Daniel Mendelsohn in the New York Times:

Was God the first critic?

We tend, of course, to think of him as the first great artist — or, perhaps, artiste. Certainly the Bible’s description of the circumstances in which Creation was created — the sudden flash of inspiration, the heroic decision to make something where there had been nothing, the struggle to wrest order out of chaos, the collapse into exhausted rest after a daemonic outpouring of energy — has colored our romantic notions about creativity and creators ever since. Just as it has, by implication, informed our ideas about critics: as parasites on the body of creativity, as destroyers rather than builders, “the snake in the garden,” as one eminent practitioner of the art of criticism has put it, “of what should be our simplest pleasures.”

And yet, as A. O. Scott — the critic in question — points out in the first chapter of his lively, often impassioned, occasionally breezy defense of a profession that many see as headed to extinction, the Almighty had barely finished creating when he started in on the activity that is central to criticism, which is judgment. (Scott likes to quote the Greeks, from the poet Hesiod to Plato to Aristotle, but omits to mention their most salient contribution to his subject, which is the word “critic” itself, derived from the verb “to judge.”) The author reminds us that following each stage of creation, God “saw that it was good.” The question that Scott, a chief movie critic for The New York Times, slyly raises is, “How did he know?”

More here.

Anil Ananthaswamy in New Scientist:

Often brushed aside like a forgotten stepchild, a 64-year-old theory of quantum mechanics may now share the stage with its more well-regarded siblings. If it holds up, it might lend support to ideas that the universe is improbably interconnected across vast distances.

The theory, by physicist David Bohm, has been resurrected after researchers carried out experiments on photons that seemed to support it.

The behaviour of the quantum world has befuddled physicists for nearly a century. “We have had geniuses working on it and we still have a problem,” says Basil Hiley, a quantum physicist at Birkbeck College at the University of London, who worked with Bohm until the latter’s death in 1992.

Unlike the classical world, with its clockwork precision and pleasing predictability, the quantum world is rife with randomness.

The famous illustration is the double-slit experiment: if you fire photons at two slits, our classical intuition expects each to pass through one or the other slit and hit a screen on the other side, making a single mark indicative of its particle nature. But when you try it, the photons create an interference pattern of light and dark bands on the screen, as if each photon behaved like a wave and passed through both slits simultaneously.

The dominant explanation of such behaviour is called the Copenhagen interpretation, which states that the question of whether a photon is a wave or a particle has no meaning until you make a measurement – and then it becomes one or the other depending on which property you measure. The other favoured explanation is the many-worlds interpretation, under which each possible state of the photon becomes manifest in an alternate world.

More here.

Bryan Williams in The New Republic:

The Democratic primary is being defined—and could be decided—by a generational divide. Young voters are flocking to Bernie Sanders, as countless articles point out, and the results in Iowa back this up: Sanders won caucus voters under 30 by an astounding 70-point margin, while Hillary Clinton won those over 65 by 43 points. The theories given for this divide are myriad. Many young voters see Clinton as a corrupt or untrustworthy insider, whereas Sanders “seems sincere.” Many older voters, meanwhile, find Sanders’s policies impractical and see in Clinton a historic opportunity to elect the first female president. But all these arguments seem to agree on one thing: Sanders is leading a semi-socialist insurgency against the party establishment.

Surveying one hundred years of history, though, the question is not why younger voters are embracing Sanders’s populist revolution, but why the Baby Boomer generation came to believe that Bill and Hillary Clinton—with their close ties to big business—should become the standard-bearers for the nation’s liberal party. In other words, Bernie’s millennial army isn’t the generational exception. Hillary’s Boomers are.

More here.

Paul Mason at Literary Hub:

To remain under the two-degree threshold, we—as a global population—must burn no more than 886 billion tons of carbon between the years 2000 and 2049 (according to the International Energy Agency). But the global oil and gas companies have declared the existence of 2.8 trillion tons of carbon reserves, and their shares are valued as if those reserves are burnable. As the Carbon Tracker Initiative warned investors: “They need to understand that 60 to 80 percent of coal, oil and gas reserves of listed firms are unburnable”—that is, if we burn them, the atmosphere will warm to a catastrophic degree.

Yet rising energy prices are a market signal. They tell energy firms that it’s a good idea to invest in new and more expensive ways of finding carbon. In 2011, they invested $674 billion on exploration and development of fossil fuels: tar sands, fracking and deep-sea oil deposits. Then, as global tensions increased, Saudi Arabia decided to collapse the price of oil, with the aim of destroying America’s new hydrocarbon industries, and in the process bankrupting Putin’s Russia.

This, too, acted as a market signal to American drivers: buy more cars and do more miles. Clearly, somewhere, the market as a signaling mechanism has gone wrong.

more here.

Thomas Frank at The Baffler:

Sassy does not want you to think that it is just another version of the traditional teenage girls’ magazine. On the contrary, as its publicity kit and an enamored media anxiously maintain, Sassy is a publishing phenomenon, a daring departure from convention, a call to postmodern arms for the youth of America. Nowhere in the spectrum of American journalism has the notion of “alternative” been more reverently enshrined, more fully articulated as thebelle ideal for the consuming millions. While its competitors still offer 1950s-style hints on cooking and pleasing boys, Sassy, since its founding in 1988, has leapt headlong into “underground” culture—reviewing the most daring indie-label bands, endorsing the latest permutations of “multiculturalism,” outlining the most “authentic” street fashions. So tuned-in is the publication to the latest dispensation of rebel hip that a 1993 Spin magazine feature called “A to Z of Alternative Culture” included a definition of “Sassyism” that is appropriately thick with references to consumer goods (Sassyism: “Love of Kim Gordon, striped jeans, John Fluevog shoes, wide black belts … grrl punk, fanzines, and henna”). For rebellion, generically defined, is Sassy’s image-in-trade. With its impudent title spattered across the cover like some defiant graffiti from ‘68, its jackboot-wearing young writers, its celebration of the new breed of celebrities who wear sideburns and grimy locks, multiple earrings, flannel shirts, and leather jackets, Sassyclaims to have revolutionized the genre of teenage journalism. It has won the favor of the nation’s savviest media watchers, and for good reason: Sassy’s peculiarly massified, mall-inflected version of the traditional avant-garde fetish for outrage perfectly epitomizes the strange turn taken by American mass culture in the last twenty years.

more here.

Umberto Eco at The Paris Review (1994):

My recent journey was brief: one day in Stockholm and three in London. In Stockholm, taking advantage of a free hour, I bought a smoked salmon, an enormous one, dirt cheap. It was carefully packaged in plastic, but I was told that, if I was traveling, I would be well-advised to keep it refrigerated. Just try.

Happily, in London, my publisher made me a reservation in a deluxe hotel, a room provided with minibar. But on arriving at the hotel, I have the impression of entering a foreign legation in Peking during the Boxer rebellion.

Whole families are camping out in the lobby; travelers wrapped in blankets are sleeping amid their luggage. I question the staff, all of them Indians, except for a few Malayans, and I am told that just yesterday, in this grand hotel, a computerized system was installed and, before all the kinks could be eliminated, it broke down for two hours. There was no way of telling which rooms were occupied or which were free. I would have to wait.

more here.

…. I have walked along many roads,
and opened paths through brush,
I have sailed over a hundred seas
and tied up on a hundred shores.

…. Everywhere I’ve gone I’ve seen
excursions of sadness,
angry and melancholy
drunkards with black shadows,

…. and academics in offstage clothes
who watch, say nothing, and think
the know, because they do not drink wine
in the ordinary bars.

…. Evil men who walk around
polluting the earth . . .

…. And everywhere I’ve been I’ve seen
men who dance and play,
when they can, and work
the few inches of ground they have.

…. If they turn up somewhere,
they never ask where they are.
When they take trips, they ride
on the back of old mules.

…. They don’t know how to hurry,
not even on holidays.
They drink wine, if there is some,
if not, cool water.

…. These men are the good ones,
who love, work, walk and dream.
And on a day no different from the rest
they lie down beneath the earth.
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by Antonio Machado
from Times Alone
Wesleyan University Press
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Jose Martinez in Complex:

Could you imagine sports without the Williams sisters or LeBron James? It's pretty difficult to picture, huh? But, as we all know, there once was a time when black athletes weren't allowed to be on the same playing field as white people. Fortunately, there were African-American players who ignored the racial slurs and death threats that were hurled their way and focused on making the sports world a better, equal place. As time progressed, there become exceptional athletes like Michael Jordan andTiger Woods, who further solidified African-Americans' place among the best to ever play in their respective sport. We take a look at those that forever changed the game, past and present. From the aforementioned names of Jordan and Woods to legends like Jackie Robinson and Althea Gibson, these are 25 Black Athletes Who Changed the World.

Jack Johnson

Sport (Years Played): Boxing (1897-1938)
After becoming the first black heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson faced the undefeated white boxer James Jeffries in 1910. Before they met in the ring, Jeffries took a personal jab at Johnson saying that he was “going into this fight for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a Negro.” But in the 15th round of their match, Jack knocked his opponent out and handed Jeffries the first loss of his career. The result triggered riots across the U.S.

More here. (Note: At least one post will be dedicated to honor Black History Month throughout February)

George Johnson in The New York Times:

For all its peculiar horror, cancer comes with a saving grace. If nothing else can stop a tumor’s mad evolution, the cancer ultimately dies with its host. Everything the malignant cells have learned about outwitting the patient’s defenses — and those of the oncologists — is erased. The next case of cancer, in another victim, must start anew. Imagine if instead, cancer cells had the ability to press on to another body. A cancer like that would have the power to metastasize not just from organ to organ, but from person to person, evolving deadly new skills along the way. While there is no sign of an imminent threat, several recent papers suggest that the eventual emergence of a contagious human cancer is in the realm of medical possibility. This would not be a disease, like cervical cancer, that is set off by the spread of viruses, but rather one in which cancer cells actually travel from one person to another and thrive in their new location.

So far this is known to have happened only under the most unusual circumstances. A 19-year-old laboratory worker who pricked herself with a syringe of colon cancer cells developed a tumor in her hand. A surgeon acquired a cancer from his patient after accidentally cutting himself during an operation. There are also cases of malignant cells being transferred from one person to another through an organ transplant or from a woman to her fetus.

More here.

Walid Raad. Drawing Four. 2015.

Installation.

More here, here, and here.

Imminent show at ICA, Boston.

Jonathan Kandell in the New York Times:

Umberto Eco, an Italian scholar in the arcane field of semiotics who became the author of best-selling novels, notably the blockbuster medieval mystery “The Name of the Rose,” died on Friday at his home in Milan. He was 84.

His Italian publisher, Bompiani, confirmed his death, according to the Italian news agency ANSA. No cause was given.

As a semiotician, Mr. Eco sought to interpret cultures through their signs and symbols — words, religious icons, banners, clothing, musical scores, even cartoons — and published more than 20 nonfiction books on these subjects while teaching at the University of Bologna, Europe’s oldest university.

But rather than segregate his academic life from his popular fiction, Mr. Eco infused his seven novels with many of his scholarly preoccupations.

In bridging these two worlds, he was never more successful than he was with “The Name of the Rose,” his first novel, which was originally published in Europe in 1980. It sold more than 10 million copies in about 30 languages. (A 1986 Hollywood adaptation directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Sean Connery received only a lukewarm reception.)

More here.

Siobhan Fenton in The Independent:

A leading scientist has declared homeopathy a “therapeutic dead-end” after a systematic review concluded the controversial treatment was no more effective than placebo drugs.

Professor Paul Glasziou, a leading academic in evidence based medicine at Bond University, was the chair of a working party by the National Health and Medical Research Council which was tasked with reviewing the evidence of 176 trials of homeopathy to establish if the treatment is valid.

A total of 57 systematic reviews, containing the 176 individual studies, focused on 68 different health conditions – and found there to be no evidence homeopathy was more effective than placebo on any.

Homeopathy is an alternative medicine based on the idea of diluting a substance in water. According to the NHS: “Practitioners believe that the more a substance is diluted in this way, the greater its power to treat symptoms. Many homeopathic remedies consist of substances that have been diluted many times in water until there is none or almost none of the original substance left.”

More here.

Bruce Fleming in the Washington Free Beacon:

The immediate subject of Joanna Williams’s depressing but compellingly written chronicle of the threats to Anglo-American academia over the last several decades is the concerted attack, first by the professors themselves and now by students, against the academic freedom of the title. Academic freedom is the ability of the professorate to express, explore, and teach even those ideas that don’t happen to be cut to this decade’s fashions.

Thus academic freedom and its enemies may seem initially to be a narrow issue, of interest to few outside the now dwindling number of tenured professors who thought they were free to follow truth, and who discover instead that they can be shouted down by colleagues or students who feel that what the professor is saying “supports oppression.” Even worse, in Williams’s view, are those who self-censor to get their writing published and gain advancement while avoiding disapproval.

However, the issues Williams addresses are of far wider importance than the professional interests of academics.

More here.

Vijay Prasad in CounterPunch:

Indian political culture sits atop a fine edged blade. Pushing down on it is the Extreme Right, whose political wing – the BJP – is currently in power. Intolerance is the order of the day. India’s celebrated Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen recently said, “India is being turned intolerant. We have been too tolerant with the intolerance. This has to end.”

In the marrow of the Extreme Right is a demand for discipline enforced by violence. Anyone who strays from the authority of its world-view – Hindutva – is either anti-national or a terrorist. Political murders of well-regarded intellectuals and activists, such as Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, and MM Kalburgi, put the nation on alert.

The death of a young student – Rohit Vemula – of the University of Hyderabad sent all kinds of people onto the streets. Rohit had been hit hard by social discrimination, which manifests itself as a political assault on socially oppressed communities. “From shadows to the stars,” wrote this young man who was fascinated by astronomy. It was an indictment of the social disorder. “Mother India lost a son,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “I felt the pain.” He had waited five days to react, and reacted only after mass demonstrations of great feeling across the country. Rohit Vemula’s family rejected the Prime Minister’s remorse. They want to know why their son died. The answers lie firmly in the tentacles of the Extreme Right. It is where blame will eventually rest.

When Richa Singh, the new student leader at Allahabad University, invited senior journalist Siddharth Varadarajan to campus to talk about free speech, the Extreme Rights’s students’ group (the ABVP) blocked him. They called Varadarajan, who had been the editor of The Hindu, a “Naxalite” (Maoist) and “anti-national.” This is the chosen vocabulary. Singh later said, “There is a surge in intolerance in this country. The ABVP leaders are not willing to listen to anyone who contradicts their ideology.”

More here.

There Are Birds Here

—For Detroit

There are birds here,
so many birds here
is what I was trying to say
when they said those birds were metaphors
for what is trapped
between buildings
and buildings. No.
The birds are here
to root around for bread
the girl’s hands tear
and toss like confetti. No,
I don’t mean the bread is torn like cotton,
I said confetti, and no
not the confetti
a tank can make of a building.
I mean the confetti
a boy can’t stop smiling about
and no his smile isn’t much
like a skeleton at all. And no
his neighborhood is not like a war zone.
I am trying to say
his neighborhood
is as tattered and feathered
as anything else,
as shadow pierced by sun
and light parted
by shadow-dance as anything else,
but they won’t stop saying
how lovely the ruins,
how ruined the lovely
children must be in that birdless city.

by Jamaal May
from: Poetry, Vol. 203, No. 5, 2014
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