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‘Matt Barta captured the very unusual event of an articulated robotic arm sliding back on the table to reach its own power source and unplug itself during an event of some sort. Barta found the incident rather amusing….’ (Reddit)
As a child I had a toy which was a box with lid and power switch. When you turned on the power, a hand came out of the box and turned it off. Ooh, just found it: Wikipedia calls these “useless machines”.
‘On January 6 trump fully revealed himself to be as someone who had the will to destroy the democratic republic even if he didn’t have the means . He attempted to subvert the republic’s constitution and laws and he defied the democracy’s will as expressed in the vote. He lost both constitutionally and popularly. In terms of the American form of government, he had no leg to stand on: neither legality nor legitimacy. But he attempted to remain in office. That he failed is immaterial. The simple fact is that he wanted to put an end to this country as we know it.
The people who celebrate it admit as much: they openly talk about “Caesarism.” So, they want a Caesar not a President. That is just not the American form of government. Also un-American is the notion that trump, as he himself declared on January 6th, represents some force of history that must be obeyed, or some deeper essence of the American volk that must be expressed, that he is the avatar of the “Real People” no matter what the laws and votes might say, and that frustrating him is in effect frustrating “the greatest movement in history,’ to use Trump’s words. That is not a democratic or a republican idea: it is quite simply fascist. Mussolini said and thought the same sorts of things, as did Hitler. And it does not matter if you clamor for it or ruefully reflect that is may just be our fate in this benighted era, it comes down to the the acceptance of a fascist mentality, even if adopted in a tragic or nihilistic key.
From a certain perspective, the critics who say that talking about fascism takes trump too seriously are correct: it involves too much hocus-pocus, it cloaks him in a certain dark grandeur, and gives everything a Spenglerian gloom that makes him seem bigger than he is. After all, he’s just a crook and a conman, an idiot. But the phoniness, that bombast, and the ridiculousness was a part of the original thing, too. There has always been a deeply moronic side to fascism. Fascism is perhaps most fundamentally a moron putting on world-historical airs. “Morons trying to make history” — what better way to describe January 6? The second biggest mistake is to take it too seriously. But the first biggest mistake is to not take it seriously enough….’ ( John Ganz via Unpopular Front)
‘Hawaii hardest hit by loss of eight birds, with an Ohio catfish, a Pacific fruit bat and eight freshwater mussels also disappearing…’ ( Maanvi Singh via The Guardian)
‘Thirty-two-year-old Kelsey Hatcher welcomed two beautiful baby girls into the world last week, delivering fraternal twins at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. But unlike typical twins, the newborns came from two separate wombs.
Hatcher vaginally delivered her first baby, Roxi, at 7:45 p.m. on Dec. 19, followed by Rebel, who was delivered by c-section about 10 hours later on Dec. 20….’ (NPR)
Thanks to Richard, who replied “Rabbit, rabbit” to the reprise of my annual ‘New Year’s Customs and Traditions’ post below.
I was not acquainted with the quirky British and American tradition that, if you say these words before anything else on the first day of the month, it will bring good luck for the month to come. Appropriately, it led me down a rabbit hole, exploring the origins, variations, and some of the ramifications of the belief.
Because of their legendary fecundity, rabbits are associated with flourishing and good luck in many cultures. As the fourth sign in the Chinese zodiac, the rabbit is particularly auspicious. In various Native American cultures, the rabbit is a trickster valued for cleverness, problem-solving ability, and capacity to escape predators. The ancient Celts reportedly believed that rabbits’ advantages related to the fact that they could communicate with spirits because they burrowed underground.
According to this piece in the Farmer’s Almanac, the first written reference to the use of the particular phrase “Rabbit, Rabbit” to bring good fortune was a 1909 report in an English periodical of a parent who noted that his children uttered the phrase up the chimney on the first of the month in hopes of getting a gift. The writer commented that they knew other children to share the custom.
A Wikipedia article about the custom notes several 20th century literary depictions. FDR claimed to say “Rabbits” on the first of each month and also carried a rabbit’s foot during the 1932 presidential election he won by a landslide.
Also, a rabbit’s foot, especially the back-left one, has long been thought to be a good luck charm. In African-American folk spirituality, it was thought that rabbits’ feet would increase fertility since rabbits themselves are so fertile. But there were some rather eerie stipulations about those feet: the rabbit must be captured or killed in a cemetery, and the foot must be cut off on a certain day of the week under specific circumstances.
WWII British fighter pilots “opted for even greater luck by using the phrase daily”. Gilda Radner’s version was “Bunny bunny” and journalist Simon Winchester claimed that he had recited “White rabbits” for 696 consecutive months beginning at age four. The custom may be related to another folkloric practice of invoking rabbit-related phrases to avoid smoke being blown into one’s face when gathered around a campfire. Some speculate that it may originate with a North American First Nation story about smoke resembling rabbit fur.
Many who entered comments to the Farmer’s Almanac piece wrote that they thought their families were the only ones with this odd practice. One commenter taught the practice by his mother thought it was a Jamaican custom until his 20’s when he learned it was common in New England. In fact, there do appear to be a disproportionate number of comments originating in Maine. Folklorists have collected numerous variations on this superstition from areas of rural England and areas of North America rich in English immigrants.
During the 1990’s the US children’s cable TV channel Nickelodeon would, during commercial breaks in its programming, promote the last day of each month as “Rabbit Rabbit Day” and remind its young viewers to say the phrase the next morning.
Numerous variations on the tradition have been described. Triple repetition appears to be common. One reader was taught to say “Jack rabbit” and a significant number say “White rabbits” (or text it). One wrote in to
…say “HARES” as the last word on last day of month before going to sleep. Say “RABBITS” first thing the following morning, or “WHITE RABBITS” if you forgot HARES the previous night.
In another’s family, they yell “Bunny bunny” at midnight instead of “Happy New Year.” Some make a competition of being the first to say it and complain that foreign exchange students to whom they have taught the custom have a competitive advantage because of the time difference.
Staying awake on the last night of the month and uttering the phrase at 12:01 am or, if one goes to sleep earlier, saying it first thing upon waking are both suggested. If the phrase brings good luck, does forgetting to say it foretell a less fortunate month? According to one source, when you realize you have forgotten you can be in the clear by saying “Tibbar Tibbar” (the phrase backwards) as soon as you can, or “Black rabbit” before you go to sleep that night.
There are some beliefs contradicting the luck brought by rabbits. 19th century seamen would reportedly not use the word at sea. And seeing a white rabbit in one’s village in South Devon was a sure sign that a seriously ill person was likely to die.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that we need to perform ritual in order to call fortune into our lives. But I do believe I should honor my family and maybe this is how I do it. At this late date in the family history, it would seem sacrilegious to abandon this tradition. And so I keep on. And delight when I find another soul who has carried this old superstition into the 21st century. And to all, I say, Rabbit!
‘…a trivia card game of superstitions, myths, and folklore for 1-10 players, providing a peek into the stories told and passed down through the ages to make sense of a complicated world and to help us feel in control of our own destiny.
‘…is a circular motif appearing in sacred sites from East Asia, the Middle East and to the churches of Devon, England (as the “Tinners’ Rabbits”), and historical synagogues in Europe. It is used as an architectural ornament, a religious symbol, and in other modern works of art or a logo for adornment (including tattoos), jewelry, and a coat of arms on an escutcheon. It is viewed as a puzzle, a topology problem or a visual challenge, and has been rendered as sculpture, drawing, and painting.
The symbol features three hares or rabbits chasing each other in a circle. Like the triskelion, the triquetra, and their antecedents (e.g., the triple spiral), the symbol of the three hares has a threefold rotational symmetry. Each of the ears is shared by two hares, so that only three ears are shown. Although its meaning is apparently not explained in contemporary written sources from any of the medieval cultures where it is found, it is thought to have a range of symbolic or mystical associations with fertility and the lunar cycle. When used in Christian churches, it is presumed to be a symbol of the Trinity. Its origins and original significance are uncertain, as are the reasons why it appears in such diverse locations.
‘For a season that’s supposed to bring joy and good cheer to people, there is an awful lot of horrific beasts and creatures associated with Christmas.
Some are terrifying like the Yule Cat (Jólakötturinn) of Iceland which is said to prowl around in the night in search of naughty children to feast on, unless they’re wearing new clothes, in which case, they’re safe.
Another frightening creature which should probably be part of the Halloween canon instead is Krampus, the folkloric devilish creature who accompanies St. Nicholas, and gives naughty children lumps of coal and a bit of a scare. Countries whose lore features Krampus include those in the Central and Eastern Europe regions like Slovakia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania.
Poland, on the other hand, has a merry beast in Turoń, who is an auroch-like creature which dances around in festivals and is said to bring blessings of a good harvest, being a symbol of fertility, virility, and abundance to the people of the land. Turoń is probably the least monstrous on this list as it doesn’t punish anybody for being naughty, although it did chase children around.
And then, there’s the French and their Père Fouettard, literally Father Whipper. Much like Krampus, this old miser of a character tags along with Old St. Nick and gives children lumps of coal or beatings when they have been naughty. Sometimes, they get both, which is what earned him the nickname.
Then, going back to Iceland, we have Grýla the witch or ogress, and her 13 sons called the Yule Lads. Grýla, much like Jólakötturinn, likes to eat naughty children, whom she boils in a pot. Her 13 sons, on the other hand, are naughty pranksters who go gallivanting around town, stealing and harassing people. They also give obedient children gifts and naughty children rotten potatoes.
From these, we can infer that most of these monsters were created simply as deterrents for children’s misbehavior. However, apparently, the Yule Cat also encouraged people to work harder. Since children needed new clothing to protect themselves from the clutches of the 12-foot black cat, this prompted many farms working on wool to increase their productivity.
Nowadays, these monsters have simply become part of some Christmas traditions like Krampuslauf, not necessarily as a means of scaring children during Christmas….’ (Neatorama)
‘Longtime Grateful Dead producer/engineer John Cutler died at age 73 on Christmas Eve after a long illness as per his brother, Bill Cutler. John Cutler’s numerous credits include co-producing the Grateful Dead’s final two studio albums — 1987’s In The Dark and 1989’s Built To Last — with Jerry Garcia…
John Cutler began doing odd jobs for the Grateful Dead in the early ’70s including the repair of amps. Cutler served as the band’s advance man before their famed September 1978 trip to Egypt for a series of concerts by the pyramids of Giza. After that, he signed on full time as an employee of the Grateful Dead. Among his duties was making a mix used by local radio stations or for television broadcasts, while FOH engineer Dan Healy would do the house mix…
Following Garcia’s death, John Cutler produced and engineered Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia live and studio archival releases. Rob Wasserman, Sanjay Mishra, Backbone, Gov’t Mule, New Grass Revival and Warren Zevon were among other artists Cutler worked with in production or engineering capacities…’ (Jambase)
‘Comedian Jared Ewy, who is the founder of Green AF, took it upon himself to fix the universe by realigning one manhole cover at a time. His very first effort centered around a particular cover on a street in Beaumar, Colorado that didn’t align with the painted traffic line….’ (Laughing Squid)
‘Towards the end of 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis had just ended, it was still a year-and-a-day until the first episode of Doctor Who would air, and a remarkable book was published. It was not the content of the book that was so astonishing; Bernard Shaw’s play Androcles and the Lion was fifty years old by this stage. This edition of Androcles and the Lion witnessed the birth of an entirely new alphabet, and its publication was a close-run thing.
The Shaw alphabet, which came to be more commonly known by the latinised name of “Shavian”, represented the culmination of a lifetime of advocacy by Irish playwright, writer and wit, Bernard Shaw. It was perhaps the subject on which Shaw wrote most earnestly, often—but not always—casting aside his love of levity to argue on purely rational grounds about the economic inefficiencies of silent letters and absurd spellings, and the failure of traditional orthography to offer any instruction to children (or adults, for that matter) on how to speak English….’
This is the annual update of my New Year post, a longstanding FmH tradition. Please let me know if you find any dead links:
I once ran across a January 1st Boston Globe article compiling folkloric beliefs about what to do, what to eat, etc. on New Year’s Day to bring good fortune for the year to come. I’ve regretted since — I usually think of it around once a year (grin) — not clipping out and saving the article. Especially since we’ve had children, I’m interested in enduring traditions that go beyond getting drunk [although some comment that this is a profound enactment of the interdigitation of chaos and order appropriate to the New Year’s celebration — FmH], watching the bowl games and making resolutions.
A web search brought me this, less elaborate than what I recall from the Globe but to the same point. It is weighted toward eating traditions, which is odd because, unlike most other major holidays, the celebration of New Year’s in 21st century America does not seem to be centered at all around thinking about what we eat (except in the sense of the traditional weight-loss resolutions!) and certainly not around a festive meal. But…
Traditionally, it was thought that one could affect the luck they would have throughout the coming year by what they did or ate on the first day of the year. For that reason, it has become common for folks to celebrate the first few minutes of a brand new year in the company of family and friends. Parties often last into the middle of the night after the ringing in of a new year. It was once believed that the first visitor on New Year’s Day would bring either good luck or bad luck the rest of the year. It was particularly lucky if that visitor happened to be a tall dark-haired man.
“Traditional New Year foods are also thought to bring luck. Many cultures believe that anything in the shape of a ring is good luck, because it symbolizes “coming full circle,” completing a year’s cycle. For that reason, the Dutch believe that eating donuts on New Year’s Day will bring good fortune.
Many parts of the U.S. celebrate the new year by consuming black-eyed peas. These legumes are typically accompanied by either hog jowls or ham. Black-eyed peas and other legumes have been considered good luck in many cultures. The hog, and thus its meat, is considered lucky because it symbolizes prosperity. Cabbage is another ‘good luck’ vegetable that is consumed on New Year’s Day by many. Cabbage leaves are also considered a sign of prosperity, being representative of paper currency. In some regions, rice is a lucky food that is eaten on New Year’s Day.”
The further north one travels in the British Isles, the more the year-end festivities focus on New Year’s. The Scottish observance of Hogmanay has many elements of warming heart and hearth, welcoming strangers and making a good beginning:
“Three cornered biscuits called hogmanays are eaten. Other special foods are: wine, ginger cordial, cheese, bread, shortbread, oatcake, carol or carl cake, currant loaf, and a pastry called scones. After sunset people collect juniper and water to purify the home. Divining rituals are done according to the directions of the winds, which are assigned their own colors.
First Footing: The first person who comes to the door on midnight
should be a dark-haired or dark-complected man with gifts for luck. Seeing a cat, dog, woman, red-head or beggar is unlucky. The person brings a gift (handsel) of coal or whiskey to ensure prosperity in the New Year. Mummer’s Plays are also performed. The actors called the White Boys of Yule are all dressed in white, except for one dressed as the devil in black. It is bad luck to engage in marriage proposals, break glass, spin flax, sweep or carry out rubbish on New Year’s Eve.”
Here’s why we clink our glasses when we drink our New Year’s toasts, no matter where we are. Of course, sometimes the midnight cacophony is louder than just clinking glassware, to create a ‘devil-chasing din’.
In Georgia, eat black eyed peas and turnip greens on New Year’s Day for luck and prosperity in the year to come, supposedly because they symbolize coppers and currency. Hoppin’ John, a concoction of peas, onion, bacon and rice, is also a southern New Year’s tradition, as is wearing yellow to find true love (in Peru and elsewhere in South America, yellow underwear, apparently!) or carrying silver for prosperity. In some instances, a dollar bill is thrown in with the other ingredients of the New Year’s meal to bring prosperity. In Greece, there is a traditional New Year’s Day sweetbread with a silver coin baked into it. All guests get a slice of the bread and whoever receives the slice with the coin is destined for good fortune for the year. At Italian tables, lentils, oranges and olives are served. The lentils, looking like coins, will bring prosperity; the oranges are for love; and the olives, symbolic of the wealth of the land, represent good fortune for the year to come.
A New Year’s meal in Norway also includes dried cod, “lutefisk.” The Pennsylvania Dutch make sure to include sauerkraut in their holiday meal, also for prosperity.
In Spain, you would cram twelve grapes in your mouth at midnight, one each time the clock chimed, for good luck for the twelve months to come. (If any of the grapes happens to be sour, the corresponding month will not be one of your most fortunate in the coming year.) The U. S. version of this custom, for some reason, involves standing on a chair as you pop the grapes. In Denmark, jumping off a chair at the stroke of midnight signifies leaping into the New Year. In Rio,
The crescent-shaped Copacabana beach… is the scene of an unusual New Year’s Eve ritual: mass public blessings by the mother-saints of the Macumba and Candomble sects. More than 1 million people gather to watch colorful fireworks displays before plunging into the ocean at midnight after receiving the blessing from the mother-saints, who set up mini-temples on the beach.
When taking the plunge, revelers are supposed to jump over seven waves, one for each day of the week.
This is all meant to honor Lamanjá, known as the “Mother of Waters” or “Goddess of the Sea.” Lamanjá protects fishermen and survivors of shipwrecks. Believers also like to throw rice, jewelry and other gifts into the water, or float them out into the sea in intimately crafted miniature boats, to please Lamanjá in the new year.
Ecuadorian families make scarecrows stuffed with newspaper and firecrackers and place them outside their homes. The dummies represent misfortunes of the prior year, which are then burned in effigy at the stroke of midnight to forget the old year. Bolivian families make beautiful little wood or straw dolls to hang outside their homes on New Year’s Eve to bring good luck.
In China, homes are cleaned spotless to appease the Kitchen God, and papercuttings of red paper are hung in the windows to scare away evil spirits who might enter the house and bring misfortune. Large papier mache dragon heads with long fabric bodies are maneuvered through the streets during the Dragon Dance festival, and families open their front doors to let the dragon bring good luck into their homes.
The Indian Diwali, or Dipawali, festival, welcoming in the autumnal season, also involves attracting good fortune with lights. Children make small clay lamps, dipas, thousands of which might adorn a given home. In Thailand, one pours fragrant water over the hands of elders on New Year’s Day to show them respect.
a stack of pancakes for the New Year’s breakfast in France.
banging on friends’ doors in Denmark to “smash in” the New Year, where it is also a good sign to find your doorstep heaped with broken dishes on New Year’s morning. Old dishes are saved all years to throw at your friends’ homes on New Year’s Eve. The more broken pieces you have, the greater the number of new friends you will have in the forthcoming twelve months.
going in the front door and out the back door at midnight in Ireland.
making sure the First Footer, the first person through your door in the New Year in Scotland, is a tall dark haired visitor.
water out the window at midnight in Puerto Rico rids the home of evil spirits.
cleanse your soul in Japan at the New Year by listening to a gong tolling 108 times, one for every sin
it is Swiss good luck to let a drop of cream fall on the floor on New Year’s Day.
Belgian farmers wish their animals a Happy New Year for blessings.
In Germany and Austria, lead pouring” (das Bleigießen) is an old divining practice using molten lead like tea leaves. A small amount of lead is melted in a tablespoon (by holding a flame under the spoon) and then poured into a bowl or bucket of water. The resulting pattern is interpreted to predict the coming year. For instance, if the lead forms a ball (der Ball), that means luck will roll your way. The shape of an anchor (der Anker) means help in need. But a cross (das Kreuz) signifies death. This is also a practice in parts of Finland, apparently.
El Salvadoreans crack an egg in a glass at midnight and leave it on the windowsill overnight; whatever figure it has made in the morning is indicative of one’s fortune for the year.
Some Italians like to take part in throwing pots, pans, and old furniture from their windows when the clock strikes midnight. This is done as a way for residents to rid of the old and welcome in the new. It also allows them to let go of negativity. This custom is also practiced in parts of South Africa, the Houston Press adds.
In Colombia, walk around with an empty suitcase on New Year’s Day for a year full of travel.
In the Philippines, all the lights in the house are turned on at midnight, and previously opened windows, doors and cabinets throughout the house are suddenly slammed shut, to ward off evil spirits for the new year.
In Russia a wish is written down on a piece of paper. It is burned and the ash dissolved in a glass of champagne, which should be downed before 12:01 am if the wish is to come true.
Romanians celebrate the new year by wearing bear costumes and dancing around to ward off evil
In Turkey, pomegranates are thrown down from the balconies at midnight for good luck.
is a famous cult classic in Germany and several other European countries, it is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, including Britain, its birthplace.” (Watch on Youtube, 11 min.)
Some history; documentation of observance of the new year dates back at least 4000 years to the Babylonians, who also made the first new year’s resolutions (reportedly voews to return borrowed farm equipment were very popular), although their holiday was observed at the vernal equinox. The Babylonian festivities lasted eleven days, each day with its own particular mode of celebration. The traditional Persian Norouz festival of spring continues to be considered the advent of the new year among Persians, Kurds and other peoples throughout Central Asia, and dates back at least 3000 years, deeply rooted in Zooastrian traditions.Modern Bahá’í’s celebrate Norouz (”Naw Ruz”) as the end of a Nineteen Day Fast. Rosh Hashanah (”head of the year”), the Jewish New Year, the first day of the lunar month of Tishri, falls between September and early October. Muslim New Year is the first day of Muharram, and Chinese New Year falls between Jan. 10th and Feb. 19th of the Gregorian calendar.
The classical Roman New Year’s celebration was also in the spring although the calendar went out of synchrony with the sun. January 1st became the first day of the year by proclamation of the Roman Senate in 153 BC, reinforced even more strongly when Julius Caesar established what came to be known as the Julian calendar in 46 BC. The early Christian Church condemned new year’s festivities as pagan but created parallel festivities concurrently. New Year’s Day is still observed as the Feast of Christ’s Circumcision in some denominations. Church opposition to a new year’s observance reasserted itself during the Middle Ages, and Western nations have only celebrated January 1 as a holidy for about the last 400 years. The custom of New Year’s gift exchange among Druidic pagans in 7th century Flanders was deplored by Saint Eligius, who warned them, “[Do not] make vetulas, [little figures of the Old Woman], little deer or iotticos or set tables [for the house-elf] at night or exchange New Year gifts or supply superfluous drinks [another Yule custom].” (Wikipedia)
The tradition of the New Year’s Baby signifying the new year began with the Greek tradition of parading a baby in a basket during the Dionysian rites celebrating the annual rebirth of that god as a symbol of fertility. The baby was also a symbol of rebirth among early Egyptians. Again, the Church was forced to modify its denunciation of the practice as pagan because of the popularity of the rebirth symbolism, finally allowing its members to cellebrate the new year with a baby although assimilating it to a celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus. The addition of Father Time (the “Old Year”) wearing a sash across his chest with the previous year on it, and the banner carried or worn by the New Year’s Baby, immigrated from Germany. Interestingly, January 1st is not a legal holiday in Israel, officially because of its historic origins as a Christian feast day.
Auld Lang Syne (literally ‘old long ago’ in the Scottish dialect) is sung or played at the stroke of midnight throughout the English-speaking world (and then there is George Harrison’s “Ring Out the Old”). Versions of the song have been part of the New Year’s festivities since the 17th century but Robert Burns was inspired to compose a modern rendition, which was published after his death in 1796. (It took Guy Lombardo, however, to make it popular…)
Brazilian: Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo means “Good Parties and Happy New Year”
Chinese: Chu Shen Tan Xin Nian Kuai Le (thanks, Jeff)
Czechoslavakia: Scastny Novy Rok
Dutch: Gullukkig Niuw Jaar
Finnish: Onnellista Uutta Vuotta
French: Bonne Annee
German: Prosit Neujahr
Greek: Eftecheezmaenos o Kaenooryos hronos
Hebrew: L’Shannah Tovah Tikatevu
Hindi: Niya Saa Moobaarak
Irish (Gaelic): Bliain nua fe mhaise dhuit
Italian: Buon Capodanno
Khmer: Sua Sdei tfnam tmei
Laotian: Sabai dee pee mai
Polish: Szczesliwego Nowego Roku
Portuguese: Feliz Ano Novo
Russian: S Novim Godom
Serbo-Croatian: Scecna nova godina
Spanish: Feliz Ano Nuevo
Swedish: Ha ett gott nytt år
Turkish: Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
Vietnamese: Cung-Chuc Tan-Xuan
[If you are a native speaker, please feel free to offer any corrections or additions!]
Which of these customs appeal to you? Are they done in your family, or will you try to adopt any of them? However you’re going to celebrate, my warmest wishes for the year to come… and eat hearty!
[thanks to Bruce Umbaugh (here or here) for original assistance]
A damaged skyscraper in a Moscow business district after a reported drone attack in August.
‘Buoyed by Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive and flagging Western support, Mr. Putin says that Russia’s war goals have not changed. Addressing his generals on Tuesday, he boasted that Ukraine was so beleaguered that Russia’s invading troops were doing “what we want.”
“We won’t give up what’s ours,” he pledged, adding dismissively, “If they want to negotiate, let them negotiate.”
But in a recent push of back-channel diplomacy, Mr. Putin has been sending a different message: He is ready to make a deal.
Mr. Putin has been signaling through intermediaries since at least September that he is open to a cease-fire that freezes the fighting along the current lines, far short of his ambitions to dominate Ukraine, two former senior Russian officials close to the Kremlin and American and international officials who have received the message from Mr. Putin’s envoys say….’ (The New York Times)
‘at least five times, a biological catastrophe has engulfed the planet, killing off the vast majority of species from water and land over a relatively short geological interval.
New analysis identifies largest threat to thousands of species facing extinction
The most famous of these mass extinction events — when an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, dooming the dinosaurs and many other species — is also the most recent. But scientists say it won’t be the last.
Many researchers argue we’re in the middle of a sixth mass extinction, caused not by a city-size space rock but by the overgrowth and transformative behavior of a single species — Homo sapiens. Humans have destroyed habitats and unleashed a climate crisis.
Calculations in a September study published in the journal PNAS have suggested that groups of related animal species are disappearing at a rate 35% times higher than the normally expected rate.
And while every mass extinction has winners and losers, there is no reason to assume that human beings in this case would be among the survivors.
In fact, study coauthor Gerardo Ceballos thinks the opposite could come to pass, with the sixth mass extinction transforming the whole biosphere, or the area of the world hospitable to life — possibly into a state in which it may be impossible for humanity to persist unless dramatic action is taken.
“Biodiversity will recover but the winners (are) very difficult to predict. Many of the losers in these past mass extinctions were incredibly successful groups,” said Ceballos, a senior researcher at the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
While the causes of the “big five” mass extinctions varied, understanding what happened during these dramatic chapters in Earth’s history — and what emerged in the aftermath of these cataclysms — can be instructive….’ (CNN)
‘As of November 2023, the “reaction area” in one of the L.A. dumps “had grown by 30 to 35 acres, according to the agency [CalRecycle]. Already, the heat has melted or deformed the landfill’s gas collection system, which consists mostly of polyvinyl chloride well casings. The damage has hindered the facility’s efforts to collect toxic pollutants.” This seems to imply it will get worse, and nearby residents have begun reporting chemical smells.
“The bad news,” L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger told the paper, “is we’ve never seen anything like this, and if we don’t understand what triggered it, it could happen at other landfills that are dormant. So it’s important for us to get a handle on it.” The earth, riddled with dormant landfills, attaining enigmatic chemical vigor in the darkness…’ (Geoff Manaugh via BLDGBLOG)
‘The advent of the war triggered fears of outright nuclear conflict between the West and Russia. That period of somewhat frenzied speculation has passed. The war has since settled into a grinding—but conventional—stalemate. To be sure, U.S. officials are still concerned that Russia may use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. “I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in June. The risk, he continued, is “real.” But officials do not appear to believe that the war in Ukraine could lead Russia to use its nuclear arsenal against a NATO state, however furious it is at the West for supporting Ukraine.
That is a mistake. U.S. officials have it backward. It is actually quite unlikely that Russian President Vladimir Putin will use a nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine, but it is very possible that he will move toward using one against NATO. Unlike the West, Putin may not fear a nuclear standoff: he is well versed in Russia’s nuclear arsenal and the tenets of nuclear deterrence, and possibly sees himself as uniquely suited to navigating a nuclear crisis. And Putin has been remarkably consistent that Russia is willing to use nuclear weapons against NATO to defend its interests in Ukraine. Even eight years ago, in a television interview done a year after Russia invaded Crimea, Putin declared that he had been ready to place Russian nuclear forces on alert to prevent Western forces from interfering in Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula.
Russian nuclear weapons use is not imminent. But if Putin does escalate the war, for instance by attacking NATO with conventional weapons, he will likely move very swiftly, so as not to give the United States a chance to maneuver away from a crisis. Washington will struggle to deter a Kremlin so emboldened. Ukraine is too central to the Kremlin’s ambitions—and too secondary to the United States’—for Putin to believe any American threats. Ultimately, Putin will expect the United States to back down before fighting a nuclear conflict over land so far from home….’ ( By Peter Schroeder via Foreign Affairs)
‘In an influential article published last April, Andrew Krepinevich argued that we are entering a new nuclear age. China, he said, is ‘upending the bipolar nuclear power system’. That world was dangerous enough, but a world of three major thermonuclear powers could be much worse. ‘In a tripolar system,’ Krepinevich argued, ‘it is simply not possible for each state to maintain nuclear parity with the combined arsenals of its two rivals.’ Any attempt to do so would likely result in an uncontrolled arms race, increasing the chances of a catastrophic war.
Think of the three body problem in classical mechanics. The interactions of two masses are relatively easy to calculate, but three are unstable and chaotic: there is no easy equilibrium. Nuclear armed states create a similar dynamic, a three bomb problem….’ ( Tom Stevenson via The London Review of Books)
‘For travelers unfamiliar with Iceland’s stories and mythical legends, the idea of a 12-foot-tall, bloodthirsty cat may not seem to have the most natural tie with Christmas good cheer. But in a country where a third of residents report a belief in hidden people and an entire school devoted to studying elves, Jólakötturinn starts to make sense….’ (Atlas Obscura)
I just became acquainted with Pierre Bourdieu’s 1979 Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, published by of all people MIT Press. While I no longer have much patience for the tortuous language of a certain genre of postmodern French intellectuals, Bourdieu’s observations, drawn from the empirical study of 1960’s French society, are intriguing.
Our preferences regarding cultural phenomena — art, music, clothing styles, other consumer goods — are not simply matters of personal preference but are shaped by, and become signifiers of, our social position. Class status and social inequality are maintained by generational transmission of one’s cultural capital. Cultural institutions such as museums and schools perpetuate inequalities by favoring certain forms of cultural capital over others. Your sense that you are a person of good taste is reinforced by, and becomes a powerful reinforcer of, your sense of social belonging, largely unconsciously.
This wonderful article draws out the implications to the succeeding decades’ more modern culture through the author’s introspection on their own tastes, while skewering the obfuscating complexity of the discourse (itself a cultural signifier) and recasting the argument in plain English.
‘…[A] new AI project has just emerged that can pinpoint the location of where almost any photo was taken – and it has the potential to become a privacy nightmare.
The project, dubbed Predicting Image Geolocations (or PIGEON for short) was created by three students at Stanford University and was designed to help find where images from Google Street View were taken. But when fed personal photos it had never seen before, it was even able to accurately find their locations, usually with a high degree of accuracy….’ (TechRadar)
I signed a petition on Action Network telling Monica M. Bertagnolli, M.D., Director of the National Institutes of Health to Support the Continuation of the Dog Aging Project.
The Dog Aging Project represents a pioneering effort in the scientific community. It engages nearly 50,000 Americans in research, and drives significant advancements in aging biology. Despite its remarkable success, the project now faces uncertainty. Your voice is crucial to secure its future. Initiated with National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in 2018, this project aims to understand aging in dogs, and to ultimately help us extend healthy lifespan of both humans and pets. It has surpassed all expectations, even amidst the COVID-19 pandemic’s challenges, with substantial achievements such as:
Creating the largest longitudinal study of aging in the world
Publishing over 50 influential peer-reviewed papers
Developing a free, open-access database with more than 36.5 million data points
Initiating the first-ever randomized clinical trial for longevity
These efforts have sparked global research and inspired biotechnology companies to seek new life-extending treatments.
Now, we stand at a crossroads. The Dog Aging Project has become a symbol of hope, demonstrating the power of science in a period of skepticism. Its loss would not only hinder advancements in health but also diminish the public’s engagement with science and their faith in NIH.
We urge the NIH to reaffirm their commitment to this vital work. This isn’t merely about scientific inquiry; it’s about improving lives. Join us in advocating for the Dog Aging Project. Together, we can secure a future where the health and vitality of our beloved dogs shed light on our own paths to healthy long lives.
Act now. Lend your voice to champion the Dog Aging Project and contribute to a healthier tomorrow.
‘If your idea of festive joy is being haunted by past memories or driven insane by mysterious specters, have we got the tradition for you….’ (The New York Times)
‘The invention of digital bioacoustics is analogous to the invention of the microscope. When Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek started looking through his microscopes, he discovered the microbial world, and that laid the foundation for countless future breakthroughs. So the microscope enabled humans to see anew with both our eyes and our imaginations.
The analogy here is that digital bioacoustics, combined with artificial intelligence, is like a planetary-scale hearing aid that enables us to listen anew with both our prosthetically enhanced ears and our imagination. This is slowly opening our minds not only to the wonderful sounds that nonhumans make but to a fundamental set of questions about the so-called divide between humans and nonhumans, our relationship to other species.
It’s also opening up new ways to think about conservation and our relationship to the planet. It’s pretty profound….’ ( Sophie Bushwick via Scientific American)
‘Henry Kissinger, who died on Nov. 29, 2023 at the age of 100, stood as a colossus of U.S. foreign policy. His influence on American politics lasted long beyond his eight-year stint guiding the Nixon and Ford administrations as national security adviser and secretary of state, with successive presidents, presidential candidates and top diplomats seeking his advice and approval ever since.
But his mark extends beyond the United States. Kissinger’s policies in the 1970s had immediate impact on countries, governments and people across South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Sometimes the fallout – and it was that – lasted decades; in some places it continues to be felt today. Nowhere is that more true than Cambodia.
Poet-musician of dereliction who became a mythic figure:
‘The former Pogues frontman created, for a brief period, songs of incisive beauty before addiction led to his ejection from the band, although his genius shone once more with the Popes…’ ( via The Guardian)
‘In 2024, if all goes to plan, a spacecraft named the Europa Clipper will embark on a journey to an icy, gray moon of Jupiter covered in rust-colored gashes. It will swim along the Jovian satellite’s gravitational tides, half facing the orb from orbit, half exposed to the airless ocean of space. And alongside its high-tech spectrometer, radar system, optical imager and other instruments built to search for proof of alien habitats, the Europa Clipper will be bringing my name. It can bring yours, too.
You just have to sign up for NASA’s free “Message in a Bottle program” here. The campaign closes at 11:59 p.m. EST on Dec. 31 (0459 GMT on Jan. 1); at the time I’m writing this, almost 900,000 names have been entered….’ (Space)
‘The transportation sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, almost all of it from cars and trucks. Yet the nation is starkly divided on the solution. An overlay placed on the states most hostile to electric vehicle policies would dovetail almost perfectly with those that voted for Donald Trump in 2020. According to a trade association quarterly report, deep red Wyoming, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, and North Dakota have the nation’s lowest rates of EV sales. And good luck finding a public charging station in the Deep South or the Great Plains….’ ( By Renée Loth via Boston Globe)
Almost every values-based difference in American society dovetails neatly with the Red-Blue divide. The only way to avoid being brutalized by the culture wars is to retreat to your corner. Incontrovertible to me that we don’t live in one country… and probably shouldn’t.
‘trump isn’t hiding it any more, nor are his people. The Republican “frontrunner” is openly campaigning on creating a fascist state, praising dictators, and now trying to sound like one…
The New York Times’ Peter Baker summed up… : “Spokesman denies that trump rhetoric echoes that of dictators like Hitler and Mussolini and declares that those who say it does will find ‘their entire existence will be crushed when president trump returns to the White House.'”
Also responding to The Post’s report was author and MSNBC analyst Jonathan Alter, who wrote: “As we learned from Mein Kampf, when a demagogue tells you what he is going to do, believe him.”.’ (Boing Boing)
Not exactly, although there are some near misses. Perhaps it is unsurprising that the words that are nearly universal are mostly related to foods that originated in one place, and then spread around the world. Not having developed independently, you would not expect their names to have developed independently. ( Cindy Blanco via DuoLingo Blog)
‘Some neuroscientists now believe that the drugs’ mental-health benefits don’t come from tripping….’ ( Cornell-Weill director of psychopharmacology Dr Richard A. Friedman via The Atlantic)
The toolbar is irretrievable but following the space station in orbit. Surprisingly bright and visible from earth with binoculars. ( By Robert Lea published 1 day ago via Space)
‘From the passenger pigeon to the woolly mammoth, a variety of techniques could potentially resurrect extinct species, whether completely extinct or merely extirpated from the wild….’ (Discover Magazine)
‘Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But James Webb Space Telescope observations are finding an unexpected abundance of the beasts….’ (WIRED)
‘Explaining the phenomenon of pareidolia, which causes us to see facial patterns in ordinary objects and surfaces. I also discuss illusions, paintings, and psychological research related to it….’
I have previously written on this phenomenon, which I love. Clarke says he thinks it arises from the fact that we are exposed to faces early and thus overlearn the skill of recognizing them. I think it is more than that — pattern recognition is not all one thing and face perception uses different, and favored, ‘software’ than object perception given its evolutionary advantages.
‘Australian restaurateur Paul Mathis is on a quest to introduce a symbol for the most common word in written English: “The.” Mathis envisions the new symbol as a time- and space-saving tool, much like the ampersand (&). The symbol looks like the marriage of a “T” and lowercase “h,” and is quite similar to the Serbian Cyrillic letter “Tshe.” The new symbol is available to Android users on the app THE Keyboard Pro 1….’ (Laughing Squid)
‘Every time you try to open your favorite apps, wait. Take a deep breath in, and let it out slowly. one sec gives you the chance to pause and think twice – before you get sucked into an endless loophole designed to draw you in for hours again….’
In observance of Guy Fawkes Day, as I have written in years past:
“Don’t you remember the 5th of November Is gunpowder treason and plot? I don’t see the reason why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot A stick and a stake, for Queen Victoria’s Sake I pray master give us a faggit If you dont give us one well take two The better for us and the worse for you”
Tonight is Guy Fawkes Night (Bonfire Night or Gunpowder Night), the anniversary of the ambitious but abortive Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a failed attempt by a group of persecuted English Catholics to assassinate Anglican King James I of England and. VI of Scotland in order to replace him with a Catholic. Guy Fawkes, who was left in charge of the gunpowder placed underneath the House of Lords, was discovered and arrested and the plot unmasked. Fawkes, along with other surviving conspirators, was executed in January 1606 (hung, drawn and quartered).
A law establishing the anniversary of the thwarted plot as a day of thanksgiving was quickly passed and became the annual occasion for anti-Catholic fervor, with the ringing of church bells and the lighting of bonfires, to the point of forgetting the deliverance of the monarch. “Although Guy Fawkes’ actions have been considered acts of terrorism by many people, cynical Britons… sometimes joke that he was the only man to go to Parliament with honourable intentions.”
Fun fact: it seems that the term Guy (which now simply refers to a man or even more broadly a person) became a pejorative to describe someone grotesque because of the conception of Guy Fawkes’ villainy.
Celebrations of Guy Fawkes Day persist through the British Isles and become occasions for revelling in the burning of effigies (“guys”) of the hate figures of the day alongside Fawkes.The ritual has included Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Boris Johnson, donald trump, and disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein among others.
The annual festival has become much more about festive fun than solemn remembrance:
“One important aspect of the celebration is certainly venting! Shouting into the nights air is a wonderful release and an important part of the celebration through the centuries. There is something magic and healing about noise — cannons, bells and chants. Divide the group and assign each a different chant. Let them compete for noise and drama. Great fun. The chants are important aspects of freedom of expression and freedom to hold one’s own beliefs. Like much of that which is pure celebration chants need not be considered incantations or wishes of ill will at all times. Taken with the rest of celebration they contribute to a much more abstract whole where fun is the primary message for most.”
Some say that the celebration of Guy Fawkes Night helped shape the modern tradition of trick or treating, although it has ancient pre-Christian origins. Some American colonists celebrated Guy Fawkes Day and those fleeing the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s helped popularize Hallowe’en. By the 19th century, British children wearing masks and carrying effigies of Fawkes were roaming the streets on the evening of November 5 asking for “a penny for the Guy,” with any money gathered being used to buy fireworks — the explosives never used by the plotters — to be set off while the Guy was immolated on the bonfire.
Many feel that Guy Fawkes (Bonfire Night) has a particularly Pagan feel. As with Hallowe’en, it may be no accident that Guy Fawkes Day coincides with the Celtic festival of Samhain, one of the moon festivals featuring large bonfires. Some think of Guy Fawkes Night as a sort of detached Samhain celebration and the effigies of Guy Fawkes burned on the bonfires compare with the diabolical images associated with Samhain or Hallowe’en. But, as one fan says, “Guy Fawkes Night has never sold out to Hallmark… Halloween is all about fakery – makeup, facepaint, costumes, imitation blood. Fireworks Night is about very real, very powerful, very hot flames.”
But the folklore of the holiday does continue to morph. We don’t celebrate the thwarting of the plot because we are happy with our oppressive rulers, and Guy Fawkes has gone from being reviled as a villain to revered as a hero. His reputation has gone from that of a religious extremist to one of a populist underdog, especially after Alan Moore’s graphic novel V for Vendetta and its 2005 film adaptation, in which the masked knife-wielding V, who also plots to bomb the Houses of Parliament, lashes out against the fascist state in a dystopian future Britain. (It was Moore’s collaborator David Lloyd who developed the idea of dressing V as Guy Fawkes.) Since then, protestors have donned V’s mask as an all-purpose badge of rebellion in anti-government demonstrations and the anti-capitalist movement, particularly Occupy. The hacktivist group Anonymous has adopted the Guy Fawkes mask as their symbol. In 2011, it was the top-selling mask on Amazon and has been seen throughout the ongoing Hong Kong protests against Chinese repression. David Lloyd commented, “The Guy Fawkes mask has now become a common brand and a convenient placard to use in protest against tyranny – and I’m happy with people using it, it seems quite unique, an icon of popular culture being used this way.”
Here is a collection of verse in celebration of Guy Fawkes Day. You are also welcome to don your masks, listen for some fireworks, scan the horizon from a high place for bonfires dedicated to smashing the state, or free yourself from your unwanted burdens by watching them go up in flames.
‘Watching these Hot Wheels toy cars zoom down an empty waterslide made me feel like a kid again for 5 minutes. I love how the video is filmed from the POV of a camera rolling down the slide with the cars, making it feel like as a viewer, you’re sitting on top of it….’ (Boing Boing)
This is surprisingly comforting, and what a great collection of Hot Wheels cars!
Streamer wastes scammers’ time on an unprecedented scale
‘Scambaiting – or the act of deliberately wasting a scam caller’s time – is one of my guilty pleasures of late, and YouTuber/Twitch streamer Kitboga is one of the undisputed masters of it. It’s often said that every minute of a scammer’s time that you waste is time they can’t spend hounding an actual victim, and Kitboga put together an ingenious way of maximizing the time spent wasted: a fake crypto-transfer website.
Scammers log on after being baited in by an initial phone call with Kitboga or one of his team, thinking that they’re just a few clicks away from a wallet full of Bitcoin, but are thrown into an endless labyrinth of captchas, “security questions”, and held phone calls instead….’ (Boing Boing)
‘It’s a crazy idea—and it unfortunately needs debunking…’ (Antonio De Loera-Brust, former special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of State,via Foreign Policy)
‘”If crooked Joe and the Democrats get away with removing my name from the ballot, then there will never be a free election in America again. We will have become a dictatorship where your president is chosen for you,” he continued, forgetting about the 11 other Republican candidates voters have to choose from. “You will no longer have a vote, or certainly won’t have a meaningful vote, and you could say, frankly, that that has already begun.” Yes, you could say that again. It began on June 16, 2015, when trump launched his first MAGA presidential campaign. (See his Truth Social video, reposted by Patriot Takes.)…’. (Boing Boingi)
A reprise of my traditional Hallowe’en post of past years:
It is that time of year again. What has become a time of disinhibited hijinx and mayhem, and a growing marketing bonanza for the kitsch-manufacturers and -importers, has primeval origins as the Celtic New Year’s Eve, Samhain (pronounced “sow-en”). The harvest is over, summer ends and winter begins, the Old God dies and returns to the Land of the Dead to await his rebirth at Yule, and the land is cast into darkness. The veil separating the worlds of the living and the dead becomes frayed and thin, and dispossessed dead mingle with the living, perhaps seeking a body to possess for the next year as their only chance to remain connected with the living, who hope to scare them away with ghoulish costumes and behavior, escape their menace by masquerading as one of them, or placate them with offerings of food, in hopes that they will go away before the new year comes. For those prepared, a journey to the other side could be made at this time.
With Christianity, perhaps because with calendar reform it was no longer the last day of the year, All Hallows’ Eve became decathected, a day for innocent masquerading and fun, taking its name Hallowe’en as a contraction and corruption of All Hallows’ Eve.
All Saints’ Day may have originated in its modern form with the 8th century Pope Gregory III. Hallowe’en customs reputedly came to the New World with the Irish immigrants of the 1840’s. The prominence of trick-or-treating has a slightly different origin, however.
The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for “soul cakes,” made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul’s passage to heaven.
English: A traditional Irish turnip Jack-o’-lantern from the early 20th century.
Jack-o’-lanterns were reportedly originally turnips; the Irish began using pumpkins after they immigrated to North America, given how plentiful they were here. The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree’s trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.
According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.
Nowadays, a reported 99% of cultivated pumpkin sales in the US go for jack-o-lanterns.
Folk traditions that were in the past associated with All Hallows’ Eve took much of their power, as with the New Year’s customs about which I write here every Dec. 31st, from the magic of boundary states, transition, and liminality.
The idea behind ducking, dooking or bobbing for apples seems to have been that snatching a bite from the apple enables the person to grasp good fortune. Samhain is a time for getting rid of weakness, as pagans once slaughtered weak animals which were unlikely to survive the winter. A common ritual calls for writing down weaknesses on a piece of paper or parchment, and tossing it into the fire. There used to be a custom of placing a stone in the hot ashes of the bonfire. If in the morning a person found that the stone had been removed or had cracked, it was a sign of bad fortune. Nuts have been used for divination: whether they burned quietly or exploded indicated good or bad luck. Peeling an apple and throwing the peel over one’s shoulder was supposed to reveal the initial of one’s future spouse. One way of looking for omens of death was for peope to visit churchyards
The Witches’ Sabbath aspect of Hallowe’en seems to result from Germanic influence and fusion with the notion of Walpurgisnacht. (You may be familiar with the magnificent musical evocation of this, Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain.)
Although probably not yet in a position to shape mainstream American Hallowe’en traditions, Mexican Dia de los Muertos observances have started to contribute some delightful and whimsical iconography to our encounter with the eerie and unearthly as well. As this article in The Smithsonian reviews, ‘In the United States, Halloween is mostly about candy, but elsewhere in the world celebrations honoring the departed have a spiritual meaning…’
Reportedly, more than 80% of American families decorate their homes, at least minimally, for Hallowe’en. What was the holiday like forty or fifty years ago in the U.S. when, bastardized as it has now become with respect to its pagan origins, it retained a much more traditional flair? Before the era of the pay-per-view ’spooky-world’ type haunted attractions and its Martha Stewart yuppification with, as this irreverent Salon article from several years ago [via walker] put it, monogrammed jack-o’-lanterns and the like? One issue may be that, as NPR observed,
‘”Adults have hijacked Halloween… Two in three adults feel Halloween is a holiday for them and not just kids,” Forbes opined in 2012, citing a public relations survey. True that when the holiday was imported from Celtic nations in the mid-19th century — along with a wave of immigrants fleeing Irelands potato famine — it was essentially a younger persons’ game. But a little research reveals that adults have long enjoyed Halloween — right alongside young spooks and spirits.’
Is that necessarily a bad thing? A 1984 essay by Richard Seltzer, frequently referenced in other sources, entitled “Why Bother to Save Hallowe’en?”, argues as I do that reverence for Hallowe’en is good for the soul, young or old.
“Maybe at one time Hallowe’en helped exorcise fears of death and ghosts and goblins by making fun of them. Maybe, too, in a time of rigidly prescribed social behavior, Hallowe’en was the occasion for socially condoned mischief — a time for misrule and letting loose. Although such elements still remain, the emphasis has shifted and the importance of the day and its rituals has actually grown.…(D)on’t just abandon a tradition that you yourself loved as a child, that your own children look forward to months in advance, and that helps preserve our sense of fellowship and community with our neighbors in the midst of all this madness.”
That would be anathema to certain segments of society, however. Hallowe’en certainly inspires a backlash by fundamentalists who consider it a blasphemous abomination. ‘Amateur scholar’ Isaac Bonewits details academically the Hallowe’en errors and lies he feels contribute to its being reviled. Some of the panic over Hallowe’en is akin to the hysteria, fortunately now debunked, over the supposed epidemic of ‘ritual Satanic abuse’ that swept the Western world in the ’90’s.
The horror film has become inextricably linked to Hallowe’en tradition, although the holiday itself did not figure in the movies until John Carpenter took the slasher genre singlehandedly by storm. Googling “scariest films”, you will, grimly, reap a mother lode of opinions about how to pierce the veil to journey to the netherworld and reconnect with that magical, eerie creepiness in the dark (if not the over-the-top blood and gore that has largely replaced the subtlety of earlier horror films).
The Carfax Abbey Horror Films and Movies Database includes best-ever-horror-films lists from Entertainment Weekly, Mr. Showbiz and Hollywood.com. I’ve seen most of these; some of their choices are not that scary, some are just plain silly, and they give extremely short shrift to my real favorites, the evocative classics of the ’30’s and ’40’s when most eeriness was allusive and not explicit. And here’s what claims to be a compilation of links to the darkest and most gruesome sites on the web. “Hours and hours of fun for morbidity lovers.”
Boing Boing does homage to a morbid masterpiece of wretched existential horror, two of the tensest, scariest hours of my life repeated every time I watch it:
‘…The Thing starts. It had been 9 years since The Exorcist scared the living shit out of audiences in New York and sent people fleeing into the street. Really … up the aisle and out the door at full gallop. You would think that people had calmed down a bit since then. No…
The tone of The Thing is one of isolation and dread from the moment it starts. By the time our guys go to the Norwegian outpost and find a monstrous steaming corpse with two merged faces pulling in opposite directions the audience is shifting in their seats. Next comes the dog that splits open with bloody tentacles flying in all directions. The women are covering their eyes….’
Meanwhile, what could be creepier in the movies than the phenomenon of evil children? Gawker knows what shadows lurk in the hearts of the cinematic young:
‘In celebration of Halloween, we took a shallow dive into the horror subgenre of evil-child horror movies. Weird-kid cinema stretches back at least to 1956’s The Bad Seed, and has experienced a resurgence recently via movies like The Babadook, Goodnight Mommy, and Cooties. You could look at this trend as a natural extension of the focus on domesticity seen in horror via the wave of haunted-house movies that 2009’s Paranormal Activity helped usher in. Or maybe we’re just wizening up as a culture and realizing that children are evil and that film is a great way to warn people of this truth. Happy Halloween. Hope you don’t get killed by trick-or-treaters.’
In any case: trick or treat! …And may your Hallowe’en soothe your soul.
‘There’s a theory I like that suggests why the nineteenth century is so rich in ghost stories and hauntings. Carbon monoxide poisoning from gas lamps.
Street lighting and indoor lighting burned coal gas, which is sooty and noxious. It gives off methane and carbon monoxide. Outdoors, the flickering flames of the gas lamps pumped carbon monoxide into the air—air that was often trapped low down in the narrow streets and cramped courtyards of industrial cities and towns. Indoors, windows closed against the chilly weather prevented fresh oxygen from reaching those sitting up late by lamplight.
Low-level carbon monoxide poisoning produces symptoms of choking, dizziness, paranoia, including feelings of dread, and hallucinations. Where better to hallucinate than in the already dark and shadowy streets of Victorian London? Or in the muffled and stifling interiors of New England?…’ ( Jeanette Winterson via The Paris Review)
‘‘I want to start a group to go to breakfast, 10 of us, and we each bring $100 to tip the waiter,’ Richard Brooks wrote on Facebook…’ ( via Washington Post)
‘Last week, Delta Air Lines announced changes to its SkyMiles program that will make accruing status and taking advantage of perks much harder. Instead of relying on a combination of dollars spent and miles traveled in the air, Delta will grant status based on a single metric—dollars spent—and raise the amount of spending required to get it. In short, SkyMiles is no longer a frequent-flier program; it’s a big-spender program. These changes are so drastic that one of the reporters at the preeminent travel-rewards website The Points Guy declared that he’s going to “stop chasing airline status.”
When even the points insiders are sick of playing the mileage game, something has clearly gone wrong. In fact, frequent-flier programs are a symptom of a much deeper rot in the American air-travel industry. And although getting mad at airlines is perfectly reasonable, the blame ultimately lies with Congress….’ (The Atlantic)
‘donald trump has never been shy with his language, but recently, the Times editor Alex Kingsbury argues, his violent speech has escalated. In the past few weeks alone, trump suggested that his own former general was treasonous, said that shoplifters should be shot and exhorted his followers to “go after” New York’s attorney general. Alex says he understands why voters tune trump out but stresses the need to pay attention and take action for the sake of American democracy….’ (Opinion – The New York Times)
‘Public fascination with dissociation and its disorders has endured for many years — examples include the books “Sybil” and “The Three Faces of Eve,” both adapted into wildly popular feature films, each about a woman with “multiple personalities.” …Now people are capturing their experiences with dissociation and posting them on social media. …as conversations about mental health continue to migrate into public forums. But research suggests that much of this content isn’t providing reliable information. We asked several mental health providers to explain more about dissociation….’ (The New York Times)
One of my colleagues and mentors, Dr Judith Herman, psychiatric pioneer in trauma studies, is quoted as opining that dissociation is “way under diagnosed.” There is a sense in which she and others with similar views are right. I am constantly diagnosing dissociative disorders that have not been recognized by mental health professionals not familiar enough with their recognition, often resulting in years or decades of unsuccessful treatment and needless distress for patients whose difficulties have been misdiagnosed.
But the opposite problem is also emerging. Fueled by the easy online dissemination of psychiatric information both accurate and inaccurate, dissociation and dissociative identity disorder have joined a series of faddish diagnoses with which people self-label themselves. These have included chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, ADD and ADHD, bipolar disorder, and OCD. Encouraging patients to seek responsible diagnosis by trained and experienced professionals rather than doing the research themselves often leads to dismissive claims that we want to maintain a monopoly on esoteric knowledge that should be democratized and freely available. Self-diagnosis has come to be seen as a virtue, but it is anything but. It should not be seen in terms of the issue of access to the information. The old adage in the field, “A physician who treats themself has a fool for a patient” is truer still for a non-physician, and especially so in mental health care.
Sometimes a patient presenting with an insistence on having a particular diagnosis represents wishful thinking. The aphorism “You see what you want to see and you hear what you want to hear” is pervasive, but someone discerning pointed out that the “second ‘you’ in each clause is not actually ‘you’.” The important thing to figure out in their treatment is what part of them is longing to construe things that way and why. Sometimes you might simply assume that the insistence, for example, on having a dissociative disorder is because explaining things that way represents a hopeful move in the direction of applying the effective treatment. But many of us feel that there are no treatment approaches found to be of established specificity and effectiveness for dissociative experiences. This is different from the situation in, say, insisting that your life struggles are explained by having ADHD, when a request for treatment with a stimulant like Adderail is often not far behind. Or, sometimes, a patient’s investment in having a given disorder may represent a wish to be let ‘off the hook,’ in this age of rampant medicalization of behaviors and behavioral disorders and deflection of personal responsibility.
I think it is no surprise that the therapeutic advances in psychiatry creating the most excitement these days — ketamine, TMS, and psychedelic treatment — all to some degree share one appeal, that of being relatively ‘quick fixes’ in contrast to the preexisting modalities of treatment we have offered. Do they represent true exciting advances or simply what needs to be offered to appeal in times of changing political, economic, social and cultural conditions?
Related: New Study Evaluates Quality of Information on YouTube, TikTok About Dissociative Identity Disorder (American Psychiatric Association)
‘Not only are vaccine cards no longer necessary to track your shots or to prove your vaccination status, the CDC has stopped issuing them. So if you can’t find yours, no worries. And if you do still have it handy, tuck it away to pass on to your grandchildren, as a souvenir of that time you lived through a pandemic….’
‘When two ions passed by each other without colliding, some of their virtual photons interacted and turned into real photons with very high energy. These photons then collided with each other and produced electron-positron pairs, which were detected by the STAR detector at RHIC. The scientists analyzed more than 6,000 such pairs and found that their angular distribution matched the theoretical prediction for matter creation from light….’ ( science and space via rightnes)
‘America has begun to treat Covid-19 like just any other disease — boosters are now arriving on an annual fall cycle, on the flu model, with large portions of the country not bothering with them, also on the flu model.
But, objectively, Covid is not just another disease — not yet. Last year, it was the only infectious disease among the country’s top 10 causes of death. We are obviously on an off-ramp from the pandemic emergency, since even though many more Americans have gotten Covid over the last year, many fewer are dying than did in the first two years of Covid-19. But while the worst is behind us, it’s also not quite right to see the disease as epidemiological wallpaper.
This is precisely the long transition from emergency to normality that the immunologist and epidemiologist Michael Mina has predicted since almost the beginning of the pandemic. Beginning in 2020, Mina took pains to describe Covid-19 as a “textbook virus,” with features that may have startled lay people — long Covid and post-acute sequelae, waning immunity and reinfection — but were, in his view, simply what could be expected from a new pathogen spreading through a global population with no immunity….’ (The New York Times)
‘On Wednesday, October 4 in the U.S., the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will test its Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system. At 2:20 p.m. Eastern, people will receive a message on their mobile phones that reads, “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.” In addition to the message, your iPhone will vibrate and play “a special sound that’s similar to an alarm” even if your iPhone is on silent. The alert will appear in Spanish for users who set their devices for that language.
FEMA says that the test will run for 30 minutes, so if your phone is off at the start of the test but then turned on during the 30-minute window, you will get a test message. The test message should be sent only once and you can delete the message after it is received. If a person subscribes to a wireless provider that does not participate in WEA, they will not receive the test….’ (Macworld)
‘There’s a new COVID booster at pharmacies, and the simple thing to say about it is this: It’s good, it’s free, and you should get it. Unfortunately, the process of getting one of these shots isn’t going smoothly for everyone, with some people being told they’ll need to pay for it, and some having appointments canceled at the last minute. Let’s talk about what’s going on, and what you can do about it.
The underlying reason for the confusion, by the way, is that we are no longer in the national public health emergency that was declared in early 2020. This means that certain vaccination and testing programs no longer operate the way they used to. Previously, state-run vaccine programs coordinated shipment and payment for vaccines; now, it’s up to manufacturers, pharmacies, and insurance companies to fold COVID vaccination into their “business as usual” operations. And that transition has been a bit bumpy….’ (Lifehacker)
‘First it was chess and Go. Now AI can beat us at Diplomacy, the most human of board games. The way it wins offers hope that maybe AI will be a delight….’ (WIRED)
‘donald trump admired a Glock handgun today during a campaign stop in South Carolina with Marjorie Taylor Greene cheering him on. “I want to buy one,” the MAGA conman said. (See video posted by The Recount.)
His campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, even posted a video (different angle from the one below) about Trump’s shopping spree at the gun store, tweeting, “President trump purchases a @GlockInc in South Carolina!” (See image at bottom of this post.)
And then, after the tweet went viral, it mysteriously disappeared. And Cheung suddenly denied the purchase.
Hmm, looks like somebody just remembered that the former one-term president is also a four-times indicted crook — and perhaps not the best match under federal law to purchase or possess a handgun….’ (Boing Boing)
‘In their new book Tyranny of the Minority, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt — the authors of How Democracies Die — argue America’s founders faced [a problem analogous to Scylla and Charybdis]: navigating between two types of dictatorship that threatened to devour the new country.
The founders, per Levitsky and Ziblatt, were myopically focused on one of them: the fear of a majority-backed demagogue seizing power. As a result, they made it exceptionally difficult to pass new laws and amend the constitution. But the founders, the pair argues, lost sight of a potentially more dangerous monster on the other side of the strait: a determined minority abusing this system to impose its will on the democratic majority.
“By steering the republic so sharply away from the Scylla of majority tyranny, America’s founders left it vulnerable to the Charybdis of minority rule,” they write….’ (Vox)
“The Witches’ Thanksgiving and the second harvest. Day and night are of equal length, looking forward to the days’ shortening. The Autumn Equinox is the time of the descent of the Goddess into the Underworld. We also bid farewell to the Harvest Lord who was slain at Lammas. Welsh legend brings us the story of Mabon, who dwells, a happy captive, in Modron’s magickal Otherworld — his mother’s womb. Only in this way can he be reborn.”
‘Sarah Palin has a gift for uttering semi-coherent statements that make her out to be a victim of nefarious agents of the deep state. Whenever she or any of her MAGA compatriots stumble into mishaps or display questionable judgment and subsequently face repercussions, Palin is quick to weave a narrative of misunderstood heroes facing unjust punishment.
In a recent appearance on Newsmax, hosted by Eric Bolling, Palin voiced her discontent regarding the prison terms handed to members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for their attempts to overthrow the US government:
It’s so disheartening, the examples that you’ve given, Eric. It makes the populace lose a lot of faith in our government and that’s an understatement. Unfortunately, what this leads to, when we recognize the examples that you just gave, the two-tier different justice systems that apply according to politics, you know it makes the good guy think “what’s the use in being a good guy?” We’re gonna be punished, you know, we’re picked on, is what we are under this system. But we can’t feel helpless and hopeless.
Palin seems to suggest that she and her fellow pseudo-patriots should abandon their “good guy” personas. These “good guys” have been found guilty by a jury of their peers of participating in a seditious conspiracy to violently subvert the Presidential election and impose a dictator. It makes you wonder; what does she want them to do as “bad guys?”…’ (Boing Boing)
‘Webcam video … of Mexico’s Popocatépet volcano showed a fleet of UFOs exiting the crater and zipping off into the sky. This shouldn’t be a surprise as, according to Coast to Coast, Popocatépetl has long been thought to be an entrance to a secret UFO base deep within the Earth’s core. This is undeniable proof of that theory unless you somehow believe the wildly outlandish proposition that what you’re seeing is actually a line of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites crossing the sky at an angle that makes them appear to be exiting the volcano….’ (Boing Boing)
‘As the U.S. government built its latest stretch of border wall, Mexico made a statement of its own by laying remains of the Berlin Wall a few steps away. The 3-ton pockmarked, gray concrete slab sits between a bullring, a lighthouse and the border wall, which extends into the Pacific Ocean…
Shards of the Berlin Wall scattered worldwide after it crumbled in 1989, with collectors putting them in hotels, schools, transit stations and parks. Marcos Cline, who makes commercials and other digital productions in Los Angeles, needed a home for his artifact and found an ally in Tijuana’s mayor…
President Joe Biden issued an executive order his first day in office to halt wall construction, ending a signature effort by his predecessor, Donald Trump. But his administration has moved ahead with small, already-contracted projects, including replacing a two-layered wall in San Diego standing 18 feet (5.5 meters) high with one rising 30 feet (9.1 meters) and stretching 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) to the ocean..’ (POLITICO)
Interestingly, Tijuana’s mayor Montserrat Caballero, who is married to an American living in San Diego, used to negotiate the Tijuana-San Diego border crossing with frequency. However, since alerted by US intelligence to credible threats against her (probably cartel-related) and an assassination attempt on her bodyguard, she and her son have been living in a military barracks in Tijuana under Mexican government protection.
‘A majority of Americans say their concern about artificial intelligence in daily life outweighs their excitement about it, according to a Pew Research Center survey of more than 11,000 US adults. The results come at a time when a growing number of people are paying attention to news about AI in their daily lives. Pew has run this survey twice before and reports that the number of people more concerned than excited about AI jumped from 37 percent in 2021 to 52 percent this month….’ (WIRED)
Woolly Mammoth Coming Back to Life by 2027: De-Extinction Details
‘Colossal recently added $60 million in funding to move toward a 2027 de-extinction of the woolly mammoth.
The Dallas-based company is now working to edit the genes for the reincarnation of the mammal.
Colossal planned to reintroduce the woolly mammoth into Russia, but that may shift….’ (Popular Mechanic)
‘David LaFlamme, who infused the psychedelic rock of the 1960s with the plaintive sounds of an electric violin as a founder of It’s a Beautiful Day, the ethereal San Francisco band whose breakout hit, “White Bird,” encapsulated the hippie-era longing for freedom, died on Aug. 6 in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 82.
His daughter Kira LaFlamme said the cause of his death, at a health care facility, was complications of Parkinson’s disease.
Mr. LaFlamme had seemed an unlikely fit for the role of flower-power troubadour. He was a classically trained violinist who had performed with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. He was an Army veteran. “When I was a young man, I carried my M-1 very proudly and was ready to do my duty to defend my country,” he said in a 2007 video interview….’ (New York Times obituary)
‘A new POLITICO Magazine/Ipsos poll provides some bad news for trump: Even as he remains the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination, the cascading indictments are likely to take a toll on his general election prospects.
The survey results suggest Americans are taking the cases seriously — particularly the Justice Department’s 2020 election case — and that most people are skeptical of trump’s claim to be the victim of a legally baseless witch hunt or an elaborate, multi-jurisdictional effort to “weaponize” law enforcement authorities against him….’ (POLITICO)
‘I’ve been studying nonverbal communication for over 50 years, 25 of them as an FBI agent specializing in decoding human behavior. I learned that humans are fairly good at lying — but they’re lousy at concealing their true emotions, especially when stressed. We reveal our unspoken thoughts in our bodies: faces flushed with embarrassment, lips pursed at unwelcome questions, fingers covering the neck dimple when discussing a touchy subject…
Here’s what I noticed at this debate:…’ (POLITICO)
‘9/11 Truther Vivek Ramaswamy won the hearts and minds of GOP voters last night by exuding the smarmy smugness of incel streamer Nick Fuentes while siding with Russia, calling for an increase in the combustion of fossil fuels, and for repeatedly interrupting the debate to hurl insults at the other candidates. Last night’s performance has cemented his reputation as a younger, nastier, and more energetic version of Donald Trump. DeSantis’s tactic of angrily yelling his answers didn’t have a chance against Ramaswamy’s stage-commanding presence.
Another selling point for Ramaswamy is the fact that the company that made him rich, Roivant Sciences, has never been profitable. For Republicans, “beating the system” in a Trump-like fashion is a badge of honor.
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Wikikpedia reports that while serving as CEO of Roivant Sciences, Ramaswamy engineered high-profile deals that brought in major investments and generated massive personal profits for himself through share sales, even as later failures wiped out billions in shareholder value. Ramaswamy was insulated from company losses because he held his stake partially through the parent firm Roivant. For example, when clinical trials failed for Alzheimer’s drug intepirdine from Roivant subsidiary Axovant, shareholders lost over 75% of their investment overnight while Ramaswamy pocketed cashed out $37 million in Axovant shares before problems emerged. In this way, Ramaswamy personally enriched himself on speculative biotech investments, while regular shareholders bore the greatest losses when expectations were not met….’ (Boing Boing)
‘Fulton County is bracing for the worst. trump has called for protests, but few supporters show up anymore. Perhaps they have seen the hundreds of January 6th adherents get charged, and the jail sentences that have been rolling out.
The donald has also shuffled the deck chairs on his Georgia representation, hiring a new lawyer that most assume is intended to represent well on TV….’ (Boing Boing)
‘donald trump, known for his orange makeup, blasted Fox & Friends for displaying photos of him looking, well, orange.
After complaining in one of his tantrum tweets, posted this morning, that the Fox program has refused to find nonexistent polls between Biden and himself that place him way ahead, the modest ex-president then raged against Fox for showing viewers what he looked like, and was especially upset that the program allowed trump’s chin to show….’ (Boing Boing)
‘On Monday, September 11, the 4K restoration of Jonathan Demme’s classic Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense will premier at the Toronto International Film Festival. Trailer below. In attendance will be David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison, and Chris Frantz. This will be the first time the band will be together publicly since their 2002 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The four will participate in a panel discussion hosted by Spike Lee following the film. So far, there is no announcement of a performance. Meanwhile though, David Byrne has expressed his “regrets” about the acrimony within the band….’ (Boing Boing)
One of the two greatest rock’n’roll concert films of all time, together with The Last Waltz. Rewatched the latter recently after Robbie Robertson’s passing; time to rewatch Stop Making Sense again!
Neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley reconstructed Pink Floyd’s classic rock song “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1” using recordings of the brain activity of 29 patients who heard the song while undergoing brain surgery. ( Daniela Hernandez via WSJ)
‘The Georgia case sweeps more broadly than prior indictments — and for the first time, some of the charges carry a mandatory minimum prison sentence….’ (POLITICO)
‘The single most effective method for resolving debts is carefully sending a series of letters invoking one’s rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1978 (and other legislation) to a debt collector who is operationally incapable of respecting those rights, then threatening them with legal or regulatory action when they inevitably infringe upon them in writing, leading to them abandoning further attempts at collection.
This effectively makes paying consumer debts basically optional in the United States, contingent on one being sufficiently organized and informed. That is likely a surprising result to many people. Is the financial industry unaware of this? Oh no. Issuing consumer debt is an enormously profitable business. The vast majority of consumers, including those with the socioeconomic wherewithal to walk away from their debts, feel themselves morally bound and pay as agreed….’ (Boing Boing)
‘It seems Ice Cube has become quite the conservative media darling lately, sitting down with not just Carlson, but Joe Rogan and Piers Morgan as well. He’s joining a long list of rappers – Kanye West, Da Baby, Kodak Black, Lil Pump – who have all put themselves in dangerous proximity to conservative politicians even as rightwing populism threatens to destroy their communities….’ (The Guardian)
‘The music he matched to his passionate yarns mined the roots of every essential American genre, including folk, country, blues and gospel. Yet when his history-minded compositions first appeared on albums by the Band in the late 1960s, they felt vital as well as vintage….’ (The New York Times obituary)
When I came home from traveling during the summer of 1968, my good friend and partner in music discovery said “I’m not sure you’re going to like this,” handing me the newly-released Music From Big Pink, The Band’s seminal first album. He could not have been more wrong and he did not stop apologizing for a long while. No music moved me more, or brought me more joy, during the late ’60’s and into the ’70’s. The deaths of Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, its pathos-ridden vocalists, and now Robertson, the Band’s guitar voice, leave all our hearts more speechless.
‘We have a rich picture of the beginnings of language, thanks to decades of scientific research with children, infants, and even babies in the womb. But if you wanted to know how language ends in the dying, there’s next to nothing to look up, only firsthand knowledge gained painfully….’ (The Atlantic)
‘[V]iolent extremist groups have begun to mesh over a unifying figure: trump. The former president has become a focal point of domestic extremism, and by not denouncing them — and sometimes courting them — he has been adopted by these groups as a de facto spiritual leader. In some ways, Trump has also co-opted these groups to boost his own support. This, in my assessment, makes the former president a leading driver of domestic extremism, and an unprecedented danger to our security….’ (POLITICO)
‘The rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse are skyrocketing. And it’s not just because of climate change, but we know that anytime this population is asked about climate change, it is clearly a source of severe distress,” he said. “People are deciding not to have children, people are worried about their future….’ ( Sarah Owermohle via Stat)
‘“It’s just more evidence that these justices on the Supreme Court, these conservative justices, just see themselves as politicians,” Murphy said….’ (POLITICO)
‘Very little can stop the average American from eating beef — and quite a lot of it. On a per-capita basis, Americans eat nearly 60 pounds of red meat a year, equivalent to more than one quarter-pound hamburger every other day. But there’s one obstacle to our meat-loving tendencies that may not be surmountable: the tiny but aggressive lone star tick.
The tick (named for the female’s distinctive white dot on its back) can spread something called sugar alpha-gal via its spit. That sugar can trigger alpha-gal syndrome, or AGS, a condition that causes hives, nausea, heartburn, diarrhea, difficulty breathing, and a drop in blood pressure, among other symptoms, in sufferers around two to six hours after they eat beef, pork, and other mammal products. Essentially, sufferers become severely allergic to red meat….’ (Vox)
‘South Korean researchers say they’ve discovered, an alleged room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor, as reported in IFLScience. As the name implies, superconductors conduct electricity with negligible resistance, unlike metal wires. Traditional superconductors that require extremely low temperatures, but LK-99 is claimed to function under everyday conditions. Its critical temperature, below which it exhibits superconductivity, is 261 °F.
If verified, this discovery could have far-reaching implications for technological applications, including magnets, motors, cables, levitation trains, power cables, qubits for quantum computers, and THz antennas. “We believe that our new development will be a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind,” say the researchers, whose paper was uploaded to arXiv….’ (Boing Boing)
‘Extreme heat and other weather events are driving bears closer to humans’ campgrounds and hiking trails—and that’s no good for either species….’ (WIRED)
‘Bullshit’s no laughing matter. Climate denialism bullshit, for example, is harmful. Misinformation about SARS-CoV-2 clearly cost lives. In fact, the biologist Carl Bergstrom, while watching the pandemic unfold, argued that “detecting bullshit” should be a top scientific priority. In 2020, Bergstrom coauthored a book called Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World. In their preface, he and his coauthor paid respect to the philosopher Harry Frankfurt, who died on Sunday at the age of 94. Frankfurt, they noted, “recognized that the ubiquity of bullshit is a defining characteristic of our time.”
Frankfurt, the author of the surprise 2005 bestseller On Bullshit, maintained that bullshit isn’t the same thing as a lie. The bullshitter is unaware of the facts. They’re just “bullshitting,” as we say, often in order to persuade others to go along with something, like a plan. But the liar deceives knowing what’s true and obscures it, with language or charts and figures. The good news is that we don’t have to resign ourselves to observing the spread of bullshit—or lies.
In a new study published in Nature Human Behavior, researchers came away optimistic about efforts to combat bullshit about COVID-19, which continues apace….’ (Nautilus)
‘A woman in France recently enjoying coffee with her friend was struck by a small meteorite in what is considered an extremely rare event, according to local news.
The woman was chatting with her friend outside on a terrace when she was hit in the ribs by a mysterious pebble, French newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace (DNA) reported….’ ( Aristos Georgiou via Newsweek)
Update: ‘Meteorite’ that struck French woman was just a regular Earth rock
Thanks to Richard, who replied “Rabbit, rabbit” to the reprise of my annual ‘New Year’s Customs and Traditions’ post below. 
‘Towards the end of 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis had just ended, it was still a year-and-a-day until the first episode of Doctor Who would air, and a remarkable book was published. It was not the content of the book that was so astonishing; Bernard Shaw’s play Androcles and the Lion was fifty years old by this stage. This edition of Androcles and the Lion witnessed the birth of an entirely new alphabet, and its publication was a close-run thing.
This is the annual update of my New Year post, a longstanding FmH tradition. Please let me know if you find any dead links:
Many parts of the U.S. celebrate the new year by consuming black-eyed peas. These legumes are typically accompanied by either hog jowls or ham. Black-eyed peas and other legumes have been considered good luck in many cultures. The hog, and thus its meat, is considered lucky because it symbolizes prosperity. Cabbage is another ‘good luck’ vegetable that is consumed on New Year’s Day by many. Cabbage leaves are also considered a sign of prosperity, being representative of paper currency. In some regions, rice is a lucky food that is eaten on New Year’s Day.”
Here’s why we clink our glasses when we drink our New Year’s toasts, no matter where we are. Of course, sometimes the midnight cacophony is louder than just clinking glassware, to create a ‘devil-chasing din’.
In Georgia, eat black eyed peas and turnip greens on New Year’s Day for luck and prosperity in the year to come, supposedly because they symbolize coppers and currency. Hoppin’ John, a concoction of peas, onion, bacon and rice, is also a southern New Year’s tradition, as is wearing yellow to find true love (in Peru and elsewhere in South America, yellow underwear, apparently!) or carrying silver for prosperity. In some instances, a dollar bill is thrown in with the other ingredients of the New Year’s meal to bring prosperity. In Greece, there is a traditional New Year’s Day sweetbread with a silver coin baked into it. All guests get a slice of the bread and whoever receives the slice with the coin is destined for good fortune for the year. At Italian tables, lentils, oranges and olives are served. The lentils, looking like coins, will bring prosperity; the oranges are for love; and the olives, symbolic of the wealth of the land, represent good fortune for the year to come.
When taking the plunge, revelers are supposed to jump over seven waves, one for each day of the week.
In China, homes are cleaned spotless to appease the Kitchen God, and papercuttings of red paper are hung in the windows to scare away evil spirits who might enter the house and bring misfortune. Large papier mache dragon heads with long fabric bodies are maneuvered through the streets during the Dragon Dance festival, and families open their front doors to let the dragon bring good luck into their homes.
In Germany and Austria, lead pouring” (das Bleigießen) is an old divining practice using molten lead like tea leaves. A small amount of lead is melted in a tablespoon (by holding a flame under the spoon) and then poured into a bowl or bucket of water. The resulting pattern is interpreted to predict the coming year. For instance, if the lead forms a ball (der Ball), that means luck will roll your way. The shape of an anchor (der Anker) means help in need. But a cross (das Kreuz) signifies death. This is also a practice in parts of Finland, apparently.
Romanians celebrate the new year by wearing bear costumes and dancing around to ward off evil
The classical Roman New Year’s celebration was also in the spring although the calendar went out of synchrony with the sun. January 1st became the first day of the year by proclamation of the Roman Senate in 153 BC, reinforced even more strongly when Julius Caesar established what came to be known as the Julian calendar in 46 BC. The early Christian Church condemned new year’s festivities as pagan but created parallel festivities concurrently. New Year’s Day is still observed as the Feast of Christ’s Circumcision in some denominations. Church opposition to a new year’s observance reasserted itself during the Middle Ages, and Western nations have only celebrated January 1 as a holidy for about the last 400 years. The custom of New Year’s gift exchange among Druidic pagans in 7th century Flanders was deplored by Saint Eligius, who warned them, “[Do not] make vetulas, [little figures of the Old Woman], little deer or iotticos or set tables [for the house-elf] at night or exchange New Year gifts or supply superfluous drinks [another Yule custom].” (Wikipedia)
The tradition of the New Year’s Baby signifying the new year began with the Greek tradition of parading a baby in a basket during the Dionysian rites celebrating the annual rebirth of that god as a symbol of fertility. The baby was also a symbol of rebirth among early Egyptians. Again, the Church was forced to modify its denunciation of the practice as pagan because of the popularity of the rebirth symbolism, finally allowing its members to cellebrate the new year with a baby although assimilating it to a celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus. The addition of Father Time (the “Old Year”) wearing a sash across his chest with the previous year on it, and the banner carried or worn by the New Year’s Baby, immigrated from Germany. Interestingly, January 1st is not a legal holiday in Israel, officially because of its historic origins as a Christian feast day.
‘As of November 2023, the “reaction area” in one of the L.A. dumps “had grown by 30 to 35 acres, according to the agency [CalRecycle]. Already, the heat has melted or deformed the landfill’s gas collection system, which consists mostly of polyvinyl chloride well casings. The damage has hindered the facility’s efforts to collect toxic pollutants.” This seems to imply it will get worse, and nearby residents have begun reporting chemical smells.
‘The advent of the war triggered fears of outright nuclear conflict between the West and Russia. That period of somewhat frenzied speculation has passed. The war has since settled into a grinding—but conventional—stalemate. To be sure, U.S. officials are still concerned that Russia may use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. “I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in June. The risk, he continued, is “real.” But officials do not appear to believe that the war in Ukraine could lead Russia to use its nuclear arsenal against a NATO state, however furious it is at the West for supporting Ukraine.
‘In an influential article published last April, Andrew Krepinevich argued that we are entering a new nuclear age. China, he said, is ‘upending the bipolar nuclear power system’. That world was dangerous enough, but a world of three major thermonuclear powers could be much worse. ‘In a tripolar system,’ Krepinevich argued, ‘it is simply not possible for each state to maintain nuclear parity with the combined arsenals of its two rivals.’ Any attempt to do so would likely result in an uncontrolled arms race, increasing the chances of a catastrophic war.
‘Places that are usually hot or cold developed languages differently….’ ( via Atlas Obscura )
‘The invention of digital bioacoustics is analogous to the invention of the microscope. When Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek started looking through his microscopes, he discovered the microbial world, and that laid the foundation for countless future breakthroughs. So the microscope enabled humans to see anew with both our eyes and our imaginations.
‘Henry Kissinger, who died on Nov. 29, 2023 at the age of 100, stood as a colossus of U.S. foreign policy. His influence on American politics lasted long beyond his eight-year stint guiding the Nixon and Ford administrations as national security adviser and secretary of state, with successive presidents, presidential candidates and top diplomats seeking his advice and approval ever since.
‘What his victory in America’s election would mean…’ ( via The Economist )
‘The transportation sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, almost all of it from cars and trucks. Yet the nation is starkly divided on the solution. An overlay placed on the states most hostile to electric vehicle policies would dovetail almost perfectly with those that voted for Donald Trump in 2020. According to a trade association quarterly report, deep red Wyoming, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, and North Dakota have the nation’s lowest rates of EV sales. And good luck finding a public charging station in the Deep South or the Great Plains….’ ( By Renée Loth via Boston Globe )
Not exactly, although there are some near misses. Perhaps it is unsurprising that the words that are nearly universal are mostly related to foods that originated in one place, and then spread around the world. Not having developed independently, you would not expect their names to have developed independently. ( Cindy Blanco via DuoLingo Blog )‘Some neuroscientists now believe that the drugs’ mental-health benefits don’t come from tripping….’ ( Cornell-Weill director of psychopharmacology Dr Richard A. Friedman via The Atlantic )
The toolbar is irretrievable but following the space station in orbit. Surprisingly bright and visible from earth with binoculars. ( By Robert Lea published 1 day ago via Space )
occasion for anti-Catholic fervor, with the ringing of church bells and the lighting of bonfires, to the point of forgetting the deliverance of the monarch. “Although Guy Fawkes’ actions have been considered acts of terrorism by many people, cynical Britons… sometimes joke that he was the only man to go to Parliament with honourable intentions.”
The annual festival has become much more about festive fun than solemn remembrance:
Some say that the celebration of Guy Fawkes Night helped shape the modern tradition of trick or treating, although it has ancient pre-Christian origins. Some American colonists celebrated Guy Fawkes Day and those fleeing the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s helped popularize Hallowe’en. By the 19th century, British children wearing masks and carrying effigies of Fawkes were roaming the streets on the evening of November 5 asking for “a penny for the Guy,” with any money gathered being used to buy fireworks — the explosives never used by the plotters — to be set off while the Guy was immolated on the bonfire.
Many feel that Guy Fawkes (Bonfire Night) has a particularly Pagan feel. As with Hallowe’en, it may be no accident that Guy Fawkes Day coincides with the Celtic festival of Samhain, one of the moon festivals featuring large bonfires. Some think of Guy Fawkes Night as a sort of detached Samhain celebration and the effigies of Guy Fawkes burned on the bonfires compare with the diabolical images associated with Samhain or Hallowe’en. But, as one fan says, “Guy Fawkes Night has never sold out to Hallmark… Halloween is all about fakery – makeup, facepaint, costumes, imitation blood. Fireworks Night is about very real, very powerful, very hot flames.”
‘Watching these Hot Wheels toy cars zoom down an empty waterslide made me feel like a kid again for 5 minutes. I love how the video is filmed from the POV of a camera rolling down the slide with the cars, making it feel like as a viewer, you’re sitting on top of it….’ (Boing Boing)
‘It’s a crazy idea—and it unfortunately needs debunking…’ (Antonio De Loera-Brust, former special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of State,via Foreign Policy )
‘There’s a theory I like that suggests why the nineteenth century is so rich in ghost stories and hauntings. Carbon monoxide poisoning from gas lamps.
‘Course exploring impact of magic and witchcraft on society comes amid growing interest in folklore…’ ( Rachel Hall via The Guardian )
‘According to Pennsylvania law, fortune-telling is a crime….’ ( Zoe Greenberg via Philadelphia Inquirer )
‘‘I want to start a group to go to breakfast, 10 of us, and we each bring $100 to tip the waiter,’ Richard Brooks wrote on Facebook…’ ( via Washington Post )
‘When two ions passed by each other without colliding, some of their virtual photons interacted and turned into real photons with very high energy. These photons then collided with each other and produced electron-positron pairs, which were detected by the STAR detector at RHIC. The scientists analyzed more than 6,000 such pairs and found that their angular distribution matched the theoretical prediction for matter creation from light….’ ( science and space via rightnes )
‘donald trump, known for his orange makeup, blasted Fox & Friends for displaying photos of him looking, well, orange.
‘On Monday, September 11, the 4K restoration of Jonathan Demme’s classic Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense will premier at the Toronto International Film Festival. Trailer below. In attendance will be David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison, and Chris Frantz. This will be the first time the band will be together publicly since their 2002 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The four will participate in a panel discussion hosted by Spike Lee following the film. So far, there is no announcement of a performance. Meanwhile though, David Byrne has expressed his “regrets” about the acrimony within the band….’ (Boing Boing)
