Significant dinosaur discovery made a few miles from my house in Maryland; well, significant by East Coast standards, anyway. (NY Times, ungated)
Bonkers "history" of the US from 1860s Japan, with mountain spirits and giant snakes.
UT Austin scientists have created an enzyme that can break down PET plastic in a matter of hours.
Unusual burial of a Roman soldier found in Wales.
Nice NY Times piece on the Appleby Horse Fair, in which the Times admits that many Gypsies call themselves "Gypsies."
Until I began following some Dutch guys on my Ukraine War Twitter feed I did not understand how big a deal the shootdown of flight MH17 is in the Netherlands. People still share videos of the funeral, like this one, and the Oryx guys say this is why the Dutch have been giving so much military aid to Ukraine.
More masked characters enacting out ancient European folklore, but these guys in northern Spain have the best outfits I've seen.
An essay arguing that artists and critics are starting to turn away from moralizing and toward aesthetics.
Review of David Graeber's posthumous book, Pirate Enlightenment, or The Real Libertalia, which argues that a fusion of European pirates with local Malagasy groups led to a decentralized and very free state called the Betsimisaraka. Seems like grasping at decentralized straws to me, if the best example you can find is so obscure and badly documented.
Web site with a ton of free images, including many vintage natural history illustrations.
Fossil of what seem to be a dinosaur and a mammal locked in combat.
Geothermal startup Fervo Energy claims to have achieved profitable results from its latest test, which involved deep horizontal drilling with technology developed for fracking. They say they are going ahead with construction of a 400 MW facility in northern Nevada that they hope will be online in 2028, powering 300,000 homes. (Threadreader, CNBC, Fervo website)
Interesting short post on Japanese histories of World War II produced in the 1945 to 1960 period.
In the US, imprisonment is declining, especially for black men: "Between 1999 and 2019, the Black male incarceration rate dropped by 44%, and notable declines in Black male imprisonment were evident in all 50 states. . . . For Black men, the lifetime risk of incarceration declined by nearly half from 1999 to 2019."
Dan Wang, an important writer on China, says that political centraliziation is only increasing while the economy and especially the tech sector get worse. Overall he thinks the Chinese economy is still strong but it has lost momentum and may be in for real trouble; he notes an increase in the number of Chinese citizens apprehended at the Mexican border trying to cross into the US.
The president of Stanford resigns after allegations that he faked his way to success in biochemistry. An investigation found no proof he committed fraud but three papers have been withdrawn and I am not buying his excuse that his subordinates did it without his knowledge. (NY Times, Science)
New historical theme park in Toledo, Spain is very popular but controversial because it tells the old nationalist story of reconquest and unity, with a sidelight on Toledo as a "crossroads of cultures." (New York Times, London Times)
A recent report estimates that in our Post-911 wars, 8,000 US service members and 7,000 military contractors have died in combat zones; during that time, 30,000 have committed suicide. The report also estimates that 177,000 allies (Afghans, Kurds, Iraqis, etc.) have died in those wars, which suddently makes me wonder what the suicide rates are for Afghan and Iraqi veterans.
In Britain, "Just Stop Oil protestors have been surrounded by “Just Stop Pissing Everyone Off” protestors - preventing them from marching in the road."
The problem with being a centrist in America is that centrist parties are so utterly lame. Consider the No Labels town hall, which showed us that No Labels is against gun violence, the national debt, the mental health crisis, and partisanship, but has no clue what to do about any of them. (NY Times, USA Today) Asked who their candidates will be and what their platform is, Joe Manchin said those questions were "putting the cart before the horse." (RollCall)
The Strangeness of the Oppenheimer/Barbie double feature, which even has a name: the Barbenheimer. (NPR)
The fungi of Ecuador's cloud forests.
What is said to be an entrance to the Zapotec underworld found under a church in Mexico.
Besides everything else he did, Benjamin Franklin experimented with new ways of making paper money more secure.
Ukraine Links
Thread on the counter-offensive: "By and large this in an infantryman's fight at squad, platoon, and company level. . . . Ukrainian forces have not mastered combined arms operations at scale."
Russia has been attacking in the north, toward Kharkiv, making limited progress and that probably at high cost. There have been rumors that this is the first stage of a big offensive, with talk of 100,000 men and 900 armored vehicles. Others say this is all hooey.
Russian blogger says there is an intense power struggle between two power blocs within the Russian military which is currently expressed as the Southern Military District vs. the rest.
Thread on demoralized Russians reporting that they are completely out of ammunition and sometimes even guns. (Threadreader)
Igor Girkin on July 14, very pessimistic, thinks Ukraine could break through in the south, and that this would have dire implications in Russia. And here Girkin calls Putin a coward and a mediocrity. And finally, on July 21, reports that Girkin has been arrested; was that his goal?
The US is stealthily buying artillery shells from Bulgaria and sending them to Ukraine.
Six-minute video of a Ukrainian infantry assault near Bakhmut, remarkably small-scale.
If you have a 75-minute drive coming up and want to learn something about modern warfare, consider Perun's video on artillery in battle, artillery attrition, ammunition use and production, and why cluster munitions (you don't need the pictures, it's really a podcast). The conclusion is that the cluster munitions might end up making a huge difference, because they are very effective for this kind of battle and the US Army has about 3 million that our government has grown queasy about using, at a time when both sides are starved for shells.
Diving into Pentagon budget documents, Thomas Theiner gleans details about US aid to Ukraine: $5 million worth of smoke grenades, $58 million for night vision equipment, 12,450 rockets for HIMARS, $41 million for 8,000 Excalibur guided artillery rounds, and $194 million more to increase US artillery shell production, bringing to total spent on that effort to $778 million.
According to Politico, "Allies’ ‘main effort’ for Ukraine shifting from donating weapons to fixing them."
A Wagner-linked telegram channel posted these figures for the Wagner operation in Bakhmut:
- 78,000 fighters, 49,000 of which were convicts
- 22,000 killed, 40,000 wounded
- 25,000 are now "alive and healthy"
- 10,000 of those already in or going to Belarus
On Toledo, the NYT quotes a park-goer: "I didn’t know that history could be so appealing." Alas, very few people are interested in trying to understand human affairs at any time, let alone in the past, in all their complexity. This includes those who prefer left-wing or woke myths as well as those who like right-wing and nationalist ones. Of course, trying to understand humans and their affairs in all complexity is itself a myth. But since humans probably cannot avoid having myths, I'll take that one.
ReplyDeleteNote I admit it is not only the commonality who find history unappealing. So reputable an intellect as Jane Austen famously denounced history for its dullness (this in Northanger Abbey). To which I could impudently reply with the truth, that I found Pride and Prejudice so boring I couldn't finish it. (When I told one friend this, he cried, "You do not judge Jane Austen, Jane Austen judges you!")
ReplyDeleteI do kind of like Jane Austen, but I find it remarkable that she managed to make such an exciting moment in human history feel so dull. Besides all the wars and revolutions there was labor agitation as the industrial revolution got under way, a huge row within the Anglican church over deism/unitarianism, rapid progress in science, etc. None of which makes any appearance.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read about Henry Layard, the man who excavated Nineveh, it struck me that he was of the same class as Mr. Darcy. But whereas Mr. Darcy spent his time improving his garden and acting snide, Henry Layard lived in France and Italy, spoke six languages, ran for Parliament, served as a diplomat, wrote political tracts, excavated a great city using cutting edge archaeological techniques, and then wrote a book about it that launched a great craze for everything Assyrian. While Mr. Darcy pruned roses.
@John
ReplyDeleteMr. Darcy is written to be an object of desire, though - handsome, wealthy, idle, and (perhaps most importantly for this kind of literature) misunderstood by society at large, but with a secret tenderness that can only be revealed by the insight of an intelligent young female protagonist who likewise is a misfit in the aristocratic society of the English countryside.
Henry Layard, in comparison, was a real person (and thus less attainable), fairly ordinary looking, and devoted all his time and attention to the sorts of pursuits you mention - hardly a suitable fantasy for the sorts of bored young ladies eager for attention and affection, whom Austen was writing for.
As you say, Darcy pruned roses - something a young country lady could understand and appreciate. In constrast, as a young man Layard wandered aimlessly through Persia and the Middle East, worked for the British ambassador in Turkey, dug up moldy old ruins in the scorching heat and dust of strange foreign lands, took on a variety of diplomatic duties, etc. Most of Austen's readers would have found such activities extremely arcane and unappealing - after all, they were brought up to lead lives concerned with "civility" and domestic affairs, not wandering through foreign "barbarous" "Heathen" lands digging in the dirt.
@John
ReplyDeleteWow, you've actually succeeded in making me want to give Austen a second chance. I'm turned off by the overhyping of overachievers like Layard, and, by comparison, you've made Darcy sounds like a congenial putterer.
I mean, he's still a haughty, arrogant, vain, brooding, emotionally unintelligent fop who is disliked by most of his peers and who looks down his nose at those of lower social classes.
ReplyDeleteAnd not just non-nobility - he literally attends a ball and then flatly refuses to dance with any of the young aristocratic women there, because 1) they are all from slightly less high-status aristocratic families than his own; and 2) he considers them all to be less beautiful than himself.
He's basically a spiteful, unlikable, difficult, tactless boor whose primary redeeming quality (aside from being obscenely rich and belonging to the oldest sort of nobility) is that he's ultimately not an immoral or unprincipled person.
The obvious comparison drawn by the book is to Mr. Wickham, who is known somewhat in polite society as a charming and sympathetic figure, despite his relative lack of wealth or established bloodline (he is a lieutenant in the Meryton militia). Naturally, it turns out he is secretly an immoral ne'er-do-well of the highest order, gambling, drinking, sleeping around, borrowing money to pay for his vices and extravagance, etc. You are plainly meant to contrast Elizabeth falling for Mr. Darcy with Elizabeth's sister Jane falling for Wickham.
The story is thus a trite morality play, with the moral of the story being that young ladies in the English countryside should seek out solely rich and high-status men, and eschew young upstarts from "new money" families or "self-made" military men, because only the former can be trusted to be moral and decent, and all the latter are invariably scoundrels and rakes who are just trying to steal the thunder of their betters and prey upon ignorant young women who don't know any better.
Ultimately, then, it's a form of patriarchal propaganda - which should come as no surprise, as this was the era of literature that popularized vampire stories, which are themselves a reactionary response to growing liberalism at the time.
The book also feels to me like it echoes The Taming of The Shrew in many ways, with the central theme of a young woman initially being repulsed by a man, but eventually learning to overlook all his truly awful traits and become obedient and devoted to him. There's even the same literary device of two sisters being married to two different men, for you to contrast.
If I wanted that kind of story, there's are countless modern "romance novels" which deliver the same toxic "I can change him! / He's just misunderstood!" patriarchal nonsense, but which have the benefit of at least taking place in a less foreign social sphere and time period, and which are better paced in terms of writing and story progression.
But hey, you do you.
@ Verloren
ReplyDeleteI agree with you entirely. I'm also afraid you missed the point of my post in response to John. The thrust was that, in highlighting one of the very few, perhaps the only, inoffensive Darcy quality, and only that one--the fact that he doesn't do much except prune roses--and contrasting it with a list of I-did-this-and-I-did-thats from an overachieving meritocrat--the litany of Layard's things sounds like an modern application essay to Harvard--had managed the unforeseen, magical Great Work of making Darcy *seem* appealing. After all, the descriptor "he just potters about in his garden" in the context of English literature conjures less Darcy than a host of lovable locals and amiable sidekicks (like for Miss Marple). Or, more than anything, a hobbit.
Since my poor, original intent was to make a point about history, and not Jane Austen, I will say I carry no water for history that is mainly hero-worship. But, I suppose, _de gustibus_ and all that.
It occurs to me--and here I go again, obscuring my points about history--that those lovable do-little characters might be essentially a phenomenon of the post-Great War. This is of course just a suggestion, since my acquaintanceship with English literature is barely average, if that. But there is a definitely a post-WWI "we're not going to be Layard anymore" strain of Englishness. Smiley, of course, comes of out of that (he has considerable virtues, but they are all of the unspectacular type, like dogged persistence and not talking too much). Too bad they had to go through the Somme, etc., to get there.
ReplyDeleteAlan Allport has a nice riff on this near the beginning of _Britain at Bay_ (let's hear it for the preview samples on Audible!).
Yes, one can still find a contrary hero theme, perhaps in Bond above all. But there's a hopeless rear-guard sense there, as if to say, "we are still heroes, we are, we ARE, dammit."
What bugs me about Jane Austen is not that not her characters aren't Henry Layard; hardly anyone is Henry Layard. I introduce him just to show how really very wide were the interests of the British upper class. What bugs me is that nobody in Jane Austen even talks about those things. We have pages and pages of trivial conversation that simply ignores all the exciting things happening around them.
ReplyDeleteWhich is not at all accurate; in "In These Times" Jenny Uglow delved very deeply into what British people wrote in their journals and so on in that period, and many people poorer than the Bennets were intensely following not just the war but also the labor agitation and the unitarianism debate, and when Layard's book on Nineveh was published people started going to balls in Assyrian dress. So maybe it would be weird for one of Austen's characters to start talking about Humphrey Davies' advances in chemistry (although Mary Shelley did that), but it would not be at all weird for us to witness a debate about the future of Christianity or one about electoral reform. There are such debates in "Middlemarch."