A New Theory of Spacetime

Two papers have proposed a novel theory of spacetime, one in which it functions as a mediator between the quantum physics and the classical physics as modified by Einstein. It's not clear whether this theory is true or workable, but they have figured out how to test the theory (if they can measure precisely enough).

A question this raises, were it true, has to do with what is fundamental. For a long time, since the quantum field became undeniably interesting, physicists have argued that the most basic reality was the wave equation, which we have discussed here recently a time or two. This is the one that requires "imaginary numbers"* (noting James' objection to the connotations of that phrase) in order to model reality. The most fundamental thing was the background field whose waves, as it were,* produce things that we observe and call things like "electrons." Those things then come together in various ways to produce everything else. 

Because this theory requires spacetime to serve as a mediator between the quanta of the wave equation and the things that we observe at the larger scales of classical physics, there needs to be an explanation of where and how spacetime comes to be. Instead of the fundamental thing being the field in which the waves occur, producing particles (again 'as it were'*) at peaks and troughs, the waves must then necessarily encounter another thing. That other thing is spacetime. So where does it come from, and how did/do we get to the state in which the quanta necessarily interact with and are mediated by it? 

Towards the end they note two important consequences of the theory, should it hold.

The postquantum theory has implications beyond gravity. The infamous and problematic "measurement postulate" of quantum theory is not needed, since quantum superpositions necessarily localize through their interaction with classical spacetime.

The theory was motivated by Professor Oppenheim's attempt to resolve the black hole information problem. According to standard quantum theory, an object going into a black hole should be radiated back out in some way as information cannot be destroyed, but this violates general relativity, which says you can never know about objects that cross the black hole's event horizon. The new theory allows for information to be destroyed, due to a fundamental breakdown in predictability.

So those consequences are:

1) Information can be destroyed, contrary to what we have long assumed was a fundamental law.

2) You don't actually need an observer to collapse superpositions, as some have postulated, because the interaction with spacetime itself collapses them to definite states. That could explain why there appears to be a definite reality at great distances wherein we have no reason to suspect that there are observers (although you could also explain that in other ways). 

* Some of these ways of speaking are imprecise natural language ways of trying to say what the math tells us. I don't apologize for using them, because it's more important to be able to talk about reality in natural language than for everyone to learn higher math. Nevertheless the clarifications of experts as to the limits of the language are useful and should be attended. 

You’re the Reason I Lash my Tree to the Wall

Yes, you.

You're the Reason Our Kids are Ugly

This is an unusual entry in the genre of "married couple feuds with each other about all their complaints." What makes it unusual is that the song is really about love, rather than anger.

It's also unusual in that there's an equality of voice between the marital characters. A more famous song (and a better one, as a song) is this one that Waylon Jennings seems to have crafted as a kind of apology to his wife Jesse Colter.

Of course, Conway Twitty wasn't actually married to Loretta Lynn. Jesse could give as good as she got, as you can see about two minutes in here:

He looks and sounds quite abashed. 

New Corb Lund

Just dropped today.

The Feast of St. Andrew

Andrew the Apostle is honored today. He is the patron saint of Scotland, which uses his cross for their national flag. 

I Don’t Know What To Tell You

Top CIA official posts support for… good gracious. There really is no bottom. 

Disgraceful Federal Agents

Via D29, yet another Federal sting operation aimed at creating crime rather than discouraging it. I used to think these were disgusting when they were aimed at motorcycle clubs. These days they’re targeting altar boys. 

No, really.

A traditional Catholic family was allegedly “dragged out of their home at gunpoint, handcuffed and locked in a van” earlier this year after the FBI “goaded” their 15-year-old son to post  “offensive memes” online. The teen, a volunteer firefighter and altar boy, was then hospitalized on mental health pretenses, according to his father, Jeremiah Rufini.

Emphasis added. I assume he's a junior firefighter, since you normally have to be 18 (and 21 to drive the big trucks), but still: a public-service minded youth. Kyle Rittenhouse was also a junior firefighter, I recall.

Unbeknownst to us [the father went on], he was being drawn deeper and deeper into these chat groups and goaded into doing things like take pictures of himself in public wearing ski masks and to print out memes and leave them on picnic tables. They would ask him if he had access to guns (he would go target shooting under the supervision of my brother, who lived in an in-law apartment at our home and owned firearms) and encourage him to sneak photographs of the guns and post them. Ironically, our legal troubles began when he had an attack of conscience and abruptly deleted all of his chat apps. He later told us that he felt using social media was a coping mechanism and it had been affecting his mood and ability to sleep.

It was at this point that the FBI, having lost contact with him, raided the family, seized their guns, and involuntarily committed the boy to a mental institution (there being no actual crime to charge him with, I suppose, since 'taking pictures of himself' or 'guns' and 'printing out memes' is all perfectly legal).

There was a Department of Children and Families investigation that went nowhere but required us to go to daily appointments for months. The state brought criminal charges against my son that were eventually disposed of but required a legal battle that lasted months. When his charges were disposed of, my brother and I were charged for allowing my son to target shoot based on the assumption that we must have somehow known that he was involved in political extremism online. It seems unlikely to amount to much but has cost us over $20,000 we don’t have so far.

I wonder what exactly that charge is. "Taking your son target shooting" is also not a crime, at least not in most states. "Conspiracy to... X" requires some evidence that there was in fact a conspiracy to commit an X, but that seems not in evidence.

Federal entrapment schemes have been discussed here since the early days of the blog, but in the old days I feel like they used to try to entrap people who weren't altar boys and volunteers. These days they seem to be targeting the heart of American society.

Problems of Consciousness

Kristin Andrews, the York Research Chair in Animal Minds and a professor of philosophy at York University in Toronto, has penned a piece at Aeon on consciousness in what we often call 'lower' animals. (The title is a play on a famous piece by Thomas Nagel). 

What she is describing is not particularly new: in 2018 we discussed it here in the context of birds. Their brains are not structured like ours very much, lacking things like grey matter, yet there are clear examples that we might recognize as proof of consciousness. I suggested that points to panpsychism, a theory I have embraced since at least 2011: that the world is conscious, and the brain is only a receiver of rather than the generator of consciousness. The "new law of nature" that has come about this year also points in that direction.

Her work is noteworthy in part for the formalization by scientists of Sebastian Rödl's suggestion that we would know that a being participates in the Order of Reason by recognizing that it is acting according to a rational chain of causality. In other words, we can see that it is doing things for reasons that are intelligible to us. Rödl, who wrote his English-language book from scratch because it was easier for him than trying to translate his work from the German originals, argues that consciousness is a necessary condition for reason. The scientists may or may not know his name -- I imagine that Dr. Andrews does -- but they are following his frame.

As she points out, "If future AI systems are anything like current AI systems, they will not have neurons, but they will closely resemble us in terms of linguistic behaviour." Would they also experience consciousness? The famous Turing test -- similar actually to Rödl's suggestion as well -- suggests only that we would have no reason to treat them as if they were not conscious, and every reason to assume that they might be. If the view I hold to is right, the only question is whether or not the things that AIs are made of are the kinds of things that could receive and interpret consciousness. 

Many kinds of organic structures, which are living beings, can do so. Can a purely artificial one, one that is not alive nor made of living things? That's harder to say.

All Woman Tank Battle

This one is for Elise, a propos a discussion she and I and some others had some years ago about women in combat, and in our case on the flight line.

This battle took place on the edge of the Gaza Strip in a couple of Israeli kibutzes on 7 Oct.

The women's remarks are illuminating, a couple them reminiscent of Zara's comment re woman scorned, although Zara was mild and benevolent.

https://danielgordis.substack.com/p/the-first-women-led-armored-battle 

Eric Hines

The Daily Wire Is Doing Movies and Shows

 

A Useful Map

Here's something positive for those who enjoy riding North Carolina's roads. The members of the "Motorcycling North Carolina Backroads" group have voted on the top barbecue joints across the state, and helpfully mapped them for you.

I gladly affirm their election of the Haywood Smokehouse as the overall #1 barbecue joint in the whole state. It is definitely the best one I have enjoyed myself. I would add to their list that it has two additional locations. One is in Dillsboro on US 441 (which is located half a mile south of the intersection of 441 with the "Great Smoky Mountains Expressway" of US 23/74, for those who want to visit the National Park or the Cherokee reservation). The other is in Franklin, also on 441 for those heading north from Georgia. 

One of the things that is neat about Haywood is that they serve Texas-style brisket as well as the regionally-common pork barbecue; another is that they make and serve many different sauces. They have two different Tennessee-style reds (Sweet and Hot, as all good Tennessee joints have), as well as a Western Carolina sweet; also an Eastern Carolina vinegar-based, a mustard-based South Carolina Gold, and a Georgia spicy ketchup-based. In addition to the regional sauces they have some in-house originals, my favorite of which is their S.O.B. sauce that features jalapenos and habaneros. Western North Carolina is at the crux of several very good barbecue traditions, and you can get a sense of several of them at once here.

European vs. Mozambique Extermination

David Foster posted a link in the comments to an essay he wrote analogizing the politics of the present moment to a mode of assassination.

In Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow, one of the characters explains a ‘European-style gangster hit’, which he says consists of three shots: head, heart, and stomach.  Yes, that should definitely ensure the target’s demise!

It strikes me that this comprehensive approach to high-certainty murder provides a pretty good analogy for what is going on in America and in many other Western nations.  In my analogy, ‘stomach’ represents the basic, essential physical infrastructure of society–energy and food supply, in particular.  ‘Head’ represents the society’s aggregate thought processes: how decisions are made, how truth is distinguished from falsehood.  And ‘heart’ represents the society’s spirit: how people feel about their fellow citizens, their families, friends, and associates, and their overall society.\

I reflect that this analogy is a fruitful one, but that the analogy can be furthered. The Mozambique Drill is a more effective form than this European one: the gangsters are more or less wasting the shot to the stomach, as stomach wounds are not immediately fatal, giving ample time for surgeons compared with wounds to the heart, lungs, or brain. Thus, 'two to the chest, one to the head' offers a greater surety of success at a similar preservation of ammunition (where ammunition preservation is not a concern, you can adopt the alternative 'two to the chest, face gets the rest' approach).

Likewise in the analogy, the execution is more certain if you can destroy the morale of the nation and the people; and destroying its stomach, as it were, leaves one in possession of less goods in the event of one's final victory. It would be wisest to preserve the 'stomach,' and to focus on destroying the heart and the head.

The failure of the analogy -- all analogies always break -- may lie in the fact that there is no assassin. The forces destroying the stomach are actually intending something else which they are allowing to destroy the thing that worked. In this way they are much more like a cancer than a bullet: the hope is to replace the functional organ with a set of 'green' things that would consume and replace the organ, but which can't actually fulfill the organ's functions. The head has quit working because it has grown old and ossified, with so many layers of decision-makers and processes that end up pursuing their own agendas in the place of their actual purpose. It is the kind of failure that attends natural death, the breakdown of the body's functional ordering of things that had been the feature of its youth and health.

A Proper Role for a Jury

There is a story going on right now about a doctor in Virginia who has been understood to be a US citizen for many decades, when suddenly State realized it had made an error. He was born to a diplomat from Iran, and therefore:

As a member of your parent’s household at the time of your birth, you also enjoyed full diplomatic immunity from the jurisdiction of the United States. As such, you were born not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Therefore, you did not acquire U.S. citizenship at birth.

The State Department is technically correct about this. The relevant text is the opening lines of the 14th Amendment: 

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 

Now the government of which his parents were diplomats no longer exists, and the Iranian state that does exist would provide no home for him. It would regard him as an American and delight in the abuses they would impose upon him if he were deported there. As such, he surely and legitimately qualifies for asylum here, and then for legal residence and eventual citizenship.

However, there are times when it is important to be able to set aside the law in the name of justice. Justice is not as simple as a rulebook, and never has been. The error was not his own, but the government's; and now, when he is 62, is no time to try to correct the error in this technical way. 

Judges are not properly empowered to set aside the law, although they sometimes do, but juries can do so. It strikes me that the correct resolution here would be to put the matter to a jury for consideration, and almost any American jury would recognize that it would be unjust to try to pull the rug out from under his feet after six decades of having "been a good citizen," as he thought he was and as which he so behaved. If we're going to be deporting people for technical violations of the rules of immigration, there are literally tens of millions of people ahead of him in line. 

Examining One's Conscience

Dad29 pointed out in the comments to an earlier post that a regular examination of one's conscience is recommended by the Catholic Church. Now one of the things I have learned about the Catholic Church is that it tends to have formalized approaches to such things, and what the priests think you should be most concerned about is sometimes counter-intuitive for me. Something I may feel very bad about, for example, they dismiss as a mere accident where I have no real moral culpability; other things I don't feel especially bad about they consider major concerns where I should focus my attention.

I say that not as a criticism of the Church, but as a recognition that it can be useful to compare notes on where one's morals and conscience may be out of line with what others think they should be. Ultimately you are responsible for the state of your own soul, but a lot of thought has gone into this and a lot of human experience -- millennia, in the case of at least the Aristotelian parts of the Church's thinking, as well as some of the scriptural interpretations.  Therefore, I asked D29 for a resource we could look at and discuss.

There's a lot there, and some of it is specific to things like marital status, so I thought we might at least initially concentrate on one of the regular concerns that bring us all together here at the Hall: the public square. I notice at once that they subtitle this, "Loving one's neighbors in the public square," an area where it is immediately obvious that many Americans might consider their conscience.

When have I allowed that strong feeling to

cause me to say or think something unkind

about another person? Specifically:

• On social media: When has my engagement with

(or about) those with whom I disagree failed to

recognize their dignity as persons created in the

image of God?

• In conversations: When was I so focused on

winning an argument that I failed to genuinely

listen? When was my choice of words

uncharitable? When did I paint others in

disrespectful ways or engage in personal

attack?

• In my day-to-day perceptions and attitudes: When

have I made assumptions about or failed to

give the benefit of the doubt to those with

whom I disagree? When have I presumed

others’ intentions or experiences before even

hearing their stories or experiences? When

have I valued my political affiliation or party

more than my identity as a disciple of Christ

who is called to model love and charity, even

in civil discourse?

I have occasionally suggested that Twitter was disastrous to American public discourse, because its character limits were just enough to say something biting or snide but not nearly long enough to discuss an issue in depth. There's a broader point they're getting at, though, as to how we ought to behave towards each other in the public square.

To the Editor

The New York Review of Books refused to publish this letter from rural poet, novelist, and essayist Wendell Berry, so he turned to the publication Barn Raiser. The letter has intemperate moments, but is nevertheless a letter whose basic rightness is obvious to me as a fellow rural person with a bent towards reading and writing. 

I believe I have given a fair representation of the plight of rural America, a land of worsening problems that it did not cause and cannot solve, from which urban America derives its food, clothing, and shelter, plus “raw materials.” For these necessary things rural America receives prices set in urban America. For the manufactured goods returned to it, rural America pays prices set in urban America. 

This rural America Mr. Burns treats as an enemy country, “rural and white,” inhabited... by “working-class voters who feel victimized by a distant and dysfunctional government, by wealthy elites, by nefarious foreign regimes, and all-powerful multinational corporations.”

The relationship between urban and rural Americans is much more like a colonial one than many relationships criticized by intellectuals under the heading of "colonialism." 

As he goes on to point out, the only things really keeping it from becoming formally colonial at the Federal level -- and thus intolerable on the original principles of the Declaration of Independence -- are structural features like the Senate that insist on ensuring that rural areas can't just be ignored completely. These are the very features that the New York Review of Books had been advocating to remove. 

At the state level, the relationship is already fully colonial: decisions are made in Capital City, in the interest of Capital City, paid for with taxes and built with resources extracted from the whole state. Similar state-level protections for rural populations were a normal feature of our politics from the Founding until 1964. In that year the Warren-led Supreme Court of the United States ruled such protections unconstitutional, somehow, even though they were formally in both the Federal and state constitutions. 

Threat Estimation

What is the biggest danger to the world? Some people might reasonably claim that it was Artificial Intelligence, especially since the Pentagon and probably other more secretive militaries seem intent on letting AIs autonomously decide to kill human beings. I would accept "AI" as a plausible answer.

Many people would probably claim that Climate Change is the biggest threat, and if you are one of those who is persuaded by what they call the "consensus" narrative that is also a plausible answer. Skeptics (including myself) are unpersuaded by this one; but if you're not a skeptic, the claims look pretty terrifying. I could accept "Climate Change" as a plausible answer coming from someone who was on the consensus side.

Nuclear war? It was a longstanding answer, and in an era in which Russia and China are both acting punchy -- while Iran is acting like it already has the bomb, and Israel definitely does -- I could see how this was a good answer even today. So, sadly, "Nuclear War" is a plausible answer.

You may have other suggestions, but you can see what kind of threats might reasonably fit in the frame of "X poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024." The Economist, however, thinks the answer is... well, you can probably guess. The Washington Post is at least a little more circumspect, listing him as only one of two threats that together imperil not the world but merely democracy. The New Yorker suggests that we must "survive the Constitution" in order to face this threat.

Elite opinion is clear, I guess. It just isn't plausible.

UPDATE: Related.

A Scatological Fact about China

This is not dinner-table fare, so I'll put it past the jump. I trust your judgment about whether or not you would enjoy reading such things.

On the Examined, or Unexamined, Life

AVI mentions a preference for the former (a la Socrates):

I think it best to weight heavily the opinions of those who read/hear their opponents' arguments and answer them....  [Mentioning a cautionary but unnamed example], I do not regard this as an intellectual failing, but an emotional one.... This is simply a cautionary tale that even later in life, after you have avoided many varieties of foolishness, such things (social and emotional rather than intellectual reasoning) can still hunt you down and make you stupid. 

In spite of the fact that philosophy's most famous figure clearly comes down on one side of this, there is a contemporary debate about whether it is to engage in examining your life. (Also in psychology, where the consideration is not whether it is good but whether it is healthy.)

According to Jamison, not only is an unexamined life worth living; the rigorous examination of life should not be encouraged due to its possible negative effects on the participants and the entire society.2 In Jamison’s view, a consistent and unregulated examination of human life produces a feeling of ecstasy (a specie of spiritual feeling) in those who engage in it. The feeling, if allowed, could endanger both the thinker and the entire society. For Jamison, “once you get a taste of this kind of thing, you do not want to give it up”.3 Someone who engages in self-critical examination eventually becomes entangled with it. Socrates became entangled in dialectics, became unpopular, was accused of corrupting the youth and eventually sentenced to death....

As a matter of fact, Jamison’s position has a lacuna. He (Jamison) never rejects the method of self-critical examination. He recommends a form of social regulation whereby only a very few individuals are allowed to embrace the method. In his words, “there is no doubt in my mind that it is important for a community to have members that engage in critical thinking, and the examined life, but I also think it important to point out that it is not good for a community to have too many members doing this."

Like a lot of contemporary philosophy, we jump immediately to elitism: it's not good for 'too many' people to be examining their own lives.  Society would be more stable, and the goods of a stable society more enduring, if people would just stop doing that (engaging instead, as the psychology article suggests, chiefly with sports, fashion, and the like).

Now -- on the other hand, in the spirit of "[considering] their opponents' arguments and answer them" -- there is a non-elitist form of this argument that might be persuasive. It comes from Joseph Schumpeter, most famous as the economist who showed why Marx's predictions for capitalism had failed. He nevertheless expected the downfall of capitalist society, precisely because it educated too many of its youth. 

Schumpeter believed that the enormous productivity of capitalism would easily churn out the goods needed for basic consumption, freeing up labour from the fields and factories to enjoy a leisurely life in the new modern intellectual class of academics, journalists and bureaucrats. This class would be so separated and removed from the actual process of entrepreneurship and production, they would turn against the very philosophical foundations and institutions of the economic system that made their lives possible. Not understanding the roots of their own condition, they spend their daily efforts deliberately working to undermine the systems of private property, private contracting, decentralized decision-making, entrepreneurship and voluntary exchange. They condemn capitalism as a foregone conclusion and view any pro-capitalism position as crazy and anti-social.

I think the appropriate counter is that very few of these many are really engaged in self-examination, neither of their own lives nor of the systems of thought into which they have been inculcated. Critical theory in all its forms contains a basic structural problem that I have never heard anyone but myself describe, and certainly none of its advocates. I say that it is a problem, not an error, because it is necessary for the sort of enquiry it proposes. 

The problem is this: in order to engage in critical theoretical enquiries, it is necessary to make an assumption about society and treat it as if it is true, but in order to get to true answers, the truth of the assumption has to be verified independently. Strict logic likewise can derive from assumptions to conclusions with truth-preservation, but you have to verify the truth of the assumptions outside the system of logic. Thus:

Assumption: A or B
Assumption: Not A
Conclusion: Therefore, B.

The conclusion is true if and only if the assumptions are both true, and logic won't tell you whether or not they are in fact true. You have to go look and see if, e.g., it is the case that "not A." 

Critical Race Theory, currently the most famous, ends up providing strong evidence against its basic assumption: "Assume that, in spite of evidence, all of our social, legal, and economic institutions are really designed to ensure white supremacy." If you make that assumption and treat it as true, well, human beings are fantastic storytellers. You can tell all kinds of stories about how this or that thing really is about white supremacy. I'm not even against doing this, as it sometimes provides useful insight into ways we could reform some institutions to be fairer to people regardless of race. However, the fact that we are often motivated to institute such reforms is itself evidence against the truth of the assumed proposition.

If you went back to the Jim Crow South, for example, and pointed out that the grandfather clause had the apparently unintentional effect of disenfranchising Freedmen, no one would be interested in your proposal of reform. In an actual such society, no such reforms would be desired. The fact that we engage in the enquiry with the intent to reform is evidence against the proposition; the fact that we actually do reform could even be said to disprove it. 

Yet people get so caught up in the stories that they were telling that they miss this. They end up motivated socially, as AVI says; but also emotionally, as he says. They fall in love with the stories they have crafted, and don't get as far as enquiring as to whether or not the exercise doesn't itself disprove the assumption. It may still be a useful exercise, if it generates helpful reforms that improve the decency of society. Yet the motivation of decent reformation proves, if anything, that the critical assumption was false. 

Obviously I am inclined to Socrates' view, and Plato's, and Aristotle's; that is the real motivation behind this two-decade-long blog. I don't think the problem is that too many people are taught to be intellectually critical of society; I think it's that too few of them are taught to do it well and thoroughly. 

Rescue

My long absence has been due in part to falling down the rabbit hole of dog rescue. In October, the county shelter's population exploded, inspiring the director to publish a kill list of 17 dogs with a lead time of about two weeks. The rescue community mobilized, saving all the dogs and in fact removing another couple of dozen puppies and adult dogs, which reduced the head count from 70-plus to mid-30s. That's still crowded, but more manageable. This week the head count is in the 20s. In the meantime the director resigned, so the county is headhunting a new one.

Also in the meantime we both came down with something like a cold that lingered more than usual. Mine turned into pneumonia. I am well at last, but between the shelter Dunkirk action and the illness, I lost quite a few weeks in there. We had just built 3 spacious outdoor kennels, six by twelve feet, which allowed me to take in 4 largish shelter dogs. Although a couple have found homes, we took in one more, which still makes for three rescue dogs on the premises, in addition to our own three. Hired-help dog-walkers were a lifesaver when we were both sick.

Now we're in a reasonable routine, including trusting the new dogs enough to let them run on our property, even though these large, young, incredibly springy dogs could easily jump the 4-foot perimeter fence. Luckily, they don't seem so inclined. In more good news, they're learning the drill on pooping in the woods instead of in their kennels. Confinement in shelter cages knocks the training out of a dog, but they do pick it back up in time. Next they all need to learn some basic manners, especially on a lead. A dog that doesn't try to pull you off your feet is easier to place in a new home. Yesterday we enjoyed pot-luck Thanksgiving with neighbors at the house of one of them. Greg brought his usual brined, spice-rubbed turkey, which two young relatives of our neighbors pronounced the best they'd ever eaten. Brining prevents even the white meat from drying out. Today, also as usual, he is accommodating my unvarying demand for leftover Turkey Tetrazzini. We may also make turkey and dumplings, using the turkey schmaltz to form the dumplings.

It has been a great deal to be thankful for.

Blood Eagle

Spatchcocking a turkey is almost like carving a Blood Eagle, except that you don’t have to pull the lungs out and salt them because they were already removed. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Dogface Soldiers

The Army/Navy game will feature West Point players in uniforms honoring the 3rd Infantry Division in the Iraq War. They’ll have Rocky the bulldog, created by Walt Disney and given to the Division by him, on the helmet. 

I spent a lot of time with 3ID in Iraq in 2007 and 2008. They sang the song with the lyrics “I eat raw meat for breakfast every day,” and “so feed me ammunition, keep me in the Third Division.”

The Storms of Autumn

We are still under a burn ban here, but in the nearby* Great Smoky Mountains National Park the main road through is closed due to snowfall and hurricane-force winds.

After the National Weather Service issued a hazardous weather outlook and red flag warning due to hurricane-force gusts and high fire risk in the area, Elkmont and Cades Cove campgrounds were closed....

A red flag warning was in effect until the afternoon of Nov. 21 for the Smokies, which means very low humidity and stronger winds are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger. Last night, wind gusts were expected to increase to between 40 and 70 mph at night, with up to 80 mph gusts possible in some locations. 

During these high-risk conditions, a wildfire broke out the evening of Nov. 20 in the Tennessee side of the park near Rich Mountain Road.... The cause of the fire is under investigation, and no structures or properties were threatened as of Nov. 20. However, an early-morning voluntary evacuation of homes near the park boundary in Blount County, Tennessee, was conducted on Nov. 21, officials say.

The Great Smoky Mountains is currently under a burn ban, prohibiting all campfires and charcoal use until further notice. However, that didn’t stop one woman from intentionally setting two fires, which were quickly extinguished by park officials along a road in the North Carolina portion of the Great Smokies.

The woman was arrested, with federal and state charges pending.

She was smart to set it on the North Carolina side; in Tennessee, it's a $2500 fine and a year in jail. Here it's $100 and about $180 in court costs. I don't know what the Federal charges look like.

* OK, it's an hour away by the shortest route, an hour and a half by the prettier one, but...

Going Postal on the Nazis

A good story from the German invasion of Poland.

Another One Bites

Maryland’s 30-day waiting period to begin its 7-day additional waiting period to buy a handgun has been ruled unconstitutional. 

Modern Western

A laugh line from The Blues Brothers, filmed when a lot of radio stations claimed to play "Country/Western music," the real joke was that she was right. The two genres, although often popular among similar audiences, are in fact distinct. Country music has its roots in Appalachian folk songs, themselves Celtic in origin, combined with gospel and blues influences in the South. Western music had its origins in the West, and combined themes of cowboying and ranching, gunfighters and trail songs,* with a southwestern Spanish influence. 

Here are some newer singers doing Western music. Some of them also do country music, including my favorite genre Outlaw Country, but these are Western pieces.

More after the jump.

Hard Lessons

There's been quite a bit of talk about the possibility that Israel intends to purge Gaza, perhaps by driving the population into Egypt -- which says they're prepared "to sacrifice millions" to prevent having to accept the Gazans -- or in some other manner.

I don't know if they're intending that or not, although I notice that they're getting a lot of heat for it compared to the President of Syria, who expelled 14 million citizens who didn't get along with the government. In addition to that, though, there's some missing context: this is very much a two-way street. The Islamic world has been ethnically cleansing itself of Jews since Israel was founded in 1948; some having, prior to that, collaborated with the Nazi movement on the subject.*

One of the harder lessons in life is that there are things you can't fix. Without endorsing ethnic cleansing, I would suggest that the reason this conflict has drug on for more than seventy years is that people keep trying to put it in a bottle. Ceasefires, peace processes, and all that are well-intentioned, but they lead to generations of people living poor in 'refugee camps' that never go away -- surrounded and governed by militants who execute oppression towards them while planning terrorism abroad. 

Those Syrian refugees are better off in Germany than they ever were in Syria, and certainly better off than if they'd stayed to fight for ten more years. A happier future doesn't run through diplomacy, but victory: it's time for American officials to take their hands off the wheel, and let this sort itself out. Both sides really want the same thing: they hate each other and want to be separate. What they have to work out is something that can only be worked out one way. Peace will be possible once they've had their fill of war, and not because someone put a lid on the conflict while both sides felt like they could still have won more if only the fight had kept going.

* From that link: "Local militant and nationalistic societies, like the Young Egypt Party and the Society of Muslim Brothers, circulated reports claiming that Jews and the British were destroying holy places in Jerusalem, and other false reports that hundreds of Arab women and children were being killed." 

Sørina Higgins' "C. S. Lewis: Writer, Scholar, Seeker"

Some of you may recall AVI talking a while back about a conference he went to on the Inklings, which included a talk about the Holy Grail by Dr. Sørina Higgins. She has now published in "The Great Courses" a piece entitled "C. S. Lewis: Writer, Scholar, Seeker." It's now available as an audiobook.

Although his career is much richer and more varied than a single series of tales for children, Clive Staples (C. S.) Lewis is perhaps best-known for his beloved fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. Born in Belfast near the end of the 19th century, Lewis had a difficult childhood and lived through the devastation of two world wars. Yet, his work most often celebrates joy, optimism, and spiritual meaning, rather than dwelling on the darkness he had experienced.

In C. S. Lewis: Writer, Scholar, Seeker, Dr. Sørina Higgins will take you on a fascinating expedition through the life and work of this influential author, examining the crucial events and relationships that shaped his personal, literary, and spiritual journeys. As you’ll see, while Lewis holds a special place in the canon of modern fantasy literature—along with his friend and colleague J. R. R. Tolkien—the fantastic was not his only interest. His wide-ranging imagination and constant curiosity led him to write everything from religious essays to science fiction while also pursuing his career as an Oxford fellow and tutor and literary scholar. As you trace Lewis’ life from his unhappy days at boarding school to his final years, Dr. Higgins will spotlight the connections between his lived experience and the creation of his work, illuminating the ways his literary efforts reflected his personal pursuit of meaning and connection.

The story of Lewis’ life and literary achievements is one of both historical specificity and timeless, eternal themes. Though Lewis was certainly a man of his times and subject to many of the biases and restrictions of his era, as Dr. Higgins highlights, he never stopped growing and embracing new ways of thinking. And today, more than half a century after his death, his work lives on, entertaining and enlightening new generations of readers all over the world.

I'm sure that will be of interest to many of you. Dr. Higgins is a very nice person as well as a scholar, so it should be pleasant as well as intellectually engaging. 

Saturday Night Gypsy Swing

Reading up a bit on the history of swing music at Wikipedia, it apparently developed out of 1920s & '30s jazz. "The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat." Not being a musician, I don't really know what that means, but I have been called off-beat before, so I've got that going for me. 

Wikipedia explains the "off-beat" like this: 

In typical Western music 4/4 time, counted as "1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4...", the first beat of the bar (downbeat) is usually the strongest accent in the melody and the likeliest place for a chord change, the third is the next strongest: these are "on" beats. The second and fourth are weaker—the "off-beats". Subdivisions (like eighth notes) that fall between the pulse beats are even weaker and these, if used frequently in a rhythm, can also make it "off-beat". 

There are sound samples there if you want to hear the difference.

Anyway, the French Romani jazz musician Jean "Django" Reinhardt (1910-1953) picked this up and developed what is called gypsy jazz or gypsy swing. His band was called the Quintette du Hot Club de France, so some call his style hot club.

Here's one of his famous swing pieces.

Hillbilly Thomists

Via D29, who says I'm "the only quasi-hillbilly I know." I reckon I'm a true hillbilly: my folk have been up in Appalachia since before the Revolution, and in their family Scottish mountains since time immemorial. I call all these mountains "Cimmeria" collectively. The Vikings who sailed down to fight us stayed instead, the ones who survived the encounter. If anybody is, I guess I am.

So here's some Catholic strings.

Heighty High

This is a good song for rolling on a motorcycle. You can be high on that, no lie. At its best it’s like nothing else. 

Bin Laden's Letter to America

There is controversy over this becoming popular with many of the young, who do not remember 9/11 and have been raised to believe in such narratives. As such, it is being pulled down in many places. 

I reject censorship and embrace freedom of speech and expression from first principles, so even though Osama bin Laden was an enemy of mine and I participated in the wars of revenge against him and his for 9/11, I will reprint the entire letter below the fold. Everyone who wishes to read it and understand his perspective should do so. It is far from the worst thing that enemies should understand each other: not only does it sometimes create the possibility of peace, it is also a necessary condition for successful war. As Sun Tzu said, to be successful in a thousand battles one must know one's self, and also one's enemy.

Separately I would note that his argument in section (3) -- as to why it is justified to attack American civilians and not just American military forces -- is a part that these young people should consider. With the exception of (3)(f), those arguments all apply to the people of Gaza, who have accepted Hamas as their leaders, allegedly elected them and certainly not attempted to overthrow them, and supported them with their tax revenue. If you are one who thinks that maybe 'Osama had a point,' well, that same argument applies to the civilians now caught in the war in Israel. If you think we need a ceasefire to protect those civilians, then you are in fact rejecting Osama's model of 'resistance,' or Jihad, or whatever you'd like to call it. He calls it both.

What follows past the break is his letter. 

Confidence in Government

So today I saw this chart, which claims that Americans' confidence in government is 'far below the global average.'

You can see at the bottom that the source is the Gallup World Poll. Obviously there are a lot more dots below the line than above it, which led me to wonder how the poll was weighted. I thought perhaps it was population, as maybe big countries in terms of population counted more but only represented one dot. China doubtless expresses massive confidence in government, because otherwise you lose social credit and can't get loans or a job, so that would undermine the idea that the poll is fair.

Here are the top countries expressing high confidence in government:

1) Tanzania (!)

2) Uzbekistan (!!!)

3) Singapore

4) Bangladesh (!)

5) Mail (!)

The one they chose to label was "Finland," but the top five are -- with the exception of Singapore -- dysfunctional hellholes. In the next ten you get real governments like Switzerland and Luxembourg, but also Kazakhstan and Mozambique (most famous cultural contribution: the 'Mozambique drill,' a triple-tap shooting pattern that involves putting one in the head and two in the chest "to be sure"). 

So maybe the fact that Americans express distrust in their government should ironically be confidence-boosting: at least we're still free to say that the government stinks on ice. It does, and more so every day. At least we're still free to talk about it. 

Tolkien and the Italian Right

Anybody who has watched a few spaghetti westerns knows that Italy's take on American stories is going to be wildly different from the American one -- recognizable, but still very different. Japanese takes on American westerns (often in the guise of samurai films) are also this way. 

Now, it turns out that the Italians also have their own take on J.R.R. Tolkien. (There's a paywall, so I'll quote enough to give you the idea.)

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni quoted an unlikely source: Faramir, son of Denethor, who battled the orc hordes at Osgiliath.

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharp edge, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for its glory,” Meloni, referencing J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, told an April conference in London. “I only love that which I defend.”

Italy’s first female prime minister — and its most far right since World War II — has channeled Daenerys Targaryen from “Game of Thrones,” posing atop a smoke-spewing dragon at a 2018 comic convention in Rome. During last year’s election campaign, she briefly posted an image of herself next to an Iron Throne alongside the caption: “A mass invasion of foreigners? Not today.” Her far-right brethren from the Brothers of Italy party retreat each year to Atreyu, a summerfest named after the dragon-riding warrior in “The NeverEnding Story.”

Yet for Meloni and a horde of fantasy-loving politicians in Italy’s far right, nothing is more precious than the works of Tolkien, in whose writing they see themselves as a ragtag fellowship battling the Lidless Eye of the European left. Italy’s post-fascist far-right hosted “Hobbit Camps” for young conservatives as far back as the 1970s. In her autobiography, Meloni concedes to a lifelong adoration of Tolkien’s works, including dressing as the hobbit Samwise Gamgee with other politically aspirant youth.

Now, Meloni’s government has transformed her greatest literary passion into a massive new Tolkien exhibition at Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art. 

"Post-fascist," eh? So, progress, then?

I have to admit that I never considered identifying myself with Samwise Gamgee, but rather with Gandalf or -- obviously -- Beorn and his son Grimbeorn. I wouldn't think that someone whose takeaway from the story was that Sam was the real hero would be much of a threat to anyone -- rather, perhaps, that they were unusually clear-eyed observers of the book. 

The opposition is not amused.

“The problem is not Tolkien or the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit, but the fact that this is being put through a political lens and used as a tool for revenge by right-wing culture,” said Matteo Orfini, a national lawmaker from the opposition Democratic Party.

He added, “I mean, I loved the book too … when I was 15.”

That's the sort of claim to being too sophisticated for Tolkien that one often sees from people who would like to think of themselves as intellectuals, forgetting that he was himself a scholar of great depth, who wrote large parts of the Oxford English Dictionary as well as the best scholarly article ever penned on the Beowulf. 

It's somewhat akin to the take mocked in this parody video, in which a contemporary fantasy writer claims to be 'Rock 'N Roll" compared to Tolkien. The riposte the authors wrote for Tolkien is outstanding.

The Shepherd of the Hall

Proudly modeling his new collar.

A Reshuffling of Alliances

It's noteworthy that the present war in Israel is producing so much turmoil within nations that are not properly involved in the war at all. For example, in Russia:

Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a high-level meeting of security officials immediately following the recent anti-Israeli riots in Dagestan and elsewhere in the North Caucasus....  Perhaps more notable is what appears to be a major purge of security officials in Dagestan itself and the beginning of major preventative measures among the youth in Russia to prevent any recurrence of such actions....

Moscow is clearly trying to present itself as being on the right side of condemning anti-Semitism.... In addition, these moves clearly reflect unease in the Kremlin. There is fear that the situation in the North Caucasus and other non-Russian regions is rapidly coming to a boil.... The anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli attacks in the North Caucasus could well be followed by attacks on ethnic Russians and Russia itself, especially as the war in Ukraine grinds on, a war in which North Caucasians and non-Russians have suffered large and disproportionate losses[.]

 Also in France.

On Sunday afternoon thousands of people heeded a call from the Speakers of the two houses of parliament to show their support for French "Republican" values and their rejection of antisemitism - this in the face of a steep rise in antisemitic actions since 7 October.... For decades French politics erected a bulwark against the far right, whose views - not least on Jews - were deemed "anti-Republican". The old National Front under Marine's father Jean-Marie Le Pen was seen as beyond the pale, and it was shunned.

The far left meanwhile - the Communists, the Trotskyists and the new formations like Mr Mélenchon's LFI - were certainly attacked for their views, but they were never excluded. They were part of the broad political family, in a way that the Le Pen franchise clearly wasn't.

A few years ago, for a far-left party not to have been part of a march against antisemitism would have been unthinkable. For a far-right party to have been there instead would have been unconscionable.

Also in the UK.

To appreciate the depths of the ideological cesspit that Britain’s cops have climbed into, consider this. This week, police in Northumbria interrogated a woman, a lesbian, under caution, for tweeting that ‘trans women are men’. ‘What did you mean by this?’, the Orwellian creeps asked the lady whose only speechcrime was to state biological facts every six-year-old knows. Meanwhile, in London, the Metropolitan Police ruled that ‘no offence’ was committed by an imam at the Greenwich Islamic Centre who, 13 days after Hamas’s 7 October pogrom, preached about ‘the usurper Jews’. ‘Curse the infidels’, he said. ‘Destroy their homes.’

So in 21st-century Britain the cops will come knocking if you say people with penises are men but they’ll leave you alone if you demean Jews. They’ll drag you to a station and grill you on your separation of the letters LGB from TQ – as those tyrants in Northumbria did – but shrug if you issue curses against Jewish people. The ideological capture of our police is complete. 

Also in America (although the US has deployed thousands of troops and thus may not be considered "uninvolved").

Sympathy for Israel tends to be far higher among conservative and older voters, who remember the Holocaust, at least from their parents’ telling, and usually embrace the Judeo-Christian tradition. Contrast their attitudes with those of younger people, who are notably ignorant about history. Little wonder perhaps that voters under 34 are far more likely to support Palestinians and even Hamas over Israel than older voters.

Remarkably, it’s under a Democratic president, not some imagined white nationalist right-winger, that Jewish people in America feel threatened in ways not seen since the 1930s. Jews are finding colleges and public space in places like New York uniquely hostile. In schools, ‘anti-white’ identity politics has now been extended to justify the murder of Jews.

I note the inversion between the last sentence and the Russian concern: "The anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli attacks in the North Caucasus could well be followed by attacks on ethnic Russians and Russia itself." In the famous poem, 'first they came for the Jews,'* and Russia is worried that Russians and Russia might be somewhere down the line. Here they came for "white" Americans and America first, and the Jews are down the line. 

Wild to see Le Pen's crew wising up to that and getting themselves ahead of the problem, at least if you know the history of antisemitism in France. 

UPDATE: Related.

"We need to start making people who support Israel actually afraid to go out in public," Chambers said in a Friday Instagram post. "We need to make all of white America afraid that everything they have stolen is going to be burned to the ground. That's what makes them listen."

* In the poem socialists and trade unions were before the Jews, which is perhaps more similar to the present case here: first it was the Confederate statues. I recall a certain orange-haired President warning that they'd come after Washington and Jefferson if you let that domino fall, and everyone laughed; but they did come after Washington and Jefferson, and later the whole thing. 

Fire College

The Hazardous Materials course I attended this last four days was part of a larger 'Fire College' being held. This was a pretty impressive event, what I saw of it in breaks between class sections. Lots of different departments from all over came out to practice everything from high-rise firefighting to flammable bulk liquid firefighting, to rescue things like rope rescue rappelling or dealing with bombs and booby traps. 

Saturday Night Western Swing

Seems right to start with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys

Leaving Tulsa, Some Asleep at the Wheel ...

Happy 248th Birthday Marine Corps

 A day for remembrance and celebration. 

 

Smoke on the Mountains

I took this shot exactly where I took the earlier sets showing autumn color. 

In the earlier set, you can see a morning shot with the usual "Smoky" mists that normally attend these mountains. The whole world is full of this smoke, for miles and miles in every direction, as wildfires burn all around us. Some of them are reported contained.

It's not a great weekend to send people out of the fire district, but several of us have long been scheduled for a big training thing this weekend. I'll be leaving at 0430 to attend that, and gone until Sunday night.

World on Fire

There are wildfires all over. There’s been so little rain that there’s a state burn ban, a county burn ban, and people are still out burning. Some idiot burning trash set off a huge fire that’s now burned a building in spite of many hours of firefighting efforts (in which I participated in an entirely minor and inconsequential way). The Smoky Mountains really are right now. 

This is the sort of thing that troubles my hopes for human freedom. We should not need a ban; it should be totally obvious that burning anything is irresponsible and stupid. All the same, people are out here starting fires. I’m not much for telling people what to do or how to live, but this kind of thing makes me wonder. 

Cooking Club Short Ribs

I made the beef short ribs according to Cowboy Kent Rollins recipe, which Grim recommended some posts ago. I had to use a slow cooker instead of a Dutch oven, and I went with an Argentinian Malbec instead of Merlot. Turned out well. It went for 5 hours on high, but could have used another hour, I think. It did in fact fall off the bone and tasted great, but at the thickest part was just a tad dry. Rollins suggests mashed potatoes as a side, and I second that. The thick broth makes a good gravy for it.

Saturday Night Electro-Swing

Apparently, 20-somethings are listening to a lot of this hybrid swing these days. Youngsters these days. (You'll have to imagine the eye roll there.)

The next would have been good for Halloween.

It's kinda catchy, though ...

Long Time Gone

Comments Policy

Since we have been getting so many anonymous comments lately, I thought I should repost the comments policy. It's very old: in 2015 it was nine, so it must now be a teenager. Anonymous comments are allowed, but must be signed with some kind of pseudonym that you'll stick by so that we can keep everybody straight. It's hard to carry on a conversation with three different "Anonymous" at once, not being sure which one said what or if they're all the same guy. 

Anyway, here it is.

Please be welcome, so long as you will adhere to this form.

I adopted [this policy] from the sadly-defunct Texas Mercury, a fringe publication but one whose bold assertion of well considered and unusual ideas I always enjoyed:

As we see it, modern society has all the important ideas of life exactly backwards: we are completely against the belief in sensitivity and tolerance in politics and raffish disregard in private life. The Texas Mercury is founded on the opposite principles- our idea is of tolerance and polite sensitivity in private life and ruthless truth in politics. Be nice to your neighbor. Be hell to his ideas.

Comments failing to uphold those principles run the risk of being deleted without warning. In the year and some months since I adopted that as the policy here, I've added one additional point: hit-and-run comments, as well as anonymous comments, will generally be deleted. If you're a regular here, and willing to stand up and fight for what you believe, you can say pretty much anything that isn't a personal attack on a fellow reader. If you're just wandering through, or unwilling to leave your name (even a false name you'll stand by will do, e.g., "Grim"), pass on. This is a hall, and regular readers are honored guests not to be troubled by cowards.

Fair enough? Well, fair or unfair, those are the rules.

The only thing that's been added since is that off-topic comments may be marked as SPAM, which will cause them to disappear from user's experience. I don't delete them, but I do sometimes so mark them because we've had some people over the years who proved it necessary. 

Try not to do anything that will make me add to this list. I liked it better when it was simpler.  

We’re at War

If you were wondering if things are moving behind the scenes this should tear it for you. 

United States Marine Corps Major Gen. Chris A. McPhillips reportedly announced Tuesday that the 248th Marine Corps Ball has been canceled by U.S. Central Command as a result of “unforeseen operational commitments.”

There are other matters you don’t know about if it’s gotten that far. Like it or not, saddle up.  

A Good Sharp Knife

The Orthosphere:

Rod Dreher has written another thumb-sucker about the evil that lurks in the hearts of all men, which is true enough but not particularly useful when another man, his lurking evil leaping into view, chases you down an alleyway with an axe in his hand.  Dreher naturally quotes Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s lines about the “bridgehead of good” that remains within hearts “overwhelmed by evil,” and the “small corner of evil” that remains in “even in the best of all hearts.”   Which is, as I said, all true enough; but hardly helpful to a man encircled by a menacing mob.

What exactly does Dreher expect me to do with the reflection that the man who proposes to slay me is on other occasions kind to animals, a devoted son, a skilled musician, a fellow with whom I might gladly enjoy a beer?

Well, go have a beer with him, if you can. If you can't, here's some practical advice.

Even a pretty devoted man may reconsider in favor of the beer if he is aware of the keen knife on your belt. That's been my experience, anyway.

The Scourge of the Hour

...decade, century-so-far, etc...

President Biden ran for office to restore the soul of the nation. He is unequivocal: there is no place for hate in America against anyone. Period.

Today, he and Vice President Harris are announcing that their Administration will develop the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia in the United States. 

How is it possible that the U.S. is only now developing its first-ever strategy to its most favorite problem besides racism and climate change? I would have thought we'd be on the fifth or tenth edition by now.

I'll take the path of magnanimity on the subject of 'President Biden ran for office to restore the soul of the nation,' an entity which has no soul... I mean the nation, of course. Nations are theoretical entities, not ensouled beings, thank God. When people start thinking of nations as beings with things like souls and destinies, they do terrible things indeed. 

The Feast of All Saints

For further reflection, the Pope’s remarks on holiness. 

On the Occasion of Halloween

I want to speak on this occasion to a comment left by our friend Lars Walker in the Níðstöng Pole post below. Halloween seems like the right time to discuss it.

Lars Walker said...

Speaking purely as a saga reader, without any more credentials than a lifetime of interest in the subject, I have a theory that putting a head on an inanimate object (Viking ships would be an example) transformed them magically into magical creatures, which would be empowered by the magic of the runes. Thus the nidstang becomes a living witch-being, constantly cursing the object of the curse.

I grieve over the slide of the Icelanders, and other Europeans, into pre-Christian magic. They will suffer for this, not only in eternity, but in this life. I take no pleasure in saying it.

To the first point, I definitely think there is something to that. I wrote an essay years ago called The Smell of Death that also spoke to the power of the severed head, both to create the impression of a being and to destroy it: 

Today, among Americans, only hunters have encountered this directly. It comes in the time when you are cleaning a kill. You cut the head from the body, and hold it in your hand. Though you slew the beast yourself, though your own knife did the cutting, seeing the head disjoined from the body is the most disquieting experience it is easy to know.

Indeed, the hunter finds, it is as if the whole power of the animal were in the head. The body, with the head set aside, no longer really resembles an animal at all. It is plainly dinner, and a hide to use as a blanket in winter.

We do not react to the severed leg as we do a severed head: a drumstick is a delight to the eye; the haunch of a deer or a pig both looks and smells fine as it roasts on the fire. Or think of a fish, if you have ever had one served as they serve it in China: with the head still attached. It is a very different experience to eat such a one, than to eat a fillet.

This is why some hunters take the heads of their beasts, and place them as trophies upon the wall. It is why the ancient Gael took the head of his famous and noble foe, and tied it by its own braids to his chariot as a warning to others. It is why the more ancient Celt built temples to the severed head, with alcoves and emplacements specially constructed for displaying honored skulls.

It is why we have legends of Mimir, and Celtic tales of other severed heads that spoke wisdom to the wise. They conversed with us from the realm of death; they kept the power of great men.

The second of his points, though, is the one I wanted to discuss on Halloween, that day of Celtic rather than Icelandic carry-over of magic and surviving echoes of pre-Christian traditions (well, and Yule; but we'll get there in due time). 

For one thing, Icelandic magic has flourished throughout the Christian period: consider the Galdrabók. Scholars estimate it to be from around 1600, which is to say six centuries after Iceland was Christianized (by elective choice, rather than conquest or imposition from a ruling king). It retains the names of some pre-Christian beings, but also uses names that are explicitly from the Christian tradition. I wouldn't say that the thing that is wrong with it is that it isn't Christian enough; indeed, the beseeching of the aid of Satan in working one's will on the world is far more troubling than any reference to an elder god. 

Tonight I will perform Halloween celebrations in that most-American, and least-religious, way: I will be at the VFD distributing candy to children dressed up in costumes. There is exactly nothing of the religious aspect left there: we are neither burning fires to welcome the darkest time of the year, nor attending midnight Mass to celebrate the Feast of All Souls. Yet I don't think there's anything wrong with this at all; we are giving some joy to children in a way that lets their parents know that the gifts they are receiving will be safe and trustworthy. 

Theologically and metaphysically, I think of Matthew 18:18. The power to bind and loose is a kind of magic, too: a divine grant of it, an assent to support a working of the will that will hold in this world and the next. There is some debate about who precisely was granted this power. I think the Orthodox position is that it belongs to the Church by apostolic succession (leaving aside the practical dispute among the churches about which one is entitled to wield it). Yet I have heard even a Roman Catholic priest -- a Franciscan -- suggest that the power there belongs to any Christians acting in concert; the next verse seems to say that explicitly, although in such matters interpretation even of the apparently explicit is always contentious. 

Such a wide interpretation is defensible: perhaps, being commanded to love one another as ourselves and even our enemies as ourselves, we might all wish for a broad power to loose. Yet then there is also the question of what to bind, which would be similarly broadly granted on that interpretation. The Church's stronger position makes more practical sense: if there is an authority that alone has the power, then you won't get the problem of one group of nuns deciding to bind something and another one deciding to loose it. 

I think there are more pragmatic than theological problems with a broad notion of forgiveness. It is plausible to me that God would want Hell to be empty, and would not wish to see anyone suffer eternally. Here on earth, however, we seem to need some controls on human behavior: it would be helpful to enlist the church in that, many societies have thought; it would even be decent, as it would provide an alternate source of authority to counterbalance that of the state where the state grows overweening. Of course there is the problem that the church could merely choose to reinforce the overweening state: that was what Mussolini wanted, more or less. In such a case, a rebel tradition that preaches wild forgiveness would be welcome. 

I leave all of this as matter for reflection, and discussion if you like, on this All Hallows Eve. 

Grim’s Hall Cooking Club

Let’s try something different. Most of you probably have enough ground to dig a hole in. If not, you can substitute an oven. 

Let’s do this Friday, and compare notes. That’s plenty of time to shop and make preparations. 

Saturday Night Swing

 The first two are fun to watch, too.

Níðstöng Poles

An old custom is showing a revival in Iceland. 

Nithing poles such as this have been popping up in Iceland more and more over the last few decades. Anna Björg, CEO of the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft in Hólmavik, says nithing poles are “pointed against someone you want revenge on” and considered deeply personal. She explains that it’s more serious when directed at an individual as opposed to a larger entity, such as an industry or the government. Björg says, “People take it like a death threat.”

It is, approximately. The word is a cognate of “nothing,” and is a declaration that the cursed is considered no better than nothing in the eyes of the one issuing the curse. Just to call someone that verbally was a punishable offense under the old laws, requiring you to pay a portion of their wergild. Apparently current Icelandic law handles it exactly like issuing a threat against someone’s life, if it is pointed at a person instead of an organization. 

The most famous example is from Egils saga Skallagrímssonar. 

Master of Magic and Occult Studies

So I saw an article about this program that the UK's Exeter University is offering, but they're really burying the lede here:

The new post-graduate program will be housed within the university’s Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. The placement will help students understand “the Arabo-Islamic cultural heritage back where it belongs” with “decolonisation, the exploration of alternative epistemologies, feminism, and anti-racism…at the core” of the program....

Emphasis added. I can't imagine any place more likely to receive such a program with intense interest, especially the attempts to "place the Arabo-Islamic cultural heritage back where it belongs... with... feminism... at the core." Adding in actual witchcraft is going to make for an exciting time down at the Islamic Studies department!

Even in the much more staid University of Georgia, the Religious Studies program generated more complaints than any other department according to the officer from the Civil Rights department I spoke with some years ago. 

GWAR

I went to see GWAR in Asheville. It was cartoonishly violent and profane, much akin to a heavy metal Looney Toons as influenced also by He Man (the band originated forty years ago!) and Hong Kong cinema. 

The concept of the band is that they are barbaric space mercenaries, who engage in battle on stage as they play rock music. Sprays of blood are spewed out from the wounds created by rotary saws, swords, spiked hammers, and the like. There were many occasions for multicolored blood to spray across the audience: fights to the death, executions, murders, and vivisections were all luridly portrayed. 

It was, without doubt, the most amazing spectacle I have ever seen at a concert. At one point they chopped up Vladimir Putin, to the howls of the crowd; later, they beheaded Joe Biden, and the laughing citizens of Asheville danced in the sprays of his blood. 

The Days of High Adventure

A short retelling of the story of Guthred, whose tale has similarities to that of the famous Cimmerian.

Simeon wrote that a local abbot was visited, in a vision, by Cuthbert, an Anglo-Saxon Saint (who had once resided at the monastery on Lindisfarne). Holy Cuthbert advised the monk to seek out a slave who had been sold to a widow....

What can be historically verified, thanks in part to financial records, was that a Guthred was acquired by what appears to be an Anglo-Saxon nobleman named Æthelstan. Legend has it that this nobleman recognized young Guthred's leadership potential and set him free. 

Whether Æthelstan had received any visits from a monk with a bizarre tale of a saintly vision, or if we take Æthelstan's kindness at face value is hard to gauge centuries after the fact, but it appears that Guthred was indeed set free coinciding (coincidentally or not, we may never know) with the toppling of Halfdan from the throne of Northumbria.

Aside from gaining his freedom, Guthred soon, through a combination of his apparent charisma and hard work, gained the trust and support of the local community. In fact, in little more than a year, he had filled the large void in the kingdom by ascending to the throne. 

It seems that Cuthbert's foreshadowing had come to fruition, and a former slave became the second Viking King of Northumbria.

High Color

This is the same location as a week ago, but now at the height of autumn. 

The afternoon sun is golden at this hour this time of the year, adding to the glory of the display. It’s the most beautiful moment of the year.