Grim's Hall

Olav Trygvasson

Eric notes that Osprey Publishing is offering a limited edition of Angus McBride's print. Some of you may be interested:

The painting depicts the last moments of the battle aboard the Long Serpent, after the breaking of Einar Tambarskelver's bow, but before the King gives way and leaps overboard to his death. When Einar's bow broke, it made so loud a crack above the din of the fight that the king cried to him, "What burst there so loudly?" Einar answered: "Norway, king, from thy hand." The king broke out fresh swords from his sea chest before the final fight, but as he passed them out his men saw that blood was running down his arm.

Across the aft thwarts,
Olav's men must yield;
The hard-striking prince
Urged on his heated carls.
When warriors had locked
The bold king's ship-ways
The path of weapons
Turned against the Vendslayer.

There are many good poems surviving about Olav (also romanized "Olaf"). Most of them originate in his own court skalds. Here is one that has been anglicized in form -- the Old Norse poems do not rhyme, but alliterate.

Olaf's broad axe of shining steel
For the shy wolf left many a meal.
The ill-shaped Saxon corpses lay
Heaped up, the witch-wife's horses'1 prey.
She rides by night: at pools of blood.
Where Frisland men in daylight stood,
Her horses slake their thirst, and fly
On to the field where Flemings lie.
The raven-friend in Odin's dress --
Olaf, who foes can well repress,
Left Flemish flesh for many a meal
With his broad axe of shining steel.

Not all of them do, however! One of the finest poems in Old English considers him. Olav Trygvasson was the Viking leader of the expedition that led to the Battle of Maldon.

Cordova

Three shots from Cordova, AK -

The harbor:

Cordova is a sometimes-recommended vacation spot on Prince William Sound, the next stop on the ferry after Valdez. Unlike Talkeetna, it isn't really built around tourism at all. It's primarily a commercial fishing town (also had a "boom" phase from copper in the first part of the century, but there's no copper trade here now). We still found a firm that offers sea kayak rentals and tours, and loved the experience (if you're tall and you try it for the first time, get some kind of back support). Our hotel, The Reluctant Fisherman, used to be a cannery, as you might guess from the shape.

The mountains, from behind The Powder House:

Not much of a restaurant, but the views are beautiful. The prices aren't high because of tourism; all the prices are high here. Everything comes in by boat or plane. The restaurants serve surprisingly little seafood, because when the fishermen eat out, that's not what they're after. Or so I'm told.

Then again, you can get views like this all over south and south-central Alaska, and a long drive in this state is simply breathtaking.

The Copper River, evening:

Well past 10 PM. There's no road connecting this place to the rest of the world, but there is a 50-mile road that meanders out of town over several bridges, ending at one of the glaciers. (You can find stock footage of the Sheridan and Sherman glaciers all over the web. Why Alaska glaciers are named after them, I do not know.) It's only the end of May, so only 48 miles of this road are clear of snow, and we couldn't quite reach the glacier at the end. A little swamp, plenty of geese, a few ducks, an eagle or two, and a pair of swans. (We heard them sing. They survived.)

Memorial Day.

Bad Clovis People! Bad! Bad!

Wow. Michael Yon is pissed off.

American Airpower Museum, WASPs

I had some Soldiers' Angels duties yesterday at the American Airpower Museum on Long Island, at Republic Airport, where they made planes used in WWII, and which was the launch site for the planes performing in the Air Show at Jones Beach this Memorial Day Weekend. Got to see the Blue Angels take off. I've seen them perform before but it always gets the blood racing to see them in action.

They had some great displays, stuff I've never seen, people walking around dressed up like the pin-ups girls in the 40's, old planes that could be toured, booths set up by various soldier support causes, a blood drive going on, old cars and trucks used during various wars. Apparently, Republic Airport even has a restaurant that plays music from the 40's. I recommend visiting the American Airpower Museum, which is housed at the airport, if you are ever on Long Island.

Here's one plane that got my attention:

Of course I thought of all of you. They had one called Glamorous Gal, too, but my shot of that was too dark. I take most of my pics I post here with an uncomplicated cell phone.

Since this Hall is so women-friendly, I knew immediately where I'd be posting the following information, all joking aside.

Do you know what a WASP is? I thought I did, until yesterday.

Take a look; I'm embarrased I don't know enough American History to have previously known about the work of these fine ladies.

It took the United States until 1977 to grant full benefits to these ladies - the Women's Airforce Service Pilots, also known as WASPs. Prior to that, a Long Island Newsday article says, they had to take up collections to fly home their comrades who were killed in training accidents. I find that incredible. Link here: http://www.americanairpowermuseum.com/Images/SalutetoWarFemalePilots.pdf.

Excerpt:

These ladies served an important function, ferrying planes made at Republic to Newark, NJ, where they took off again for use during the war. They didn't serve in combat; our guys were needed abroad and might have had to do this work if it weren't for these women. It was an era, as many here fully understand, of pulling together for the sake of country. I like to think that today's soldier support groups are a pale spin-off of this era.

I had the distinct pleasure and honor of meeting Bernice "Bee" Falk Haydu yesterday, who has a book out chronicling the efforts of the WASPs. She is a WASP and boy, she is a glamorous gal if there ever was one. She took off her sunglasses while she was signing my book and her blue eyes could knock you out. Young men in uniforms were escorting her wherever she went, and they made a point to shake her hand. The world turns...

Recently, President Obama singed a bill granting the Women Airforce Service Pilots a Congressional Gold Medal, finally and formally recognizing their contribution to our country during its time of need.

So, this weekend, take a moment to silently (or publically!) thank the Women Airforce Service Pilots for their service.

This was taken at the National Cemetary, nearby.

Martin Gardner, R.I.P.

Another Icon Passes -

Grim notes one, and each to his own, but this last week we lost a splendid writer and thinker: Martin Gardner.

I couldn't begin to do justice to the man, certainly not with the time I'm going to spend writing this. He was primarily a science writer, whose principal hobby was magic (the old close-up performing kind), who loved all kinds of imaginative and whimsical fiction (and was a dedicated quoter and annotater of G.K. Chesterton). Depending on where you ask, he's best known for a "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American, or for his work in "fringe-watching" and debunking pseudoscience. His first book in that field is over 50 years old but has much of lasting value. My favorite section: the probing, but sympathetic, chapter on Charles Fort.

In that place, though not in those words, he taught me this: magic is as fun and fascinating as I always thought it was, but it loses its charm when people start pretending it's real, especially when it's far past its time. Gardner once wrote a delightful essay on Conan Doyle for the "Baker Street Irregulars" - a society dedicated to the notion that Sherlock Holmes really existed - but if someone started really believing it, the fun would be gone. To be entertained by an illusionist, or learn a few tricks yourself, adds a bit of spice to life - but what could be drearier than the believers in Uri Geller, pretending his furtive games were something true, and the cutting edge of science? "Quantum Theory and Quack Theory" - a chapter in his The New Age: Notes of a Fringe-Watcher - has an especially good contrast between the real strangeness of quantum theory, and the unimaginative silliness of writers who tried to tie it to spoon-bending.[1]

Or, as I might say to Chesterton, you may like the freedom to believe in fairies - but the fairies lose their magic if you do. And what a shame - because, in their rightful state, how beautiful they are.

Gardner taught many things to many people, and brought much delight. One of John Derbyshire's reviews will give a better flavor of what he was like, and what he did, than I can. But I have said my piece.

[1]He knew enough history to liken it to this poor wretch, who figured a slate-writing magician had to be working in four-dimensional space - just as Doyle himself, in his later spiritualist days, was convinced that Houdini had to be dematerializing himself (because Doyle, himself, couldn't figure out how Houdini was doing it).

In Praise of Librarians

In Praise of Librarians:

Christopher Bruce, in his acknowledgements, says this:

First mention goes to my wife, Terri... Second are the men and women of the Interlibrary Loan Office at Northeastern University, Boston. I have never seen a more efficient, more productive group of people in my life. I put in request forms for dozens of books at a time, but the Interlibrary Loan Office never failed to find a single text. Some of the volumes they turned up should have been in museums. I was continually having conversations with them like this:

Me: “I need an 1560 edition of The Book of Taliesin written in Welsh, in the original manuscript, with none of the pages missing. There are only four in the world. I’d like the one that was owned by Lady Charlotte Guest and has an inscription by Queen Victoria inside the front cover.”

The volumes would do less good in museums, than in the hands of men of vision. The librarians who make that happen are the good and worthy servants of humanity.

More on Immigration and Europe

Merry Men

Merry Men:

So, did you see it?

There's probably still time to find a theater where it is playing.

RIP Coleman

An Icon Passes:

It would probably be difficult to explain to someone, even a few years younger than I am myself, why Gary Coleman was important. It just happened to be the right moment for someone like him; and he filled it with grace.

Of course, being accompanied by Ms. Erin Gray could only help a man to appear in his best light.

Money Comes From Where?

Where Does the Money Come From?

Say, who's paying for all this stuff that drives up the National Debt?

By the way, where does the government get the money to fund all these immensely useful programs? According to a Fox News poll earlier this year, 65 per cent of Americans understand that the government gets its money from taxpayers, but 24 per cent think the government has “plenty of its own money without using taxpayer dollars.” You can hardly blame them for getting that impression in an age in which there is almost nothing the state won’t pay for.

Thus, it turns out that the answer to this riddle is even more obscure than it seems.

A pocket-hole that grew so large,

A giant couldn't eat it.

A cache of gold that never was,

But nonetheless depleted.

I thought that last line was a well-formed riddle.

Immigration

Immigration:

What constitutes a wise immigration policy? We normally speak of the issue in terms of illegal immigration, but we also do have the right to choose to admit people lawfully. Every year we do so, and often gain by it.

Today Victor Davis Hanson writes that Europe is hungry for the chance.

If we revised immigration policy and predicated legal entry on education and skill, ten million Europeans would arrive tomorrow, replete with degrees, expertise, and capital. There is a great unease over here, mostly in worry that no one knows the extent of aggregate debt, only that it is larger than let on and will result in higher taxes and fewer benefits without resulting in budget surpluses. It is always difficult for a government to ask its citizens to pay more than ever, receive less than ever, and end up nevertheless with greater debt than ever. We’re next.

Here and there a few Germans seem to wonder what Obama is doing, but they are torn: “We are flattered the U.S. wants to emulate our system” versus “Why would you wish to get yourself into the jam we are in?”

If we revised immigration policy in that way, what would be the benefits and disadvantages? What would we gain, and what would we lose?

Zereldas Ogre

This childhood book of mine probably explains a lot about about my enjoying Grim's Hall so. I was reminded of the book by the photo of Coq au Vin and Grim's sister. Every couple of days we will have story time. It will not compete with Eric's more erudite selections, but I hope it will hold your attention nonetheless.

Ev & Creativity

"Evolution & Creativity"

An interesting article, which T99 cited over at Cassandra's place, is this one from the Wall Street Journal. Piercello will like it, with its notion that the quality of mental evolution is emergent. Joe will like it, with its positive view of the future! What I find so interesting, though, is this:

Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years—the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once "progress" started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success—tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language—seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly—bang!—culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?

The answer lies in a new idea, borrowed from economics, known as collective intelligence: the notion that what determines the inventiveness and rate of cultural change of a population is the amount of interaction between individuals.

Yes! And yet, no.

I don't want to downplay the fascinating quality of the idea, which doubtless has a great deal of merit. It is surely right for a vast number of cases. What it isn't is a unified field theory. I'll give you two reasons.

First, it doesn't explain cases like the Black Death. The extraordinary progress that followed the Black Death occurred even though the number of interactions between individuals was sharply reduced -- as, indeed, was the number of individuals. These population cutbacks are not always a disaster for the rate of creativity or inventiveness: it is necessity, not trade, that has normally be called the Mother of Invention. Too, because the Black Death disrupted social structures and allowed for social mobility and better competition among workmen, it opened avenues of creativity that were not available before.

Second, the theory fails to account for the thing it set out to account for: the mystery of human evolution. Taking the theory at its best face, it offers a useful way of thinking about one factor in the rate of human creativity. It doesn't, however, explain why this "warlike ape" experienced evolution and creativity so differently from any other creature -- regardless of that other species' population size, or the length of its generations. "Trade" isn't adequate; other primates, at least, trade both goods and services (or goods for services, as for example food for sex). Why didn't they jump on the exponential ramp to Beethoven's 9th Symphony?

Indeed, the problem with this explanation is that it doesn't explain. It may help to understand why the last 45,000 years went differently than the previous millions, but it doesn't explain why it happened to be the case that trading goods and services suddenly kicked into an entirely different mode at some moment about 45,000 years ago. It also doesn't explain why it did so only for one species.

Finally, it doesn't explain the categorical difference in creativity that was already extant.

Recently at Pinnacle Point in South Africa, Curtis Marean of Arizona State University found evidence of seafood-eating people who made sophisticated "bladelet" stone tools, with small blades less than 10 millimeters wide, and who used ochre pigments to decorate themselves (implying symbolic behavior) as long as 164,000 years ago. They disappeared, but a similar complex culture re-emerged around 80,000 years ago at Blombos cave nearby. Adam Powell of University College, London, and his colleagues have recently modeled human populations and concluded that these flowerings are caused by transiently dense populations: "Variation in regional subpopulation density and/or migratory activity results in spatial structuring of cultural skill accumulation."

What other species engages in "symbolic behavior"? Mankind creates art wherever it goes; if there is a single quality that defines us, it is creativity, that artistic nature. No other species does this. A crow decorates its nest with shiny things it finds, but it does not fashion shiny things in pursuit of some artistic vision. A chimp strips bark from a branch to make a better ant-catching tool, but it doesn't develop pigments meant to paint itself for rituals.

That is the real thing that needs explaining, and we are no closer with "trade" than we were before. That's not to say it's useless; I suspect this adds quite a bit to our understanding of the mechanism. What it doesn't explain is the cause. Telling me that we grew great because we learned to trade goods doesn't explain those species that trade goods without growing great; and telling me it was because we learned to trade art doesn't explain how we ever came to make, or to value, art. When we know that, we'll have learned something.

Mabinogi:

The Fifth Branch...

[T}he existence of the ‘fifth branch of the Mabinogi’, Amaethon uab Don, was unsuspected until very recently, when a hitherto-unknown medieval Welsh manuscript was discovered in the library of Judas College, Oxford. The MS itself is of a decidedly heterogenous character. It contains a series of verse prayers, a version of the ladymass, and a partial collection of legal triads. Unusually, a significant amount of agricultural material is also found in the MS, in the form of a list of activities to be performed by the farmer according to the months, and a tract on the diseases of livestock.

The earlier-known branches include some of the oldest references to Arthur, Guinevere and the heroics of their warriors.

Spring

The Merry Spring:

I remember that once I read a piece by a farmer, who was writing about environmentalists; he said that, in his experience, they failed entirely to understand nature with their focus on preservation. Farming was as close to living with the land as a man could get, and it was all about killing. The land will grow anything. If you want it to grow a particular thing, you spend a small time planting, and a long time killing. You kill the weeds that compete with your crop. You kill the animals that eat your crop. You kill insects, you kill molds and mildews, you kill, kill, kill.

So that's what I spent my day doing. Killing! Today I was mostly killing baby cedar trees, trying to reclaim some land for pasture that had been overtaken by the things. We have one giant cedar, but each cedar puts out millions of seeds; and of these, some hundreds are fruitful. There's a lesson in that mathematics for each of you, in whatever undertaking you care about.

Yet along comes me, and wipes out the few hundred that were fruitful. And perhaps there is a lesson there, as well: the Lord giveth, and some cowboy comes and takes it away.

(But be not too bold, for perhaps it is the other lesson: "And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.")

It was a good day.

The Feast of Pentecost

The Feast of Pentecost:

Today was Pentecost, the 'fiftieth day' after Easter, on which the Holy Spirit was supposed to have descended upon the Apostles. It is the key feast of the year in Arthurian tales, especially in Malory; Arthur is supposed to have required the knights of the round table to reswear their oaths at each feast of Pentecost. I'll render the piece from the Middle English:

[Arthur] charged them never to do outrage nor murder, and always to flee treason; and to give mercy unto him that asked mercy, upon pain of forfeit of their worship and the lordship of king Arthur; and always to do ladies, damsels, and gentlewomen and widows service, to strengthen them in their rights, and never to force them, upon pain of death. Also, that no man fight a duel they knew was wrong, neither for love nor for worldly gain. So unto this were all knights sworn who were of the Table Round, both old and young. "And every yere so were the[y] swome at the high feste of Pentecoste."

So they were sworn; and Tennyson imagines the oath so:

Then the King in low deep tones,
And simple words of great authority,
Bound them by so strait vows to his own self,
That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some
Were pale as at the passing of a ghost,
Some flush'd, and others dazed, as one who wakes
Half-blinded at the coming of a light.

Yet the company was forgiving. Arthur himself violates this oath on at least one occasion, by taking battle in a quarrel he knows is wrong to obtain his liberty from imprisonment; this is when he fights for Sir Damas, whom he knows to be a false knight and yet who has him in his power. This seems not to have led to any questioning of the king's honor, for he was victorious in combat; his prowess, I suppose, sustained his honor, as did the fact that he enforced justice once he was at liberty and again with sword in hand.

The other feature of the high feast of Pentecost was that Arthur would not go to dine until he had seen some wonder or adventure. That custom is the launching point of several of the greater stories of Le Morte Darthur.

For today's adventure, we spent the morning at the Warrior's Dash, a 5K race coupled with a mild obstacle course. It was a pleasant morning, although I frustrated my running partner, who was also my sister. I didn't realize I was doing it, but she complained afterwards to our mother that we never had any hope of getting a good time, as 'my partner, such a gentleman, was forever stopping to assist women with whatever troubles they were having on the obstacles.' I think it was only three times, and surely couldn't have cost us much time; and anyway, I'm not much of a distance runner anymore, as I warned her before we began. But perhaps she understood this, and was really just using the appearance of a complaint to pay a compliment to our mother.

We finished strong, leaping over the blazing fires at the end of the course. We also feasted, later. It was fun.

Pity about the beer, though. Normally part of the sport is that they have free beer for the runners, but alas! Georgia on a Sunday.

Within Minutes

"Within Minutes"

People sometimes say, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." Apparently that's true even if you're already in their jail:

Entailment

Entailment:

Rand Paul, of whom I had heard once or twice in passing before a few days ago, is probably the most talked about man on the internet today. And yesterday.

What I find interesting about young master Paul is that he has unusual courage for a politician -- probably due to his inexperience. He's willing to tell you what he really thinks, and why. The attacks he's suffered as a result demonstrate part of what is wrong with American politics today. The question he was originally asked, though, points to a deeper problem with our society.

The attacks are unfair because they attempt to paint him as being a racist, or at least unwilling to resist racism, even though he said something rather different. He held that he would not do business with a company that engaged in racist practices; that he thought those practices were morally wrong; and furthermore, that they were stupid as a business matter. That's hardly racism.

What caused the firestorm was that he didn't subjugate his other principle -- that owners of businesses should have free-association rights, which limit the government's power to tell us what we can and can't do. That position is not obviously wrong, and indeed is one that almost everyone would endorse in any other context besides racism. It shows that racism has been, and remains, a unique problem whose solutions should never be exported to other issues.

For example, let's say I own a small business. A person comes in, and after a little while talking to them, I determine that I believe that they are of low character and/or are dangerously unstable. Should I have the right to refuse to do business with them, based only on my intuition about their character?

Absolutely I should. The case is clearest if I am, say, a Federally licensed firearms dealer; even if the 'instant background check' turns up nothing on you, I ought to have the right to refuse to sell you a Glock if I think you're up to no good. That clarity isn't limited to guns, though; if I run a feed-and-seed in the country, I need to be able to refuse to sell you fertilizer, which can be used to make HME. Or piping, which can make pipe bombs. Or an axe, or a knife, or a hammer; or a baseball bat, if I sell sporting goods; or a car, if I sell cars. This is small business owner as good citizen.

In giving the small business owner that right, we are protecting our society to the degree that they put their good citizenship and moral intuition ahead of their desire to make money. We are also, however, endorsing Rand Paul's position -- because it quickly becomes impossible to sort out why you have a bad opinion of someone's morals. You might say that no harm can come from feeding anyone; but even that is not true. Harboring and forwarding people you suspect might be criminals is harmful.

You may say, "The racists knew that they were not dealing with criminals." And maybe they did; but how would you prove that, in a court of law?

Racism, as a special evil with a unique history, has required intense Federal intervention to mitigate. No other evil in our national fabric is of the same type; the tools we built to break these chains are too strong to use against lesser evils.

Mr. Paul is in a difficult position, and I feel for him. He has two deeply held principles that are in conflict. So do I, though they are different principles: Cassandra and I were talking the other day about whether a society with respect for women requires a powerful and intrusive state. A state that cannot rip your family to shreds cannot protect women from abusive husbands. A state that can rip your family to shreds is prone to evil, because power corrupts, and that kind of power will be misused. Our own case shows that it is misused regularly.

This is a potentially irreconcilable conflict in principles of equal weight. Perhaps it is possible to find a way to protect the rights of women without an intrusive state -- perhaps we can find a way to do it through individual action. In the absence of such a method, though, I'm in a difficult position. I believe the modern state is far too strong, and we desperately need to pull its fangs. I also believe that women's interests are our duty to protect, and defend, and that men who do not love and defend women are no men at all.

Do I believe that enough to sacrifice my desire to severely cut back the authority granted to the state? I don't know. I don't know that I don't; I don't know that I do. The principles are in conflict. Both of them are right, as far as I can see; but they do not co-exist.

Rand Paul is in a similar situation. He holds two principles that are both right: anti-racism, and a belief in the right of free-association. There's nothing wrong with either principle. The problem is, what to do when they conflict?

Enemies are Good For You

Enemies Are Good For You:

An interesting proposition:

Really gotta love results of UCLA research involving 2,003 middle school children that showed girls with reciprocal antipathies – you don’t like me, so I don’t like you – outscoring others on…

* Social competence, rated by peers and teachers(!)
* Popularity and admiration

Teachers said boys with reciprocal antipathies were better-behaved.

Carey quotes various authorities on why it may be healthier to feel hostile toward hostile others.

Since We're Doing Music

Since We're Doing Music:

...and good lads from Texas, Doc Russia had a piece up just recently.

He adds:

Yeah, I look back at a lot of the stuff that I did when I was young, and it strikes me now as being not rebellious or tough or daring. It was infantile. And sure enough, I let a lot of opportunities pass me by simply to spite myself. Now, I am older and more mature, yet I still feel as if this journey has a long way to go before I have myself figured out.

Sure, I still am fighting many fronts. That's okay, there is a lot more peace in my heart now than there was then. There is no tempest that the heavens or kingdoms of the world can produce that will dislodge a man with a calm heart.

I pray that I am able to bestow the wisdom which will let my daughter learn from my mistakes. I hope that she can. There ain't no need for her to have to go through what I did.

But the ladies are not as we are, my dear friend. We are born mad, in a way they are not. For us confession is the road, first and foremost, to trying to understand ourselves. Why on earth have we done what we have done, and been what we have been?

EDMD

"Everybody Draw Muhammad Day"

Reason Magazine posts the winners. But you know, consider this claim:

Similarly, the invocation of the popular Where's Waldo? series forces the viewer to ask Where's Mohammed?, and to begin a hunt for a figure in the midst of an overstuffed scene. One assumes the black-robed character in the upper right-hand quadrant of the image is our quarry, but then what does it mean to confer on a small dot any significance whatsoever?

Well, what does it mean? What it doesn't mean is that the small dot can't carry that kind of significance. It can. You can. Joan of Arc did. Robert the Bruce. George Washington. Jesus of Nazareth. The Buddha. William Marshall. King Arthur -- whoever he was -- and Sir Thomas Malory, who told his tale in his own way.

This is another place where logic defies us. It shouldn't be the case, according to logic, that 'a small dot' should be able to bear 'any significance whatsoever.' But we can; and we do. Perhaps that is by God's grace; and perhaps it is by human dignity. But it is true, whether or not it is logical.

Daniel's Favorites

Daniel's Favorite:

Our co-blogger Daneil, USMC, sends this as a favorite for the music thread:

Coq au Vin

Coq au Vin:

We had one of those rare but prized visits from my sister, last night. I made a dish whose recipe allegedly dates to Julius Caesar and his invasion of Gaul. Though no documentation confirms that tale, if a dish so fine were as old as that it would be small wonder!

The knife my sister is holding, used frequently for butchering duties here, is a Kabar Next Generation. It's also a good swimming knife.

There are lots of recipes for the dish online, so I won't bother to type it out. The bread was also fresh made. It's essentially a simple white bread, but with milk substituted for the water; less 1/4 cup of the liquid, for which I substituted an egg. That gives it a much richer flavor and crispy golden brown crust, which is ideal for dinner rolls.

A good time was had by all.

SSADM

A Civil Servant's Poetry:

Here lies what’s left of Michael Juster,
A failure filled with bile and bluster.
Regard the scuttlebutt as true.
Feel free to dance; most others do.

It turns out that the head of the Social Security Administration has a different sort of secret than most in Washington. He's a poet, and a good one. Also a translator of Horace, who renders him with the boldness of wit that Horace doubtless intended:

...why no one’s content
with either what they’ve done or fate has sent,
yet they applaud men taking other trails.
“O lucky businessmen!” the soldier wails,
his body weighted down by age and shattered.
Yet whenever southern winds have battered
his boat, a businessman will surely cry,
“Can’t beat the army life! Don’t you know why?
Two sides will clash, and in a flash you’ll see
a sudden death or joyous victory.”

It's good to know that we have men of intelligence, spirit, and who remember the ancient things. Unfortunately, the article ends, he as other civil servants know "that their political masters would never really stop playing a bloody game of ambition and small-mindedness."

And thus, in spite of men of such quality, here we are.

Did Vikings Wear Horned Helmets?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2010/04/19/did-vikings-really-wear-horned-helmets.aspx?obref=obnetwork

Not sure I trust their expertary, but I thought I'd toss it out to see what you all thought.

A Good Sharp Edge

...Is A Man's Best Hedge Against the Vague Uncertainties of Life.

There's some fair practical advice on offer in this little bit of a song.

A second song of worth, from the same young gentleman.

The Tide

The Tide:

Two stories of interest about women and Islam. The more important is from Saudi Arabia.

A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai’a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix.

For unknown reasons, the young man collapsed upon being questioned by the cop.

According to the Saudi daily Okaz, the woman then allegedly laid into the religious policeman, punching him repeatedly, and leaving him to be taken to the hospital with bruises across his body and face.

Parzival's remarks to Gawan, that "it was better to trust women than God," may well be true in this case. But if it were really God, perhaps he sent you the woman whom you find you can trust. (Remember the story about the preacher and the rowboats!)

The less important story is, of course, the beauty pageant. Yet it is not completely unimportant. As I remarked in the comments to Jim's post at BLACKFIVE, the photos of this young lady are 'why they hate us.' That's the whole thing in a snapshot.

I hope that the young woman in Saudi Arabia will not be harshly punished, since apparently she was captured. It is an exercise of a basic human right to resist tyrannical authority; or perhaps we might better say that it is a high calling to do so. Note also in the story the discussion of the Kingdom's first co-educational institution, "with no religious police on campus." That produced shockwaves, which will likely not end soon.

UPDATE: See also this post.

Beatus Vir

Beatus Vir:

To Monteverdi we owe a substantial part of the transition from early music to the Baroque. Here is a motet, whose words are from the Vulgate.

There is also this "Madrigal of War," which was inspired by this sonnet, which was in turn composed by Petrarch.

Another Post on Mind/Body

Another Post on Consciousness and Science:

Arguing against my position is this author from the Chronicle of Education, defending the new Atheism. I don't think he does a very good job of understanding the position being argued by his opponents:

After all, there is no evidence that consciousness and mind arise from anything other than the workings of the physical brain, and so those phenomena are well within the scope of scientific investigation.

That's really not what is being argued; what's being argued is that even complete proof on this score wouldn't alter the question. It's not that science should not answer these questions, but that it cannot. By all means try!

This part of our discussion below is on point.

Well, if we were talking about medicine, I'd be inclined to agree that it would be an odd position to believe that spirits caused physical diseases.

What we're talking about, though, is consciousness -- that direct experience of reality that normally leads people to believe that they have a mind; and which opens for us the realm of experiences that very often lead people to believe that they have a soul. These beliefs are based on intuition about our direct experience: if that doesn't rise to the standard of scientific evidence, it is at least empirical.

And it happens to be in an area where science has no final answer available, even in theory. For example: imagine that through future advanced brain scan techniques you could prove that the brain's state wholly determines our mental experience, and that we can control mental experiences by altering brain states in a reliable way.

Does that prove that there is no mind? Not at all -- what it proves is that the mental supervenes on the physical. The question of why we have the mental experience at all is still there.

It doesn't even address the question of where consciousness "comes from," because there's no way to determine if consciousness is arising from the brain, or if the brain is a receiver for consciousness. For example, imagine that you could now build an entire human being, controlling every aspect of their physical reality down to the quantum level. In theory, then, you should be able to produce two people who are actually identical: and, if the mental supervenes on the physical, they should have exactly the same mental states, and indeed, be thinking exactly the same thoughts.

Can you prove that they are, in fact, having the same thoughts? It turns out you can't actually even prove that they are conscious -- to the degree that we show that the mental supervenes on the physical, we run into what philosophers are currently calling the ZOMBIE problem. They may react predictably, even deterministically, in the way that a person experiencing consciousness does; but we can't really know if they are actually conscious at all. They may be physically determined, not "human." Our only reason for assuming otherwise turns out to be that same intuition that leads us to believe in the mind, and sometimes also the soul.

All that means is that these questions come down to articles of faith -- even at very high levels of scientific evidence, currently unavailable to us. That means the one assumption is no better founded, from an evidential perspective, than the other; but the intuition remains to support the idea of minds and souls. That fact seems important to me, but even if you are inclined to disagree, it remains the case that these questions appear to lie permanently within the area of faith.

That's not an argument about what science should or should not do; it's an argument about what it can and cannot do, not what it may or may not do.

Science can do what it likes, and ought to do whatever it can.

However, it needs to beware of its limitations. Imagine a science that appeared to show a hard determinism even at the quantum level. Would it answer this question?

What's more, because the powerful appeal of religion comes precisely from its claims that the deity intervenes in the physical world, in response to prayers and such, religious claims, too, fall well within the domain of science. The only deity that science can say nothing about is a deity who does nothing at all.

No, actually, it would not. A God who had the ability to alter the world could, and maybe might, alter the world so completely that what appeared to be determined by physical forces was determined instead by divine will. A genuinely omnipotent God could alter the past and the future as well as the present.

It's fine to say, "Well, I don't believe in such a God." It's not important that you do; it's just the case that these questions are beyond the realm of what we can know for certain. Even imagining the best possible proof according to methods of scientific inquiry currently impossible, we find that the base question isn't resolved by any standard of proof we can imagine.

What remains is our experiences, and our intuitions about them. Those intuitions may be set aside or valued, as you prefer.

Archers

In keeping with the Robin Hood theme, here are a few other archers. The first is from my most recent purchase at the Met - a book titled Battle; A Visual Journey Through 5,000 years of Combat (by R.G. Grant), which is an excellent history of warfare, giving broad brush strokes of what happened, between whom, using what, when, and showing how said-particulars fit into the historical scheme of things.

This is in the European Sculpture Court, which has some fabulous classics sculpture, including a Perseus holding Medusa's head, cast in white marble. The only reason I don't post it is, wonderful as it is, it doesn't come close to the one Grim posted a bit ago, which I think is in Italy. Some of my favorite Rodin sculpture is in this room, a section of the Burghers of Calais.

Here are those crazy Burghers!,

though the picture cannot do them justice; you must gaze at their pained expressions in person.

Onward...

This is the American Wing of the Met. It is simply fabulous, filled with breathtaking sculpture in an open and airy setting. It abuts the Medieval Hall and the Arms and Armor Hall, and resides next to the Tiffany displays, which are something to behold. The bronze sculpture I posted to accompany Grim's Mother's Day poem comes from this room.

A Good Moment

Hope for the Future:

I'm not sure which of these items I like better: the governor of California calls to end all state welfare, or this ad from Alabama:

Yes, Allah, he's serious. When a man from Alabama pulls out his lever-action in a political ad, he means business.

Robin Hood

Robin Hood:

I went to the new Robin Hood movie today, prepared to see Gladiator in cloaks; instead, I saw a genuinely remarkable and worthy film. I hope that all of you will take time to see it, but more importantly, that you will suggest that others should see it.

The new Robin Hood harmonizes perfectly with our current political situation exactly where it varies from the historical account. This may or may not be how it was intended, but it happens to be the case. King Richard the Lionheart is the old king, valiant but wasteful on foreign adventures. King John is the lying, prideful new king, who talks about unity and promises to bring all Englishmen together, then betrays them in order to seize greater power and taxes from the people. He is provocatively weak, inspiring a French invasion because he is clearly unable to lead. He is saved by William Marshall and Robin Hood, the former a military man who is trusted by all except the new King -- who detests him, but needs him 'whether he likes it or not.' The latter is an everyman, good at what he does, honest, brave, and foolish enough to believe that a king will appreciate his honesty.

The remarks on liberty, the place of the law in relation to it, and the rights of men are note perfect. Normally departures from history in historical films bother me; but not here, because there is other game afoot.

It's a tremendous movie, deeply enjoyable. Some of the music is fantastic, designed around the mandolin and drum.

I would not have expected it to be the best Robin Hood film ever made; but it may very well be that, and besides that, a great movie judged apart from its genre.

Japanese Cuirass and helmet

For your information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haramaki

Confess

Confess:

One of the hardest things to get smart people to do, whether philosophers or scientists, is to confess the hard limits to our knowledge. One thing well beyond the limits is what is called 'the hard problem' of consciousness: that is, why does it feel like we're conscious at all?

If we don't call it a miracle, it's not clear what else we might call it.

[H]ere we are, a gaudy efflorescence of consciousness, staggeringly improbable in light of everything we know about the reality that contains us.

There are physicists and philosophers who would correct me. They would say that if there are an infinite number of universes, as in theory there could be, then creatures like us would be very likely to emerge at some time in one of them. But to say this is only to state the fact of our improbability in other terms....

The universe passed through its unimaginable first moment, first year, first billion years, wresting itself from whatever state of nonexistence, inflating, contorting, resolving into space and matter, bursting into light. Matter condenses, stars live out their generations. Then, very late, there is added to the universe of being a shaped stick or stone, a jug, a cuneiform tablet. They appear on a tiny, teetering, lopsided planet, and they demand wholly new vocabularies of description for reality at every scale. What but the energies of the universe could be expressed in the Great Wall of China, the St. Matthew Passion? For our purposes, there is nothing else. Yet language that would have been fully adequate to describe the ages before the appearance of the first artifact would have had to be enlarged by concepts like agency and intention, words like “creation,” that would query the great universe itself. Might not the human brain, that most complex object known to exist in the universe, have undergone a qualitative change as well? If my metaphor only suggests the possibility that our species is more than an optimized ape, that something terrible and glorious befell us—if this is merely another fable, it might at least encourage an imagination of humankind large enough to acknowledge some small fragment of the mystery we are.

The thing about the hard problem isn't that we don't know how to answer it. The important thing is that we can't even put firm brackets around what an answer would look like.

Back from the Land of the Dead

Back from the Land of the Dead:

I have returned from my short journey to California. Southern California has a particular beauty, which can help explain why there seem to be so very many people there. Some highlights from the trip included getting to sit with some Hollywood Marine recruits on the flight out, who were just on their way to boot camp; it was a pleasure to talk with them. In addition, I had one afternoon for looking across the bay at Coronado, and for driving past Miramar.

Now, as DB says, back to your regular programming.

Robin Hood, History Channel

I'm watching a wonderful History Channel show on Robin Hood. Ridley Scott, Russell Crow, and various historians are all in it. I particularly like the actual timeline they keep showing of when the name "Robin Hood" first began to appear in written documents. They say he was mentioned in oral history for about 100-200 years before his name was recorded in documents. He also had a big presense in various ballads, all way before his name ever was written anywhere. Somewhere around 1460 a guy who has come to be known as Robin Hood existed.

Of course, I can still recite the entire song from the Disney version and I recall having a massive crush on the fox (read: cartoon) version of Robin Hood. Never was into Errol Flynn. I will enjoy seeing Russell Crow be him.

Robin Hood and Little John running through the forest, laughing back and forth at what the other one has to say; reminising this and that, and having such a good time; ooodalolly ooodalolly, golly what a day!

Don't worry, gang, Grim comes back soon and will be restoring the usual program.