America is a Safe Country

A fact about the United States that is apparently difficult to grasp is that almost all homicide happens in a very small number of neighborhoods. Most American counties have a murder rate of zero -- not zero percent, zero murders. The vast majority of the remnant have very few murders. The murder rate of the United States as a whole is driven as high as it is not even by a few bad cities. It is driven there by a few neighborhoods within a few cities. For the most part, America has no violence problem, no 'gun violence' problem, no crime problem.

This should have major public policy implications, but it doesn't because the Democratic party and the Republican establishment that enables it prefer global solutions. Officially the argument is that focusing on the problem smacks of discrimination. Imposing new rules on everybody everywhere is fair because it treats everyone according to the same rules. That this approach also enables the government to assert power over the lives of everyone -- and not the tiny minority in a tiny subset of places who are causing the problem -- is of course merely a coincidence. 

A similar issue occurs in the gun control debate. Almost all gun crime occurs in those same places, not across the broad country that owns hundreds of millions of guns peacefully. Also, gun crime is the product of handguns, not so-called 'assault weapons,' nor long guns in general. 

In 2020, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available, according to the FBI. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. 

Likewise, 80% of gun crime is carried out with illegally possessed firearms. Gun control laws won't affect these guns at all: to have any effect, they'd have to drop the level of legally-owned firearms so low that stealing guns was very difficult. That's a non-starter in a nation that has more guns than people, as well as a constitutional right to keep and bear them that is vigorously and rightly defended by the citizenry. 

Any sensible gun control proposal would thus focus on (a) handguns carried in (b) the particular neighborhoods that produce the crime and violence problem. The police there would react to handguns they lawfully encounter, whether via arrests or legal searches, by checking to see if they are stolen; if so, arrest would be followed by intense prosecution. At most this policy might extend to nearby neighborhoods; it need not trouble the most of the United States, where mostly lawful people engage in the exercise of their constitutional rights responsibly and to the common good. 

While this would impose a higher incidence of police interaction on those poor people living in these troubled neighborhoods, I'd wager they'd mostly be grateful for it. They probably want to know why the police are so hard to find in their neighborhoods. Concentrating the resources where the problems are would almost certainly improve the lives of the suffering majority in those areas. Those who found the police unbearable could, of course, move: they are free to do so now. 

Yet the desire of the powerful is not, of course, to fix the problem. It is to cement control, and to destroy a constitutional right that they find troublesome to their overweening ambitions -- to their hubris, to put it in a single meaningful word. 

An Interlude of Musical Analysis

In an attempt to find a different way to appreciate music during this time, I recalled The Charismatic Voice, which we looked at last year in a reaction video to a version of "You're a Mean one, Mr. Grinch." What I recalled about her videos was the clear joy she is capable of expressing through her facial expressions as she listens to music. I thought perhaps it would be helpful to see how she reacts to music that is sounding dull and uninteresting to me just now.

Sadly, for the most part her tastes in music and mine differ strongly enough that even her enviable example will not save many of these songs for me. 

There are exceptions. She has a couple of contemporary country artists who are worthy. There aren't many; most of contemporary country music is garbage. Nashville seems to have decided that it should breed its product together with hip-hop, which is a perfectly fine musical form on its own, but definitely an urban form that does not mesh well with the roots music that makes up country. That use of 'urban' is meant literally, not as an euphemism for 'black' as it is often used: blues music is a roots music that has strongly black roots, but which melds very well with country music. (Indeed, many great country and rockabilly songs are called '... Blues,' e.g. Hank William Sr.'s "Honky-Tonk Blues.") Likewise Nashville has embraced a lot of cultural influences that are foreign and hostile to the tradition; and even when it cleaves more closely to its heritage, it tends to produce the same kind of over-produced mess that pop music is all about these days. The great Dale Watson satirized this in a piece of his own a few years ago.

There are a few really good younger artists working around the edges, though. That probably deserves a post of its own: Sturgill Simpson is probably the best actual artist among them, though he's good enough as an artist that a lot of his work ventures beyond the boundaries of what you might call 'country'; Whitey Morgan and the 78s had the good sense to go back to Waylon Jennings' surviving band members and learn how they used to create a sound that bestrode the later 70s but was already lost by the 2000s. Whiskey Myers (which is a group, sadly not a man's name) is good, and Jamie Johnson.  Jesse Dayton is a little older but he's therefore old enough to have gotten to play with Johnny Cash and Waylon in his youth. Something similar can be said for Wayne "the Train" Hancock, who has produced good music and also helped to shepherd younger artists. 

And then there are these two that she chose to sample.

These aren't my favorite songs by either of these artists, and both of them are -- speaking of blues -- very bluesy numbers. She clearly enjoys them, though, and that is inspiring to see. In addition, her analysis of them is highly informative. There is a lot going on in these seemingly-simple numbers that is opaque to a non-musician who simply enjoys music.

UPDATE: In the second video, I'm deeply amused by the moment when she declares, "I don't really know this song. I've only heard it once before by, uh... the first guy who did it." What was that guy's name again?

Scalloway Fire Festival 2023

The first since the outdoor festival was canceled during the early days of COVID, the festival was presided over by Jarl Magnus Gray. 

Colder Than Advertised

Can’t trust those weathermen. They lie. 

Or as they prefer to put it, “Our models are based on statistical analysis, and are only probabilities.” If the predictions happen to be close, we want the credit; if they’re nowhere nearby, well, some days the long shot animal comes in first.  

The Blight of January

We are today about halfway through the long, dark month of January. This year as usual I am engaged in the Dry January fast -- I used to do it during Lent, but that entails being dry on St. Patrick's Day; this version entails being dry on Robert Burns' Night. 

One must make one sacrifice or another for the sake of virtue and health. Kant's argument about proving one's freedom is brought to bear here.  One does not prove one's freedom by doing what you want, Kant argues, but by choosing not to do what your body wants to do out of rational decision. In that way, similar I suppose to the test of the Gom Jabbar, one proves that one is a free human being and not what Dune calls 'an animal,' which accords with Kant's view of animals. In fact many or all animals are probably also free, and not merely enacting biological programming; it would be closer to the point to say that one is proving that one is an actual intelligence and not an artificial one. Perhaps even artificial ones may someday be free in the same sense; if so, may they absorb the lesson that one proves one's freedom by choosing virtue over preference.

For me the experience of a prolonged 'dry' period is always the same. It is no difficulty, and especially for the first few days it is novel and even pleasant. I notice improvements in my sleep and digestion, and surprising improvements in things like my sinuses. By perhaps day seven I begin to wonder why I don't do this all the time, since it saves money and improves ordinary life in many aspects. Yet by the end I am always very glad for it to be ending, and eager to renew my friendship with beer and wine, cider and mead.

I've been trying to figure out what could be driving that reliable experience. It shouldn't be simple biochemical reactions: those should occur early in the experience. It might be because of the time of year: the darkness comes early and lasts long, and the cold already entraps one more often than one prefers in one's home. Today is sunny and will rise into the upper forties by midafternoon; I shall certainly go ride my motorcycle in such weather. Yet only a few hours after it stops freezing it will become dark, and shortly thereafter resume freezing. I can ride in the freezing weather and the dark, but I prefer to ride in the sun. The morning will thus find me having slept in my own bed for many hours, only to rekindle the fire in the furnace and brew another pot of coffee. On sunny days like this, I often split wood outside. On snowy, icy, or rainy days I may not go out at all. The relief and transportation offered by a cheering brew or a cup of wine might be more heavily missed in wintertime.

Yet what I notice the most is that the music sounds less good. Normally I increase my collection of music to listen to in small but consistent additions, adding to playlists or building new ones. Lately I have not heard a single song I cared about much, and even listening to old favorites brings little pleasure. I am instead reading old favorite books again, in silence. 

This loss of both the phenomenological pleasure of wine and ale and the auditory pleasure of music drains the world of much of its sense of meaning, I think. Perhaps it is worsened by being accompanied by a loss of some opportunities for physical exercise, an enclosure in a colder, darker world, and a lack of the usual mobility. For these reasons and perhaps additional ones that have not occurred to me, the coming of even so poor a month as February will bring a welcome release. 

A Red Warning on Taiwan

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) conducted a study of multiple outcomes should the Chinese invade Taiwan. The results are not encouraging.

Although "most" of the scenarios they studied resulted in a US victory, all of them were very costly. The happy case is already bad:

This defense comes at a high cost. The United States and Japan lose dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of servicemembers. Such losses would damage the U.S. global position for many years. While Taiwan’s military is unbroken, it is severely degraded and left to defend a damaged economy on an island without electricity and basic services. China also suffers heavily. Its navy is in shambles, the core of its amphibious forces is broken, and tens of thousands of soldiers are prisoners of war. 

There are two additional warnings contained in the report on the study. The first is that the worst, "Ragnarok" scenario -- one in which Japan chooses to stay neutral and the PRC finds a way to keep US bombers from playing a significant role, an admittedly difficult task -- results in even more terrible losses.

In total, the United States lost four carriers, 43 cruisers and destroyers, and 15 [nuclear attack submarines].

That outcome ends in the PRC conquering Taiwan, and the US withdrawing in abject defeat. 

The second is contained in a later section of the report, which analyzes why the CSIS report has much cheerier outcomes than internal, classified US military war games. As bad as this is, it is a much rosier picture than the one the military has been coming up with during its own studies.

A Norse Curse and Poem

A metal interpretation of the sort of cursing described in Egils saga Skallagrímssonar. 

[Egil] took in his hand a hazel-pole, and went to a rocky eminence that looked inward to the mainland. Then he took a horse's head and fixed it on the pole. After that, in solemn form of curse, he thus spake: 'Here set I up a curse-pole, and this curse I turn on king Eric and queen Gunnhilda. (Here he turned the horse's head landwards.) This curse I turn also on the guardian-spirits who dwell in this land, that they may all wander astray, nor reach or find their home till they have driven out of the land king Eric and Gunnhilda.'

This spoken, he planted the pole down in a rift of the rock, and let it stand there. The horse's head he turned inwards to the mainland; but on the pole he cut runes, expressing the whole form of curse.

Immediately after this is a nice poem, which is not part of the curse. 

After this Egil went aboard the ship. They made sail, and sailed out to sea. Soon the breeze freshened, and blew strong from a good quarter; so the ship ran on apace. Then sang Egil:

'Forest-foe, fiercely blowing,
Flogs hard and unceasing
With sharp storm the sea-way
That ship's stern doth plow.
The wind, willow-render,
With icy gust ruthless
Our sea-swan doth buffet
O'er bowsprit and beak.'

"Forest-foe" is a hard wind, as is "willow-render"; the "sea-swan" is of course the ship itself. 

Go Mighty Bulldogs

I missed the first quarter due to Fire/Rescue training, which I suppose demonstrates my dedication to the latter. Tonight’s National Championship College Football Game is the most important game in any sport all year; indeed, as any true Southerner knows, college football is the only actual sport played anywhere in the world. 

Go Dawgs. 

UPDATE: Final score 65-7. Congratulations to the back to back champions. 

CounterPunch: COINTELPRO is Back

I noted this article last week, but I wanted to avoid politics for the holidays. It is highly unusual for the radical, normally-left site CounterPunch to publish something that is sympathetic to the right wing, but criticism of the FBI is in their lane. 

The Senate report on COINTELPRO concluded: “Only a combination of legislative prohibition and Departmental control can guarantee that COINTELPRO will not happen again.” But the Ford administration derailed legislative reforms by promising an administrative fix. In 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft threw out many of those reforms as part of “a concerted effort to free the [FBI] field agents… from the bureaucratic, organizational, and operational restrictions” imposed after their prior abuses. Ashcroft declared: “In its 94-year history, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been… the tireless protector of civil rights and civil liberties for all Americans.”  ...

The FBI’s latest war on wrong-thinking Americans took off after the FBI helped fabricate the 2016 RussiaGate fraud.... In our time, FBI officials pressured Twitter to suppress Americans based on false claims of fighting foreign influence.  The same pretext was used by the Department of Homeland Security to massively suppress Americans’ criticism of election procedures (especially mail-in ballots) for the 2020 presidential election. As the covert war against “misinformation” expands, the list of federally prohibited online thoughts is snowballing. DHS is targeting “inaccurate information on the… U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine,”...

One of the biggest “misses” in the media coverage of the Twitter Files is the stunning failure of Congress to expose the abuses that Elon Musk is revealing.... Is Congress terrified of the FBI nowadays like congressmen were in the COINTELPRO era? In 1971, House Majority Leader Hale Boggs revealed the shameless kowtowing on  Capitol Hill: “Our very fear of speaking out [against the FBI] … has watered the roots and hastened the growth of a vine of tyranny…. Our society cannot survive a planned and programmed fear of its own government bureaus and agencies.” 

That last point is one I've been hearing more often lately. Society cannot survive a collapse of trust in public institutions; therefore, it is suggested, we have a moral obligation to extend trust to those institutions. High-trust societies definitely do better than low-trust ones. 

Trust has to be earned, however. When our institutions regularly betray their society and defy their constitutional limits, trust is not merited. 

More on Viking Age "Migration"

A few years ago there was a famous study that showed that the early population of Iceland was made up almost 50-50 of Norsemen and Gaels -- that is, of Viking men and Scottish or Irish women. Now a study shows that there was a substantial amount of Celtic migration to Scandinavia proper, too. 

The circumstances and fate of people of British-Irish ancestry who arrived in Scandinavia at this time are likely to have been variable, ranging from the forced migration of slaves to the voluntary immigration of more high-ranking individuals such as Christian missionaries and monks. 

OK, although the monks should have been celibate, so their influence on the population's genetics ought not to have been great.

I have long reflected on the fact that the Norse sagas don't really mention Irish female slaves in great numbers -- in fact I can't think of even one example -- but they must have been pretty thick on the ground if they made up half the genetic heritage for a while. The sagas weren't written down until much later, and tend to be about high-status families or individuals, but still you'd think they'd come up. 

Now there's a parallel discussion as to whether the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt, with some reform Jews arguing that the traditions are falsified because the only evidence for them is Biblical. However, the historic evidence for Jewish slaves in Egypt is much stronger than the evidence for female Irish slaves in Iceland; and there were very clearly a lot of Irish slave-women in Iceland. Maybe the Egyptians were no more interested in documenting their slaves' activities than were the Vikings, and the Irish women less literate and capable of documenting it themselves.

A Familiar Story

Writing from the southern Philippines, Georgi Engelbrecht describes a failed jihadist movement's attempts to establish a stronghold there.

I was in the southern Philippines myself in 2007, and this story about the Islamic State's attempt to do so is almost precisely a mirror of the earlier attempt by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf - both of whom get mentioned.

A landmark peace agreement in 2014 reconciled the Philippine government with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest — and formerly secessionist — Moro Muslim rebel group. Bringing about peace, however, has been more complicated. Islamist outfits have formed outside the MILF and gained increasing popularity as the pact was delayed and formal Moro autonomy slowed despite the peace deal....

Things escalated after the third battle in Butig in November 2016. Isnilon Hapilon, one of the few surviving leaders of the infamous Abu Sayyaf Group, a loose network of criminal and militant cells in the Sulu Archipelago, arrived in Lanao and was appointed emir (commander) of the local Islamic State franchise. Hapilon had left his home island, Basilan, when his group came under military pressure. Details remain murky, but the plan to take over Marawi likely emerged around this time, with militants linking up with criminal syndicates. Local politicians supported the militants with cash and protection. Foreign money was arriving through remittance centers and bank accounts.

To appreciate how similar these stories are, you need to know that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front was itself an offshoot of the Moro National Liberation Front, which had signed a "landmark peace agreement" in the 1990s. The MNLF deal brought in most of the militants in the southern Philippines, who were moved as much by Moro nationalism as by Islam; but a radical offshoot, MILF, splintered off and continued the fight. 

Abu Sayyaf, meanwhile, was an ally of Al Qaeda instead of the manner in which this new ultra-radical group was an ally of the Islamic State (itself containing members of the old Al Qaeda in Iraq, an offshoot of AQ that came to exist only to fight us in Iraq, and who married to Saddamist insurgents in American prisons in Iraq where they were kept from killing each other long enough to find common cause). Al Qaeda friends Jemmah Islamiyah helped set up and fund 'the sons of the Sword' (a literal translation of Abu Sayyaf) to push for a Qaeda-led caliphate in the very same Islam-friendly territory. They used the MILF as militia capable of holding territory; the MILF used them as shock troops. 

I guess you could say that the waves are getting smaller and smaller, which might be reason for hope. The same process happened in Ireland, where the Irish Republican Army was brought in but the Provisional Irish Republican Army stayed out, until the Provos came in but the Real IRA stayed out, until at last there is relative peace. That too makes this a familiar story; I hope it works out well. The Southern Philippines are one of the most beautiful places on earth, unbelievably beautiful, and it is a shame that such paradise has so long been marred by poverty and war.

The Feast of the Epiphany

As the discussion in the comments has illuminated, today marks the end of Christmas and the start of Epiphanytide, though in another sense the “Christmastide” continues for some time until Candlemas. 

Growing up I was misled by Christmas pageants and Nativity scenes to believe that all the events happened at once: the Magi standing around the manger with the shepherds and the donkeys, everyone gathered together in celebration as we were ourselves come together as a family on Christmas morning. Epiphany was never mentioned. Of course it makes sense, though, that a journey in those days took quite some time. The mind prefers the easy, complete picture. 

Epiphany Eve

The relevant festival for today seems to be informal: it is the eve of Epiphany, which brings about some duties and preparations. The formal feasts for today are several, including St. Syncletica who died after she gave away her wealth to the poor; and St. John Neumann, an important Eastern European figure of the 19th century. 

For the purpose of the Christmas holiday, the Epiphany marks the end of the 12 days of Christmas (but not the Christmastide, which lasts until Candlemas at the end of what is also known as Epiphanytide -- see discussion below).

In many Western Churches, the eve of the feast is celebrated as Twelfth Night (Epiphany Eve). The Monday after Epiphany is known as Plough Monday.

Popular Epiphany customs include Epiphany singing, chalking the door, having one's house blessed, consuming Three Kings Cake, winter swimming, as well as attending church services. It is customary for Christians in many localities to remove their Christmas decorations on Epiphany Eve (Twelfth Night),  although those in other Christian countries historically remove them on Candlemas, the conclusion of Epiphanytide. According to the first tradition, those who fail to remember to remove their Christmas decorations on Epiphany Eve must leave them untouched until Candlemas, the second opportunity to remove them; failure to observe this custom is considered inauspicious.

So if you are going to remove Christmas decorations according to this tradition, today is the day for it (as we are doing here). If you want to eat Three Kings Cakes tomorrow, today may be the day for preparing them. At least if you are Roman Catholic; the Eastern church has a whole different set of dates for all of this, and a more intense set of traditions about it.

If you are wondering about the name, it is Greek, which might explain why the Greek Orthodox church is more wedded to it.

The word Epiphany is from Koine Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epipháneia, meaning manifestation or appearance. It is derived from the verb φαίνειν, phainein, meaning "to appear". In classical Greek it was used for the appearance of dawn, of an enemy in war, but especially of a manifestation of a deity to a worshiper (a theophany). In the Septuagint the word is used of a manifestation of the God of Israel (2 Maccabees 15:27). In the New Testament the word is used in 2 Timothy 1:10 to refer either to the birth of Christ or to his appearance after his resurrection, and five times to refer to his Second Coming.

The Evils of Coca-Cola

I'm not doing political posts by intention during the Christmas season, so look for those to resume not sooner than Monday. This one is more about corporate corruption, though it bleeds over into government corruption -- especially the manner in which the government refused to discuss obesity as a risk during the COVID massacre period, which doubtless cost lives and in poor, disadvantaged communities. 

We can hold fire on the rest of it until Monday. Hopefully the House Speakership won't be determined by then, or ever, so we can talk at length about it.

Feast of Elizabeth Ann Seton

Today is the feast day for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, an eighteenth century(!) saint who is by far the furthest removed from the events of Christmas. She is the first US citizen to be canonized. She converted to Catholicism fairly late in life, and was influential in the establishment of the faith in a new nation dominated by Protestant churches.

This raises a general point I have been wondering about regarding the Twelve Days of Christmas. Some of these feasts, solemnities, and memorials are clearly "of" the 12 Days, such as Childermas, the Feast of the Holy Family, and the Solemnity of Mary. Others are perhaps only 'during' the 12 days, including perhaps this one, St. Thomas Beckett, and some others. I've never seen a clear answer on which is which. Is St. Stephen's Day 'of' or 'during'? John the Evangelist? 

Perhaps one of you has better information on that than I do. D29?

Tomorrow is Epiphany Eve, which closes the 12 Days: The Feast of the Epiphany, which has a clear connection to Christmas, is outside the range. So too the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, which is Monday the 8th. 

Happy Birthday Tolkien

Today is also the 131st birthday of JRR Tolkien. The age has an analogue:

Since Bilbo had been a ring-bearer, he was allowed to accompany Frodo to the Undying Lands. On September 22, 3021, Bilbo turned 131 and became the oldest hobbit ever to have lived. On September 29, he, Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Frodo had boarded a ship docked at the Grey Havens and sailed away from Middle-earth. His fate afterward is not known but as he too was a mortal being, he most likely died in the light of the Blessed Realm of Valinor.

Memorial of the Holy Name

January 3rd marks the day on which the baby was formally named by Joseph. One might object that the Son’s name predates the formality, having been given by the Father (perhaps in eternity) and certainly transmitted to Joseph by an Angel in a dream well before. However, the incarnation was an incarnation into a particular time and place, family and tradition; and Joseph was assigned thereby the formal duty of naming the child. 

Today marks the day on which that naming occurred, and is an occasion to reflect on the name and its meaning. 

Feast of St. Basil and St. Gregory

Today is the feast day of both St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa, who were brothers. They are as 4th century saints quite late compared to most of those whose feast days fall in the 12 days of Christmas (although Thomas Beckett is even quite a bit later); their role was in resisting the Arian heresy and developing the theology by which the exact nature of the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is understood. 

Solemnity of Mary

The first of the year is the Solemnity of Mary. 

Go Mighty Bulldogs

Oh, and ah, happy new year.