Who Are the People's Lobbyists?
Here's another gloss on the corrupting power of money from large corporations, in this instance health-care insurance companies — not to mention the silly, antidemocratic notion of "corporate personhood" that recognizes campaign "contributions" from such corporations as political "speech" protected by the First Amendment.
First, note the observation the the health insurance and HMO corporations spend $700,000 per day lobbying congress. How many uninsured families could be covered for $700,000 per day? (By the end of a year, about 20,000 at current premiums.)
Keeping in mind that the House of Representatives has 435 members and the Senate has 100 (total: 535):
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the insurance interests have 875 registered lobbyists representing its concerns in Washington D.C., and HMOs have 920 registered lobbyists. The total figure for 2009, 1,795, is slightly fewer than 2,000 lobbyists the industries employed in 2008. It is possible that late hires during the important fall months will push 2009 figures past the 2008 record.
["Insurance and HMO Industries Spend Nearly $700,000 A Day to Kill Health Care Reform Measures", Public Campaign Action Fund, 15 September 2009.]
In: All, Current Events, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Don't "Build to a Crescendo"
While I'm feeling a little peevish about things publishable, I want to talk for a moment to all those authors who want to be dramatic and write that something "built to a crescendo" — and those editors who edit them.
Don't write it. Ask your musician friends first what this musical term means. The "crescendo" is not the end-point of some process, it is the process. A "crescendo" is the act of slowly getting louder in music; the opposite is a "decrescendo".
Look! You can even use it as a verb: "They crescendoed to an ear-shattering triple fortissimo!"
Isn't that more fun now that misusing a cliched phrase that marks you as a second-tier (at least) writer?
And while I'm at it, I think I may scream if I see one more person write the wimpy "Make no mistake…". Don't do that, either, aspiring writers. All it does is emphasize how weak your rhetorical skills are compared to how strong you mistakenly think they are.
In: All, Feeling Peevish, Writing
Oh! Those Poor, Poor Ligatures
Last week I was reading a novel — can't remember which one so its publisher will be spared the embarrassment — when I was distracted by ugly typesetting. The occasion was the author's use of the word "affiliated".
There was a period, a brief dark ages of pseudo-typesetting. generally thought of vulgarly as "output", when computers and the unsophisticated word-processing programs that typically ran on them (WordStar, WordPerfect, & Word come to mind) were unable to carry on the centuries-old traditions of using typefaces with ligatures (among other failings). They thought they were pretty clever for doing right justification with Courier, and then being able to handle proportional fonts–woo hoo!
Of course, that was not really a technical limitation but a failure of imagination mixed with a lot of naivete, rather similar to the popular reaction when Microsoft added multitasking to a dressed-up version of their DOS. Incredibly, people thought they invented it, little realizing that it was a common feature of real operating systems long before the PC appeared. What a shame that they didn't do a bit of homework and implement pre-emptive multitasking as they should have.
And so, it was also popularly thought that proportional type and justification and fonts were a recent invention of word-processing purveyors. This overlooks, of course, the craft of typesetting as practices in the previous five centuries. The concurrent misconception that justification was beyond the capability of personal computers until then, quite overlooking that Don Knuth's fabulous TeX system did expert typesetting, with sophisticated typesetting of mathematical expressions, already c. 1982. It still justifies a paragraph of text with more grace and elegance than any line-oriented word processor I know of.
Yet another feature of the long history of typesetting that disappeared with word processors was ligatures. (A bit about ligatures, with pretty pictures.) There's really no excuse for it — TeX easily handled ligatures from its earliest implementations. Rather than technical limitations it seem more likely to me that the wizards (well, program designers) at Microsoft just hadn't heard of them.
It's a pity. Bad typesetting ruins the flow of the text and interrupts the reader's involvement. As I mentioned, in this horrible instance it was the word "affiliated".
Everyone–positively everyone–knows that there are a few vital ligatures in English typesetting, to wit: fl, fi, and ffi. These days, too, it's not all that hard to accomplish, particularly if one is a professional typesetter working for a commercial publisher.
Now, it wasn't as if "affiliated" was set without any ligatures at all. No, no, no, it was worse. Instead of using an "ffi" ligature, or just setting "f", "f", and "i", they used an "fi" ligature: "f" + "fi".
It was ugly, ugly, ugly!
Thank you, I do feel better now.
In: All, Books, Feeling Peevish
Faster or slower?
A few days ago I ordered prescription refills. They will be delivered to our house from some remote location. The medications on my list come in two types: 1) plain old pills, requiring no special handling; and 2) temperature-sensitive insulin, which is usually sent in special packaging containing cold packs via expedited delivery.
I got a confirmation that the order was shipped. As expected, two different routes were to be used. The two different shipping methods promised these delivery times:
- 1 to 5 days; or
- 2 to 3 days.
The obvious question then is "which one is actually faster?"
Perhaps option #1 is faster, because it's delivery might arrive in only one day; of course, it could take a "business week" to get here, too. On the other hand, option #2 says it will guarantee to deliver as much as 2 days sooner, but maybe 1 or 2 days later than its competitor.
Perhaps the apparent average is a valid statistical approach? Average 3 days for #1, but only 2.5 days for #2; however, I rather doubt that they both would show a uniform distribution that would allow such a simple-minded "average".
It's a quandary, to be sure.
In: All, Curious Stuff, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Friday Soirée V: Elizabethan Excitement
Today it was rainy and gray around here and for some reason that's put me in an Elizabethan mood for tonight's program. However, it may not be the weather since I'm frequently in the mood for Elizabethan music: music from around 1600, particularly the English Virginalists, always delights me.
How fortunate we are to have the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, that fabulous compilation of 298 keyboard works by the leading composers of the day. How doubly fortunate we are that the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book has been available for decades in an affordable, two-volume edition published by Dover. (They also seem to be available for free download at IMSLP.) I've owned my own copy for so many years I can't remember when I bought it, but the price printed on the back cover of my Volume 1 is $8.95 rather than the current retail price of $28.95.
William Byrd: "The Bells"
The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book is called that because the Viscount Fitzwilliam donated his manuscript copy to Cambridge University in 1816; it subsequently moved to the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge.
William Byrd (1540–1623) is handsomely represented in the collection with 69 pieces, over 23% of the total. His prominence is not surprising given his importance to music of the time, not to mention his prolific output.
This six-minute piece, "The Bells", is clearly evocative of bells ringing. It is essentially a string of variations over an unchanging ground bass. The two notes heard at the opening repeat several times, then one more note is introduced for a cadence at the end of the phrase, and the whole thing repeats over and over while the variations play out in improvisatory style overhead. The simple repeated motif gives it a hypnotic quality.
This performance is by Maxwell Steer on a harpsichord. I know nothing about Mr. Steer but he does have a website so we can both learn something about him together. However, I found his playing very personable and intimate and entirely suitable for this music.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Sagan on Brahe & Kepler
The time period around 1600 was not only exciting for music, but for science as well. Just around the corner (about 1610) was Galileo with his revolutionary observation of Jupiter's moons; Newton would publish his theory of universal gravitation in 1666. The time was pregnant with possibilities.
But before we got there, science was tough slogging. Keep in mind that John Napier didn't publish his book of logarithms until 1614 and geometry was considered advanced mathematics.
Against that mathematically undeveloped time Johannes Kepler managed to come up with his laws of planetary motion, working out that the orbit of Mars — and of all the planets — must be an ellipse, spending some 20 years doing the calculations by hand (without logarithms!) based on the remarkably precise, naked-eye astronomical observations of Tycho Brahe. What a time!
Brahe was a celebrity of his time, famed for his skill at observing and for his silver nose. (Actually, it seems he only wore the silver nose for special occasions, using a tin nose for everyday wear.) A dual figured in his impetuous youth….
Anyway, they did work together for a short while before Brahe's death, which is how Kepler finally got his hands on Brahe's Mars observational data. It's a bit of a story, but if you're interested I can recommend Kitty Ferguson's Tycho & Kepler : The Unlikely Partnership That Forever Changed Our Understanding of the Heavens (my book note).
Here Carl Sagan talks a bit about the interaction between Brahe and Kepler, and the remarkable moment in time that led Kepler to his laws of planetary motion.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
William Byrd: The Carman's Whistle
Here is Mr. Byrd again in the piece that may be my favorite of the entire Fitzwilliam collection, "The Carman's Whistle". This is another set of variations, this time it's a tune that is repeated seven times with various decorations that keep the harmonic progression intact until the final variation where Byrd allows some harmonic changes to effect a very grand, rather pompous finale. I love it!
I also am delighted by the jaunty rhythm. The piece is in compound meter (6/8 time), very dance-like, with a syncopation (in effect, one hand plays a half-note/quarter-note figure against a quarter-note/half-note figure in the other hand) that you'll hear at the very beginning and that's maintained throughout, giving the piece it's characteristic lilt.
Again, Mr. Steer is at the harpsichord, but in a different setting this time. I rather like the fact that he makes a mistake in the last variation and just picks himself up and moves on. It makes the whole performance seem very spontaneous to me and I enjoy his vitality. Look at the music cover that hangs over the edge of his music stand and you'll see that he's playing from the Dover edition of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
If, like me, you can't get enough of this piece, here's another charming performance, this one by Dutch harpsichordist Ernst Stolz. His performance is a little slower, a little more elegant, and somewhat more poignant. Also, it's a good chance to compare different instruments.
Tycho Brahe: The Greatest Naked Eye
Okay, now that the main program is over, let's have something odd and frivolous for dessert. This is an oddly comic seven-minute "modern interpretation" of the life of Tycho Brahe, written by Charles Yi & Christina Ian, with one Jesse Shoem as Tycho. I give them high marks for creative interpretation and paying respect to historical fact, with a good dose of entertaining scienticity.
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[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
In: All, Friday Soirée, Music & Art
Rep. Joe Wilson: Republican VP Hopeful?
So we have the curious case of Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, shouting at the President during the latter's remarks to a joint session of congress last night. In the midst of reporting on that in today's press (e.g., the New York Times), some mention was made of the President's speech.
As I traditionally do, I read the speech rather than listened to it, although I heard a few excerpts that told me my memory of the cadence of Obama's speech was still accurate. There were things to like in the speech and some irritants — overall, I would like to hear something more resolutely liberal. Still, it's the outcome that I'll judge.
Mr. Wilson's juvenile behavior in the hallowed halls was inappropriate and scandalous, although we're so inured to inappropriate and scandalous behavior from the time of the previous administration that Wilson's seems almost impotent in addition to immature.
There is talk of how his shout was unprecedented. Maybe during a Presidential address to a joint session of Congress, but I'm still inclined to give former VP Dick Cheney the blue ribbon for inappropriate shouting in the hallowed chambers. You do remember the "Fuck You!" incident? Mr. Wilson carries on the Republican tradition.
I don't think it's any surprise that Mr. Wilson would debase the discourse by heckling the President, since such outbursts seemed to have become de rigueur during the town-hall "debates" of this past August, when conservative Obama critics tried to demonstrate that loud shouting was their idea of good citizenship and democracy in action.
What seemed unexpected was Mr. Wilson's reaction to the reaction to his outburst. Surprise? Shock? Dismay? He seemed almost alarmed that his fellow Republicans didn't all rise and shout "Long live the revolution!" When you expect the approval of your fellow revolutionaries, suddenly being revealed as a lone idiot and trouble-maker must make one feel very naked, and not in a good way.
Of the analyses I've read today, I think Chris Geidner came closest to the mark:
But, unlike the town halls, where the force of the incivility and lies was dispersed throughout the nation and allowed for skewed crowds, Wilson failed to read the temperature of the nation properly. He let the unreasoned few convince him of the mood of the many.
He found out tonight that he was wrong.
[Chris Geidner ,"The Lesson of the Day: Joe Wilson – and Rob Miller", Law Dork, 10 September 2009.]
We can hope, perhaps, that this rather bald example of being misled by the "unreasoned few" might lead to a more accurate reading on the part of the President and his colleagues in Congress and the White House to the temperature of the nation on health-care reform. They won't want to be left standing alone like Joe Wilson now, will they?
In an amusing bit of schadenfreude, Wilson's outburst did have one salutary effect. New of it spread so quickly across the internet that within hours thousands of dollars — tens of thousands — had been contributed to the campaign of Wilson's 2010 opponent for that Congressional seat from South Carolina, Democrat Rob Miller. In fact, the numbers have been going up so fast that I shouldn't be too precise, but last I heard some 10,000 donations totaling nearly $400,000 had been donated since the start of Obama's speech last night. Democracy in action!*
I was not terribly impressed with Wilson's "apology" today, in which he said "I let my emotions get the best of me". Of course it wasn't his emotions that got away from him but reality itself.
———-
* [Update on 11 September 2009:] It's midday Friday, about 40 hours after Obama's speech. Word now is that Rob Miller has raised more than $675,000 from 18,494 people (source), now surpassing by more than 50% the total campaign contributions Wilson has received from the health-care insurance industry. Wilson takes a page from the Palin-Prejean playbook and insists that his stupidity will not be muzzled.
In: All, Current Events, Splenetics, Will Rogers Moments
Like a Laser Beam
A few days ago I read a piece by one Ellen Sterling;* I don't know who she is but I know a bit more about her after reading what she wrote. Her subject was someone else unknown to me named Lior Suchard. Of Suchard she says
At 27, Suchard is the heir apparent to Uri Geller, the self-described Israeli "mystifier" who gained fame bending spoons seemingly only with the power of his mind. In fact, Suchard was the winner on a TV show that designated The New Uri Geller.
The new Uri Geller! I'm underwhelmed, but this is not the part I wanted specifically to mock. Nor was it where Ms. Sterling revealed her "unbiased" opinion:
Over the years, there have been "debunkers" like James Randi [the original had a link to a YouTube video, evidently of Randi debunking, but the URL was "malformed") who said he can explain exactly how Geller does what he does. I am not choosing sides. I've seen demonstrations of the power of the human mind and I am a believer….
I'm interested in hearing two things. One would be her insistence on ignoring explanations of "exactly how Geller does what he does" — I'm sure she acknowledges "higher truths" beyond the merely rational and scientific. Two would be her odd idea that she's "not choosing sides", and yet she's seen the "power of the human mind" and she is a believer. Phew. I hate to think of "choosing sides" might have led to.
No, the bit I wanted to mock was from the beginning of her piece where she quotes Mr. Suchard
Lior Suchard says it's all about focus. "It's the difference between a flashlight and a laser beam. Both are light, but the laser beam is much more focused so you can see more. If you can focus your mind, you can do the same."
This, I'm afraid, does not turn me into a believer on spoon bending and the power of the mind; it merely convinces me that Mr. Suchard has no idea what he's talking about.
While it is not true that a flashlight and a laser beam are both light, it is true that the light from a flashlight and a laser beam are both light. However, while there is a world of difference between the two beams of light, it has nothing to do with "focus".
The light from a flashlight and the light from a laser are produced in markedly different ways. Yes, both involve energy being released by atoms in the form of photos, i.e., light. In a flashlight the photons are released through incandescence: heat the atoms in the light-bulb's filament to such a degree that the filament glows, which means that the atoms, energized by heat, spontaneously give off energy in the form of photons.
On the other hand, in a laser the source atoms are carefully energized by a certain amount and then all of the atoms are stimulated to release a photon‡ (typically) by a passing light-wave in a specially built resonant cavity, which lets some of the created light escape: the laser beam.
The photons in a laser beam typically have very nearly the same wavelength — most lasers you see will have a very clear, characteristic color. Flashlights and other incandescent lamps have a very wide spread to their photon's wavelengths, so they look more-or-less yellowish white. The photons in a laser beam typically are all "in phase" (the peaks and troughs of their waves line up), whereas those coming off the incandescent filament do not, their phases are all jumbled up and random.
Laser cavities are not designed to "focus" the beam; flashlights usually have a parabolic reflector behind the lightbulb (as in, say, car headlamps) to try to create a parallel "beam" of light, and indeed most of the light comes out of a flashlight in a beamish way. In this sense the flashlight would be considered the more "focused" of the two, not the laser beam, although laser beams can be focused with additional optics and often are.
As for saying "…the laser beam is much more focused so you can see more…", I have no idea what that means. How much the eye can see typically depends on 1) the intensity of the light illuminating the object one is looking at; and 2) the sensitivity of the eye to the color of the light doing the illuminating. Oh, wait, perhaps Mr. Suchard means "seeing" as something more transcendent than merely "looking" with one's eyes?
Oh dear. Well, all of this is just my long-winded way of saying that I'm not convinced that Mr. Suchard has any idea what he's talking about, which doesn't leave me much room for admiring the power of his mind to bend spoons and such.
But I bet you're not surprised by my reaction.
———-
* Ellen Sterling, "The Power of the Mind: Lior Suchard Is A Living, Breathing & Entertaining Example", Huffington Post, 6 September 2009.
‡ Recall: LASER = Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Beard of the Week LXXXV: An Early Conservationist
This week's historic beard belongs to Congressman John Fletcher Lacey (1841 – 1913).* Mr. Lacey came to my attention while I was writing a short article on the introduction of starlings to North America ("Starlings Arrive in North America"), of all things. Just how his name came up should become clear shortly.
Here is my abridged version of his official biography (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress):
Representative from Iowa; born in New Martinsville, Va. (now West Virginia), May 30, 1841; moved to Iowa in 1855 with his parents, who settled in Oskaloosa; attended the common schools and pursued classical studies; engaged in agricultural pursuits; learned the trades of bricklaying and plastering; enlisted in Company H, Third Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, in May 1861[; …] studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1865 and commenced practice in Oskaloosa, Iowa; […] elected as a Republican to the Fifty-first Congress (March 4, 1889-March 3, 1891); unsuccessful candidate for reelection; elected to the Fifty-third and to the six succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1893-March 3, 1907); chairman, Committee on Public Lands (Fifty-fourth through Fifty-ninth Congresses); was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection; resumed the practice of law; died in Oskaloosa, Iowa, September 29, 1913….
These days we'd find it exceedingly odd to find the name of someone associated with the Republican party to be a leading conservationist, but times have changed and Lacey is remembered for two important legislative innovations in conservation: "The Lacey Act of 1900", and "The Antiquities Act of 1906".
"The Lacey Act of 1900", sponsored by the congressman, was "the first Federal law protecting game, prohibiting the interstate shipment of illegally taken wildlife, as well as the importation of injurious species. Enforcement of this Act became the responsibility of the Division of Biological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture." (source) The ban on the importation of "injurious species" was the connection with starlings and their introduction to North America, although the legislation came 10 years too late to halt that process.
A curious article from the Thoreau Institute ("State Fish & Wildlife Agencies") gives some background to the Lacey Act:
A legal tradition dating back thousands of years governed wildlife by a "rule of capture"–meaning that they are owned by no one unless killed or captured. Under U.S. common law, wildlife are owned by the people, and the states, rather than federal or local governments, have jurisdiction over their use.
Therefore, regulation of "market hunting" was up to the states. Some few did regulate the practice in the late 1800s, but most did not. This resulted in the common evasive practice of animals being killed illegally in one state and transported into another, where killing them was legal, for sale.
Efforts to ban or regulate commercial hunting accelerated in 1887 when Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell started the Boone and Crockett Club, which soon became the most powerful conservation organization in the country. The club is not as well known today, partly because it restricts its membership to 100 people, but those 100 people tend to be highly influential.
Bans on commercial hunting were difficult to enforce when hunters could take their wares across state lines. In 1900, Boone and Crockett Club member and Iowa Congressman John Lacey convinced Congress to pass a federal law prohibiting interstate shipping of wildlife taken in violation of a state game law. This effectively put commercial hunters out of business.
The Lacey Act was signed into law on May 25, 1900 by President William McKinley.
By the time Lacey introduced "The Antiquities Act of 1906", Congress had already been creating national parks for some 40 years, including Yosemite Valley, Yellowstone National Park, General Grant, Sequoia, Mount Ranier, and Casa Grande and Mesa Verde. (source). It was concern about vandalism and theft of antiquities from the two historic Indian sites that prompted the Antiquities Act. The bill, signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906, gave the President authority to restrict the use of particular public land owned by the federal government by using an executive order to designate a "national monument". The first use of the act: Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming, on September 24, 1906. (source)
While I was researching Congressman Lacey's contributions I came across one more interesting one worth noting, this having to do with the "Jefferson Bible". You may recall that this refers to Thomas Jefferson's highly abridged version of the New Testament in which he cut out all the miraculous and mystical stuff he didn't care for and kept the better ethical teachings of Jesus, ending up with a slim, svelt 82-page volume. The work has been published on several occasions, notably the Beacon Press, associated with the Unitarian Church.
Here reporter Cathrine Dunn ("Jefferson Bible returns to publication") takes up the story:
In 1886 Cyrus Adler found the book, which had been passed down through the Jefferson family. He bought the original copy and donated it to the National Museum – now the Smithsonian Institution – where Iowa Congressman John Lacey happened upon it at the turn of the century [i.e., c1900].
It was Lacey who initiated the idea of publishing the book, introducing legislation in Congress that would fund the printing and distribution of the Jefferson Bible to all senators and representatives at the start of their terms.
Lacey saw the book as an important "moral basis for representatives," said Bellevue University economics professor Judd Patton. "For a good government, we need to have good leaders with moral principles."
For unknown reasons the Government Printing Office stopped publishing the book in 1957, and its distribution to new congressional members ceased.
———-
* Image source: collection National Conservation Training Center, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
In: All, Beard of the Week, Wanderings
Friday Soirée IV: Eureka!
With tonight's program we're out for some thrilling exoticism and discovery — in an intimate setting: harpsichord music by one of my favorite Baroque guys and stimulating conversation with a great scientist and thinker.
Soler: Sonata in F-Sharp Major
Padre Antonio Soler (1729–1783) was a Catalan composer who studied music from the time he was six. When he was 23 he took holy orders with a Hieronymite in Madrid, where he spent the rest of his life. While he was in Madrid he managed to study with Domenico Scarlatti, so think of him as slightly post-Scarlatti. He managed to write some 500 pieces, of which his 150 keyboard sonatas, similar in form but markedly different in musical material from Scarlatti's, are particularly noteworthy. They also are a diverse and exciting lot that I generally prefer to those by Scarlatti, which seem rather staid in comparison. (A fuller appreciation of Soler's keyboard sonatas.)
I expect most musicians to cringe at the notion of a piece in F-Sharp Major–a really irritating key, perhaps slightly less so for keyboard players than for string and wind players, but still not pleasant. Most composers avoid it except for those like Bach or Chopin who felt it was necessary to write in every available key, or for impressionists for whom an abundance of sharps is somehow the key to their shimmering beauties.
Anyway, although it starts out in F-Sharp Major, this sonata certainly demonstrates Soler's fascination with the art of modulation (i.e., changing keys) and it doesn't spend all that much time hanging out in F-Sharp. With such an outlandish key it's no surprise that the musical gestures are on the outlandish side, too.
This performance is by a favorite performer of ours, the late Canadian keyboard master Scott Ross.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Edward O. Wilson: "Eureka!"
Famed sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, Pelegrino University Research Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard, hardly needs an introduction from me; google his name and take your pick of 6 million references. Somehow I've only read one of his books so far: The Creation (my book note), which I liked. I've heard him speak some and I thought he might be a good person to give us a few remarks tonight.
This 10-minute segment is called "The Eureka Moment". One of the subjects he discusses is that feeling, the "eureka" feeling–or "Aha!" moment, as I often think of it–that is the scientist's high, the thing that many of us experience once when we're young, after which we are destined to seek out more by devoting our lives to science.
This is a subject close to my professional heart, too, since trying to create little "Aha!" moments for nonscientists, adults or children, is a goal of current and planned Ars Hermeneutica projects. I want to create a spark with some sort of first-hand experience in people's minds that breaks through that alienating barrier they've put up between their everyday life and science.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Soler: Fandango (in d minor)
Samuel Rubio (1912-1986), the man who cataloged Soler's music (hence the "R" numbers), was of two minds about this extraordinary "Fandango". He attributed it to Soler, then he changed his mind. I once heard the story, probably apocryphal, that he found it too scandalously sensuous to believe that it might have been written by the pious father. To me the whole thing sounds about as silly as wondering "who wrote Shakespeare" or complaining about "real names" on the internet. I also think that whoever wrote all the Soler sonatas undoubtedly had a hand in the "Fandango": I think there are too many gestural similarities.
Regardless, it's a remarkable piece. I find myself trying to choose between words like "hypnotic", "mesmerizing", "sensuous", etc. When we get to the end of its breathtaking 10 minutes (you'll find some variability between performances because the original was fragmentary), I usually discover that I've been holding my breath.
This performance is by Polish artist Magdalena Maria Rainko, about whom I know little, but here's her Myspace page. The sonics on this recoding are not the best, but you'll overlook (overhear?) that because her performance is vigorous and exciting, and great fun to watch.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Bonus: E.O. Wilson talks with Bill Moyers
I know many of you need to leave after the main program, but for those of you who can stay we have a special, extended treat. In the episode of "Bill Moyers Journal" for 6 July 2007, Moyers devoted part of the program to a wide-ranging discussion sort of loosely centered on Wilson's "Encyclopedia of Life" project. The page of resources for the show, with a link to the video, is here.
In: All, Eureka!, Friday Soirée, It's Only Rocket Science, Music & Art
Achieving Health-Care Competition
The other day I happened to have lunch near one of my lunchtime friends, which also meant being in close proximity to her arch-conservative husband. Naturally, as arch-conservatives are wont to do, he immediately wanted to talk about constitutional rights and what's wrong with liberal government. It's almost as predictable as those "Would you like to talk about Jesus?" moments.*
I let him carry on with his polemics about "obamacare" and how it would be the ruin of the country,‡ grunting occasionally as one is likely to do with the conservatively boorish. In a summary statement — or, rather, a statement that I chose to treat as a summary statement, he made some mention of insurance companies.
"Well," I said, "I am no friend of insurance companies."
Then a breakthrough happened:
"Well," he said, "neither am I…."
Perhaps he was going to say more, but I thought I would trap him on that thought, pretend that we had reached common ground, and I shifted the conservation to his wife and her thoughts on the weather.
Later rumination led me to think that if we might count on a general hatred of health-care insurance companies, brought on by a universal realization of their profit-driven tactics to deny care, reject claims, and drop customers at the least provocation, there might be some hope. Perhaps reality is actually seeping through to so many of the brainwashed conservative supporters who are so frequently the victims of these tragedies but who continue, so markedly against their own self-interest, to be cynically manipulated by the republican party.
What seems to be notice by all: the insurance industry is not working for the benefit of the American people, regardless of what they might tell us about "peace of mind". (How long has it been since that's been claimed as a benefit of health insurance?)
And so, I suggest that we offer a choice of how to effect the reform that nearly everyone seems to agree is needed:
- through competition, or
- through regulation.
Now, since many of these people will react to "regulation" as anathema and to be avoided at all costs, perhaps we can all agree to go with "competition".
And the best, easiest, most beneficial way to achieve competition?
A true public option, of course.
———–
* I actually had someone sit down next to me and ask that very question many years ago. I answered: "no". Remarkably, this seemed to leave the Jesus guy speechless; he got up and went away.
‡ It must be up to health-care reform to bring the sky falling down because marriage equality for gay people hasn't done it. Tsk.
In: All, Current Events, Eureka!
The Atoms in Watermelon
I did not plan to become the expert on such an arcane topic–although I can answer the question as it arises–but once I had written a blog posting called "Atoms Are Not Watermelons",* my web was spun, my net set, the trap was ready for the unsuspecting googler who should type such an interesting question as
Are the atoms in a watermelon the same as usual atoms?
Perhaps you don't find this question as surprising as I do. However, since I am the number-one authority on the atoms in watermelons, at least according to the google,‡ I deem the question worth answering and I will answer it.
The answer to the question: yes. The atoms in a watermelon are definitely the same as the usual atoms.
It is, in fact, the central tenet of the atomic theory that everything in the universe is made from the same constituent particles that we know as "elements", except for those things that are not made of atoms (subatomic particles, for instance, or neutron stars). Even in the most distant galaxies where there are atoms they are known to be the familiar atomic elements.
Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) is about 92% water, 6% sugar (both by weight). Thus, by number, the vast majority of atoms in a watermelon are hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. There are also organic molecules as flavors, amino acids and vitamins, plus trace elemental minerals like iron, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc.
The USDA tells us that "Watermelon Packs a Powerful Lycopene Punch", saying
Lycopene is a red pigment that occurs naturally in certain plant and algal tissues. In addition to giving watermelon and tomatoes their color, it is also thought to act as a powerful antioxidant. Lycopene scavenges reactive oxygen species, which are aggressive chemicals always ready to react with cell components, causing oxidative damage and loss of proper cell function.
I was interested to discover that one can even buy watermelon powder and Lycopene powder, both from the same source, Alibaba.com, which seems to be a diversified asian exporter.
By request from Isaac, here are some recipes for pickled watermelon rind (about which he says "I've always wanted to make it." I never knew — and after 17 years living with someone you'd think I'd have found out):
- Sweet Pickled Watermelon Rind — most of the recipes that I turned up seemed to be variations on this sweet version, said to be a traditional "Southern" style of some indeterminate age; I've not located the ur-recipe yet. Some gussy it up, many vary the amounts of the ingredients while maintaining the same proportions, and one I read added 4 sliced lemons to the pot, which sounded like a nice variation.
- Watermelon Rind Pickles — this is the not sweet, more pickley version that I think I would find more to my taste. This recipe makes "fresh" pickle, simply stored in the refrigerator, versus processed & canned pickle as in the previous recipe.
———-
* Having just read Richard Rhodes' How to Write, the subject at hand was bad metaphors in science writing, which he expressed by saying "atoms are not watermelons".
‡ Oddly, Yahoo! and Bing do not agree, more their loss.
In: All, Food Stuff, It's Only Rocket Science
When Forgiveness Happens
It’s easy to understand Mr. Cheney’s aversion to the investigation that Attorney General Eric Holder ordered last week. On Fox, Mr. Cheney said it was hard to imagine it stopping with the interrogators. He’s right.
The government owes Americans a full investigation into the orders to approve torture, abuse and illegal, secret detention, as well as the twisted legal briefs that justified those policies. Congress and the White House also need to look into illegal wiretapping and the practice of sending prisoners to other countries to be tortured.
[editorial, "Dick Cheney’s Version", New York Times, 2 September 2009.]
I'm aware that the conciliatory tone in today's headlines, coming mostly from the Bush-Cheney camp, oddly, tells us to move on and look to the future and to forgive the past. Aside from vindictiveness towards those who willfully try to corrupt our country, I have two wee problems with that.
One, I've read plenty of anthropologists who have explained persuasively why we, as a society, feel the need to punish social "cheaters" and how important that is for maintaining social order. In the case at hand, it's very, very important lest their way of doing things becomes the way it is done.
Two–and I'd think that conservatives of a fundamentalists persuasion would understand this before other–forgiveness does not come until the truth is known. It may not even precede the punishment. What parent is going to say "Well, I see the cookie jar is broken and one of you kids did it, but let's just forget about it and pick up the pieces."
One forgives after the transgressors are identified and the truth is known; then we can look towards the future.
In: All, Current Events, Reflections
Hate your Job Much?
[Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, speaking of a "public option" in health-care reform, said,] "every time the government gets involved in something it doesn't work."
[Dave Zirin: Michael Steele: Meet Amanda Duzak, Huffington Post, 2 September 2009.]
Which is worse,
- Politicians who want positions in government while protesting that government is an awful idea; or
- People who keep electing such politicians?
Why is "government is the problem" thought a sensible position for people in government?
Perhaps, to give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Mr. Steele was thinking of, say, Bush's war in Iraq?
Maybe it's just me, but I think there might be good reasons to elect someone who thinks it's worth doing a good job because what they do matters to people, to people's live, and to America's future.
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Snake Oil--Cheap!
Moyers on Universal Health Care as Moral Imperative
Bill Moyers speaks my mind in a discussion with Bill Maher on health-care reform:
"We're all in the same boat." That would be the metaphor that would change this [health-care "debate"], that's the moral message that America would send by adopting health care as a human need, which everybody should have access to. The moral message would be that we are in this together, that we care about each other.
All of us who have means will give up something in order to make sure that everybody has health care. I don't want to live in a country where I'm on a hospital floor getting an operation that costs $25,000 and two floors above me somebody's being denied that same surgery because he or she has no money.
What kind of civilization is that? What kind of moral order is that? It's not. It's an order where money, as you said earlier — some things money doesn't buy. It won't buy good public libraries. It won't buy good public schools. And some things do not have a price tag on them — they have a value system attached to them.
And health care for everyone, universal health care for every citizen, irrespective of your resources, is representative of a deeply moral society. And what do I mean by moral? A society that cares for the other.
[my transcribed excerpt from this video source. The discussion began in this video, but I couldn't transcribe everything.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events, Personal Notebook
Learned Heredity?
I tried to believe in nothing. And I failed. It was simply too difficult for me to let go of a belief in God that is as innate to me as the English language.
[Lauren Cahn, "Why I Failed As an Aethist", Huffington Post, 31 August 2009.]
I find this last statement very odd. The author evidently wants to express that her belief in God is something that she has not learned but something that is inborn and deep in her natural programming, and yet she chooses as her analogy of this "innateness" something that is universally recognized as a learned skill: her native tongue.
I'm afraid I didn't find her argument for why she was a failed atheist very compelling. Perhaps it was because, to look at the above excerpt again, she doesn't realize the difference between trying to "believe in nothing" versus not believing in something.
The spurious law of the excluded middle rides again!
In: All, Such Language!, Will Rogers Moments
Penn & Teller on Marriage Equality
As I have mentioned, Isaac and I do not have our finger on the pulse of American popular culture, in large part because we don't have cable television because we never watch television anyway. Thus, I didn't know that Penn & Teller have a series on Showtime called "Bullshit!".
They do and I know it now, thanks to Good As You ("Video: It's bad when Penn & Teller use less smoke & mirrors than WaPo"). In two ten-minute parts they provide some amusement that happens to be relevant to the ongoing social "debate" in our country about marriage equality.
They also use facts and analysis to dispel a lot of fog puffed out by proponents of so-called "traditional marriage", calling "bullshit!" on the notion that marriage equality will somehow be the end of civilization. There is indeed some salty language, but I takes my scienticity where I finds it. To say more might give away the jokes.
Part I
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Part II
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
In: All, Current Events, Laughing Matters
Healthcare: Society and Economy
"Over the last 12 years the number of people visiting America's emergency rooms has soared. Yet here's what's surprising: The number of low-income people going to ERs has not increased. The increase has come almost entirely among middle-class people and many of them have insurance." — Maggie Mahar
"We live in a society not just in an economy," a statement made by Harvard professor of medical economics Rashi Fein, is what drew my attention to this film and this episode of "Bill Moyers Journal" (links below). You know already how much I admire Bill Moyers for his integrity, his honesty, and his courage.
We've been over some of this ground before on healthcare issues. Yes, I believe we should have universal healthcare in the US. Yes, I'd prefer a single-payer plan to do it. No, I don't think it's a "right" and I think that's a dangerous type of argument to make. I do think it's something we can and should do: great nations exist to look after the commonwealth of its people. "We live in a society not just in an economy." Contrary to popular misinformation, we're not really talking about paying more or less for healthcare in this country, we're really talking about changing the method of paying for what we've already got in ways that will improve delivery of services.
I try to avoid "must-see" hyperbole, but I found this film engaging, informative, and refreshingly neither strident nor hysterical. At every scene, it seemed, someone said something quotable and relevant to our current healthcare "debate", one that could certainly use a massive injection of calming reality in the face of so much well-financed propaganda in favor of the status quo. It's forty minutes well spent.
MAGGIE MAHAR: If you can believe it, Rashi Fein has survived 5 decades of the battle for health care reform. In 1953 he served on President Truman's commission on the health needs of America at a time when Truman was pushing for universal coverage. Then he worked with JFK when he fought unsuccessfully for Medicare, a battle that LBJ would later win. As a professor of medical economics at Harvard, Fein has never given up. He firmly believes that medicine should not be all about money. As he puts it, "We live in a society not just in an economy."
[Rashi Fein talked to Maggie Mahar in a documentary film based on her book, Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. The film, "Money-Driven Medicine", was shown as part of "Bill Moyers Journal" on 28 August 2009.]
In: All, Current Events, Personal Notebook
Morris on Schopenhauer on Winning Arguments
Errol Morris, the film maker who made one of my all-time, top-ten favorite films ("The Thin Blue Line"), writes a blog ("Zoom") for the New York Times. Recently he wrote a multi-part essay on lying ("Seven Lies about Lying"). In a post-essay essay ("More Lying") he discusses some ideas about truth and lies with his readers.
Towards the end of that conversation, Morris comments on some excerpts from Schopenhauer, remarks that I found worth making a note of here. I hope I can be forgiven for quoting at more length than is my habit.
In 1831, Arthur Schopenhauer published “The Art of Controversy” ["Die Kunst, Recht zu Behalten"], also translated as “The Art of Being Right”. Schopenhauer at the outset wryly comments, “A man may be objectively in the right, and nevertheless in the eyes of bystanders, and sometimes in his own, he may come off worst… If the reader asks how this is, I reply that it is simply the natural baseness of human nature. If human nature were not base, but thoroughly honorable, we should in every debate have no other aim than the discovery of truth…”
Schopenhauer’s premise was a simple one. There are two ways to win an argument. There is logic and there is dialectic. Since no one ever wins an argument with logic, he moves on quickly to dialectic — to 38 nasty ways to win an argument any way you can. Most (if not all of them) involve tergiversation, deception, chicanery, manipulation, insincerity, hyperbole, out-right lying and probably a number of other similarly descriptive concepts that I can’t think of offhand. Here’s a sample:
#14: Claim victory despite defeat. “When your opponent has answered several of your questions without the answers turning out favorable to the conclusion at which you are aiming, advance the desired conclusion, although it does not in the least follow, as though it had been proved, and proclaim it in a tone of triumph.” [Here’s how I would describe it. After you have been made to look utterly ridiculous, look your opponent directly in the eye and say, “I’m glad you have come around to my way of thinking.”]
#21: Meet him with a counter-argument as bad as his. “When your opponent uses a merely superficial or sophistical argument and you see through it, you can refute it by setting forth its captious and superficial character; but it is better to meet him with a counter-argument which is just as superficial and sophistical, and so dispose of him; for it is with victory that you are concerned, and not with truth.”
#36. Bewilder your opponent with mere bombast. “You may also puzzle and bewilder your opponent by mere bombast; and the trick is possible, because a man generally supposes that there must be some meaning in words…”
And my favorite:
#38. The Ultimate Strategem. “A last trick is to become personal, insulting, rude, as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand, and that you are going to come off worst. It consists in passing from the subject of dispute, as from a lost game, to the disputant himself, and in some way attacking his person.”
Schopenhauer reminds us that people (at best) lie all the time. Ask yourself if Schopenhauer’s strategies remind you of the healthcare debate. There is no evidence for a sinister big-government scheme to euthanize the grannies of America. But those convinced otherwise are certainly not going to be won over with logic. As Barney Frank suggests, we would do better to pass Health Care legislation and to stop arguing with the furniture.
[Errol Morris, "More Lying", Zoom / New York Times, 25 August 2009.]
In: All, Plus Ca Change..., The Art of Conversation
Friday Soirée III: Dangerous Ideas
I'm not certain that "dangerous ideas" is exactly right, but I'm not certain that it's not, either. Tonight's program is a bit longer so let's get right to it.
One of the "dangerous ideas" is due to Darwin, to use the phrase that Daniel Dennett used in his excellent book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, a book that I tremendously enjoyed reading and that I've found stays with me in a way that very few books do. (My book note.) So, in the intermission of tonight's musical program we'll have some remarks by Dennett on why Darwin's big idea was so dangerous.
The music tonight was all written by Dmitri Shostakovich, certainly in my canon of greatest twentieth-century composers. His music, in addition to being tremendously exciting, at its best seems to me ironic and somehow filled with ideas. Whether those ideas were "dangerous", who can say. It's music, after all, and it expresses its ideas differently. Were they subversive? Stalin apparently thought so.
Piano Trio No. 2 in e minor, op. 67, IV
Our musical program is nearly chronological. This first offering is the final (fourth) movement of Shostakovich's second piano trio, written in 1944. Some people find it profoundly disturbing; I find it profoundly moving, although that's not an incompatible assessment. The work was dedicated to Ivan Sollertinsky, a close friend of Shostakovich's who had just died, and who was Jewish. That latter fact is used to explain the prominent klezmer-sounding tune that appears in this movement, but I have a hard time not hearing it as a very bitter reminder of what was happening in war-time Germany at the time with the "final solution".
This performance is by Cristian Valenzuelal piano; Jimmy Liu, violin; and Abe Katzen, cello, at Cornell University. It's about 10 minutes long.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player. The other movements, performed by the same group: I, II, III]
String Quartet No. 8 in c minor, op 110, I & II
The eighth string quartet, written in 1960, is the one by Shostakovich that gets played most often, and not without reason. It has a great deal to offer, particularly in the dangerous-idea category. We'll listen only to the first two movements (of five).
In this quartet there is an abundance of musical material that sounds very, very Shostakovich, largely because he used it over and over again. The opening four-note motif is the Shostakovich "signature": D-S-C-H (or D-E♭-C-B) that he used continually, but there are other familiar themes that make this work seem pivotal. There is material (in this movement and later ones) that should sound familiar from the e-minor trio (above), and in a later movement there are quotations from the cello concerto (below).
This performance is by the Seraphina String Quartet, about 7 minutes long.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Daniel Dennett & Jonathan Miller: Why Darwin's idea is so dangerous
In 2005 Johathan Miller put together a BBC series called "Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief" (links are listed on the YouTube page for this video, linked below). As the story goes, s series of six supplementary programs was made from material that did not fit into the program; this was dubbed "The Atheism Tapes". This is one of those.
In under 10 minutes Dennett gives a very succinct explanation for why he thinks the idea of natural selection is so significant and also so scary, still causing people to react against it with such violent emotion.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, op. 107, I
This concerto, which you should recognize as being by Shostakovich just by hearing it after listening to the pieces above, is from 1959, just the year before the eighth quartet. Perhaps that explains why there are so many musical ideas that seem to flow back and forth between them.
This concerto is certainly one of the all-time great concerti for cello, but I think that, like few of its peers (the exception is Dvorak's cello concerto), it is also great music and of interest regardless of its cello-ness. This first movement of the work, which begins with a distorted statement of the DSCH signature, is relentless and thrilling.
This performance is by Tina Guo, cello, with Enrique Batiz conducting the State of Mexico National Symphony. It last about 7 minutes.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player. The other movements of the concerto by the same performers: II, III]
In: All, Friday Soirée, Music & Art, The Art of Conversation
Friday Soirée: Mensuration Canons
Oh dear. What started as something simple again becomes complicated and a bit circular* without my intending it, but that may be suitable because the subject is the musical canon, specifically the "mensuration canon".
Let's keep it simple. Perhaps you recall that a "canon" is a musical device in which one musical line, or "voice" (whether vocal or not), strictly imitates another voice. In its simplest form, the first voice deploys a series of notes in a particular rhythmic pattern and then another voice deploys exactly the same notes with exactly the same rhythmic pattern. Often more than two voices are used.
Not surprisingly, composers love to show off their technical skills and the simple canon is rarely used in such a direct way and there are any number of variations developed by over achieving composers. Use lots of voices, use strict imitation but start the "tune" on different pitches for each voice, play the tune forwards and backwards, play the tune upside down, etc. J.S.Bach was very fond of canonical techniques; my favorite Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould's "liner notes", 1956 release) almost burst from their abundance of imitative counterpoint.
Now, if you need a really, really complicated type of canon to really, really show off, try the "mensuration canon", or "tempo canon". In this remarkable delicacy the voices use the same tune but each at a different speed (or "tempo"). Could that ever sound — good? Hold on, we'll get there.
So this topic came up because some time back Alex Ross pointed out in his blog ("Renée v. Maria", 7 March 2009) an amusing, synthetic example of a mensuration canon, this one manufactured by YouTube denizen MMmusing, who likes to put these things together. (Consider, e.g., his "The Rite of Appalachian Spring".)
In this case we hear the combined voices of Maria Callas (on top) and Renée Fleming (on bottom) singing Puccini's famous aria "O mio babbino caro" (from the one-act opera Gianni Schicchi ) at the same time but with different tempi. Let's listen (it takes under 3 minutes).
[YouTube URL for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Certainly it's amusing, also informative, but I also found it strangely compelling and worth listening to more than once.
But then, on to real examples. Ross, in his blog posting, mentions a number of famous examples ("famous" being a relative term, of course), all of which have points of interest. But my interest was particularly drawn to the mention of a mass, "Missa l'homme armé Super voces musicales" (1502) by Josquin des Prez, certainly a master of Renaissance polyphonic counterpoint.
The name of the mass setting comes from the fact that Josquin use the tune of a popular melody, "L'Homme Armé", for his musical material throughout the mass (a relatively popular idea in the day–think of it as a 16th-century mash-up).
In one section of the mass, the second Agnus Dei setting, Josquin writes a mensuration canon in 3 parts, each part moving at a different speed. The middle voice is the slowest; the lowest sounding voice sings at twice the speed of the middle voice, and the top voice at three times the speed. Such a show off!
I have to admit that I don't hear any of that, at least on first hearing, although I can easily see it in the notated music (see a bit of it at the Wikipedia page on the mass). But what does it matter if the music is good, and this music is quite wonderful.
Here is the entire Agnus Dei II, lasting about 7.5 minutes. Alas, the performance is uncredited by the uploader.
[YouTube URL for those who don't see the embedded player.]
———-
* The "circularity" came about, for me, when I read in MMmusing's notes at the YouTube page that he was inspired to do the Fleming/Callas canon by a blog posting from Soho the Dog, aka pianist Matthew Guerrieri, one of the very few music-related blogers I read besides Alex Ross. On the subject of Flemming and Callas singing the Puccini, Guerrieri contributed a limerick:
"O mio babbino": the right tempo for?
Have Fleming and Callas keep score—
By the time that Renée
Gets to "Dio, vorrei,"
La Divina could toss in a Suor.
Now, at the risk of spoiling the joke, I'll mention that Suor refers to Suor Angelica, another one-act opera by Puccini which, along with the above mentioned Gianni Schicchi and Il tabarro make up a trio of one-act operas referred to as Il trittico. Enough.
In: All, Friday Soirée, Music & Art