tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140724742024-03-07T00:04:04.848-05:00PhronesisaicalPolitics, Philosophy, Fruithelmuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09069600766378586919noreply@blogger.comBlogger6461125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-23676891324019996232015-08-19T13:13:00.004-04:002015-08-19T13:13:56.499-04:00The End - For NowNone of the authors at this blog are posting any more. We might be back someday, but I don't know when that will be.<br />
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Comments are closed, because all we are getting is spam.<br />
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Cheryl can be found at <a href="http://nucleardiner.com/">Nuclear Diner</a>.Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-54974716668562160672015-03-06T13:44:00.002-05:002015-03-06T13:44:53.688-05:00Bits and Pieces - March 6, 2015<a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/03/02-friends-americas-allies-middle-east-create-problems-solve-wittes#.VPhs9YI38y0.twitter">This is as good a description of the situation in the Middle East and what America can do about it as I've seen. </a><div>
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<a href="http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/03/top-lessons-to-be-learned-from-warming-hiatus/">Long read on what we've learned from the climate hiatus, what that tells us about science, and why it doesn't mean that global warming has stopped.</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/03/05/roxana-badin/my-grandfather-in-the-trees/">A bit of family history that has some relevance to Russia's relations with its neighbors.</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.elliottcolla.com/blog/2015/3/5/on-the-iconoclasm-of-isis">Antiquities, museums, how we view the past, and ISIS.</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/columnists/are-we-feeding-our-need-to-be-consumed-with-eating/article23330479/">Whole Foods and the scent of death.</a></div>
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<a href="http://thebulletin.org/nuclear-notebook-multimedia">Interactive feature on global numbers of nuclear weapons.</a></div>
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Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-6770486995700797912015-02-15T17:11:00.000-05:002015-02-15T17:11:06.382-05:00Bits and Pieces - February 15, 2015Following up on that comment of President Obama's on the Crusades: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/opinion/sunday/the-first-victims-of-the-first-crusade.html">the first victims of the first crusade were Jews.</a> And then they took Christian Constantinople out in the Fourth Crusade. Kinda like ISIS, those folks.<br />
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<a href="http://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/hard-truths-law-enforcement-and-race">Transcript of James Comey's speech about law enforcement and minorities.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/fact-checking-project/new-report-online-rumors-critical-medias-role-spreading-misinformation/?utm_source=API%27s+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=ae280c20a9-Need_to_Know_February_11_20152_11_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-ae280c20a9-31689153">The media continues its long slide into rumor without fact-checking.</a><br />
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We do voluntary, poorly-enforced treaties all the time. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/upshot/surprisingly-a-voluntary-climate-treaty-could-actually-work.html?smid=tw-share&abt=0002&abg=0">There's reason to believe a similar climate treaty would work too.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.eesti.pl/dawna-estonia-1689.html">Old postcards from Estonia. Reval is modern-day Tallinn, Dorpat is Tartu.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21643220-russias-aggression-ukraine-part-broader-and-more-dangerous-confrontation?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/from_cold_war_to_hot_war">"What Russia Wants."</a> I wish we knew. There are a lot of signals with a lot of possible interpretations. This is a pretty good article, though.<br />
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<a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/13/putins-frozen-conflicts/">How Vladimir Putin paralyzes his neighbors with "frozen conflicts."</a><br />
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<br />Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-32162097368298540732015-01-21T10:53:00.002-05:002015-01-21T10:53:14.803-05:00Bits and Pieces - January 21, 2015<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/20/vladimir-putin-auschwitz-memorial-ceremony-soviet-union-liberating-camps?CMP=twt_gu">Why Vladimir Putin should be invited to the Auschwitz memorial ceremony. </a>Russia needs to confront all parts of its past.<br />
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<a href="http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy-1/united-nations/france-and-the-united-nations/article/why-france-wishes-to-regulate-use">France is proposing a limitation on United Nations Security Council vetoes. </a>It's unlikely to go far and narrowly defined, but a step toward thinking differently about the Security Council's inability to act.<br />
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<a href="http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2015/01/was-civil-rights-movement-revolution.html">Was the civil rights movement a revolution?</a> If a revolution means a major shift in power, yes. But not completed yet.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ginandtacos.com/2015/01/20/theater-of-the-absurd/">The best critique of the response to the State of the Union address</a>, both in general and this latest one.<br />
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<a href="http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/i-helped-start-religious-right-heres-how-we-tried-undermine-secular-america-and">First-person narrative of the separatist tendencies in the religious right.</a> I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but parts are persuasive.<br />
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<a href="http://priceonomics.com/when-americans-ate-horse-meat/">When Americans ate horse meat.</a>Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-87247960384021683722015-01-07T12:08:00.001-05:002015-01-07T12:08:05.496-05:00Bits and Pieces - January 7, 2015<a href="http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-is-european.html">What is a European? </a>The growing pains of the European Union. What they are trying to do is much more difficult than the United States' union of colonies in the 18th century. And that took a while to work out.<br />
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<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/the-politics-of-last-names-afghanistan/384217/">Afghans are being urged to take surnames.</a> Which are a relatively recent innovation, even for Europe.<br />
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<a href="http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2014/12/31/nonviolent-conflicts-in-2014-you-may-have-missed-because-they-were-not-violent/">Nonviolent Conflicts in 2014 You May Have Missed Because They Were Not Violent. </a>We don't see the conflicts that don't happen and the ones in which people aren't shooting at each other.<br />
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Likewise, <a href="https://medium.com/@dropeik.com/do-we-really-live-in-dangerous-times-or-does-it-just-feel-that-way-a85b281866a6">do we really live in dangerous times or does it just feel that way? </a>Some of both, more of the second. Which can lead to real danger. But feelings count for a lot.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/17/new-chartres-exchange/">How should historical architecture be restored?</a> People become attached to a particular look, which may mean a lot to them but isn't the way things were originally. Buildings that have been around for a while may have had different looks at different times.<br />
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Iran's President Hassan Rouhani's recent speeches and actions seem to indicate <a href="http://www.iiss.org/en/politics%20and%20strategy/blogsections/2015-932e/january-69bc/rouhani-is-keen-to-strike-a-nuclear-deal-32fd">he really wants a nuclear deal</a>, but the Grand Ayatollah condemned the Great Satan as unreliable one more time today. Could be a real disagreement or a good cop - bad cop balancing for Iranian hardliners.<br />
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<a href="https://storify.com/crofer/that-civil-military-debate#comments">My thoughts, via what is beginning to be called a tweetstorm, on the civil-military split in the US.</a><br />
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<a href="http://qz.com/321618/how-big-is-economics-sexism-problem-this-articles-co-author-is-anonymous-because-of-it/?utm_content=bufferb7aa2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">It looks like male economists are as sexist as ruling males in other professions</a>, but economics may be further behind the times than, say, chemistry.<br />
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Hello Russia my old friend -<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/01/06/372872870/the-russian-who-claims-credit-for-fanning-the-flames-in-ukraine?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social">Igor Girkin is making the rounds,</a> talking to media about how he and his men tried to start an uprising in the Donbas and failed. The fact that he hasn't met an unfortunate accident suggests that this is a message the Kremlin wants out there, perhaps to cover for ramping down their war. Or I suppose it's possible Vladimir Putin thinks this will convince people that Russia is no longer in the Donbas as he sends more war machinery.<br />
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Germany's relationship to Russia is complex, but <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/29/business/international/in-reversal-germany-cools-to-russian-investment.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0">seems to be moving away </a>as Russia keeps doing what it's doing in Ukraine.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_what_will_be_the_consequences_of_the_russian_currency_crisis385">A Russian analyst says that Russia's economic troubles began to show up in 2011.</a><br /><br />There is no end to Russian propaganda. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/06/-sp-ex-soviet-countries-front-line-russia-media-propaganda-war-west?CMP=share_btn_tw&utm_content=buffer11b37&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">Here is one more article.</a> I collect articles, think of new things to say, and then just give up. Pro tip: don't believe anything that comes out of Russia unless confirmed by reliable (that means non-Russian) sources.Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-63876725098911918562014-12-29T14:19:00.003-05:002014-12-29T14:19:20.994-05:00"Dover Beach" Into The New Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvJAwyZ_AARadlZ_URvw98dbamM3ICIWICEigJmIVw-UzD00iLmfbpvWQDseUqKkljRuKswfhUA1k5RmYLOQCvAg7c6k4s3f1cKtmHKOZ2vwB6JJDdFRX4LbT36MPU1NJDx17njw/s1600/o-EUROMAIDAN-570.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvJAwyZ_AARadlZ_URvw98dbamM3ICIWICEigJmIVw-UzD00iLmfbpvWQDseUqKkljRuKswfhUA1k5RmYLOQCvAg7c6k4s3f1cKtmHKOZ2vwB6JJDdFRX4LbT36MPU1NJDx17njw/s1600/o-EUROMAIDAN-570.jpg" height="216" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The Sony hack and later shutdown of the North Korean
internet made me think of the last lines of <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172844">“Dover Beach,”</a> by
Matthew Arnold. That made me think about the rest of the poem. It’s a good way
to one year and start the next. Or at least in my quirky way of reading poems.
Go read it through to get your impression. I’ll wait.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
….</div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s <a href="http://cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Dover.html">a standard
interpretation of the poem</a> that says that Arnold was mourning the end of
Victorian certainties in religion and morals. I can’t disagree with that, but
I’ve always gotten an optimistic sense from it too. I’ve often found (to some
teachers’ chagrin and damage to my grades) different meanings in poems than the
standard.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The sea is
calm tonight.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The tide is
full, the moon lies fair<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Upon the
straits; on the French coast the light<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Gleams and
is gone; the cliffs of England stand,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Glimmering
and vast, out in the tranquil bay.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Come to the
window, sweet is the night-air!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Only, from
the long line of spray<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Where the
sea meets the moon-blanched land,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Listen! you
hear the grating roar<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Of pebbles
which the waves draw back, and fling,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
At their
return, up the high strand,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Begin, and
cease, and then again begin,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
With
tremulous cadence slow, and bring<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The eternal note of sadness in.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many years ago, I was in Aberystwyth. It was the first place
I had seen a shingle beach and heard the sound Arnold describes. We stayed in a
Victorian hotel not far from the water. I recall a moon now, but I don’t know
if it was there or from the poem. It wasn’t a tranquil stay like one Arnold’s,
but the arguments were closer to their end than their beginning.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sophocles
long ago<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Heard it on
the Ægean, and it brought<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Into his
mind the turbid ebb and flow<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Of human
misery; we<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Find also in
the sound a thought,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Hearing it
by this distant northern sea.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The Sea of
Faith<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Was once,
too, at the full, and round earth’s shore<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Lay like the
folds of a bright girdle furled.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But now I
only hear<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Its melancholy,
long, withdrawing roar,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Retreating,
to the breath<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Of the
night-wind, down the vast edges drear<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And naked shingles of the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Arnold’s time, science was beginning to change a world
that had seemed simpler, with comforting explanations. Charles Darwin’s
evolution would have been a big part of it for Arnold, but Planck was laying
the basis for Einstein’s work, and other developments paved the way for the
good and bad of the twentieth century.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For me, a withdrawing childhood faith was much more freeing
than melancholy. I could evoke a nostalgia for simpler, more secure times, but
the naked shingle was better. The wet black and gray pebbles gleamed even with
clouds overhead. The sound didn’t seem that mournful to me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A relationship was at an end. It was perhaps in Aberystwyth,
certainly on that trip, that I began to be able to accept that. Since then,
I’ve learned many ways to see ends and beginnings. For a while, Antonio
Gramsci’s quote epitomized uncertainties that would become clear.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
The crisis consists precisely in
the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So crisp: <i>precisely</i>.
But “the new cannot be born”? Did not really make sense to me. Many beginnings,
real and false, have shown me that Gramsci’s judgement is true <a href="http://www.coldbacon.com/poems/fq.html">in every moment</a>. The old dies
every day, and it often seems the new cannot be born.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
…There is, it seems to us,<br />
At best, only a limited value<br />
In the knowledge derived from experience.<br />
The knowledge inposes a pattern, and falsifies,<br />
For the pattern is new in every moment<br />
And every moment is a new and shocking<br />
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived<br />
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.<br />
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way<br />
but all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,<br />
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,<br />
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,<br />
Risking enchantment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like Arthurian knights, I’ve headed off into a wood with no
paths, no secure foothold. Not as comforting as Faith’s bright girdle wrapped
around me, but the way I was and am.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Ah, love,
let us be true<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
To one
another! for the world, which seems<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
To lie
before us like a land of dreams,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So various, so beautiful, so new,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many worlds, many dreams, many kinds of beauty. We might as
well enjoy them. I think here of natural beauty and my attempts to capture it,
so much in just my yard, in photos; on the other hand, beautiful new tempting
things to be bought, sometimes living up to promise, sometimes not.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Hath really
neither joy, nor love, nor light,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Arnold found this more disappointing than I do. It’s why we
must be true to one another, the many friends we now can have across the globe.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And we are
here as on a darkling plain<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Swept with
confused alarms of struggle and flight,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Where ignorant armies clash by night.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sounds like Twitter. Or the (putatively) North Korean hack
of Sony Pictures and the (perhaps) attack on North Korea’s internet. Or the
Donbas or Aleppo. The photo at the top is close to the way I imagined those
ignorant armies, long before police dressed this way. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why should this leave me feeling positive? I don’t have a
definitive answer, will advance a couple of thoughts. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We’ve lived through the scientific cratering of the Victorian
world that Arnold was reacting to. I find the methods of science more
comforting than the certainties of faith. The poem has been with me through
ends and beginnings.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The key is<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Ah, love,
let us be true<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To one another!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The reality is our love, friendship, caring for one another.
The world <i>seems</i>. We are here <i>as on</i> a darkling plain. Love is real. Arnold
was struggling with spectres of armies in his own mind. There are real wars in
this world. I’m lucky enough not to be in the middle of one of them. But I think
that humans can be true to one another, that we can find our way through those
darkling plains. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The photo is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/24/2014-crises_n_6322952.html?utm_content=buffer2b30c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">via
Huffington Post</a>. It is of police at the Maidan demonstrations of a year
ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-77030835500828059532014-12-16T19:03:00.003-05:002014-12-16T19:03:53.273-05:00Bits and Pieces - December 16, 2014<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/12/16/3603899/greenpeace-nazca-peru-climate-message/">This article </a>pretty well represents my feelings about Greenpeace's dumb stunt at Nacza, Peru. They need to pay for the damage they've done.<br />
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<a href="http://deepseanews.com/2014/12/the-complex-wrath-of-the-ozone-hole-over-antarctica/">It looks like the South Polar ozone hole is doing a lot more than letting ultraviolet rays in.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/science/susan-middleton-explores-the-riot-of-life-in-the-oceans-in-spineless.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0">Beautiful sea creatures.</a><br />
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It has always seemed to me that the ethos of blogging and the needs of magazines are contradictory. Scientific American has been having some problems with that, and <a href="http://www.scilogs.com/from_the_lab_bench/thoughts-about-scientific-american-blog-changes/">they're trying to do something about it.</a> A magazine can never grant the freedom I've got here.<br />
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<a href="http://csis.org/publication/strategic-cost-torture-racism-and-bigotry?utm_content=bufferb010f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">The strategic cost of torture, racism, and bigotry.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/obamas-challenge-building-a-bridge-over-americas-racial-divide/383649/?single_page=true">Norm Ornstein talks candidly about racism in American politics.</a><br />
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Belarus - the Soviet-style dictatorship that has been Russia's bff - <a href="http://belsat.eu/en/articles/belarus-president-apprehensive-about-russia-our-eastern-brothers-actions-raise-concern/">is worried about the big neighbor to the east.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/putin-soft-power-declining-by-joseph-s--nye-2014-12">Russia's lack of soft power.</a><br />
<br />Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-23915992189019392052014-12-10T19:29:00.002-05:002014-12-10T19:29:30.677-05:00Bits and Pieces - December 10, 2014I don't have much to say about the Senate Torture Report. Maybe later. I need to do some assimilating. <a href="http://nucleardiner.com/2014/12/09/senate-torture-report/">Here's as much as I can write now</a>, with links to resources.<br />
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<a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7015">The association between exaggeration in health related science news and academic press releases: retrospective observational study. </a>This is a scientific study looking at how scientific results get distorted by the time you read them in the newspaper.<br />
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<a href="http://the-toast.net/2014/12/10/women-resisting-heterosexuality-western-art-history/#E1WtxEuZP3VOUtZh.99">Women Resisting Heterosexuality In Western Art History.</a> Very funny readings of female reaction to male privilege in the painters and characters.<br />
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<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/12/the-new-star-wars-isnt-really-new/383426/?single_page=true">Noah Berlatsky in <i>The Atlantic</i></a>:<br />
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Over here is Le Guin, taking a stand for science fiction on the grounds that "we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope."<br />....<br />It's no accident that the most ubiquitous, overwhelming sci-fi sub-genre around is the one that has the least to do with the future: superheroes. Much of the superhero genre, in fact, is devoted to the fantasy that we don't need to wait for technological marvels, but can experience them right here, right now. More, we can do so, magically, without the comfy old familiar world we know changing that much at all.</blockquote>
<a href="http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2014/12/10/states-of-fear-and-killing-afrozilla/">How fear plays into the frequency with which white cops kill young black men</a>. Fear is a common thread through this story, the need some felt for torture after 9/11, and other pathologies. We need to get away from it.<br />
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<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/how-sexism-stifles-creativity/383562/?single_page=true">Political correctness enhances creativity.</a> Nice quote:<br />
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When men aren’t thinking about being politically correct, they can sometimes be too, for lack of a better word, bro-y (or afraid of coming off as such). “And the flip side of men being jerks is that women worry that they’re going to be a target of that behavior,”</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/survival/sections/2014-4667/survival--global-politics-and-strategy-december-2014-january-2015-bf83/56-6-02-freedman-6983">Best article around on the situation in Ukraine.</a><br />
<br />Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-3070952123313166002014-12-07T20:02:00.000-05:002014-12-07T20:02:19.883-05:00Bits and Pieces - December 7, 2014<a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/merkel-says-russia-punishing-countries-for-leaning-towards-eu/512672.html">Vladimir Putin has really ticked off Angela Merkel.</a> Joschka Fischer comes from a left-wing background, and <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/merkel-resolve-against-russia-by-joschka-fischer-2014-12">he sees Merkel's stance as a coming of age for German foreign policy.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/kerry-lavrov-trade-barbs-ukraine/2545909.html">John Kerry was none too friendly, either.</a><br />
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<a href="http://en.delfi.lt/central-eastern-europe/russian-human-rights-activist-our-soldiers-are-refusing-to-go-to-ukraine.d?id=66588988#dreload1417798212371">Russian soldiers may be refusing to go to Ukraine.</a> Notice that "may." I take reports from those with strong feelings about the situation in Ukraine provisionally.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/9f27da90-7b3f-11e4-87d4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3L8VJFiXD">Long report on the "Independent Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/06/polands-jews-new-roof-polin/">A beautiful new Jewish museum in Warsaw.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/09/americans_have_no_idea_how_bad_inequality_is_new_harvard_business_school.html">Americans Have No Idea How Bad Inequality Really Is And if they did, they wouldn’t want European-style solutions.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/12/05/theo-leanse/at-the-computer-farm/">Jim Austin collects old computers. Big computers.</a><br />
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<br />Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-1331184445615093442014-12-03T19:45:00.004-05:002014-12-03T19:45:53.425-05:00Bits and Pieces - December 3, 2014Despite the ideology of the past few decades that says we're all individuals who owe each other nothing, <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/evolution-and-the-american-myth-of-the-individual/?_r=2">humans have evolved a cooperative, living together capability</a>. Time to get away from the ideology and make use of it. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/opinion/the-trick-to-being-more-virtuous.html?_r=2">And we are capable of doing that.</a><br />
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The graphic looks like Van Gogh painted it, but <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/world/new-images-refine-view-of-infant-universe.html">it's the cosmic microwave background.</a> The search for dark matter is not going well.<br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/magazine/my-great-great-aunt-discovered-francium-and-it-killed-her.html?smid=fb-share">Working in the Curies' laboratory.</a><br />
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I am not fond of marking up my books, but <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/03/pencil-hand/">finding a way to make oneself question them</a> (and the writing we read from the media) is a good thing.<br />
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I've had some run-ins with the foreign policy realists who like to argue that the trouble in Ukraine is all the United States' fault because we have been intruding on Russia's sphere of interest, making that enormous country with all its nukes feel insecure. <a href="http://georgetownheckler.com/wp/?p=3674">This is how that kind of thing would work in a university.</a><br />
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<a href="http://erikmandre.planet.ee/index.php?showimage=630">Beautiful photos of wild animals from Estonia.</a>Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-65610834865451799712014-12-03T19:24:00.001-05:002014-12-03T19:24:11.000-05:00The Death of TrustSo we have been told again that the death of a black man caused by a police officer is not worth considering - there is a video of Eric Garner's death by strangulation, the medical examiner said it was homicide, but a grand jury decided that there is no reason for a trial. The person who took the video has been charged, however.<br />
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September 11, 2001, was a turning point in many ways. One of them was that our uniformed municipal public safety officers were heroes. There were lots of heroes - all our military became heroes, until the sense of the word washed out into too many egos of those to whom the word was applied. Being a hero is a one-time thing, connected to a specific place, time, and act. But we made all-the-time, look at the uniform heroes.<br />
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Some blame the Vietnam War for today's splits in Americans' attitudes. For some people, it certainly represents ultimate wrongs of various stripes, but they seem to be few. Or, if there are more, they don't say much about it.<br />
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But we have had, much more recently, an even more stupid and venal war, although not as many died. That war, Bush's War In Iraq, was divisive, too, although not as noisily as the Vietnam War. You can see from the way I titled it which side I'm on. And it was so obviously wrong-headed and wrong-handled that those who want to feel good about America's wars show their support only indirectly: Benghazi. We should have left more troops in Iraq. John McCain takes it out by wanting to bomb everyone.<br />
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Then we elected our first black president. We. Elected. That means a majority of voters felt that was an okay, maybe better than okay, thing to do. And we re-elected him. At first, the racists were very careful, although a very few of their number were just fine with photoshopping him as a witch doctor or whatever bubbled up from their subconscious. But then the birthers, and "he's not one of us," and it's snowballed to an acceptance of open racism. You can google it.<br />
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And it all came together. The cops, many of whom were white, all of whom share the bedrock racism that psychologists have shown is in all of us, can do no wrong. They are heroes, even if the word is looking a little pale these days. The grand juries in Ferguson and Staten Island have given us the result.Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-15490947964670197192014-11-30T12:52:00.001-05:002014-11-30T13:06:33.706-05:00Theories of Everything<div class="MsoNormal">
“I saw a movie this week that I know you’d love! It’s called
‘The Theory of Everything.’” I smile and ask what my friend liked about it. He
is happy to say. I do not intend to see the movie, but I don’t say that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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People who are not scientists often believe that the heights
of science are what the physicists are happy to tell us that they are:
struggling with nature to make her give up her secrets, or, in a less sexist
formulation, knocking one’s head against the equations to make sense of nature,
to get at the most basic essence, a theory of everything. </div>
<a name='more'></a><br /><o:p></o:p>
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That theory of everything intrigued me, too, as a young
girl. In grade school, I kept a small notebook in which I doubled
numbers: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, to numbers with many digits. It was a sort of talisman
that I kept with me and sometimes added to during boring classes. It seemed to
be a key to great secrets. I built Platonic solids and other geometric forms
and hung them on threads from the ceiling of my bedroom. I made hexaflexagons with
so many sides they were hard to fold. Logical paradoxes: Zeno, the Cretan liar,
and others. I tried to visualize stars in space outside the solar system, and,
of course I could visualize the movement of the planets around the sun. This
was before special effects in the movies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But I also helped my mother in the kitchen made bread myself.
I had Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, and American Plastic Bricks, a more limited
forerunner to Legos. I had a chemistry set, and I was my father’s primary
typewriter repair assistant. He paid me minimum wage.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Mathematics was beautiful, but physics promised power.
Einstein and the Manhattan Project had shown that mass could be converted to
energy bigtime. The older models of matter, of electrons orbiting a nucleus of protons
and neutrons, were breaking down, classic simplicity scattered into myriad
particles. Disappointing in a universe that the physicists said was elegant.
The mathematics that seemed elegant to me, of groups and rings, didn’t neatly
hold it together. I went to college planning to major in physics, maybe
astronomy, and found that what pleased me was much more physical: chemistry.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Chemistry and biology were willing to admit their
complexities, with no claims to What It Is All About. Physics hadn’t managed to
provide that either, but grandiose claims persisted. And it was mostly math,
not the beautiful crystals that emerged from solution in organic chemistry lab.
Chemistry had its ironclad logics, too: the sequences of qualitative analysis
and the deciphering of mechanisms. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I never looked back after that first crystallization
experiment; chemistry was my subject. Later, in my professional life,
physicists looked down on me for that. Physics, after all, explains all of
chemistry, and chemistry explains all of biology, and so physics is higher in
the hierarchy of pure science. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But the physical equations that “explain” chemistry aren’t
easily solvable, so they tell us very little of practical use. We come closer
to that with today’s computers, but you still don’t do chemistry by inputting
data about chemical elements into a computer. It’s easier to work it out in the
lab, even though sometimes that can be very difficult indeed. What does that do
to that hierarchy? Nothing at all, if you ask a physicist.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve seen that arrogance lead to big and little mistakes.
For one example, an inability to understand that chemistry takes place with
many molecules, with a Boltzmann thermal distribution and more complex internal
energies, not an accelerator billiard-ball, one atom at a time. Or simply
ignoring that thermodynamics says a brilliant proposal won’t work. Without the
arrogance, the mistakes are much more easily corrected. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And what would we do with a Theory of Everything, if one
were even possible? Perhaps gravity and relativity can be reconciled, but, like
the atomic particles that conceptually shattered, where would that bump in the
rug come up next? It’s turtles all the way down.<o:p></o:p></div>
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During my career, I obtained a spectrum that was badly
needed for a practical project; I cleaned up a dump in the woods of radioactive
and hazardous waste; I helped develop those changing perspectives in Google
Maps; and, best of all, I helped to get a very big tailings pond in Estonia
stabilized so that it’s not contaminating the Baltic Sea. I may have even
convinced some that women can do science too. I’ve helped people get ahead in
their careers and still have a lot of young people I talk to, mostly via the
internet. I’ve had moments of exaltation, when the results are just as I’ve
predicted, and moments of illumination, when I’ve found something new. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Stephen Hawking has done big things in physics and has
written books that people feel have helped them to understand science, all
while dealing with enormous physical disabilities. I’m sure it’s a good movie
and emotionally moving. But I won’t see it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My friend meant well. He probably thought I would be
inspired by both the science and the human struggle. But there are many more
satisfactions in science than the Theory of Everything.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-82371379928810112852014-11-23T16:02:00.001-05:002014-11-23T16:02:44.061-05:00ForgettingWe have done some good things for ourselves as humans. After a while, it's easy to take those good things for granted and even think we don't need them. Things are going well, aren't they? Why do we have that silly rule?<br />
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So people begin to believe that their children don't need vaccinations against diseases that once were common, and we start to see epidemics of whooping cough, measles, and diphtheria again.<br />
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Or regulation. It's kind of an ugly word, like something your mother makes you do. Freedom is a nicer word. So along comes a hip company like Uber that assures you things will be cheaper (another nice idea) and better if you ride with strangers rather than licensed taxi drivers. Those licenses just keep the prices up, right?<br />
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Well, maybe there's something else they do, like <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/19/the-ten-worst-uber-horror-stories.html">avoiding stuff like this</a>.Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-47728428982021593922014-11-19T11:09:00.001-05:002014-11-19T11:09:39.037-05:00Bits and Pieces - November 19, 2014<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/the-cosby-show/382891/?single_page=true">Ta-Nehisi Coates's honesty and writing moved me</a>. It's hard to change one's mind in this way, harder to say it.<br />
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On the other side of such things, the #shirtstorm continues, now fed largely by idiots maintaining their freedom to wear inappropriate shirts when serving as a spokesman for a stunning science mission. <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/11/17/casual_sexism_when_a_shirt_is_more_than_a_shirt.html">Here's something that makes more sense</a>. And <a href="https://storify.com/cantfakethefunk/shirtstorm-dr-matt-taylor-and-the-truth">a collection of tweets.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-18/putin-said-to-back-crackdown-on-corruption-as-sanctions-bite.html">This is strange news.</a> Perhaps Vladimir Putin is deciding to deal with his troubles at home more directly, and not simply distracting with a nice little war in Ukraine. Or perhaps he is planning both. Or perhaps this report is wrong. Stay tuned.<br />
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<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/18/us-russia-capitalism-rockets-special-rep-idUSKCN0J22BQ20141118?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter">Privatization of the American space program benefits a Florida firm and Russian oligarchs.</a><br />
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<a href="http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2014/11/18/twe-remembers-nikita-khrushchevs-visit-to-the-united-states/">History: Nikita Khrushchev‘s visit to the United States in 1959.</a> Even at the height of the Cold War, channels with the Soviet Union were kept open.<br />
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/great-reads/la-fg-c1-black-russian-americans-20141119-story.html#page=1">More history: The African-Americans who migrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930s and their descendents.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/18/iran-nuclear-deal-west-dignity-revolution?CMP=edit_2221">Dignity is important to the Iranians in the nuclear negotiations.</a> But it's a hard concept to define.<br />
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<br />Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-13932804881190243352014-11-17T10:43:00.001-05:002014-11-17T12:38:43.168-05:00Bits and Pieces - November 17, 2014<a href="https://news.vice.com/article/im-going-to-live-american-ashoka-mukpo-on-what-its-like-to-have-ebola">'I'm Going to Live': American Ashoka Mukpo on What It's Like to Have Ebola</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/nov/13/-sp-life-in-rural-belarus-villages-in-pictures">Photos of rural Belarus.</a><br />
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<a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/8/putin-s-tacticalmisogyny.html">Putin's tactical misogyny.</a> This is so ugly it's hard to read.<br />
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<a href="http://grist.org/politics/david-roberts-explains-postmodern-conservatism-in-36-tweets/">David Roberts explains postmodern conservatism in 36 tweets.</a> Remarkable resemblance to Vladimir Putin's nihilistic propaganda barrage. You can't believe anything, so why try.<br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/opinion/sunday/i-nearly-died-so-what.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=1">On the need for "closure." </a>It's something I haven't understood. This article clarified some things for me. The need for stories that end well in a world where things often don't end well.<br />
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And a few more added later:<br />
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<a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/votes-do-little-to-clarify-status-of-ukrainian-breakaway-regions-a-1001128.html">Things are not going well for Vladimir Putin in eastern Ukraine.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.hrw.org/node/130595/">Human Rights Watch report on human rights abuses in Crimea.</a><br />
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<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/17/politics/twitter-republicans-outside-groups/index.html">The Republicans are doing everything they can to get around the election laws.</a><br />
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<br />Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-21431377335994968132014-11-12T15:25:00.002-05:002014-11-12T15:25:32.918-05:00Bits and Pieces - November 12, 2014<a href="http://nucleardiner.com/2014/11/10/putin-valdai-respect-please/">I contemplate Vladimir Putin's speech to the Valdai Discussion Club</a>, which is being much discussed by others. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a continuing whine about not being appreciated nearly enough. However, this post is a serious examination in the style of international relations studies, with just a bit of psychologizing at the end.<br />
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Russia is pouring troops and military equipment into eastern Ukraine and, of course, denying it. <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30025138">BBC</a>, <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/news-analysis-east-ukraine-fighting-resurgence/26685705.html">RFE/RL</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_26918170/san-jose-women-chico-teen-detained-russia">Russia detains some American students </a>at a conference for apparently no reason at all.<br />
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<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29950844">Russians come in many different ethnic groups.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/11/10/scientists-find-remains-of-ice-age-infants-in-elaborate-but-mysterious-grave/">Elaborate burial practices in North America 11,500 years ago.</a><br />
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<br />Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-47579428653443361532014-10-30T10:45:00.000-04:002014-10-30T10:46:19.454-04:00Falling Prey to the Thatcher-Reagan Zeitgeist<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/2014/10/hilary-mantel-on-margaret-thatcher.html">A
couple of weeks ago</a>, I wondered if it was possible to say, discuss, think
of, a just society because our reference points had moved so far to the right under the influence of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thomas Edsall <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/opinion/nothing-in-moderation.html?_r=0">provides
an example</a>: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What if the notion that a large
segment of the electorate is made up of moderates who hunger for centrist
compromise is illusory? What if ordinary voters are, in many respects, even
more extreme in their views than members of Congress?</blockquote>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
And I would ask</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What if the political commentators
who are so obsessed with centrist compromise are asking the wrong questions?</blockquote>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Edsall takes a single political science study at face value,
always a bad idea. Even when it’s a good study, there’s usually a history and
context around it that helps in understanding. Professors are delighted, of
course, to have their paper flogged in the New York Times and too many will do
their best to assure someone like Edsall that their study is totally new and
totally addresses Edsall’s concerns. Just get our names in print, please!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this case, according to Edsall, it’s graduate students.
They asked voters about extreme views and found that more of them gravitated to
the extremes than to the center. Edsall takes this uncritically, probably
because it fits with the worldview he has inherited from Margaret Thatcher and
her minions (<a href="http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/2014/10/hilary-mantel-on-margaret-thatcher.html">see
my earlier post</a>), although he doesn’t seem to realize that.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Edsall gives an example of the choices that were given in
the reported survey:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
In the case of taxes, for example,
the survey offered respondents seven choices, of which four were “extreme.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
The extreme choices on taxes on the
left are: to establish a maximum annual income, with all income over $1,000,000
per year taxed at a rate of 100 percent, and to decrease federal taxes on the
poor and provide more services benefiting the middle class and the poor; or to
increase federal income taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year to
pre-1990s levels (more than 5 percent above current rates). Use the savings to
significantly lower taxes and provide more services to those making less and to
invest in infrastructure projects.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
The extreme choices on taxes the
survey offers on the right are: to move to a completely flat income tax system
where all individuals pay the same percentage of their income in taxes,
accomplished by decreasing government services; or to move to a flat consumption
tax where all individuals pay the same percentage of their purchases in taxes,
banning the income tax, even if this means the poor pay more in taxes than the
rich. Significantly decrease government services in the process.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Seven choices, of which four are “extreme.” (Quote marks
Edsall’s, or perhaps from the study.) If responses are random, more than half,
4/7 or 57%, to be exact, will be “extreme.” This starts the study out with a
tilt. But that’s not the worst part. Let’s look at how “extreme” these choices
are. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Left:</b> 1) All income
over $1,000,000 taxed at 100%<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2) Increase taxes on those making more than $250,000 to
pre-1990 levels.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In both cases, lower taxes and provide more services to
those making less and invest in infrastructure.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Right:</b> 1) Flat
income tax<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2) Flat consumption tax<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In both cases, decrease government services.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Edsall doesn’t say what the “centrist” options were. In this
case, a majority, 59%, supported the “extreme” positions. This is suspiciously
close to that random 57%, but we’ll ignore that, because the division between right
and left is extremely lopsided: 19% on the right, 40% on the left. Twice as many
favored “extreme” left options. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One should normalize for the political predelictions of the
respondents; if twice as many identified as liberal as conservative, this would
be a reasonable result. But Edsall doesn’t tell us that. For all the questions,
the lean was 19% right, 30% left.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The study’s authors and Edsall take this to mean that,
horror of horrors, the voters are MORE EXTREME than their representatives. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s take a closer look.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=543">In
1952 and 1953</a>, the top marginal tax rate was 92%, for the rest of the
fifties and into the sixties, 91%, for income over $400,000. That means that a
citizen making over $400,000 kept only 8 or 9% of the income above that amount, <a href="http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl">equivalent to</a> about
$3,500,000 today. The first “extreme” liberal option is more extreme than this,
but not by a lot. Apparently this “extreme” was acceptable to a Republican
president through the 1950s, and a Congress that <a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774721.html">went back and forth</a>
between Republican and Democratic control. This continued into the 1960s, under
a Democratic president. Bipartisan? Centrist, even? Those years were prosperous
ones for the United States. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The other left “extreme” is to go back to pre-1990 levels of
tax. Which led into the prosperous 1990s. That would have been under Republican
presidents. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Both of these “extremes” have been tested, have been found
acceptable to the voters and to the “elites” of both parties, and fit easily into current tax laws. The US has never
tried the “extreme” right choices in the survey: flat taxes, income or
consumption, which would require full revamping of our tax system. Yet Edsall and the authors of the study present the “extremes” as
though they are equivalent. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The study was carried out by graduate students, according to
Edsall. Perhaps no professor would be willing to take credit for it. Those
graduate students, and likely even their professor, were born since
Thatcher-Reaganism became normalized. But it looks like the voters they
surveyed have better sense.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-72068675409858957412014-10-23T16:20:00.001-04:002014-10-23T16:20:46.899-04:00Bits and Pieces - October 23, 2014This is really important: <a href="http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/10/window-on-eurasia-russia-today-lacks.html" target="_blank"><strong>Russia </strong>Today Lacks Resources to Use ‘Crimean Scenario’ Everywhere It Might Like, Moscow Analysts Say.</a> Russia simply does not have the military forces to continue a low-level war in Ukraine, destabilize the Baltic States, occupy the Arctic, and guard its border with China. This is why President Obama and European leaders don't bother to respond to Vladimir Putin's bluster. It's just bluster. I hope to do a more quantitative post on this.<br />
<br />
A couple of good new <strong>blogs</strong>:
"Millysievert" describes herself as: Professional nuclear layperson, a.k.a. Executive Assistant to the World Nuclear Association Director General. Got a C in GCSE Physics. Fascinated by nuclear despite that. She is letting us join her learning curve at <a href="http://nuclearlayperson.com/" target="_blank">Nuclear Layperson</a>.
Red mercury is famous as a substance that makes nuclear weapons easier to build. Except it doesn't exist. Now it seems to be in Africa and <a href="http://redmercurycampaign.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">someone finds it necessary to debunk it.</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/20/scientists-discover-the-kinda-disgusting-origins-of-sex/">In case you missed it: how sex began.</a><br />
<br />
Kazakhstan is where apples came from. <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-16/kazakhstans-crisis-of-vanishing-apples">Like a lot of other plants, their genetic diversity is now in danger.</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.santafe.edu/news/item/meyers-lancet-does-ebola-immunize-people/">Does Ebola immunize people without their getting sick?</a> Other viruses do, and if Ebola does, the prospects for a general epidemic are less.<br />
<br />
If you need a holiday, <a href="http://nucleardiner.com/2014/10/23/happy-mole-day/">today is Mole Day!</a><br />
<br />
<br />Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-30632166086491834002014-10-14T12:31:00.001-04:002014-10-14T12:32:09.823-04:00Hilary Mantel on Margaret Thatcher<div class="MsoNormal">
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan turned the
Anglo-American world around. In office at the same time, they thought similarly,
a reaction to the slowdown of postwar liberalism. The political ideas that had
given the United States prosperity and rebuilt Britain in the fifties turned
out, unsurprisingly, not to have covered everything. Some aspects of liberal economics,
along with actions like OPEC’s oil embargo, slowed economies. Voters were ready
for a change, and Thatcher and Reagan offered a new start.</div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The nuclear arms race, which was separate from those liberal
ideas, was beginning to slow, and Thatcher, Reagan, and the USSR’s Mikhail
Gorbachev were able to capitalize on that. Flaws in the Soviet system and
Gorbachev’s responses to them brought down that system, which Thatcher and
Reagan were happy to take credit for.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thatcher and Reagan changed the political discourse, and we
have retained that discourse. Hilary Mantel <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119704/hilary-mantel-interview-margaret-thatcher-wrecked-country">observes</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
It was not possible at that time to
see where it was trending. What she made a play for was the acquisitive: our
greedy nature. She set aside other things like an identification with
community, altruism. The only collective that she understood was: Rally around
and slay the enemy. Otherwise, she said there was no thing such as society.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is almost impossible in the US today to talk about alternative
ways of ordering society, of a society in which people are not trapped in
poverty from birth or do not have to fear being ruined by the bad luck of
disease. All depends on our individual choices about our individual lives.
There is no such thing as society.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a happy attitude to have if your life includes lots
of money and good health; if you are a young man in tech, for one example. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/fashion/the-innovators-by-walter-isaacson-how-women-shaped-technology.html">Others
have been written out of history</a>, even though they may have worked hard to
provide the basis for those young men in tech.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
…the creation myth seeks to make
heroes out of individuals, rather than the group. And when the contribution of
the collective is ignored, it is usually a man who gets the credit.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/10/lone-geniuses-are-overrated/381340/?single_page=true">Another
review</a> of Walter Isaacson’s latest book, <i>The Innovators</i>, notes its emphasis on collaboration as the motive
force of innovation; perhaps we are beginning to be able to say such things.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Likewise, while <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/10/10/germany_college_is_free_there_even_for_foreign_students_why.html">Germany
offers a free college education to all</a>, it is not possible to suggest that
rising tuition fees at American state universities might be related to the
insistence on constantly decreasing taxes. The word tax is mentioned only once
in that link, and not in the straightforward way I’ve just put it. Or <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/10/12/6964671/ebola-budget-cuts-emergency-preparedness">this
article</a> notes that CDC funding and hence readiness to deal with things like
Ebola has been decreasing for the past decade, but not that the decrease is due
to constant tax-cutting in Washington.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thatcher and Reagan made it acceptable, even praiseworthy,
to disassemble the economic safety nets for their citizens. The introduction of
the Affordable Care Act in the US is a small step toward a safety net that most
developed nations have and Britain has been disassembling. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
The only collective that she
understood was: Rally around and slay the enemy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is this where our current inability to think of solutions
for international conflict beyond military force comes from? When we no longer
think of ourselves as a community, we can’t extend that community and must
resist or fight others. So the US defense budget dwarfs that for the State
Department, and the aid that we send to countries afflicted by Ebola comes
through the military.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After World War II, America extended our community, through
the Marshall Plan, to western Europe. Part of the reason was to defend against
Communist incursion and thus a rallying against the enemy, but slaughter was no
longer primary. That led to favorable economics for both America and Europe in
the next decades. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Congress balked at the Marshall Plan, but when the Soviet
Union fell in 1991, there was not even the possibility of a Marshall Plan for
the fifteen countries emerging from Soviet economics into globalization. Instead,
the US encouraged a system that provided for the enrichment of a few
individuals in those new countries, consistent with the greed advocated by
Thatcher and Reagan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And now the Middle East is in flames, partially thanks to
the 2003 Iraq war that was supposed to transform the region to democracy. The current
response? More bombing; economic development is not considered. Ukraine
desperately needs economic help, which might be considered a close analog to
the Marshall Plan, if we looked at international events that way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Socio-economic-political ideas seem to have a lifespan of
around 30 years in the Anglosphere. We can hope that Thatcher-Reagan
individualistic greed may have run its course. Isaacson’s celebration of
teamwork is one indicator. The one I like best, though, is Hilary Mantel’s
candor: “I would say that she wrecked this country. I loathed her.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More of this, please!<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-66724647180578929822014-09-20T17:44:00.004-04:002014-09-20T17:44:37.801-04:00Nuclear Diner's New LookNuclear Diner is now on WordPress and has a new look. Feeds are available for posts and comments. <a href="http://nucleardiner.com/">Check it out!</a>Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-29093273426960132802014-09-19T15:47:00.002-04:002014-09-22T18:46:41.717-04:00Diplomacy with Russia as Therapy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHmorZI-gV0B43xOTUoTtF9Jbfs9r-k1VVbIkESuAmukKLWRnbwYnVc2wOVTYGCMwwTmW_0COe4qYoGzSFCTOemtzvY5PTStGDkBPwA_s5vNptphhkqBqpnY1x1BsZaaliN_bl8A/s1600/LUCIA_Damrau_1229a.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHmorZI-gV0B43xOTUoTtF9Jbfs9r-k1VVbIkESuAmukKLWRnbwYnVc2wOVTYGCMwwTmW_0COe4qYoGzSFCTOemtzvY5PTStGDkBPwA_s5vNptphhkqBqpnY1x1BsZaaliN_bl8A/s1600/LUCIA_Damrau_1229a.png" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like a diva, Russia is all over the headlines lately. If it’s
not hysterics that big bad NATO is right on its borders, it’s no, of course
those weren’t Russian bombers over Sweden. Or that it’s okay for Russia to
annex Crimea because there was a fair vote, whereas poor Scotland got cheated
out of proper independence from the <a href="https://twitter.com/DPRK_News/status/512596810192650240">UK hegemons</a>
because that vote was fixed. [Okay, sorry, that was North Korea, the only
country currently out-crazying Russia on social media.]<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s been said that diplomacy with Russia can be like doing
therapy with an extremely insecure patient. Russia, of course, has nuclear weapons,
so a hysterical fit of tossing pots and pans could have disastrous
consequences.<br />
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/19/russia-calls-foul-scottish-referendum?CMP=twt_gu">Russia
sent observers</a> to Scotland’s independence referendum to help out. Volunteer
observers were not welcome during the Crimean referendum, which was arranged in
days to Scotland’s months, but we’ll ignore that here. The observers found
irregularities: no stamps on documents, without which nothing is official in
Russia, and which are used in much more limited ways in other countries. The
rooms were too big. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Russia would have loved a “Yes” vote in this election, so
there must have been irregularities. A “Yes” vote could have been spun as
supporting the very fixed results of the Crimean referendum. It’s hard for
Russia to believe that other countries just let the votes fall where they may
in an election. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s hard not to laugh at the absurdity of that picture, and
there have been <a href="https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/512967387230920705">many</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/astroehlein/status/512984791588020224">gibes</a> on
Twitter about what Russia would like to present as its highly principled stand.
But how does one respond, and, more importantly, how should other countries
respond diplomatically to Russia’s many absurd claims and behaviors? <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Or "<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/18/ukraine-crisis-trade-idUSL6N0RJ1MH20140918">Oh, you know that thing I agreed to last week?</a> I've changed my mind, and I'm going to get SO MAD if you don't listen!!!!"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It would help to know where Russia is coming from in all
this. Do they understand what democratic voting means, or do they believe that
all voting is the farce that it is in Russia? Is it an act or propaganda ploy?
Should we laugh or ignore, as we might crazy behavior in a relative or friend?
If the belief is real that Russia is all right and the rest of us all wrong,
and out to get Russia, laughter might worsen the situation. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It appears that Russia is trying to fill our bandwidth with
claims and outright lies, trolls, and, yes, hysterics. The multiplicity of
reactions coming from ordinary people on Twitter and other social media
probably is a good thing. Diplomats will have to choose which actions and
accusations to respond to. It’s too bad there’s no international equivalent of
a medical tranquilizer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Photo of Diana Damrau as Lucia di Lammermoor (<a href="http://www.operatoday.com/content/2008/10/lucia_di_lammer.php">credit</a>)<o:p></o:p></div>
Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-28291744981054744862014-09-15T20:11:00.000-04:002014-09-15T20:11:40.558-04:00Bits and Pieces - September 15, 2014More <a href="http://nucleardiner.com/">Nuclear Diner</a>-ish links. We are doing a major overhaul of the site and hope to have the new version up by next week! The old version is still available, but clunky in spots.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://bellona.ru/imagearchive/ingressimage_0_130e96_f71edb6f_orig1.jpg">This may be sorta good news.</a> It's hard to tell about anything coming out of Putin's Russia. The interpretation outside of Wonderland is that Putin doesn't want to occupy the Donbass, he just wants influence in Kiev. As many other things have been doing, this could change at any time.<br />
<br />
Also significant: <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/15/nato-chief-warns-moscow-no-more-stealth-invasions.html?via=desktop&source=twitter">NATO Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove says </a>that stealth invasions into NATO partners will invoke NATO's mutual assistance Article 5. Some have been saying that Russia will respond to a firm stand. Looks like here it is. See also previous paragraph for potential Russian response.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL5N0RC3VA20140911?sp=true">Ukraine wants to buy nuclear fuel from the US, not Russia.</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/22/ukraine-european-union-trade-russia">A remarkably prescient article about Ukraine and Russia from a year ago.</a><br />
<br />
In July, I asked <a href="http://www.nucleardiner.com/archive/item/is-this-how-russia-sees-the-world?category_id=1">how Russia sees the world</a>. Apparently that is <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/05770494-3a93-11e4-bd08-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3DODTqwJv">how Sergey Karaganov, dean at the National Research University – Higher School of Economics in Moscow, sees it.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/09/14/347048876/envisioning-landscapes-of-our-very-distant-future">Can thinking about a nuclear waste repository help us to broaden our time horizons to think more realistically about global warming?</a>Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-73104142499445316072014-09-06T12:06:00.000-04:002014-09-08T08:43:53.351-04:00So Many Things Wrong Here<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Frank Munger, whom you must follow if you want to know what is happening at the government's Oak Ridge nuclear facilities, <a href="http://knoxblogs.com/atomiccity/2014/09/05/security-woes-y-12-federal-overseer-orders-comprehensive-review-failures/">is reporting</a> on Y-12's capturing the DOE award for bad boy of the complex from Los Alamos. The offenses include particles of enriched uranium in the wrong place, the ever-popular mishandling of classified documents, and a genuinely alarming report of mistakes in pouring molten enriched uranium.<br />
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To some degree, it's all part of the game: DOE must find that its contractors are doing something wrong to prove it's in charge. This is sometimes aided and abetted by other contractors who are strongly motivated to show up their competitors.<br />
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The photo above illustrates some of the problems. I'm not clear on who the person is. He could be either Steve Erhart, the National Nuclear Security Administration manager who oversees Y-12 and Pantex, its sister nuclear facility in Texas, who wrote the letter detailing the sins, or Jim Haynes, the president and CEO of Consolidated Nuclear Security, the Bechtel-led contractor that took over management of both plants on July 1, the letter's recipient.<br />
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The illustrative part of the photo, however, is the board behind the smiling mustached man. As I recall, security badges are not supposed to be photographed. Many times was I told to take off my lanyard or put my badge in my pocket for a photo. There's the whole panoply of colors and formats, laid out for all to see.<br />
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They're a bit blurred, though, so perhaps it's okay, particularly if the man is the DOE's Erhart. But, even blurred, they illustrate another problem, which may well contribute to the offenses listed in the letter.<br />
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Badges and credentials have multiplied in the DOE complex over the past couple of decades. Look at the bottom line alone: green, yellow, yellow edged with green, yellow edged with blue and no photo, red edged with blue, red, and a larger white with light blue. The line above has more, and those toward the top are different yet.<br />
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The purpose of badges is to indicate, rapidly and clearly, whether a person is allowed access to a particular area. To that have been added credentials showing whether a person has had various types of training, including (at least back in the day) basic employee training, which includes things like the name of the company operating the organization. They form a sheaf on the lanyard, with the access badge on top.<br />
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That, of course, defeats the purpose, but imagine five or six or eight or twelve badges and credentials arranged around a lanyard, so you could see them all. Yeah, doesn't work so well, and likely to get caught in machinery, even an office printer.<br />
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The multiplicity of credentials stands in nicely for some of the regulations that may have been listed in that letter of deficiency; always popular as gotchas, with many possible infractions. Wrong colors, worn wrongly, training out of date, wrongly formatted.<br />
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That's a lot to keep track of, and the usefulness of the training might be questioned: after thirty years of working at Los Alamos, I had to take the basic employee training that had suddenly been mandated. Even before that, I had learned, all by myself(!) where the bathrooms were in many of Los Alamos's buildings, and my original orientation had been by Sam Glasstone and a few others who knew a bit of what they were talking about, but there was only one way to get that red credential for the sheaf on my lanyard.<br />
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When I started, we had three colors of badge, for the different levels of clearance, and the good sense to know who our co-workers were and thus who belonged in more sensitive areas, like glovebox rooms. But that was a long time ago in more ways than one.<br />
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<i>Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.nucleardiner.com/archive/item/so-many-things-wrong-here">Nuclear Diner</a>.</i><br />
<br />Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-61509944102817937942014-09-05T15:58:00.004-04:002014-09-05T15:59:28.855-04:00Bits and Pieces - September 5, 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Nuclear Diner is down right now, because we're working on upgrading the site. We hope to have it back in greatly improved form next week. Meanwhile, tabs are building up on my browser, and it's time to simplify. So these links will tilt more toward the nuclear and world conflict than usual.<br />
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This morning, it appears that Russia's FSB kidnapped an Estonian Security Service officer. The <a href="https://www.kapo.ee/eng.html">Estonian Security Service</a> works on counterintelligence and organized crime. <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141521/michael-weiss/the-estonian-spymasters#cid=soc-twitter-at-snapshot-the_estonian_spymasters-000000">Here's more about Estonia's counterintelligence.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.delfi.ee/news/en/obama/photos-investigators-at-work-at-the-abduction-area?id=69683137#dgsee-138965:EM08F07xKpMBp5FLSxdfYw">The photo above </a> (click to enlarge) is what the Estonian-Russian border looks like where the officer was taken.<br />
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Postimees, one of Estonia's two major newspapers, now has <a href="http://news.postimees.ee/">an English edition</a>. They are following the kidnapping closely. I recommend their coverage as likely to be the most comprehensive and accurate. My one caveat is that the English looks to me like a machine translation polished by humans. There may be inaccuracies.<br />
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Vladimir Putin and others have been spouting a lot of blah blah blah on ethnic Russians outside Russia. <a href="http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/russians-estonia-twenty-years-after">Here are some ACTUAL FACTS about ethnic Russians in Estonia.</a><br />
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Reason #3794 why Russia's neighbors don't like Russia: <a href="http://news.err.ee/v/opinion/ae67533b-2d21-4e76-8da3-d239e5ee0b24#.VANxoPlpV7s.twitter">It took three years after independence to persuade Russia to remove its troops from Estonia.</a><br />
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Thoughts on Ukraine from commentators worth reading: <a href="http://www.theeuropean-magazine.com/robert-jervis/8961-what-the-west-needs-to-do-about-ukraine?utm_content=buffer7b65f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">Robert Jervis</a>, <a href="http://www.cfr.org/russian-federation/russia-wants-hot-peace-not-war/p33392">Mark Galeotti</a>.<br />
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Finland's lesson for Ukraine, it seems to me, is to whack Russia hard and then back off a bit. I think that's close to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/opinion/finlands-lesson-for-ukraine.html?smid=tw-share&_r=3">what this former Finnish Ambassador to Russia is saying.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/a-24-step-plan-to-resolve-the-ukraine-crisis/379121/">A peace plan for Ukraine</a> and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/response-boisto-peace-plan-ukraine-russia-us/379428/">some serious objections to it</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s705no?new_post=true">Is Kazakhstan next in Putin's sights?</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/02/kazakhstan-caesium-137-radioactive-container-missing-astana-nuclear-isotope?CMP=twt_gu">Radioactive source missing in Kazakhstan</a>. Like most of the other missing-source stories, this one will probably end with minimal problems.<br />
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/29/putin-world-kremlin-moscow-power-circle">Another article trying to figure Putin out.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm">NATO Summit Declaration.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.neurope.eu/article/need-objective-criteria-iran%E2%80%99s-nuclear-negotiations">A way to provide a basis for negotiating with Iran that both sides might be able to accept.</a><br />
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<br />Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-1933534599853252872014-08-15T19:17:00.001-04:002014-08-15T19:17:14.157-04:00Bits and Pieces - August 15, 2014<a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/separatist-shuffle-whos-in-whos-out/26532512.html">Who's in and who's out in the separatist organizations of eastern Ukraine.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/144314.pdf">Council of Europe conclusions on Ukraine.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141840/vladislav-inozemtsev-and-anton-barbashin/a-grand-bargain-with-russia">Dumb idea of the week on how to deal with Russia.</a> I love proposals in which "And then Russia would..." or "Russia would have to..." as if Russia had shown any inclination to do those things and not their opposite.<br />
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<a href="http://garysick.tumblr.com/post/94472543423/the-islamic-state-and-the-obama-doctrine-a-proposal">A proposal for containment (in the George Kennan meaning of the word) of the Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL).</a> BTW, <a href="http://www.nucleardiner.com/archive/item/kennan-and-russia-part-1">I am working through </a>Kennan's Long Telegram with reference to today's Russia. <br />
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A former soldier in the Israeli Defense Force: "<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.610607">I know how to kill, but I know I want peace</a>."<br />
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<a href="http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/between-israel-and-social-democracy-tony-judts-jewishness">Tony Judt, Israel, and social democracy.</a><br />
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Polygraph tests are required for many jobs and government clearances. <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/8/14/5999119/polygraphs-lie-detectors-do-they-work">But there is no scientific basis for using them.</a><br />
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<a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/woman-98-wants-spying-case-crime-record-cleared">A woman who was convicted of conspiracy in relation to the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spying case of the 1940s and 1950s wants her record cleared.</a> She's 98 years old.<br />
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<a href="http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/08/obamas-foreign-policy-and-the-nirvana-fallacy/">The Nirvana Fallacy.</a> Just because you can think of an alternative course of action doesn't mean that it would work better than what was done. This article references Obama in particular, but it's useful to keep this in mind in any analysis of history.<br />
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This has been one of the craziest weeks I can think of in some time. Not at all clear it's going to get better any time soon.Cheryl Roferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082102629165547210noreply@blogger.com0