The unfortunate events that occur in the gardens, including the unforgivable frightening of the tennis players, happen along the path described here:
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/buying_and_selling/article6075239.ece
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Page 214: An unauthorized drive through Belgrave Square Gardens
Belgrave Square is a beautiful place surrounded by beautiful buildings. In the center is a 10-acre garden reserved for the private use of local "keyholders", who pay for the privilege. Similar to Burton's Court (page 2), it looks like a public park but it isn't.
The unfortunate events that occur in the gardens, including the unforgivable frightening of the tennis players, happen along the path described here:
The land is owned by The Duke of Westminster. The area, while developed from a cesspit in the early 1800s, is incredibly posh. Though much of it has changed to commercial use, there are a few private homes. This one, #10, was on sale in 2009 for a mere 100 million pounds!
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/buying_and_selling/article6075239.ece
The unfortunate events that occur in the gardens, including the unforgivable frightening of the tennis players, happen along the path described here:
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/buying_and_selling/article6075239.ece
Monday, November 9, 2009
Page 20: CCR-5 Receptor Mutation
Without doubt, my favorite things to write in Old Blood were the genetic discussions. I just love them. I wish I could write books on it, like Matt Ridley. His book, Genome, is a perspective changer.
The CCR-5 mutation is an incredibly cool thing that didn't really get a lot of space in the book. So here is a more straightforward telling of the tale:
The way to think about the mutation is this: If you thoroughly spray a nest of, say, 1000 cockroaches with a particular poison and 3 or 4 survive the treatment, what you have neatly done is find the 3 or 4 cockroaches that are immune to the poison. Bingo, you've committed evolution! You have, in a moment of poisonous spray, selected for a particular genetic trait. If the 3 or 4 cockroaches go on to make some baby cockroaches, most or all of their offspring will also be immune to the poison because they inherit the immunity gene from their parents.
The beautifully ironic thing about our 3 or 4 cockroaches is that their immunity gene was probably a reproductive mistake, a flaw, or, more colorfully, a mutation. A mutation that saved their lives.
On a much larger scale, the waves of disease that have washed through the human population, including the black death, cholera, and small pox have acted just like the roach poison above. They, by and large, killed almost everybody that wasn't at least partially immune. Because there wasn't advanced medical care back then, the diseases made a fairly "clean sweep" of the non-immune.
The immunity in humans was likely conferred by a mutation in a receptor, sort of like a door, through which infections sneak into cells. In other words, a few people had a flaw, a mutation, in their CCR-5 receptor. Their flaw was their savior. Correction, the mutation was OUR savior, because if you are of European descent you likely share the mutation. Most of us are mutants.
And we are lucky, for it was not a skill that enabled our ancestors to survive, but rather a lucky genetic break. But isn't all talent some form of genetic lucky break? A big question for human society is whether something that is subject to inheritance and probability is a legitimate differentiator. We tend to be okay with hard work: If hard work made you wealthy you get a smattering of applause. On the other hand, we tend to dislike luck and absolutely loathe inheritance. Many argue that because wealth is often tied to inheritance or luck rather than skill or hard work that confiscatory taxation is justified. Or consider another example, does the inherited hardiness of your genetic stock entitle you to a lifetime of reduced medical costs, or should you pay your "fair share" despite your "innate talent" for surviving disease? What about intelligence? When we all have to get on a spaceship to escape the asteroid, does being "lucky" enough to be smart guarantee you a spot on board? After all, to be smart is to have, at least in part, inherited good genes. These are difficult questions.
Equally difficult is the question of biodiversity. What if our 3 or 4 surviving cockroaches are highly allergic to, something they haven't yet encountered, say, pine nuts? What if being allergic to pine nuts was somehow related to their ability to survive the poison? The lucky survivors would carry a valuable immunity but also a fatal flaw that might not allow them to survive their first contact with pine nuts. Their luck with poison could be placing them a moment away from extinction.
To wit, what if all the professor-types we shoot into space are too weak to move the big rocks on Planet X. Oops, we should have sent some other folks, too. It's hard to know in advance what will aid survival. Genetic selection is HIGHLY subject to the laws of unintended consequences. [This will form a big part of Bad Blood, on which I am working now.]
Some scientists believe the modern phenomenon of allergies (which have demonstrably gotten more intense over the centuries) is related to diseases such as cholera. The survivors of cholera had an incredibly sensitive, some might say jumpy, immune system that reacted quickly to fight the disease. Those hyper immune systems now go off like alarm bells at the first sign of invasion by, well, pollen. So what was once a BIG blessing is now a minor curse. But it is still working for us, even if we are all sniffly.
Speaking of working for us, it is also thought that CCR-5 mutation is offering at least partial protection against HIV, which may explain why the disease has been more prevalent in Africa and Asia than in Europe or the United States. Another lucky break.
So being lucky is good, luck got us here alive. And now? Embrace your flaws, they may save your life someday.
The CCR-5 mutation is an incredibly cool thing that didn't really get a lot of space in the book. So here is a more straightforward telling of the tale:
The way to think about the mutation is this: If you thoroughly spray a nest of, say, 1000 cockroaches with a particular poison and 3 or 4 survive the treatment, what you have neatly done is find the 3 or 4 cockroaches that are immune to the poison. Bingo, you've committed evolution! You have, in a moment of poisonous spray, selected for a particular genetic trait. If the 3 or 4 cockroaches go on to make some baby cockroaches, most or all of their offspring will also be immune to the poison because they inherit the immunity gene from their parents.
The beautifully ironic thing about our 3 or 4 cockroaches is that their immunity gene was probably a reproductive mistake, a flaw, or, more colorfully, a mutation. A mutation that saved their lives.
On a much larger scale, the waves of disease that have washed through the human population, including the black death, cholera, and small pox have acted just like the roach poison above. They, by and large, killed almost everybody that wasn't at least partially immune. Because there wasn't advanced medical care back then, the diseases made a fairly "clean sweep" of the non-immune.
The immunity in humans was likely conferred by a mutation in a receptor, sort of like a door, through which infections sneak into cells. In other words, a few people had a flaw, a mutation, in their CCR-5 receptor. Their flaw was their savior. Correction, the mutation was OUR savior, because if you are of European descent you likely share the mutation. Most of us are mutants.
And we are lucky, for it was not a skill that enabled our ancestors to survive, but rather a lucky genetic break. But isn't all talent some form of genetic lucky break? A big question for human society is whether something that is subject to inheritance and probability is a legitimate differentiator. We tend to be okay with hard work: If hard work made you wealthy you get a smattering of applause. On the other hand, we tend to dislike luck and absolutely loathe inheritance. Many argue that because wealth is often tied to inheritance or luck rather than skill or hard work that confiscatory taxation is justified. Or consider another example, does the inherited hardiness of your genetic stock entitle you to a lifetime of reduced medical costs, or should you pay your "fair share" despite your "innate talent" for surviving disease? What about intelligence? When we all have to get on a spaceship to escape the asteroid, does being "lucky" enough to be smart guarantee you a spot on board? After all, to be smart is to have, at least in part, inherited good genes. These are difficult questions.
Equally difficult is the question of biodiversity. What if our 3 or 4 surviving cockroaches are highly allergic to, something they haven't yet encountered, say, pine nuts? What if being allergic to pine nuts was somehow related to their ability to survive the poison? The lucky survivors would carry a valuable immunity but also a fatal flaw that might not allow them to survive their first contact with pine nuts. Their luck with poison could be placing them a moment away from extinction.
To wit, what if all the professor-types we shoot into space are too weak to move the big rocks on Planet X. Oops, we should have sent some other folks, too. It's hard to know in advance what will aid survival. Genetic selection is HIGHLY subject to the laws of unintended consequences. [This will form a big part of Bad Blood, on which I am working now.]
Some scientists believe the modern phenomenon of allergies (which have demonstrably gotten more intense over the centuries) is related to diseases such as cholera. The survivors of cholera had an incredibly sensitive, some might say jumpy, immune system that reacted quickly to fight the disease. Those hyper immune systems now go off like alarm bells at the first sign of invasion by, well, pollen. So what was once a BIG blessing is now a minor curse. But it is still working for us, even if we are all sniffly.
Speaking of working for us, it is also thought that CCR-5 mutation is offering at least partial protection against HIV, which may explain why the disease has been more prevalent in Africa and Asia than in Europe or the United States. Another lucky break.
So being lucky is good, luck got us here alive. And now? Embrace your flaws, they may save your life someday.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Page 28: The Basque History of the World
The Basque History of the World, by Mark Kurlansky, is a great book. It is one of those books that proves that if you move your lens a little bit and look at history from a different angle, it is possible to draw very different conclusions from what you've seen. It's a perspective changer.
Kurlansky has also written two other, somewhat related, perspective changers: Cod and Salt. Salt was the first one that I read, and for me it was a mind-bending experience. In a nutshell, Salt makes a persuasive argument that the pursuit of salt created the modern world. Back in the day, people in a local area were fairly self-sufficient because almost everything they knew enough to want was locally available. Then somebody figured out that salt could be used to preserve food. Suddenly, salt was in high demand. But salt was not generally available, it only came from specific places. To get salt, people without salt had to dream up stuff that the people with salt wanted so that they could trade. Poof! there was a market. While there had always been trade, it had always been sort of optional -- "hey, that's a nice little bowl, how about I give you this knife for it" or "I'm sick of rice, how about I swap you for some of that wheat". But with salt, it was different. People felt they needed salt. Anyway, the historical string played itself out and everything in modern history, up to and including the ShamWow, can be, more or less, traced back to salt.
I closed the book and said to myself, "nobody ever mentioned salt to me in school." There was this irreducibly simple concept out there that explains so much, and it was practically a secret. I wondered if there were other simple secrets out there of similar import.
The Basques, as Kurlansky obviously saw, are a similar story. They have been deeply involved in all sorts of seriously humanity-changing things and nobody ever really talks about them. They were probably the first Europeans in America (they were chasing Cod, which is one of the most important factors in the development of the United States), as mercenaries they helped build the Roman Empire, as evangelists they were critical to the growth of the Catholic Church, the list goes on.
But the Basques are difficult to explain: They are genetically distinct from Europeans, their language is ancient and unique, and their culture is highly distinctive. The rumors Dudley refers to (Lost Tribe of Israel, the Euskera language being spoken in the Garden of Eden) are true rumors, if not necessarily true facts. What is certainly true is that the Basque culture is very, very old and relatively unspoiled. It gives us some clues to humanity's "original nature". But not very clear or consistent clues.
As Kurlansky says, the Basques are an enigma. But most enigmas are fun to think about but irrelevant. The Basques are a relevant enigma. If for no other reason than the fact that their struggles have always reflected those of the wider world. As Kurlansky writes:
"When Basques first began appearing on the stage of recorded history, even before there was a name for them, they were observed acting like Basques, playing out the same roles that they have been playing ever since: defending their land and culture, making complex choices about the degree of independence that was needed to preserve their way of life, while looking to the rest of the world for commercial opportunities to ensure their prosperity."
Sound familiar?
Kurlansky has also written two other, somewhat related, perspective changers: Cod and Salt. Salt was the first one that I read, and for me it was a mind-bending experience. In a nutshell, Salt makes a persuasive argument that the pursuit of salt created the modern world. Back in the day, people in a local area were fairly self-sufficient because almost everything they knew enough to want was locally available. Then somebody figured out that salt could be used to preserve food. Suddenly, salt was in high demand. But salt was not generally available, it only came from specific places. To get salt, people without salt had to dream up stuff that the people with salt wanted so that they could trade. Poof! there was a market. While there had always been trade, it had always been sort of optional -- "hey, that's a nice little bowl, how about I give you this knife for it" or "I'm sick of rice, how about I swap you for some of that wheat". But with salt, it was different. People felt they needed salt. Anyway, the historical string played itself out and everything in modern history, up to and including the ShamWow, can be, more or less, traced back to salt.
I closed the book and said to myself, "nobody ever mentioned salt to me in school." There was this irreducibly simple concept out there that explains so much, and it was practically a secret. I wondered if there were other simple secrets out there of similar import.
The Basques, as Kurlansky obviously saw, are a similar story. They have been deeply involved in all sorts of seriously humanity-changing things and nobody ever really talks about them. They were probably the first Europeans in America (they were chasing Cod, which is one of the most important factors in the development of the United States), as mercenaries they helped build the Roman Empire, as evangelists they were critical to the growth of the Catholic Church, the list goes on.
But the Basques are difficult to explain: They are genetically distinct from Europeans, their language is ancient and unique, and their culture is highly distinctive. The rumors Dudley refers to (Lost Tribe of Israel, the Euskera language being spoken in the Garden of Eden) are true rumors, if not necessarily true facts. What is certainly true is that the Basque culture is very, very old and relatively unspoiled. It gives us some clues to humanity's "original nature". But not very clear or consistent clues.
As Kurlansky says, the Basques are an enigma. But most enigmas are fun to think about but irrelevant. The Basques are a relevant enigma. If for no other reason than the fact that their struggles have always reflected those of the wider world. As Kurlansky writes:
"When Basques first began appearing on the stage of recorded history, even before there was a name for them, they were observed acting like Basques, playing out the same roles that they have been playing ever since: defending their land and culture, making complex choices about the degree of independence that was needed to preserve their way of life, while looking to the rest of the world for commercial opportunities to ensure their prosperity."
Sound familiar?
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Page 190: The tricky bit
Rhiannon's "Celtic Reconstructionist"/Feraferia philosophy advocates a return to the "simple times" before human mass productivity (of food and other items). As Rhiannon and Nigel discuss, back to nature/cultural resistance philosophies have a central implication (which some might call a "fatal flaw"). Namely that:
[Hunter-Gatherer] population densities tend to be lower than those of agriculturalists, since cultivated land is capable of sustaining population densities 60–100 times greater than land left uncultivated.
(From this article: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Hunter-gatherer#encyclopedia)
60 times is a lot. Going all the way back to the "wilderness" (assuming a 60X productivity) would suggest a U.S. population of 6 million versus 350 million today. That would be in the ballpark of the North American indigenous population before Columbus.
Of course, most cultural resistance movements don't advocate a return all the way to hunter-gatherer status. However, most anti-globalization, anti-corporate farming, and anti-mass production philosophies do advocate at least a part-way return to the "old ways". Whether it is right or wrong to go back, the fact is that the "old ways" cannot realistically support the current human population of almost 7 billion people. Even if the factor is 10X and not 60X, that's a lot of people that can't be supported. If they can't be supported, they die. It seems clear that most of the movements haven't thought through the full implications of their philosophies -- or if they have, they aren't talking about it.
A (very) few of the resistance movements do openly acknowledge the ultimate implication of their advocacy. One of them is here: http://www.optimumpopulation.org/. They have drawn a logical, if chilling, conclusion that "fewer emitters = fewer emissions".
The Optimum Population group is very real. It has the famous Sir David Attenborough as a public face. They really do publicly advocate an outright reduction in the human population:
OPT researchers have concluded that, in the absence of radical breakthroughs in energy technology, an environmentally sustainable population for the UK may be lower than 30 million
(quoted from their website)
30 million compares to the current UK population of 61 million people.
They don't mention what they plan to do with all the bodies.
[Hunter-Gatherer] population densities tend to be lower than those of agriculturalists, since cultivated land is capable of sustaining population densities 60–100 times greater than land left uncultivated.
(From this article: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Hunter-gatherer#encyclopedia)
60 times is a lot. Going all the way back to the "wilderness" (assuming a 60X productivity) would suggest a U.S. population of 6 million versus 350 million today. That would be in the ballpark of the North American indigenous population before Columbus.
Of course, most cultural resistance movements don't advocate a return all the way to hunter-gatherer status. However, most anti-globalization, anti-corporate farming, and anti-mass production philosophies do advocate at least a part-way return to the "old ways". Whether it is right or wrong to go back, the fact is that the "old ways" cannot realistically support the current human population of almost 7 billion people. Even if the factor is 10X and not 60X, that's a lot of people that can't be supported. If they can't be supported, they die. It seems clear that most of the movements haven't thought through the full implications of their philosophies -- or if they have, they aren't talking about it.
A (very) few of the resistance movements do openly acknowledge the ultimate implication of their advocacy. One of them is here: http://www.optimumpopulation.org/. They have drawn a logical, if chilling, conclusion that "fewer emitters = fewer emissions".
The Optimum Population group is very real. It has the famous Sir David Attenborough as a public face. They really do publicly advocate an outright reduction in the human population:
OPT researchers have concluded that, in the absence of radical breakthroughs in energy technology, an environmentally sustainable population for the UK may be lower than 30 million
(quoted from their website)
30 million compares to the current UK population of 61 million people.
They don't mention what they plan to do with all the bodies.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Page 208: Feraferia
Many, many people believe that some sort of cataclysm is coming. Extreme weather, rising sea levels, asteroids, soil exhaustion, war -- something is going to get us. Many people believe that, in the aftermath of the inevitable disaster, a new culture will rise. Neo-pagans tend to believe (hope?) that the new society will be much more devoted to the ideals of the Great Goddess.
Feraferia is one vision of the potential future utopia that awaits. Created by Frederick Adams, the Feraferia philosophy/religion is a "Paradisal Fellowship for the loving celebration of Wilderness Mysteries with Faerie style, courtly elegance, refinement & grace." (quoted from Earth Religion News via the book Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler).
Feraferia was derived, at least in part, from a book called The Recovery of Culture by Henry Bailey Stevens. Stevens' theory was that our primate ancestors lived in perfect peace and in balance with nature before the invention of agriculture and animal husbandry. Agriculture begat the ownership of land and animal husbandry begat the ownership of property that eventually spawned war -- over land and property.
Stevens believed that agriculture and animal husbandry were the "original sin" that literally cast humanity out of the Garden of Eden that was our primate past.
Feraferia wants to take us back to that past by worshiping the wilderness.
Agriculture and animal husbandry by humans emerged in the Levant and in Mesopatamia during neolithic times (9-10,000 years ago). No one really knows how or why. But more on that later...
Feraferia is one vision of the potential future utopia that awaits. Created by Frederick Adams, the Feraferia philosophy/religion is a "Paradisal Fellowship for the loving celebration of Wilderness Mysteries with Faerie style, courtly elegance, refinement & grace." (quoted from Earth Religion News via the book Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler).
Feraferia was derived, at least in part, from a book called The Recovery of Culture by Henry Bailey Stevens. Stevens' theory was that our primate ancestors lived in perfect peace and in balance with nature before the invention of agriculture and animal husbandry. Agriculture begat the ownership of land and animal husbandry begat the ownership of property that eventually spawned war -- over land and property.
Stevens believed that agriculture and animal husbandry were the "original sin" that literally cast humanity out of the Garden of Eden that was our primate past.
Feraferia wants to take us back to that past by worshiping the wilderness.
Agriculture and animal husbandry by humans emerged in the Levant and in Mesopatamia during neolithic times (9-10,000 years ago). No one really knows how or why. But more on that later...
Monday, November 2, 2009
Page 20: Albino dinosaur on the streets of Chicago...
Next spring when Robin Redbreast is hopping about in your yard, please keep in mind that the bird is a ferocious mini-dinosaur willing to tear you limb-from-limb at the slightest provocation.
Below is a link to an article that discusses the bird-dinosaur link:
http://www.amnh.org/science/specials/dinobird.html
Below is a link to an article that discusses the bird-dinosaur link:
http://www.amnh.org/science/specials/dinobird.html
Page 84: The Fifth Amendment
Probably the most famous part of the Fifth Amendment is "that thing from Law and Order" where you don't have to testify against yourself, as in "I'll take the Fifth on that, Your Honor".
However, the sting in the tail of the Fifth is at the end. The final sentence is the opening that governments have used to assert their controversial right to declare "eminent domain" and seize property for their own use. Here is the actual text of the Constitution:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
You see, you don't actually have the right to private property. You have the right not to have property taken from you without due process of law or "just compensation". They are very different legal positions!
The key element is "public use". As you can see above, one cannot be deprived of property without due process of law. But the framers introduced an exception: "public use". In the case of public use, the only thing you are entitled to is "just compensation".
Of course, we believe the framers intended private property to remain fairly sacrosanct -- and the government to remain respectful of its citizens. But desperate times...
However, the sting in the tail of the Fifth is at the end. The final sentence is the opening that governments have used to assert their controversial right to declare "eminent domain" and seize property for their own use. Here is the actual text of the Constitution:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
You see, you don't actually have the right to private property. You have the right not to have property taken from you without due process of law or "just compensation". They are very different legal positions!
The key element is "public use". As you can see above, one cannot be deprived of property without due process of law. But the framers introduced an exception: "public use". In the case of public use, the only thing you are entitled to is "just compensation".
Of course, we believe the framers intended private property to remain fairly sacrosanct -- and the government to remain respectful of its citizens. But desperate times...
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