First, Mireille Mathieu sings La Marseillaise (for M.G.):

Second, my favorite film rendition, La Marseillaise contre Die Wacht am Rhein:

By definition, conservatism prefers the past to the present – in William F. Buckley’s famous formulation, history was something to be stood athwart and sternly told to stop – but over the past half year, the present has been particularly trying for American conservatives. Politically, they’re in the wilderness, with Barack Obama’s popularity stubbornly high, and wide Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. But there’s also a deeper sense of crisis: a worry within the movement that the Republican Party has lost its identity as the party of ideas. Like all political movements, modern conservatism was driven by demographic shifts and economic changes, but it was also an intellectual insurgency. It gave pride of place to thinkers like Milton Friedman, the towering free-market economist; Russell Kirk, the cultural critic who mapped conservatism’s currents back through centuries of Anglo-American philosophy and literature; and Whittaker Chambers, who eloquently warned of communism’s dangerous seductions. In postwar America, this powerful intellectual bedrock helped the Republican Party unite cultural conservatives, economic libertarians, and military hawks into an effective and cohesive political alliance.

more from Drake Bennett at The Boston Globe here.

From New Humanist:

Reading the first sentence of Terry Eagleton's review of The God Delusion in the October 2006 edition of the London Review of Books was not unlike watching a gunfighter kicking over a table of cards in an otherwise well-ordered saloon. “Imagine,” fired Eagleton, “someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.”

And that was only the opening volley. Further down the page Eagleton proceeds to shoot up Dawkins's failure to do justice to the complexity of the God he sought to rout (“He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap”), his literality and lack of imagination (“Dawkins occasionally writes as though 'Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness' is a mighty funny way to describe a Grecian urn”) and his belief in the progressive nature of history (“We have it from the mouth of Mr Public Science himself that aside from a few local, temporary hiccups like ecological disasters, famine, ethnic wars and nuclear wastelands, History is perpetually on the up”).

Entertaining, even exhilarating stuff. But no great surprise to those who've followed Eagleton's career in any detail. He has a reputation for entering other people's rooms and kicking over their cards. He appears equally happy whether outraging conventional students of literature at Oxford with his vigorous espousal of critical theory, confounding his long-time Marxist allies with his periodic dabblings with spirituality, or lambasting Martin Amis for his suggestion that British Muslims “must suffer” for the actions of suicide bombers. (These comments, said Eagleton, were “not unlike the ramblings of a British National Party thug”).

More here.

What America's best economic forecaster is saying.

Daniel Gross in Slate:

The economic data that get the most play in the news— unemployment, retail sales—are coincident or lagging indicators and historically have not revealed much about directional changes in the economy. ECRI's proprietary methodology breaks down indicators into a long-leading index, a weekly leading index, and a short-leading index. “We watch for turning points in the leading indexes to anticipate turning points in the business cycle and the overall economy,” says Achuthan. It's tough to recognize transitions objectively “because so often our hopes and fears can get in the way.” To prevent exuberance and despair from clouding vision, ECRI looks for the three P's: a pronounced rise in the leading indicators; one that persists for at least three months; and one that's pervasive, meaning a majority of indicators are moving in the same direction.

The long-leading index—which goes back to the 1920s and doesn't include stock prices but does include measures related to credit, housing, productivity, and profits—hits bottom and starts to climb about six months before a recession ends. The weekly leading index calls directional shifts about three to four months in advance. And the short-leading index, which includes stock prices and jobless claims, is typically the last to turn up.

All three are now flashing green.

More here.

John Schwartz in the New York Times:

A recent feature,“ Dateline: Space,” displayed stunning NASA photographs, including the iconic photo of Buzz Aldrin standing on the lunar surface.

The second comment on the feature stated flatly, “Man never got to the moon.”

The author of the post, Nicolas Marino, went on to say, “I think media should stop publicizing something that was a complete sham once and for all and start documenting how they lied blatantly to the whole world.”

Forty years after men first touched the lifeless dirt of the Moon — and they did. Really. Honest. — polling consistently suggests that some 6 percent of Americans believe the landings were faked and could not have happened. The series of landings, one of the greatest gambles of the human race, was an elaborate hoax developed to raise national pride, many among them insist.

More here.

Important Thing

I've always loved the ways pelicans dive,
as if each silver fish they see
were the goddamned most important
thing they've ever wanted on this earth—
and just tonight I learned sometimes
they go blind doing it,
that straight-down dive like someone jumping
from a rooftop, only happier,
plummeting like Icarus, but more triumphant—
……there is the undulating fish,
……the gleaming sea,
there is the chance to taste again
the kind of joy that can be eaten whole,
and this is how they know to reach it,
head-first, high-speed, risking everything,

…………..and some of the time they come back up
as if it were nothing, they bob on the water,
silver fish like stogies angled
rakishly in their wide beaks,
—the the enormous
………………..stretching of the throat,
then the slow unfolding
……………………..of the great wings,
as if it were nothing, sometimes they do this
a hundred times or more a day,
as long as they can see, they rise
……back into they sky
to begin again—
………..and when they can't?

We know, of course, what happens,
they starve to death, not a metaphor, not a poem in it;

this goes on every day of our lives,
and the man whose melting wings
spatter like a hundred dripping candles
…………………over everything,

and the suicide who glimpses, in that final
seconds of her fall,
……all the other lives she might have lived,

…………..The ending doesn't have to be happy.
…………..The hunger itself is the thing.

by Ruth L. Schwartz
from: Edgewater;Harper Collins 2002

From Scientific American:

Your memories of high school biology class may be a bit hazy nowadays, but there are probably a few things you haven’t forgotten. Like the fact that you are a composite of your parents—your mother and father each provided you with half your genes, and each parent’s contribution was equal. Gregor Mendel, often called the father of modern genetics, came up with this concept in the late 19th century, and it has been the basis for our understanding of genetics ever since.

But in the past couple of decades, scientists have learned that Mendel’s understanding was incomplete. It is true that children inherit 23 chromosomes from their mother and 23 complementary chromosomes from their father. But it turns out that genes from Mom and Dad do not always exert the same level of influence on the developing fetus. Sometimes it matters which parent you inherit a gene from—the genes in these cases, called imprinted genes because they carry an extra molecule like a stamp, add a whole new level of complexity to Mendelian inheritance. These molecular imprints silence genes; certain imprinted genes are silenced by the mother, whereas others are silenced by the father, and the result is the delicate balance of gene activation that usually produces a healthy baby.

More here.

John Noble Wilford in The New York Times:

The first time I came to Cape Kennedy (as Cape Canaveral had been renamed) was in December 1965. Momentum was then building in the space race between the cold war superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States. It all started with the Sputnik alarm in 1957 and then President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to the nation in 1961 to put astronauts on the Moon by the end of the decade. The first Americans flew in the Mercury capsules, with room for only one pilot and limited maneuverability. The Gemini was a two-seater built for longer flights and outfitted with navigation systems for practicing rendezvous maneuvers essential for lunar missions. I was at the Cape for the tandem mission of Geminis 6 and 7. After some delay and improvisation, astronauts successfully steered the two craft to a rendezvous in Earth orbit.

Gemini 8, a few months later, was a disaster narrowly averted. Neil A. Armstrong was at the controls of the spacecraft, with David Scott as co-pilot. There had been no hitches at liftoff, and the astronauts docked with an orbiting Agena target vehicle, the mission’s principal objective. Then trouble struck. The Gemini began bucking and spinning because of a misfiring thruster rocket. Armstrong feared that he and Scott might lose consciousness from the high spin rate. They disengaged from the Agena, but still could not bring their spacecraft under full control. Armstrong managed to steer the Gemini to an emergency splashdown before the end of its only day in space. Four more Gemini missions followed, mainly trouble-free, concluding the project in November 1966. The way was cleared for the first flights of the three-person Apollo craft, the first of which was already at the Cape.

More here.

Sughra Raza.On the Charles.

Painting: Acrylic on canvas 2003.

Digital photograph (minimally embellished), July 2009.

Thanks to the rower who held the painting, and the curious canada goose.

Miklós Haraszti in Eurozine:

On 26 March, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution condemning ‘defamation of religions’ as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech. The Council adopted the non-binding text, proposed by Pakistan on behalf of the Islamic states, with a vote of 23 states in favour and 11 against, with 13 abstentions. The resolution “Combating Defamation of Religions” has been passed, revised and passed again every year since 1999, except in 2006, in the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and its predecessor, the UN Human Rights Commission. It is promoted by the persistent sponsorship of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference with the acknowledged objective of getting it codified as a crime in as many countries as possible, or at least promoting it into a universal anathema. Alongside this campaign, there is a global undercurrent of violence and ready-made self-censorship that has surrounded all secular and artistic depictions of Islamic subjects since the Rushdie fatwa.

This year’s resolution, unlike previous versions, no longer ignores Article 19, the right to free expression. That crucial human right has now received a mention, albeit in a context which misleadingly equates defamation of religions with incitement to hatred and violence against religious people, and on that basis denies it the protection of free speech. It also attempts to bracket criticism of religion with racism.

On the other hand, the vague parameters of possible defamation cases have now grown to include the “targeting” of symbols and venerated leaders of religion by the media and the Internet. What we are witnessing may be an effort at diplomacy, but it is also a declaration of war on twenty-first century media freedoms by a coalition of latter-day authoritarians.

Rona Kuperboim in Ynet:

The Foreign Ministry unveiled a new plan this week: Paying talkbackers to post pro-Israel responses on websites worldwide. A total of NIS 600,000 (roughly $150,000) will be earmarked to the establishment of an “Internet warfare” squad.

The Foreign Ministry intends to hire young people who speak at least one language and who study communication, political science, or law – or alternately, Israelis with military experience gained at units dealing with information analysis.

Beyond the fact that these job requirements reveal a basic lack of understanding in respect to the dynamics of the online discourse – the project’s manager argued that “adults don’t know how to blog” – they are not too relevant either. An effective talkbacker does not need a law degree or military experience. He merely needs to care about the subject he writes about.

The sad truth is that had Israeli citizens believed that their State is doing the right thing, they would have made sure to explain it out of their own accord. Without being paid.

Foreign Ministry officials are fighting what they see as a terrible and scary monster: the Palestinian public relations monster. Yet nothing can be done to defeat it, regardless of how many foolish inventions will be introduced and how many bright communication students will be hired.

The reason is that good PR cannot make the reality in the occupied territories prettier. Children are being killed, homes are being bombed, and families are starved.

More here.

Michael Chabon in the New York Review of Books:

Most great stories of adventure, from The Hobbit to Seven Pillars of Wisdom, come furnished with a map. That's because every story of adventure is in part the story of a landscape, of the interrelationship between human beings (or Hobbits, as the case may be) and topography. Every adventure story is conceivable only with reference to the particular set of geographical features that in each case sets the course, literally, of the tale. But I think there is another, deeper reason for the reliable presence of maps in the pages, or on the endpapers, of an adventure story, whether that story is imaginatively or factually true. We have this idea of armchair traveling, of the reader who seeks in the pages of a ripping yarn or a memoir of polar exploration the kind of heroism and danger, in unknown, half-legendary lands, that he or she could never hope to find in life.

This is a mistaken notion, in my view. People read stories of adventure—and write them—because they have themselves been adventurers. Childhood is, or has been, or ought to be, the great original adventure, a tale of privation, courage, constant vigilance, danger, and sometimes calamity. For the most part the young adventurer sets forth equipped only with the fragmentary map—marked here there be tygers and mean kid with air rifle—that he or she has been able to construct out of a patchwork of personal misfortune, bedtime reading, and the accumulated local lore of the neighborhood children.

More here.

Frederik Joelving in Scientific American:

Bad language could be good for you, a new study shows. For the first time, psychologists have found that swearing may serve an important function in relieving pain.

The study, published today in the journal NeuroReport, measured how long college students could keep their hands immersed in cold water. During the chilly exercise, they could repeat an expletive of their choice or chant a neutral word. When swearing, the 67 student volunteers reported less pain and on average endured about 40 seconds longer.

Although cursing is notoriously decried in the public debate, researchers are now beginning to question the idea that the phenomenon is all bad. “Swearing is such a common response to pain that there has to be an underlying reason why we do it,” says psychologist Richard Stephens of Keele University in England, who led the study. And indeed, the findings point to one possible benefit: “I would advise people, if they hurt themselves, to swear,” he adds.

More here.

Swoopo.com is the most efficient, addictive way to separate people from their money.

Mark Gimein in Slate (via The Daily Dish):

Consider the MacBook Pro that Swoopo sold on Sunday for that $35.86. Swoopo lists its suggested retail price at $1,799; judging by the specs, you can actually get a similar one online from Apple (AAPL) for $1,349, but let's not quibble. Either way, it's a heck of a discount. But now look at what the bidding fee does. For each “bid” the price of the computer goes up by a penny and Swoopo collects 60 cents. To get up to $35.86, it takes, yes, an incredible 3,585 bids, for each of which Swoopo gets its fee. That means that before selling this computer, Swoopo took in $2,151 in bidding fees. Yikes.

In essence, what your 60-cent bidding fee gets you at Swoopo is a ticket to a lottery, with a chance to get a high-end item at a ridiculously low price. With each bid the auction gets extended for a few seconds to keep it going as long as someone in the world is willing to take just one more shot. This can go on for a very, very long time. The winner of the MacBook Pro auction bid more than 750 times, accumulating $469.80 in fees.

Some winners do wind up with good deals. A few, on the other hand, wind up paying almost as much in bid fees as the item they're angling for was worth in the first place. Meanwhile, the losers can shell out hundreds of dollars in bidding fees before throwing in the towel, and end up with nothing. What makes Swoopo so fiendishly addictive is the tendency of people to think of the bids that they have already put in as a “sunk cost”—money that they have already put toward buying the item.

This is an illusion. The fact that you have already bid 200 times does not mean that your chance of winning on the 201^st bid is any higher than it was at the very beginning.

More here.

From The Washington Post:

Richard Wrangham is no fan of raw-food diets. It's not the faddish nature of the programs, which forbid followers to heat foods above 118 degrees to preserve their “life force.” Nor is it the religious-like fervor of the diet's adherents. Wrangham, a Harvard anthropologist, rejects raw food because the process of cooking is what makes us fundamentally human. In his new book, “Catching Fire,” Wrangham argues that cooking, not meat-eating or social interdependence, is what differentiates us from other animals. Almost 2 million years ago cooked food helped a new species, homo erectus, with its large brain and small gut, emerge. And cooking is responsible for the development of agrarian societies, traditional gender roles and division of labor. In short, without a hot dinner, we would still be apes.

Wrangham is not the first to connect cooking to evolution; Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the French gastronomist, suggested as much when he wrote in 1825: “It is by fire that man has tamed Nature itself.” But Wrangham draws together previous studies and theories from disciplines as diverse as anthropology, biology, chemistry, sociology and literature into a cogent and compelling argument. Take the issue of digestion. Wrangham makes the case that our ability to heat food and thereby soften it spares our bodies a lot of hard work. And the calories saved in easy digestion reserve energy for other types of physical and intellectual activity. To understand why, simply consider how you feel after eating a light meal versus a heavy one. That shrimp salad demands less work from your intestines and makes you feel energetic afterwards; the 16-ounce steak makes you want to take a nap while your body attacks and breaks down the meal. The same differences apply to softer, cooked food versus raw, unprocessed food.

More here. (For my brother Tasnim Raza, the pioneering gourmet cook of the Raza family.)

Tim Adam in The Guardian:

Arundhati Roy has two voices. The first, dramatically personal and playful, was the one in which she wrote her extraordinary debut novel, The God of Small Things, a semi-autobiographical account of growing up in rural Kerala. The second voice is flatter and angrier, more urban and distrustful of the quirks of the individual. She describes it as “writing from the heart of the crowd”. It is this voice that she has used exclusively in the 12 years since her novel was published, in four collections of non-fiction – the latest of which, Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy, was published last week.

Roy, now 47, describes the difference between the two voices as the difference between “dancing and walking”. It is a long while since Roy's writing has danced. She says she pedestrianised her imagination not out of choice, not at all, but because there seemed nothing else to do. “If I could,” she says, “I would love to spend all my time writing fiction. With the non-fiction I wrote one book that I wanted to write and three more that I didn't.”

This compulsion – towards reporting and polemic – Roy blames in part on the success of The God of Small Things. She wrote her novel for four and a half years entirely in secret; even her husband, the film-maker Pradip Krishen, did not know of its existence until it was finished. And she wrote it for herself. She had written a couple of film scripts before that and had come to despise the collaborative creative process. The book was an exercise in downshifting. She imagined when it was published that it would sell “maybe 500 copies in Delhi.” In fact, it sold 6m copies worldwide and won her the Booker Prize.

More here.

The Newest Moons of Dirt and Rome

An electrified trash-can floating above Saturn
just detected two new bodies draped in ether,

unseen during the whole burnt span of human
history, from caves to ziggurats to skyscrapers.

Dwarf-shade of brooding orbs shelled in ice,
fading in the witch-glow of the double suns

but this is all that we could have hoped for—
unnamed twins dodging the spittle of comets.

And you and I, who could not even pay our
taxes or mark our own ballots without doubt

will sleep with such virtue tonight, tumbling
with breakneck grace through the frigid wastes

like the tangled curls of prehistoric maidens,
lying where nothing has been built or dreamt

by Michael Meyerhofer
from: Astropoetica; Vol. 7.1; Spring 2009