the right track - we need the rule of law and equality before the law and due process.  We all benefit.  It doesn't matter whether they are targeted on the basis of their race sex, color or national origin.  French is trying to have it both ways.  He apparently wants to discriminate based on race sex, color or national origin while also wanting the of law and equality before the law and due process which would preclude "especially."  There is no especially for any of the Woke sacrosanct identities.  That is mere ideological cretinism.  

There is simple rule of law and equality before the law and due process.  That is what we need and what postmodernist, intersectional, competitive victimhood, social justice precludes.  French wants both but he can only have one. 

We need the Classical liberal model (rule of law and equality before the law and due process) and need to dispense with the Social Justice nonsense.  It is that simple.  Just as Reverend King said.  

Count Me, on the Summer Trees

Count Me, on the Summer Trees
by Anacreon (570-488 B.C.)
    translated by Thomas Moore

Count me, on the summer trees,
Every leaf that courts the breeze;
Count me, on the foamy deep,
Every wave that sinks to sleep;
Then, when you have number'd these
Billowy tides and leafy trees,
Count me all the flames I prove,
All the gentle nymphs I love.
First, of pure Athenian maids
Sporting in their olive shades,
You may reckon just a score,
Nay, I'll grant you fifteen more.
In the sweet Corinthian grove,
Where the glowing wantons rove,
Chains of beauties may be found,
Chains, by which my heart is bound;
There indeed are girls divine,
Dangerous to a soul like mine!
Many bloom in Lesbos' isle;
Many in Ionia smile;
Rhodes a pretty swarm can boast;
Caria too contains a host.
Sum these all--of brown and fair
You may count two thousand there!
What, you gaze! I pray you, peace!
More I'll find before I cease.
Have I told you all my flames,
'Mong the amorous Syrian dames?
Have I number'd every one,
Glowing under Egypt's sun?
Or the nymphs, who blushing sweet
Deck the shrine of Love in Crete;
Where the God, with festal play,
Holds eternal holiday?
Still in clusters, still remain
Gade's warm, desiring train;
Still there lies a myriad more
On the sable India's shore;
These, and many far remov'd,
All are loving--all are lov'd!

Placetne

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 500.  

“Tell me one thing, Peter. Will it make you desperately unhappy if I say No?”

“Desperately?… My dear, I will not insult either you or myself with a word like that. I can only tell you that if you will marry me it will give me very great happiness.”

They passed beneath the arch of the bridge and out into the pale fight once more.

“Peter!”

She stood still; and he stopped perforce and turned towards her. She laid both hands upon the fronts of his gown, looking into his face while she searched for the word that should carry her over the last difficult breach.

It was he who found it for her. With a gesture of submission he bared his head and stood gravely, the square cap dangling in his hand.

“Placetne, magistra?”

“Placet.”

The literal Latin translation is "Does it please thee, Mistress?" and "It pleases."

A greyedgirl elaborates.

But of course, it is not simple, and this is what simple Latin is for.

Whereas we use impersonal verb forms like “It’s raining” or “it’s hot” for boring things like the weather (while Germans, more correctly, say “it’s hot to me,”) Latin has a maddening habit of expressing opinions and even feelings with impersonal verbs like placet, “it pleases,” a verb which is always impersonal in form while talking about personal feelings. Peter and Harriet, who have been carrying on an extended conversation about the reconciliation of heart and mind through this entire book, find a Latin word to do the job for them.

Magistra is “Mistress” in the sense of Master of Arts, respecting Harriet as a scholar and writer; it is also an honorific for “Lady,” subtly emphasizing her choice and agency in the matter.

The -ne at the end of Peter’s question is the sweet part, and the most significant part, and the part that just cannot be translated. Remember that odd Latin word num used to prefix questions when you expect a “no” answer? -ne is its opposite number, a question which confidently expects the answer will be “yes.” That tiny shift from num to -ne sums up a five-year courtship in five letters.

History

 

An Insight

 

The piers are pummelled by the waves

The Fall of Rome
by W.H. Auden (1947) (for Cyril Connolly)

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

I see wonderful things

 

Data Talks

 

Pluralistic ignorance

From TMI and Monsters from the Id by Virginia Postrel.  The subheading is A theory of why Americans are wallowing in self-pity and voting for bad character. Plus, I talk textiles and foreign affairs—and an expert defends my horrible speaking voice.

My friend and former Chapman University colleague John Thrasher recently introduced me to the concept of pluralistic ignorance. This is a social science term describing situations in which individuals know their own thoughts and behaviors but assume most people are different, when in fact they aren’t. The classic example is college students who don’t drink that much themselves but assume their classmates are always getting drunk, when those others also drink moderately.

I have posted in the past about how badly people estimate minority numbers (by race, religion, morbidity, income, wealth, etc.)  Misestimation of prevalence of conditions seems to me in some way also related to inability to estimate other's thoughts and behaviors (theory of mind).  A weak prevalence estimation capability in combination with a poor theory of mind seems an unpleasant condition, but not uncommon.

Strolling along the Pier by Sheree Valentine-Daines

Strolling along the Pier by Sheree Valentine-Daines


































Click to enlarge.

Monday, April 29, 2024

Don’t you know what you’re doing?

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 485.  The grand final speech of the perpetrator of the outrages committed at Shrewsbury College.  An argument that takes the various debates within the feminist movement and recasts it most explicitly into a class argument.  The privileged educated women are taking the jobs of and using men for their own ends to the detriment of lower class men and women.  An argument not often heard so explicitly made, but there in the data.  

“Clear myself! I wouldn’t trouble to clear myself. You smug hypocrites-I’d like to see you bring me into court. I’d laugh in your faces. How would you look, sitting there while I told the judge how that woman there killed my husband?”

“I am exceedingly disturbed,” said Miss de Vine, “to hear about all this. I knew nothing of it till just now. But indeed I had no choice in the matter. I could not foresee the consequences-and even if I had-”

“You wouldn’t have cared. You killed him and you didn’t care. I say you murdered him. What had he done to you? What harm had he done to anybody? He only wanted to live and be happy. You took the bread out of his mouth and flung his children and me out to starve. What did it matter to you? You had no children. You hadn’t a man to care about. I know all about you. You had a man once and you threw him over because it was too much bother to look after him. But couldn’t you leave my man alone? He told a lie about somebody else who was dead and dust “hundreds of years ago. Nobody was the worse for that. Was a dirty bit of paper more important than all our lives and happiness? You broke him and killed him-all for nothing. Do you think that’s a woman’s job?”

“Most unhappily,” said Miss de Vine, “it was my job.”

“What business had you with a job like that? A woman’s job is to look after a husband and children. I wish I had killed you. I wish I could kill you all. I wish I could burn down this place and all the places like it-where you teach women to take men’s jobs and rob them first and kill them afterwards.”

She turned to the Warden.

“Don’t you know what you’re doing? I’ve heard you sit round snivelling about unemployment-but it’s you“, it’s women like you who take the work away from the men and break their hearts and lives. No wonder you can’t get men for yourselves and hate the women who can. God keep the men out of your hands, that’s what I say. You’d destroy your own husbands, if you had any, for an old book or bit of writing… I loved my husband and you broke his heart. If he’d been a thief or a murderer, I’d have loved him and stuck to him. He didn’t mean to steal that old bit of paper-he only put it away. It made no difference to anybody. It wouldn’t have helped a single man or woman or child in the world-it wouldn’t have kept a cat alive; but you killed him for it.”

“Peter had got up and stood behind Miss de Vine, with his hand over her wrist. She shook her head. Immovable, implacable, thought Harriet; this won’t make her pulse miss a single beat. The rest of the Common Room looked merely stunned.

“Oh, no!” said Annie, echoing Harriet’s thoughts. “She feels nothing. None of them feel anything. You brazen devils-you all stand together. You’re only frightened for your skins and your miserable reputations. I scared you all, didn’t I? God! how I laughed to see you all look at one another! You didn’t even trust each other. You can’t agree about anything except hating decent women and their men. I wish I’d torn the throats out of the lot of you. It would have been too good for you, though. I wanted to see you thrown out to starve, like us. I wanted to see you all dragged into the gutter. I wanted to see you-you-sneered at and trampled on and degraded and despised as we were. It would do you good to learn to scrub floors for a living as I’ve done, and use your hands for something, and say ‘madam’ to a lot of scum… But I made you shake in your shoes, anyhow. You couldn’t even find out who was doing it-that’s all your wonderful brains come to. There’s nothing in your books about life and marriage and children, is there? Nothing about desperate people-or love-or hate or anything human. You’re ignorant and stupid and helpless. You’re a lot of fools. You can’t do anything for yourselves. Even you, you silly old hags-you had to get a man to do your work for you.

“You brought him here.” She leaned over Harriet with her fierce eyes, as though she would have fallen on her and torn her to pieces. “And you’re the dirtiest hypocrite of the lot. I know who you are. You had a lover once, and he died. You chucked him out because you were too proud to marry him. You were his mistress and you sucked him dry, and you didn’t value him enough to let him make an honest woman of you. He died because you weren’t there to look after him. I suppose you’d say you loved him. You don’t know what love means. It means sticking to your man through thick and thin and putting up with everything. But you take men and use them and throw them away when you’ve finished with them. They come after you like wasps round a jam-jar, and then they fall in and die. What are you going to do with that one there? You send for him when you need him to do your dirty work, and when you’ve finished with him you’ll get rid of him. You don’t want to cook his meals and mend his clothes and bear his children like a decent woman. You’ll use him, like any other tool, to break me. You’d like to see me in prison and my children in a home, because you haven’t the guts to do your proper job in the world. The whole bunch of you together haven’t flesh and blood enough to make you fit for a man. As for you-”

Peter had come back to his place and was sitting with his head in his hands. She went over and shook him furiously by the shoulder, and as he looked up, spat in his face. “You! you dirty traitor! You rotten little white-faced rat! It’s men like you that make women like this. You don’t know how to do anything but talk. What do you know about life, with your title and your money and your clothes and motor-cars? You’ve never done a hand’s turn of honest work. You can buy all the women you want. Wives and mothers may rot and die for all you care, while you chatter about duty and honour. Nobody would sacrifice anything for you-why should they? That woman’s making a fool of you and you can’t see it. If she marries you for your money she’ll make a worse fool of you, and you’ll deserve it. You’re fit for nothing but to keep your hands white and father other men’s children… What are you going to do now, all of you? Run away and squeal to the magistrate because I made fools of you all? You daren’t. You’re afraid to come out into the light. You’re afraid for your precious college and your precious selves. I’m not afraid. I did nothing but stand up for my own flesh and blood. Damn you! I can laugh at you all! You daren’t touch me. You’re afraid of me. I had a husband and I loved him-and you were jealous of me and you killed him. Oh, God! You killed him among you, and we never had a happy moment again.”

History

 

An Insight

 

I see wonderful things

 

Using single methodologies to do univariate analysis of multivariate systems requiring expansive specification curve analysis

From The Definitive Analysis of Observational Studies by John Mandrola.  The subheading is Buckle up for this Study of the Week. It shocked me. You may never read another observational study in the same way.


I observe with some frequency that much of our analysis in academia, in policy, and in random life is often univariate analysis of multivariate systems.  There are many causal elements and we explore only one.  What we find and conclude may be correct to an extent and under particular circumstances but it is in no way usefully true because our comprehension is markedly limited.  

This study takes a different approach.  Instead of taking one method of analysis, it wants to know what we would find if we were to use many methods of analysis.  A very relevant question in the context of the univariate analysis issue.  

Specification curve analysis is similar to a multiverse analysis, meaning it’s a way of defining and implementing all plausible and valid analytic approaches to a research question. This time in nutritional epidemiology.

Take a moment and think about the methods section of a standard association study. Say blueberries and rates of stroke. The authors of such papers will write that we analyzed the data in this way. In other words: one way.

But. But. There are, of course, many choices of ways to analyze the data.

Since most observational studies are not pre-registered, you can imagine a scenario where authors actually did a number of analyses and published the one that yielded an association with a p-value of less than 0.05.

Read the post for the whole picture about their own methodology.  The outcomes?

The results also provide a sobering view of nutritional epidemiology. Of 1200 different analytic ways (specifications) to approach the NHANES data, only 48 yielded significant findings. The vast majority found no significant association.

I would extend this paper beyond nutritional epidemiology. I mean, every time we read an observational study, in any area of bio-medicine, the authors tell us about their analytic method. It’s one method. Not 1200, or a 10 quadrillion.

Now consider the issue of publication bias wherein positive papers get published and null papers not so much.

Take the example of this paper.

There were 40 specifications that yielded a favorable red meat-mortality association and 8 that yielded a negative association. Red meat proponents could publish a positive one; vegetarian proponents could publish a negative one.

Nutritional epidemiology is one of those fields which is hugely multivariate.  Red meat effect on mortality?  What meat?  How much?  What age of the person consuming?  Male or female?  Comorbidities?  How prepared?  What medications being taken?  What time of day consumed?  On and on.  

Multivariate and many ways of studying, many specifications.  

And most of what we do with multivariate systems and many specification approaches is to fall back on a single study methodology using a univariate approach.

No wonder we get so many things wrong.  

What this study suggests, indirectly, is that for our most complex systems (sociology, diet and nutrition, public health, economy, etc.), the research we have been conducting for fifty years and more is underpowered (too small and not random), unsophisticated (univariate instead of multivariate), and unrigorous (single methodology instead of multiple methodologies.)  

Underpowered, unsophisticated, and unrigorous - pretty weak foundations for the coercion and propaganda usually attendant to the cherry picked headlines and biased conclusions reached by the Mandarin Class from the existing studies.

This paper sheds light on just how much greater needs to be the humility of decision makers in the face of complex systems.

And, I would argue, how more deference we ought to pay to the culture and class heuristics which have come down to us through the testing of time.  

Data Talks

 

Breakfast with Crab, 1648, by Willem Claesz Heda

Breakfast with Crab, 1648, by Willem Claesz Heda

























Click to enlarge.

Sunday, April 28, 2024

Walking up and pacing down

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 456.

“Please do,” said Lord Saint-George. “I mean, Uncle Peter’s getting the wind up horribly. Gone clean off his oats. Of course I know he’s a fidgety old ass and I’ve been doing my best to soothe the troubled beast and all that, but I’m beginning to think he’s got some excuse. For goodness’ sake, Aunt Harriet, do something about it. I can’t afford to have a valuable uncle destroyed under my eyes. He’s getting like the Lord of Burleigh, you know-walking up and pacing down and so on-and the responsibility is very wearing.”

From a Tennyson poem.

The Lord of Burleigh
Alfred Tennyson

In her ear he whispers gaily,
    ‘If my heart by signs can tell,
Maiden, I have watch’d thee daily,
    And I think thou lov’st me well’.
She replies, in accents fainter,
    ‘There is none I love like thee’.
He is but a landscape-painter,
    And a village maiden she.
He to lips, that fondly falter,
    Presses his without reproof:
Leads her to the village altar,
    And they leave her father’s roof.
‘I can make no marriage present;
    Little can I give my wife.
Love will make our cottage pleasant,
    And I love thee more than life.’
They by parks and lodges going
    See the lordly castles stand:
Summer woods, about them blowing,
    Made a murmur in the land.
From deep thought himself he rouses,
    Says to her that loves him well,
‘Let us see these handsome houses
    Where the wealthy nobles dwell’.
So she goes by him attended,
    Hears him lovingly converse,
Sees whatever fair and splendid
    Lay betwixt his home and hers;
Parks with oak and chestnut shady,
    Parks and order’d gardens great,
Ancient homes of lord and lady,
    Built for pleasure and for state.
All he shows her makes him dearer:
    Evermore she seems to gaze
On that cottage growing nearer,
    Where they twain will spend their days.
O but she will love him truly!
    He shall have a cheerful home;
She will order all things duly,
    When beneath his roof they come.
Thus her heart rejoices greatly,
    Till a gateway she discerns
With armorial bearings stately,
    And beneath the gate she turns;
Sees a mansion more majestic
    Than all those she saw before:
Many a gallant gay domestic
    Bows before him at the door.
And they speak in gentle murmur,
    When they answer to his call,
While he treads with footstep firmer,
    Leading on from hall to hall.
And, while now she wonders blindly,
    Nor the meaning can divine,
Proudly turns he round and kindly,
    ‘All of this is mine and thine’.
Here he lives in state and bounty,
    Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,
Not a lord in all the county
    Is so great a lord as he.
All at once the colour flushes
    Her sweet face from brow to chin:
As it were with shame she blushes,
    And her spirit changed within.
Then her countenance all over
    Pale again as death did prove:
But he clasp’d her like a lover,
    And he cheer’d her soul with love.
So she strove against her weakness,
    Tho’ at times her spirits sank:
Shaped her heart with woman’s meekness
    To all duties of her rank:
And a gentle consort made he,
    And her gentle mind was such
That she grew a noble lady,
    And the people loved her much.
But a trouble weigh’d upon her,
    And perplex’d her, night and morn,
With the burthen of an honour
    Unto which she was not born.
Faint she grew, and ever fainter,
    As she murmur’d ‘Oh, that he
Were once more that landscape-painter
    Which did win my heart from me!’
So she droop’d and droop’d before him,
    Fading slowly from his side:
Three fair children first she bore him,
    Then before her time she died.
Weeping, weeping late and early,
    Walking up and pacing down,
Deeply mourn’d the Lord of Burleigh,
    Burleigh-house by Stamford-town.
And he came to look upon her,
    And he look’d at her and said,
‘Bring the dress and put it on her,
    That she wore when she was wed’.
Then her people, softly treading,
    Bore to earth her body, drest
In the dress that she was wed in,
    That her spirit might have rest.

History

 

An Insight

 

I see wonderful things

 

Offbeat Humor

 

Data Talks

 

Granada Plaza by Clark Hulings (American, b. 1922)

Granada Plaza by Clark Hulings (American, b. 1922)




















Click to enlarge.

Saturday, April 27, 2024

History

 

Tristitia de bonis alienis

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 427.

For, to speak in a word, envy is naught else but tristitia de bonis alienis, sorrow for other men’s good, be it present, past, or to come: and gaudium de adversis, and joy at their harms… Tis a common disease, and almost natural to us, as Tacitus holds, to envy another man’s prosperity.
   
From Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton.  

An Insight

 

I see wonderful things

 

Offbeat Humor

 

Data Talks

 

Flowers in the Field by Francis Luis Mora (Uruguayan-American, 1874 – 1940)

Flowers in the Field by Francis Luis Mora (Uruguayan-American, 1874 – 1940)




























Click to enlarge.

An Insight

 

If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention.

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 373.  A discussion which seems strangely pertinent to our current academia where DEI appointees plagiarize like it is going out of fashion and 70% or more of research papers in some fields fail to replicate.  

“I’ve no objection to scientific pot-boilers,” said Miss Edwards. “I mean, a popular book isn’t necessarily unscientific.”

“So long,” said Wimsey, “as it doesn’t falsify the facts. But it might be a different kind of thing. To take a concrete instance-somebody wrote a novel called The Search-”
      
“C. P. Snow,” said Miss Burrows. “It’s funny you should mention that. It was the book that the-”
     
“I know,” said Peter. “That’s possibly why it was in my mind.”
 
“I never read the book,” said the Warden.

“Oh, I did,” said the Dean. “It’s about a man who starts out to be a scientist and gets on very well till, just as he’s going to be appointed to an important executive post, he finds he’s made a careless error in a scientific paper. He didn’t check his assistant’s results, or something. Somebody finds out, and he doesn’t get the job. So he decides he doesn’t really care about science after all.”

“Obviously not,” said Miss Edwards. “He only cared about the post.”

“But,” said Miss Chilperic, “if it was only a mistake-”

“The point about it,” said Wimsey, “is what an elderly scientist says to him. He tells “him: ‘The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.’ Words to that effect. I may not be quoting quite correctly.”

“Well, that’s true, of course. Nothing could possibly excuse deliberate falsification.”

“There’s no sense in deliberate falsification, anyhow,” said the Bursar. “What could anybody gain by it?”

“It has been done”, said Miss Hillyard, “frequently. To get the better of an argument. Or out of ambition.”

“Ambition to be what?” cried Miss Lydgate. “What satisfaction could one possibly get out of a reputation one knew one didn’t deserve? It would be horrible.”
      
Her innocent indignation upset everybody’s gravity.

Academia, in its treatment of Claudine Gray and others of her ilk, are demonstrating plagiarism and data falsification are no longer the sins they once were and that the pursuit of Truth is no longer the mission of academia.  Committing the right sins, or committing them in the name of the right cause, will get you appointments rather than dismissal.  

I see wonderful things

 

Offbeat Humor

 

Data Talks

 

Ruins Of The Roman Theatre At Taormina, Sicily by William Stanley Haseltine (American, 1835 – 1900)

Ruins Of The Roman Theatre At Taormina, Sicily by William Stanley Haseltine (American, 1835 – 1900)
















Click to enlarge.

Thursday, April 25, 2024

If she bid them, they will go barefoot to Jerusalem

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 343.

“Harriet rang up the Mitre before breakfast.
      
“Peter, could you possibly come round this morning instead of at six o’clock?”

“Within five minutes, when and where you will. ‘If she bid them, they will go barefoot to Jerusalem, to the great Cham’s court, to the East Indies, to fetch her a bird to wear in her hat.’ Has anything happened?”

“Nothing alarming; a little evidence in situ. But you may finish the bacon and eggs.”

“I will be at the Jowett Walk Lodge in half an hour.”

The allusion, "If she bid them," is from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton.  

History

 

An Insight

I see wonderful things

 

Offbeat Humor

 

Data Talks

 

Robert Fulton by James Henry Cafferty (American, 1819 – 1869)

Robert Fulton by James Henry Cafferty (American, 1819 – 1869)

































Click to enlarge

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Great Tom, tolling his nightly hundred-and-one

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 242.

April was running out, chilly and fickle, but with the promise of good things to come; and the city wore the withdrawn and secretive beauty that wraps her about in vacation. No clamour of young voices echoed along her ancient stones; the tumult of flying bicycles was stilled in the narrow strait of the Turf; in Radcliffe Square the Camera slept like a cat in the sunshine, disturbed only by the occasional visit of a slow-footed don; even in the High, the roar of car and charabanc seemed diminished and brought low, for the holiday season was not yet; punts and canoes, new-fettled for the summer term, began to put forth upon the Cherwell like the varnished buds upon the horse-chestnut tree, but as yet there was no press of traffic upon the shining reaches; the mellow bells, soaring and singing in tower and steeple, told of time’s flight through an eternity of peace; and Great Tom, tolling his nightly hundred-and-one, called home only the rooks from off Christ Church Meadow.

Great Tom and the tolling one 101?  From Wikipedia:

Great Tom is still sounded 101 times every night, which signifies the 100 original scholars of the college plus one (added in 1663). It is rung at 21:05 current UK time, which corresponds to 21:00 in what used to be "Oxford time" (local mean time for Oxford, noon in Oxford always occurring five minutes later than noon in Greenwich), and was at one time the signal for all the Oxford colleges to lock their gates. The bell is only rung by swinging on very special occasions.  



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Wild Flowers at the Corner of a Cornfield, c.1855–60 by Martha Darley Mutrie

Wild Flowers at the Corner of a Cornfield, c.1855–60 by Martha Darley Mutrie 
































Click to enlarge.

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

But one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 224.

“Harriet said nothing, but continued to make out the cheques.

“One thing, there doesn’t seem to be much at Blackwell’s. A mere trifle of six pounds twelve.”

“One halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack.”

Harriet Vane is helping a student get his finances in order, primarily by discovering the expenses owed.  There are many cheques to be written for gambling, dining, and libatious indulgences.  

Having been to Oxford a number of times in my boarding school days, I know of Blackwells.  The counterpart in Cambridge was Heffers.  Both are major bookstores service the academic community of their respective universities.  Or what a heaven each are for a bibliophile.  So the student's expenses for books are a trifle to the expenses for inebriating pastimes.  

“One halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack" is almost certainly Shakespeare again, probably something to do with Falstaff, so Henry IV?  An artful critique of the student's spending priorities by Vane.

OK.  It is Prince Henry speaking about Falstaff in Henry IV.  And the scene is a close match to the circumstances of the student.  In this instance, Falstaff is suspected of a crime.  Peto is Prince Henry friend.  

PRINCE HENRY

This oily rascal is known as well as Paul’s. Go call him forth.

PETO

Falstaff!— [pulls back the arras] Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.

PRINCE HENRY

Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.

PETO searcheth his pockets, and findeth certain papers

What hast thou found?

PETO

Nothing but papers, my lord.

PRINCE HENRY

Let’s see what they be. Read them.

PETO

(reads) Item, a capon, … 2s. 2d.
Item, sauce, … 4d.
Item, sack, two gallons, … 5s. 8d.
Item, anchovies and sack after supper, , , , 2s. 6d.
Item, bread, ob. [halfpenny]

PRINCE HENRY

O monstrous! But one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! 

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The Dream of St. Ursula, 1495 by Vittore Carpaccio

The Dream of St. Ursula, 1495 by Vittore Carpaccio


























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Monday, April 22, 2024

Be patient and let time pasee

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 190.

“You’re dead right,” said Harriet, after a pause. “If one’s genuinely interested one knows how to be patient, and let time pass, as Queen Elizabeth said. Perhaps that’s the meaning of the phrase about genius being eternal patience, which I always thought rather absurd. If you truly want a thing, you don’t snatch; if you snatch, you don’t really want it. Do you suppose that, if you find yourself taking pains about a thing, it’s a proof of its importance to you?”

Two items in this paragraph.  Be patient and let time pass.  Queen Elizabeth I or II?  I am assuming I but I don't know the context.  Here it is.  In 1580 Queen Elizabeth was in negotiations regarding her possible marriage.  England was Church of England from her father's actions and there was strong interest on the continent to bring England back into the Roman fold, preferably by marriage rather than war.  From a letter she wrote during these negotiations. 

“You do not forget, mon tres cher, that the greatest cause of delay [in arranging a match] is due to this [agitation by English zealots against a Catholic marriage], that our people ought to congratulate and to applaud. To bring this about I have let time pass, which generally helps more than reasoning.”

"Genius is eternal patience" is a quote ascribed to Michelangelo.  



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Self-portrait, 1559 by Sofonisba Anguissola

Self-portrait, 1559 by Sofonisba Anguissola

























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Sunday, April 21, 2024

Amiable absurdity

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 165.

Harriet was opening her mouth to say No, when she looked at Mr. Pomfret, and her heart softened. He had the appeal of a very young dog of a very large breed-a kind of amiable absurdity.

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Inseparable by David Hettinger ( b.1946, American painter)

Inseparable  by David Hettinger ( b.1946, American painter)




















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Saturday, April 20, 2024

All women are sensitive to male criticism. Men are not sensitive to female criticism. They despise the critics.

From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Page 55.

“Do you know any man who sincerely admires a woman for her brains?”
     
“Well,” said Harriet, “certainly not many.”  

“You may think you know one,” said Miss Hillyard with a bitter emphasis. “Most of us think at some time or other that we know one. But the man usually has some other little axe to grind.”
      
“Very likely,” said Harriet. “You don’t seem to have a very high opinion of men-of the male character, I mean, as such.”
      
“No,” said Miss Hillyard, “not very high. But they have an admirable talent for imposing their point of view on society in general. All women are sensitive to male criticism. Men are not sensitive to female criticism. They despise the critics.”

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You are what you read?

I am not confident that this rises to the level of useful information but it certainly meets the criteria of intriguing data.  From Where Jurors in Trump Hush-Money Trial Say They Get Their News by Charlie Smart.  The subheading is Prosecutors and defense lawyers tried to divine the political leanings of prospective jurors in the former president’s Manhattan criminal trial from their answers to questions about what media they consume.

Twelve jurors and six alternates, eighteen in total.  Probably overwhelmingly from the top three quintiles of New Yorkers.  Certainly strongly Democrats and Progressives.  

Lots of caveats.  Self-report surveys are notoriously unreliable.  On the other hand, it is a court related matter where people are perhaps more likely to be honest.  Maybe.  On the other hand some people might use their answers to try and get themselves screened out of a high profile case while others might do the very opposite.  So all sorts of reasons to be suspect of the accuracy of the responses.  

Are these the news sources representative of those for most Americans?  Probably not.  Are they the news sources representative of those for most urban residents?  Maybe.

Here are the answers.  

























    



Click to enlarge.

Only for this particular trial, what does the epistemic world look like, given the reading and viewing habits of this particular New York City jury?

2 (11%) of the jurors consume no news.

2 (11%) get their news from only a single source.

6 (33%) get their news from at least two sources.

8 (45%) get their news from at least three sources or more.

Seemingly a reasonably well informed population (defining well informed as consuming a lot of news which is, in itself, a debatable proposition).  

But what about the orientation and disposition of those news sources?  Ideally, one hypothetically everyone to consume two conservative oriented news sources, two progressive, and 2 neutral.  Much more than most people consume.

Stipulating that the news rooms (independent of the editorial desk) all tend to be overwhelmingly progressive/Democrat, and acknowledging no one is scrupulously neutral, I assigned most news sources based on their general reputation and readership.  I used the Hunter Biden Laptop as a general indicator.

Conservative press/platforms (5): The Daily Mail, Fox News, The New York PostTruth Social, The Wall Street Journal

Liberal/Progressive (11):  BBC, CNBC, CNN, FacebookGoogle, MSNBCThe New York Times, Reuters, USA Today, The Washington Post, WNYC

Neutral (3): NY1, TikTok, X

Each of these could be argued, especially by degree, but I think the assessments reasonably comport with evidence.  5 conservative platforms, 11 progressive, and 3 neutral sounds about right for New York City.

Now, the key question, from an epistemic perspective, just how close minded is the jury pool?  If the ideal is that people get lots of information from many perspectives, how close does this jury pool come to that ideal?

Again, recognizing that the eighteen members ranged from zero news sources up to five, I looked at the mix of sources for each juror.  If all their sources were from one side or the other, I classified that as 100%.  If, for example, someone got news from The New York Times and from TikTok (one progressive and one neutral), I classified them as leans progressive.  If they, for example, read both The New York Times and The New York Post (one progressive and one conservative), I classified that as Heterodox.  If they only got news from neutral sources, then Neutral.  

The results are:

100% Con - 0% of the jury
100% Lib - 39% 
Lean Con - 6%
Lean Lib - 17%
Heterodox - 28%
Neutral - 0%
None - 11%

Right out of the starting gates, 56% (39+17) have news which overwhelmingly or strongly leans towards a progressive view of the world.  Uh oh.  

Only 6% present as at all conservative.  

Robust discussion and assessment clearly depends hugely upon the five individuals who present as Heterodox (one of whom is an alternate.)

There is a limit to what how much reliance can be placed on this data but it is perhaps indicative.

Other sources for reality checks:

Sources of news:  https://www.4media-group.com/blog/intelligence/more-than-half-of-u-s-consumers-watch-tv-news-and-read-news-online/ 

Most popular news platforms:  https://www.statista.com/statistics/717651/most-popular-news-platforms/ 

Where Americans get their news:  https://www.prdaily.com/where-americans-get-their-news-new-data-from-pew-research/ 

Pew Social Media and News Fact Sheet:  https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/