IRAS 06076-2139

Spectacular Hubble photo of an object that turned out on close inspection to be two galaxies speeding past each other at more than a million miles an hour. They are about 20,000 light years apart, quite close as galaxies go – remember that the Milky Way is 100,000 light years across.

Fragments

Venetian architectural fragments reused as tombstones in the Ottoman cemetery of Heraklion, Crete. From Monumenti Veneti nell’ isola di Creta by Giuseppe Gerola. Via Books n Buildings.

Today's Awesome Headline

If Americans Can Find North Korea on a Map, They’re More Likely to Prefer Diplomacy

Behold the guesses for North Korea's location from 1,746 American Adults; 36% got it right. The headline is a bit  misleading, because those who don't know where North Korea is are more likely to support war, but also more likely to support doing nothing. Those who know where it is tend to support sanctions, cyberattacks, and pressuring the Chinese to intervene, e.g., all the things we have been doing for twenty years.

Beaten Down by the Rain.

My garden is moving into summer, but I haven't posted any pictures because it rained all week. Yesterday I went out during a break and took these pictures.

Dubious Canadian Initiative

Sigh:

The editor of the Writers’ Union of Canada’s magazine has resigned after complaints over an article he wrote in which he said he doesn’t believe in cultural appropriation.

Hal Niedzviecki, editor of Write — a publication for the union’s members — published an opinion piece in the spring 2017 issue titled “Writer’s Prompt.” In the article, in an issue dedicated to indigenous writing, Niedzviecki wrote: “In my opinion, anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities.

“I’d go so far as to say there should even be an award for doing so — the Appropriation Prize for best book by an author who writes about people who aren’t even remotely like her or him.”

He went on to argue that Canadian literature remains “exhaustingly white and middle class” because writers are discouraged from writing about people and places they don’t know.

I am not sure what I will have to resign from, but before I go on I had better mention that I don't believe in cultural appropriation, either.  But wait, it gets worse.

“The Writer’s Prompt piece offended and hurt readers, contributors to the magazine and members of the editorial board,” said the statement. “We apologize unequivocally. We are in the process of contacting all contributors individually.

“The intention behind the magazine is to offer space for honest and challenging discussion and to be sincerely encouraging to all voices. The Union recognizes that intention is not enough, and that we failed in execution in this instance.

“We offer the magazine itself as a space to examine the pain this article has caused, and to take this conversation forward with honesty and respect,” the statement concluded.

They offer space for all voices except, apparently, the voice of reason.

I find the notion that we should not borrow practices, ideas or from other cultures absolutely and completely ludicrous. Consider a short list of things people of European descent who believe cultural appropriation is wrong should give up:

drinking coffee
drinking tea
smoking (anything)
yoga
eating corn, tomatoes, or hot peppers
chocolate
karate

Meanwhile, the first thing Native Canadians are going to have to give up is publishing essays and short stories in literary magazines.

It seems to me that the real flash point in some of these conflicts is money. The National Post story quotes a First Nations writer as saying that “white writers' voices are lifted up, while the people who are from those cultures are pushed down and kept outside the industry.” So it seems that she wants Native writers to have a commercial monopoly on telling native stories, as a sort of affirmative action. Which might or might not be a sensible policy – I am certainly not going to defend the North American publishing industry as a rational or merit-based entity – but has nothing to do with cultural appropriation. Come to think of it, the complaint I have read about white musicians taking over rock-and-roll is also partly about money, that is, black critics don't object to whites getting into black music, just that they then took it over and made most of the profit. Some, I think, are also bothered that we have forgotten where rock came from and imagine it as a white form, but 1) that certainly doesn't apply to anyone who knows 20th-century music, and 2) by this time the music has evolved in ways that bring in contributions from all over, so where is the "origin" of the music they play on rock radio now?

But to me that is beside the point. The real point is that borrowing things from other cultures is a good thing, in fact one of the best things. We should not be close minded. We should not refuse to engage with people, ideas, or practices from other cultures; we should embrace that engagement. We should make our own lives out of pieces from everywhere in the world, taking from every culture what we like best, choosing our friends with no regard to what they look like or where they come from. As far as I am concerned, the opposite of cultural appropriation is ethno-nationalism. Is that what the Writers' Union of Canada wants to promote? Do they seriously want white people to refuse to have anything to do with black, Asian, or Native culture?

If some bold person does set up a prize for the best writing about people in a completely different culture, please let me know so I can contribute to their prize fund.

Jihadi Pills

Since we were talking here back in September about the massive use of methamphetamines by the Nazi regime, I thought I should mention that the soldiers of the Islamic State have become notorious for constantly popping "jihadi pills." Their drug of choice is sometimes called Captagon. Captagon is a brand name of Fenethylline, a large molecule that breaks down into two separate amphetamines with slightly different effects. This used to be prescribed for hyperactivity in children and depression in adults, preferred to other amphetamines because it has less effect on the heart. However, government labs have studied the "Captagon" that one can buy on the black market and find that it is mostly generic amphetamines, and according to wikipedia most of what jihadis use is made in local labs and is therefore not likely to be Fenethylline either.

Anyway the soldiers fighting for the Islamic State are regularly pumped up on amphetamines, and I would not be surprised if that applies to many other combatants in the region. Some accounts from ex-jihadis speak of being given drugs that cause hallucinations, which would have to be something other than plain amphetamine; perhaps one of those cocktails of amphetamine and ketamine or ecstasy.

Explains a lot.

Isola Bella

Today's place to daydream about is Isola Bella in Laggo Maggiore, northern Italy. This is one of the "Three Borromean Islands" that belong to the Borromeo family of Milan.

Until 1632 this tiny island was just a rocky outcrop occupied by a tiny fishing village. But in that year Carlo III Borromeo, besotted, it is said, with his wife Isabella D'Adda, began building a palace and garden on the island as a gift to her. Both the palazzo and the garden were planned by the Milanese architect Angelo Crivelli.

However work was interrupted by a major outbreak of plague in Milan around mid century, and the palace was not completed until the time of Vitaliano VI in the 1680s; the architect at that time was Carlo Fontana.

The centerpiece of the garden is this construction, known as the pyramid.

View from the top.

The interior of the palazzo is just the sort of rococo thing you might expect, but seems nice enough.

Underneath the palazzo is a famous set of shell grottoes.

But the wonder is the gardens. These photos are from Travelocafe, which also has a photo set on the nearby Isola Madre, which is a bird sanctuary and much less crowded. People typically visit the island as part of a boat tour of the lake, which seems like a very civilized way to spend a day.

The palace reached its pinnacle of fame under Giberto V Borromeo (1751–1837) when guests included Edward Gibbon, Napoleon and his wife Joséphine, and Caroline of Brunswick, the Princess of Wales.

In 1935 a conference of high representatives of Italy, France and the United Kingdom was held in the nearby town of Stresa. The resulting agreement, known as the Stresa Front, was signed in the palazzo on Isola Bella. The agreement committed the three nations to upholding the Versailles Treaty and in particular to defending the independence of Austria; it collapsed after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.

A place I love to imagine on a dreary, rainy day like today.

Amazing Nodosaur Fossil from Canadian Tar Sands

Accidentally uncovered by a backhoe operator back in 2011 and just revealed by National Geographic. Sadly only half of the fossil was preserved, but that half is remarkable. These are big images, worth clicking on.

Germany's Aims in World War I

When my eldest son was about eight he asked me, "Dad, what was World War I about?" I was stumped; how to explain such a convoluted story to a child? I finally settled on, "It was about who was going to be boss in Europe."

Support for that view comes from this little item in the Times, originally published by the International Herald Tribune on May 12, 1917:

LONDON — Despatches from Amsterdam quote the “Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung” (Krupp’s organ) which reproduces from “Wirklichkeit,” Count Bothmer’s new periodical, an article on Germany’s war aims.

The writer (a Privy Councillor), who allows it to be understood that these aims are also those of persons occupying positions of authority, says that no cession of territory will be demanded from France except a small strip of land near Metz, which is unconditionally required by the military authorities.

As to Belgium, the writer says — “We should receive as guarantees all the railway communications, posts and telegraphs and telephones, which must come under German management. The Belgian coast must be strongly fortified, and Belgium, moreover, must enter into an economic and Customs union with Ger­many. “We ought to dispense with war indemnities, as I am of opinion that England will never be prepared to pay an indemnity, and that France, Russia and the others — Japan of course excepted— will not be able to pay anything.

“Courland and Lithunia will be annexed from Russia. As regards Poland, it is possible that we should negotiate with Russia. “In the Balkans, Bulgaria must obtain the whole of the Dobruja and Ser­bian Montenegro, and parts of Serbia around Nish, so that she would gain access to Hungary. From the remainder of Serbia and Montenegro one State would be formed, possibly under the rule of Prince Mirko (the King of Montenegro’s second son—who went over to the enemy).”

“To Russia the passage through the Dardanelles, even for warships, would be conceded, and by this means we should achieve a rapprochement between Russia and Germany.”

“Of our colonies we can demand back the Cameroons, Togoland and East Africa. It appears doubtful whether we could get back West Africa, as the Boers make claims to this region. To these portions of Africa must be added parts of the Congo State, which Belgium must cede as compensation for the money we have expended on Belgium.”

No coherent policy lies behind this omnium gatherum of demands, beyond a desire that Germany be recognized as the winner of the war and the leading power in Europe. Other German officials put out other lists of demands, equally arbitrary.

Since there is a lot of folklore out there about how badly Germany was treated after the war, and how this bad treatment led inevitably to World War II, etc., it is worth emphasizing that France and England were always ready to accept peace on the basis of the status quo ante, and that what prolonged the war was the German leadership's insistence on receiving concessions that would recognize them as the victors.

Offshore Wind Power in Maryland

Today's energy news:

Maryland regulators on Thursday approved plans for the nation's first large-scale offshore wind projects, saying the decision will position the state to be a leader in the developing industry.

The Maryland Public Service Commission awarded renewable energy credits for two projects off Maryland's Eastern Shore near Ocean City. The PSC says the decision allows US Wind of Baltimore and Skipjack Offshore Energy, a subsidiary of Deepwater Wind, to build a total of 368 megawatts of capacity. . . .

US Wind's proposal is to build 62 turbines between 12 and 15 nautical miles offshore to generate 248 megawatts. It will cost an estimated $1.4 billion to build. Skipjack's plan is for 15 turbines between 17 and 21 miles offshore to produce 120 megawatts. It will cost about $720 million to build.

There are still other regulatory hurdles to overcome, but the PSC's ruling allowing the developers to claim renewal energy credits was widely seen as the key decision. Incidentally this was set in motion five years ago by our then governor Martin O'Malley, who was a dismal presidential candidate but did some interesting stuff as governor.

These projects will generate nearly 5,000 jobs in construction and steel fabrication, and they will lead to a significant investment in the Port of Baltimore. This, not coal, is the future.

The Top Solution for Climate Change

Paul Hawken and a large team of experts tried to crunch the numbers for different proposed remedies to climate change, from vegan diets to offshore wind farms. The result:

The number one solution, in terms of potential impact? A combination of educating girls and family planning.

All of our impacts on the planet are driven by rising population, and the best way to limit the impact is to limit population growth. And the best ways we know of to do that are to educate girls and provide birth control and family planning advice to those who want it.

Gao Xingjian

Painting begins where language fails.

– Novelist, playwright, and ink painter Gao Xingjian, born in China in 1940 and now living in France.

Vladimir Nabokov on Kafka's Metamorphosis

From this lecture:

Now what exactly is the "vermin" into which poor Gregor, the seedy commercial traveler, is so suddenly transformed? It obviously belongs to the branch of "jointed leggers" (Arthropoda), to which insects, and spiders, and centipedes, and crustaceans belong. If the "numerous little legs" mentioned in the beginning mean more than six legs, then Gregor would not be an insect from a zoological point of view. But I suggest that a man awakening on his back and finding he has as many as six legs vibrating in the air might feel that six was sufficient to be called numerous. We shall therefore assume that Gregor has six legs, that he is an insect.

Next question: what insect? Commentators say cockroach, which of course does not make sense. A cockroach is an insect that is flat in shape with large legs, and Gregor is anything but flat: he is convex on both sides, belly and back, and his legs are small. He approaches a cockroach in only one respect: his coloration is brown. That is all. Apart from this he has a tremendous convex belly divided into segments and a hard rounded back suggestive of wing cases. In beetles these cases conceal flimsy little wings that can be expanded and then may carry the beetle for miles and miles in a blundering flight. Curiously enough, Gregor the beetle never found out that he had wings under the hard covering of his back. (This is a very nice observation on my part to be treasured all your lives. Some Gregors, some Joes and Janes, do not know that they have wings.)

Trump and Comey

Fascinating story at Politico:

President Donald Trump weighed firing his FBI director for more than a week. When he finally pulled the trigger Tuesday afternoon, he didn't call James Comey. He sent his longtime private security guard to deliver the termination letter in a manila folder to FBI headquarters.

He had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia. He repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn’t disappear and demanded they speak out for him. He would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe, one adviser said. . . .

That's the first things that jumps out at me; the sources for all of this are Trump staffers close enough to the president that they watch tv with him, but they are eager to trash him to Politico. There's a tight ship.

The second thing is, how could Trump possibly have thought that this would get his Russia troubles out of the news?

By ousting the FBI director investigating his campaign and associates, Trump may have added more fuel to the fire he is furiously trying to contain — and he was quickly criticized by a chorus of Republicans and Democrats. "The timing of this firing was very troubling," said Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican. . . .

But the fallout seemed to take the White House by surprise. Trump made a round of calls around 5 p.m., asking for support from senators. White House officials believed it would be a "win-win" because Republicans and Democrats alike have problems with the FBI director, one person briefed on their deliberations said.

Instead, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told him he was making a big mistake — and Trump seemed "taken aback," according to a person familiar with the call.

There is it again; somebody close enough to Trump to know how he reacted to a phone call eager to tell Politico what a fool his boss is. And he is being a fool; firing Comey is about the worst possible way to put this behind him. Kevin Drum:

Trump's astronomical ignorance has finally caught up with him. He seems to have had no idea that firing Comey wouldn't stop the investigation—nor that a new FBI director wouldn't dare quash it. In fact, all the firing does is make the investigation untouchable. Trump's astronomical narcissism has caught up with him too. He has so little insight into other humans that he simply couldn't conceive of anyone hating Comey but still defending his right to serve out his term. In Trump's world, you reward your friends and punish your enemies and that's that.

I continue to think that nothing will ever really come of this. Anyone in a position to know of a deal between Putin and Trump would be a thoroughly unsatisfactory witness, and any document could too easily be dismissed as fake. But this looks likely to trundle on for months, maybe all the way to the 2018 election.

The Long History of the Viking Longhouse

The basic structure of the Viking longhouse is an old form, going back to the Bronze Age:

According to Marianne Hem Eriksen, it is striking that the three-aisled longhouse persisted for nearly 3000 years of Scandinavian prehistory – especially when considering the major upheavals that occurred throughout this period.

‘Many have pointed to architecture as a fundamental expression of the ideology prevailing in a specific culture. Especially in societies that have no written language, architecture takes on special importance as a collective expression of the organization and mindset of a culture,’ she points out.

The period from the early Bronze Age to the Medieval period was characterized by huge and fundamental social, political and religious upheaval. Towards the end of the Bronze Age the chieftains ruled, before the bronze networks of that age collapsed. The centuries preceding the birth of Christ are said to be characterized by equality and egalitarianism. This period was followed by the rise and fall of the Roman Empire and the Age of Migration with its great movements of migrant populations – this could indeed be described as ‘Europe on the move’. In addition, we have the Vikings and their raiding and colonization towards the end of the first millennium AD.

‘Throughout this period, people in Scandinavia continued to build their houses in more or less exactly the same way as before. That’s really intriguing,’ the archaeologist says.

Eriksen's recent work focuses on the ritual importance of these houses; for example, when they had decayed to the point that they needed to be replaced, they were often burned and a burial mound erected over the remains. Literary sources tell us that certain key posts ("high seat pillars") were removed and taken to the new house.

I think the rituals are interesting but I do not think they are necessary to explain the long use of this design. I think it survived because it was a perfect fit for the society and environment of Bronze and Iron Age Scandinavia. This was a land of long, cold, dark winters, and the basic test of any house design was whether it could keep people warm with a limited use of fuel. These windowless longhouses fulfilled that basic function. More, they provided a way for people to get together in the dark season and pass the time in company. Each of these longhouses belonged to a chieftain and they were large partly to accommodate a lot of guests. In the three-aisled design, the two outer aisles were usually divided into small spaces for semi-private sleeping quarters, storage bins, and the like, but the center aisle was a common space. There the folk of the stead could gather for feasts or drinking bouts, to hear skalds recite ancient lays, or just to talk. These gatherings kept up the morale of the people and also reinforced the prestige of the chieftain.

Think of the hall of Heorot in Beowulf, a place of light, comradeship and safety amidst the stormy, monster-haunted world.

The "Shortage" of Construction Workers

Interesting post (not entirely in a good way) by Scott Sumner on how there can be a shortage of construction workers. He starts from this news story:

As the Dallas Morning News notes, between 2012 and 2016, wages for Texas construction workers rose 21.2 percent, compared with 12 percent for all construction jobs in the U.S., and 2.2 percent for all jobs in the state. In Collin County, home to Plano and McKinney, construction workers make $98,000. And that was before the new administration began its immigration crackdown. The Dallas-Plano-Irving metropolitan area is short about 18,000 construction workers--about 20 percent of the total. Which means that many homebuilders literally can't find people to do the job, and the rest must attempt to pass on higher costs to their customers.

That $98,000 number is misleading; maybe highly skilled workers at the height of a boom make that, but the average for construction workers is a lot less. The shortage of workers in booming counties is an interesting fact, but it is not hard to explain. First, construction is the most business-cycle dependent part of the economy, and people are reluctant to take up a career than means a big chance of being laid off in every recession. Second, construction shifts around the country more than other kinds of work, and therefore regularly suffers from local worker shortages. Third, the work is often miserable. Which brings me to this:

A poll from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) of young Americans ages 18-to-25 shows that almost no millennials want a career in construction -- a high-paying industry. 64 percent of these millennials said they wouldn't even consider working in construction if you paid them $100,000 or more.

74 percent of young adults know what career field they want to pursue, and of these millennials, just 3 percent want a career in construction trades. What's more stunning is that of the 26 percent who don't know what career they want, 63 percent of these undecided millennials said there was "no or little chance regardless of pay" that they would work in construction trades.

First, the NAHB probably financed this poll to fight limits on immigration, so the motives of the pollsters are suspect. Even so, what difference does it make if 64 percent of millennials wouldn't consider working in construction? Only about 5% of Americans work in construction, even using a broad definition that includes secretaries, salesmen and managers. Which means there really isn't much of a mismatch between the 3% of Americans who want to work in construction and the 4% or so who do; the industry only needs to recruit about 4% of the ones who don't know what they want to do. Which seems feasible to me, but would be a lot more feasible if they offered anything like job stability.

But I still think there might be something to what Sumner says:

Millennials were more likely to grow up with indoor activities, such as computers games, and less likely to roam around outside. Perhaps that makes them softer. Before everyone jumps all over me, I strongly believe that my (boomer) generation was softer than my dad's ("Greatest") generation, which fought in WWII. And that my dad was softer than his grandparents, who were pioneers in the Midwest. That's progress!

This is certainly true of my sons, who despite being active, athletic sorts into soccer and martial arts would never consider construction work. (I've asked.) I have pondered why this is. Yes, I think they are "soft" in the sense that outdoor work in all kinds of weather has no appeal to them. Another thing I come  up with is that they are suspicious of the kind of people they would work with; to them "construction workers" summons up either Mexicans who speak no English or Trump-supporting guys with big trucks and Git R Done hats, and they don't want to hang out with either. Mostly we imagine ourselves doing the kinds of work that people we know are doing, and they don't know anyone working in construction, so it is outside of their world. It would be as strange to them as becoming farmers or fishermen. I think these effects may be broadly distributed through our society in lots of ways.

A Mongoose on a Leash

Recently cleaned Egyptian tomb painting, 4,000 years old, shows what archaeologists say is a mongoose on a leash. This is the only such depiction from the ancient world. Mongooses have never been truly domesticated but they are occasionally kept as pets.

Griffin and Astragal

Intaglio from Ionia, 5th century BCE, showing a griffin with an astragal. The astragal is the rectangular thing below the griffin. From the Hermitage.

These magical symbols appear all over the place in the art of ancient Greece and the Near East, but an astragal is really just the ankle bone of a sheep. They were used for dice, and for oracles, and from there they became symbols of fate, and thus of divine power.

Young Adulthood and Income Stagnation

The latest massive, long-term study of income in America has some interesting conclusions. For one thing they find that men born in 1942 had the highest median lifetime earnings of any American cohort. Women have done better more recently, but as with other studies this one finds that median family income peaked in 1999 and has declined since.

I was more interested in another discovery: all you need to know to estimate how much a cohort will earn over the course of their lifetimes is how much they earned at 27. Every generation since 1934 when their data starts has followed about the same pattern of earnings across the life cycle. So they reason that we can predict future economic performance from the earnings of current 27-year-olds. Which is pretty grim, because right now 27-year-old men earn 31% less than they did in 1969.

As my regular readers know I think all the time about the troubles young Americans have getting into adult careers. This data seems to show that those troubles reflect, not just a lengthening period of "youth" outside the structures of adult life, but a profound shift in the whole socio-economic structure.

Fatih Guvenen, one of the study's leaders, thinks that maybe we should look at what people are doing before they enter the work force:

The implication, Guvenen argues, is that economists should search for explanations for households’ current financial woes in the youth and childhood of today’s workers.

“We are maybe looking at the wrong place for the solution to stagnation in wages and rising inequalities,” Guvenen said. “To understand higher inequality, we should turn and take a closer look at youth.”

It remains to be seen whether the situation will improve in the future for younger workers today, but their prospects seem dim. Young workers’ incomes are still declining today, suggesting that their trajectories over the rest of their careers will be lower as well.

I am not sure what those changes would be – less work experience, more time in school? – and anyway I don't think Guvenen is right. I think the issue is that the economy simply doesn't have much need for the average worker at 27 or any other age, so of course this causes wages to decline.

A Royal Funeral in the Grand Old Manner

As an adolescent just getting into archaeology I was deeply puzzled by royal tombs. Why, I wondered, was so much wealth thrown into holes the ground? I did eventually figure out the importance of these rituals in both political (dynastic continuity, showing off your wealth) and psychological (the need to sacrifice) terms. But the weirdness of it has stayed with me. Couldn't people think of less destructive ways to accomplish those aims, like holding funeral feasts for the community and giving everyone a gift?

This was brought back to me by Seth Mydans' story on the funeral of Thailand's late king, planned for October. The event has to wait for the anniversary of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's death because the preparations are so elaborate. The top image shows the planned structure of his funeral pyre, and the image above shows it under construction.

And the nine-spired, 165-foot-tall structure is just the beginning. The pyre will be full of the best goods Thailand's artisans can produce, from glittering textiles to lifelike statues of animals.

The structure will be full of murals painted on paper, depicting Buddhist scenes and scenes from the king's life. According to Mydans, the artistic style will more European and lifelike than traditional Thai, in keeping with the king's tastes. (Will some future king's pyre be decorating with abstract splashes, or pop art cartoons?) There will be a statue of the king's favorite dog.

Oddly enough, the huge structure isn't even burned; the king is cremated in a chamber in the center, and the whole thing then dismantled and distributed to monasteries or others who might want the pieces. But the expense is no doubt still very great.

That this still makes sense to Thais who miss their king of 70 years says much to me about the riches lavished on dead rulers from the Pharaohs and the Kings of Ur to Chin Shih Huang Ti.