Back in the 1970s, Vladivar marketed itself as the “Vodka from Warrington” with heavy plays on Soviet jokes and all things Russian. The Soviet Embassy protested, but to no avail as there was no KGB agent able to deal with the upstart company (that came later in Salisbury, you may remember) We are pleased to report that Vladivar are still trading: [1]and their stuff is still brewed in the free world, albeit no longer in Warrington. Smirnoff too state that all their juice is made and bottled outside Russia, and we will take them at their word.[2]
But today we raise the ante with a marvellous site called Coffee or Die with thier Boycotter’s guide : five Ukrainian Vodkas [3]whose sale purchase and consumption will annoy ol’ Puters and his gang. Because however small the step, it’s worth taking. So yes, you can drink Vodka. And as you do, think of the brave Ukrainians who are fighting everyone’s battle. No cocktails for them.
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away Revelation 21 .1
The invasion of Ukraine has changed the world forever. Geography, politics, economics and culture, even the way we feel, will never be the same again. The reverberations of 24th February 2022 will be felt by generations yet unborn. In the next few weeks we at LSS will be running a sequence of pieces in response. They will look at things like how we got here. Back at the age we have lost. How things in our new world may start to play out. The opportunities we have now missed. And maybe, just maybe, how something positive may be salvaged from this mess-if only for the sake of the children.
To start you off, we have chosen Robert Peston of ITV. Always an admirable thinker, his piece called How Putin has killed globalisation and what that means for us, is a must-must-must read. [1] Robert starts with economics, then draws his conclusions appropriately
Firstly, it’s the final death of globalisation (the patient has been sick since 2007). This is bad news for people in new economies like India and China, where living standards have been rising. But it’s good news for people in the old rustbelt towns in the US and elsewhere. Because supply chains will shorten, manufacturing will be repatriated, and wages will rise. However, so will inflation. Traders will no longer be able to source the cheapest product, and the world will divide into “capital blocks”, meaning interest rates will rise and stay high. Security will trump efficiency, always. Perhaps most significant of all is this extract from the end of Robert’s article:
…. unless we recognise the magnitude of the shock this crisis has caused to us, we’ll be less able to challenge the current tyrant, his imitators and successors.…..
……….we may decide that the definitive moment globalisation died was when China, India and South Africa all abstained on the United Nations Vote condemning Putin’s invasion.If they are so alienated from the global rules and norms that have delivered rising prosperity to them in recent decades, we have to look much more to ourselves for our economic security.
To which we add: there can be no economic security without political and military security. You have been warned.
One thing we do know. The quicker you can identify a cancer and stop it spreading, the more chance you have of stopping it in its tracks. Any new way of doing that has to be good. Now a remarkable application of Fractal mathematics may do just that.
Most readers will have some ideas of what fractals are. It’s a branch of geometry that studies ever repeating patterns and the way they change. The work of Benoit Mandelbrot(1924-2010) is a good place to start if you want to know more. At first it all seems very abstruse and pure mathematics sort-of-stuff. But actually we find examples of fractal patterns in nature, such as the fronds of ferns. So they could be useful in human health.
Which is exactly what American research teams think. Your link today by Juan Matias Sepulcre Martinez of El Pais describes how the fractal analysis of tissue patterns may reveal the early warning signs of developing tumours. (spoiler alert for anglophones-you’ll need to hit the ol’ translator button) It’s early days yet. But it proves one old trope we keep banging on about-today’s pure research is tomorrows application.
Imagine if all the money the world is spending on Putin’s ego-trip into Ukraine were spent on research-what would our lives be like then?
Ever since we have been following human evolution(and it’s a long, long time) we’ve noticed one constant thread: the splitters v the lumpers. Outsiders may require a little gloss at this point, so here goes
Splitters: Tend to give every new fossil they dig up a new species name wherever possible. Live in a world of bones, measurements, cladistics and statistics. We could fill a paragraph with the names of species and genera they have named and, quite often, change. Have made most of the running for the last 100 years or so, but:
Lumpers Tend to downplay the extent of the differences between all the different bones and look for long lineages changing slowly in time. Recently have received support from advanced DNA and other genetic studies which suggest modern human DNA is a “mosaic” of bits from different places in space and time. And some of it from beings whom the splitters insist were not fully human.
It is in this light that we invite you to look at this fascinating piece by Yan Wong and Antony Wilder Wohns for the Conversation.[1] They’ve tried to pull together gene sequences from all kinds of humans, including Neanderthals and Denisovans, and have a fascinating animated graphic suggesting a true origin in Africa for us all, maybe around 2 million years ago. Splitters will love that this seems to fit with the appearance of Homo erectus/ergaster-but still can’t decide if they were one and the same.
Learning goes on in every field (and will even survive Mr Putin) and scholars will always fight over small differences, as their shaggy ancestors did long ago. Meanwhile, keep smiling, keep an open mind, and delight in every new discovery of human intelligence. We will win in the long run.
Overwork is the curse of the Professional classes We know of Forensic Scientists, Police Officers, Teachers, Doctors and many others who have come to hate their work and leave , due to burn-out caused by overwork. Now it seems to be affecting University Academics, who should have the best time of all. Not any more, as this snippet from Nature, titled Huge Strikes at UKUniversities makes clear
Thousands of academics walked out of universities in the United Kingdom this week to protest against poor pay, unmanageable workloads and cuts to their future pensions. “Before, staff were angry, now they’re like: ‘I’m done with it,’” says vascular biologist Lopa Leach. “We’re just at the end of our tether, really.” The row is likely to escalate further. On 22 February, the board that oversees the pensions scheme at the heart of the debate — the Universities Superannuation Scheme — voted to ratify proposed cuts and reject a union counterproposal.Nature | 5 min read
What is a bacterium? Classification of living systems into things like species , classes phyla and so on is one of the most powerful tools we have. Yet even some of the most profound lines, like the one between procaryotes and eucaryotes can seem a little blurred at times, as this amazing discovery Largest Bacterium ever discovered shows. Nature again
A newly discovered bacterium, Thiomargarita magnifica, challenges the definition of a microbe: its filament-like single cell is up to 2 centimetres long. T. magnifica achieves its unprecedented size by having unique cellular features: two membrane sacs. One is filled with its genetic material; the other, which is much larger, helps to keep its cellular contents pressed up against its outer cell wall so that the molecules it needs can diffuse in and out. Researchers have dubbed these sacs ‘pepins’ — inspired by the pips in fruit — and note that they blur the line between single-celled prokaryotes and eukaryotes (the group that includes humans), which pack their DNA into a nucleus.Science | 6 min read Reference: bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed)
The lure of the con Everyone can fall prey to scammers. Why? This article by Meg Elkins and Robert Hoffman for the Conversation discusses why
Sad Dogsof Mourning A rather moving story about how our closest animal friends feel loss and grief. We have heard anecdotal evidence that cats may do this too. Nicola Davis for The Guardian
Where were you in June 1983? come to think of it, why does it matter? Because according to our calculations it was the midway point between the end of World War 2 and what seems to be World War 3. For between the signing of the Japanese article of surrender in September 1945 and Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 the world enjoyed 77 years where there was peace somewhere, and even the hope it might continue. Numbers are fuzzy things when you work up close, but according to our calculation, the mid point would have fallen in the summer of 1983, perhaps in June. From then on, without knowing it, you were steadily moving closer to World War Three than you were to the previous conflict.
What was it like in that long-lost summer? Well Mrs Thatcher won a resounding majority of 144 in the UK General Election. James Bond starred in his thirteenth film, Octopussy. The charts were topped by the Police with their popular ditty Every breath you take (although with hindsight David Bowie‘s China Girl seems ominously prescient) And Edmund Blackadder made his debut on UK TV.
It was a brash, raucous age. Cocktails were on the way in at all levels of society. Perhaps none so captures the mood of the times as the famous Piña Colada. Everyone from Lanzarotte to Mid-Lanark ordered one, because for many it was the only name they new in that far off summer
So to bring back the spirit of those times take a cocktail shaker. To it add two measures of coconut cream, 1 measure of white rum and two measures of pineapple juice, Shake and pour to a hurricane glass an decorate with a cherry, pineapple slice and orange slice. A raise a toast to the brave people of Ukraine ,and the brave protestors in Russia. Both are attempting to resist a monstrous tyranny, and so are braver than you or we will ever know how to be.
#cocktails #ukraine #russia #1983 #soviet union #totalitarian
No one ever captured the terrible change from peace to war as well as WH Auden in 1st September 1939. The dream like feeling of a new terrifying age forming around us, while still surrounded by the comfy furniture of the old. Here he is on the day that Hitler smashed into Poland
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.
We take this from poets.org The full poem can be found by clicking this link to their superb site
1939 is not really so very long ago. Older readers will remember their parents’ stories of that war. The same issues are are stake now. Victory was won because we were happy to cast aside our old pleasures, habits and beliefs. If the dictator wins they are gone anyway, because in a dictatorship no one else can ever have free title to anything except for the dictator. So let things boil down to essentials, and be happy with them, because they are yours.
And, just like 1939, there is one question. When there are so many urgent problems in the world, and so many opportunities to make things better, why did Vladimir Putin chose to do this?
As we write these lines we are still technically at peace. By the time you read them, we may all be at war. Once again the world has blundered into a terrible quagmire of mutual misunderstanding, hatred and potential destruction .
We at LSS still hope there will be time to draw back. Hope that each side will try to understand the other’s case. To do this, we must try to understand how we got here. And one valiant effort is that of Catherine Belton in Putin’s People. Catherine makes a genuine effort to understand Putin and his associates, their fears of the modern world, their genuine love for the old Soviet Union and Mother Russia. We may disagree with their analyses: but both Putin and Russian ideology are historical facts, and must be responded to accordingly, as the author makes clear.
The superb Anne Applebaum gives an excellent review below, for The Atlantic [1] (oh marvellous publication!) But we also list the book itself, as no text is probably more relevant to our current dire state.
No play by William Shakespeare is more famous than Romeo and Juliet. Even those who are not fans of Shakespeare will pick up on its famous line “wherefore art thou, Romeo?”. Its classic tale of star-crossed lovers has been played thousands of times and has been remade into musicals, ballets and films. No doubt about it, a great play.
Except there’s one huge elephant in the room. Juliet is thirteen, as her father Capulet makes clear “My Child is yet a stranger in the world: she hath not seen the change of fourteen years“
Now we at LSS have always shared the popular animadversion to paedophilia. Sex with drastically underaged persons is psychologically and physically wrong. We know personally of Police Officers who have broken down after working on units charged with investigating this crime. So what must be the consequences for its victims? Capulet himself gives the game away : Let two more summers wither in their pride, ere we may think her ripe to be a bride
We support every effort to either hide or normalise paedophilia , wherever it is found. There’s no getting around Romeo and Juliet: someone has sex with a thirteen-year old girl. That will used as licence by someone else, somewhere, for highly unsavoury purposes.
Apologists will say that they did things differently in former times. The history of European Royalty is littered with examples of child brides and arranged marriages. Shakespeare’s text preserves these customs in fossilised form. Maybe so. But the fact that we also do things differently means that certain works of art and texts are no longer considered wholesome. The Taming of the Shrew is rarely performed, because of its attitude to women. Certain novellas by Joseph Conrad are no longer mentionable in polite society, nor on family-friendly blogs like this one. Statues, paintings and even certain works of music are now removed, noisily or otherwise, because they depict our ancestors behaving in ways of which we no longer approve. By this logic, should Romeo and Juliet join the same canon? We at LSS don’t know the answer. But we have every right to ask the question.
#shakespeare #romeo and juliet #paedophilia #joseph conrad #the taming of the shrew #censorship #text #feminism #racism
The courage of Harry Parker can never be in doubt. Badly wounded in Afghanistan while on military service, he mastered the use of prosthetic limbs and can walk again, even lead an active life with his family. Yet he is a thinker too. For his book about his experiences, Hybrid Humans raises profound questions about what the use of really advanced prosthetics may one day imply.
Fittingly, the review article by David Robson for The Guardian [1] is more like a hybrid collaboration by both men. For us the key sentence is
he compares the experience to that of Gregor Samsa, the subject of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis – “the strangeness of not being who you used to be, turned into something that sets you apart from those around you”.
Like all profound changes, the idea of human-machine hybrids started very small and at the margins. There were attempts at minor prosthetics as far back as Egyptian times. The only change has been incremental. Twentieth century folk knew artificial hearts and kidneys. Now we talk about artificial eyes and exoskeletons. And by the fifties, who knows-will there be brain implants that give you an instant new language?
The idea of a gradual fusion of humans and their technologies was mooted by Arthur C Clarke in his novel 2001: A space odyssey. The same ideas are eagerly discussed by the Transhuman movement, to which we link below.[2] New ideas are often scary, and understandably so. The potential power of AI and quantum computing seems irresistible. Might the wise course be to merge ourselves with the new, transforming into beings possessed of immeasurable powers and opportunities?
Learning, Science and Society 