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Tomorrow is the twentieth anniversary of the murderous air attack on the World Trade Center in New York, . Whatever its moral grounding, the attack marked the beginning of America’s deposition from its central hegemony. It is an awesome unfolding.

Reflection occurs on many levels, not all of them conscious. Like Romans and Britons before, we find ourselves pondering “how could anything so big and self-assured have ever entered into such a fall? And as often happens to melancholics, our mourning takes musical form, an endless looping of George Gershwin‘s Three Preludes. [1]

It was Gershwin’s genius to effortlessly combine so many forms-jazz, ragtime, blues and more into instant, easily accessible bites. Which, because of their popular nature were rooted in the culture-moral, industrial, geographical-from which they grew. The Gershwin years of the 1920s and 1930s were marked by the United States of America as the only viable way of organising a modern state. To listen to the Preludes is to ride again by echo as this power still burgeoned. Through the modern canyons of New York, the vast factories of the midwest and the immense agricultural and mineral wealth of the hinterland, All looked to the US in technology clothes, transport, architecture, films, and music. You will see it still in the paintings of Edward Hopper,[2] Hollywood films, and the great book of its architecture. But the soundtrack above all was Gershwin’s.

Now that time is passing, as all things do. We leave the analysis of all this to wiser heads. But we feel a nostalgia for the passing age of Demos, the Common Man (and woman). Sinister new Imperiums lurk menacingly in the offing. They will have little time for the tender sensibilities of University Professors, Merchants, lawyers and all the other layers in the comfortable classes of the West. Listen, then, one more time to a close but vanished age. Then think about your future- very hard indeed.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=gershwin+three+preludes&&view=

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=0L%2f%2fdyIp&i

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News that British Prime Minister Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson is to raise taxes to record peacetime levels illustrates a deep truth about politics: the man who rules his tribe may do what it takes. In theory, raising taxes is anathema, a sin, a contradiction, a nightmare to all Conservatives. Tory newspapers thundered against-but they will fall into line. Tory backbenchers fulminated. But they voted for it last night. Because their tribe had done it, and not the other tribe, whom they hate.

Clever leaders know this, and act to get their way. Nixon knew he could deal with China and the USSR. Who could doubt the credentials of the commie-loathing Richard Milhous, whose record was impeccably right wing? He’d never sell us out, the deal must be right. Whereas any Democrat leader who had swanned off to Beijing would have been crucified as soft on Communism. De Gaulle supported the Algerian settlers before selling them out. And the impeccably anti-Bolshevik Hitler could easily deal with Stalin when the time came. “If our side does it, it must be right” is how the tribesmen think. Johnson hates taxes; so when he raises them it must be necessary. Because a thing is right when our tribe does it, and only then. That is how the tribesmen think.

Whether the results are right remains to be seen(there is a crying need for social care reform in the UK). But Johnson himself needs to be careful. History records another rightwing nationalist, popularly throwing around cash and promises, riding a coalition of rich and poor. It was Juan Peron in Argentina. And look how that turned out.

#juan peron #boris johnson #tax rises #social care

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Long standing readers of LSS will recall our little blog Spare a thought for the maligned monster (LSS 27 .10.20) in which we outlined how the magnificent monitors could be a valuable source of new antibiotics. If we had the gumption to research the issue. If so, they are a munificent natural resource.

Now Phoebe Weston of The Guardian has an alarming story of how the scaly saurians are in imminent danger of extinction due to rising sea levels.

The animal is confined to a few islands in Indonesia, and these are now doubly threatened by habitat destruction and the effects of global warming. It’s ironic to think that the potential solution to one existential crisis (antibiotic shortages) is exacerbated by another(climate change). It’s when crises join together that they become unmanageable and potentially catastrophic. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/04/komodo-dragon-climate-crisis-sea-levels-rise-extinction-aoe

#antibioticresistance #globalwarming #climatechange #disease

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a weekly review of stories that caught our attention

In Texas, who needs the Taleban? In a move worthy of the immortal William J LePetomaine, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has just signed a piece of legislation which removes basic rights from one half of his constituents. We are ignorant of his motives. We think he acts like a man who cuts off his right hand with his left. Here’s the Houston Chronicle

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-With-abortion-ban-Texas-women-just-16432438.php

Leading the way on petrol One of humanity’s greatest mistakes ever was to put lead in petrol. The gain in engine performances was massively outweighed by the immense physical and psychological damage, Now the very last country, Algeria, has banned this deadly poison. But it’s still knocking around in the dust as Nature makes clear.

  A century after its invention, leaded petrol has finally been banned worldwide. In July, Algeria became the last country on Earth to stop the legal sale of leaded petrol, and the United Nations Environment Programme declared the “era of leaded petrol over”. The fuel has been linked to a host of health problems, including heart disease, cancers and impared cognitive development. Sadly its toxic legacy lives on: almost half of the lead in London’s air comes from leaded petrol that’s still hanging around in dust, more than 20 years after it was banned in the United Kingdom.Chemistry World | 4 min read

The Secret Life of Arabia Thoughtful fans of human evolution have often asked ourselves-“why does everything come out of Africa, and never go back in?” We’d love to see more digging done in places like the Middle East, India and China. The Arabian penninsula is an obvious bridge and now the first hints of something happening there are described in Nature. (sorry Nature folk, but your rivals at New Scientist had something on this as well)

Ten years ago, no dated archaeological sites more than 10,000 years old had been recorded in the three million square kilometres of the Arabian Peninsula, despite it being the gateway from Africa to Asia. New research adds to an explosion of knowledge about how early humans moved across the region, writes archaeologist Robin Dennell. Artefacts from Saudi Arabia, which correspond to five periods of occupation during brief ‘green’ windows of reduced aridity, reveal more about how humans repeatedly dispersed from Africa onto the Arabian Peninsula and perhaps onwards to Asia and Australia.

Here’s a thought Politics is not about ideology, it’s about brokering the interests of various groups in society. Farmers, women, industrialists, the finance boys, all have their little needs and agendas. and quite right too. Political parties like Republicans, Social Democrats, you name it, exist to form coalitions of these interests and to represent them. So isn’t it time we intelligent. educated people formed our own pressure group and party to represent our interests? We’ve suffered enough at the hands of the other side in the last ten years. You are an intelligent, educated person or you wouldn’t be reading this. So what do we do?

#texas #abortion #womens rights #lead #pollution #petrol #human evolution #educated

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Searching as ever, gentle readers to give you a theme for your Friday night cocktails, we lit upon an inspired idea. Why not consult our old friend and erstwhile collaborator Mrs Margaret Foster of Dorset? There’s little enough she doesn’t know about the food and the drink that wasn’t worth knowing afore, as they used to say along the Grand Union Canal of yesteryear. And, after favouring the matter she came up with this: Elvis Aaron Presley.

Elvis Presley (1935-1977) [1] was a cultural and musical item of enormous magnitude. Confession: we at LSS always thought that Chuck Berry was a better musician, and Bill Haley the original pioneer. But no one stands over his decade and his genre with quite such power as the Man from Memphis. Alright, maybe his contribution to music wasn’t quite in the same league as JS Bach, nor his contribution to cinema quite up there with Martin Scorsese. Nevertheless his string of hummable hits were the introduction to Rock and Roll for the many. As John Lennon once remarked “without Elvis, there would be no Beatles”. So, to pay tribute to this remarkable artist we present three delicious recipes directly inspired by Elvis’ oeuvre. Thank you very much!

Blue Hawaii: we link here to the fantastic website called The Spuce Eats, plus they also have some fantastic pictures! [2] This was a 1961 film. But the drink is a delicious mix of rum, blue curacao, pineapple juice and coconut cream, and garnished with enough tropical fruits to make Carmen Miranda’s head sag. Perfect for the warm nights of that exotic island paradise!

Blue Suede Shoes Not wishing to overdo the blue theme, even if Elvis did, we offer our homage to a sassily-named site called Recipezazz.[3] Basically we are talking rum, pineapple juice and curacao again, but presented in a different way. as for the song, Carl Perkins wrote and first released it, and Elvis followed up in 1956. One for the money, two for the show-and down it goes!

All Shook up Actually a bit of a cheat-because you can do this with so many cocktails. James Bond preferred his cocktails stirred but not shaken (like his women) but we can’t to better than recommend the classic Martini, because if you’re an Elvis fan you can have it the other way round. This is the BBC[4] As for the song, Elvis topped the Billboard charts for eight weeks for this, back in 1957. A long, long time ago!

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley

[2] https://www.thespruceeats.com/blue-hawaiian-recipe-759284

[3] https://www.recipezazz.com/recipe/blue-suede-shoes-16275#:~:text

[4] https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/martini

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We at LSS have always believed in the value of good communications and shared mutual understanding. We believe our own organisation is an example at all times. Even when things ago awry, as they did the other day with that unfortunate mixed message, we think the LSS building is a shining example of how things can run, and our readers will benefit from seeing how things work in a modern, diverse, open, goal-driven , customer-facing, efficient organisation . And how they might apply these lessons themselves, in their own lives, and countries and workplaces.

Which brings us back to the other day. When things do go slightly wrong, and we’re not saying that message was right, you detect a certain change in atmosphere. Of some of the employees towards the Editorial Board, for example. Subtle, and an outsider would never notice. A slight froideur in the lifts perhaps. Odd, mysterious changes, that make you wonder. Why has the Editor’s car parking space been closed “for health and safety reasons”, for example, when all the others around it seem to be working fine. Why can no department give a clear answer? Building services say it’s all down to subsidence. Security talk about the danger from “roaming gangs of feral youths.” Why have the board never seen these youths? Why do they only threaten one car parking space? Until then, the Editor-the Editor, goddammit, has to park in the Councillor Nigel Stokes Shopping Centre car park like ordinary people. What’s that going to cost us in parking fees?

Communications sometimes go awry, and the person responsible knows clearly what they did. Obviously, the clearest communication of all is that, in the current climate, no one’s job is safe . That gives all much to think about, especially in the long walk from the car park of the Councillor Nigel Stokes Shopping Centre to our desk.

Cocktail night will be tomorrow.

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Great Powers rise according to the strengths of their economies. The Industrial Revolution gave Britain an incomparable advantage which enabled its hegemony for over a century. Britain waned as it exported more and more resources into policing its widespread empire and less and less into renewing its human and industrial capital. America and Germany displaced Britain by virtue of their newer and more productive economies. Spain wasted its entire bullion bonanza on profitless wars. Once Rome‘s frontier became too thin, the end was catastrophic. The pattern is deep and universal.

Imagine a tap in a concrete yard. You want to cover the whole yard in water-to make it your empire, if you like. Near the tap, the water spreads strongly, easily covering the concrete. But you must brush the water further out if you want to cover outlying areas. Weaken the flow from the tap or turn it off and you must start to use water from the centre to keep covering the outer areas. In the end both dry more quickly, and your empire is lost.

In this light, President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan makes sense, however cruel the consequences for the Afghan people. America has spent trillions of dollars of capital in foreign wars, while its own infrastructure decays. It even seems unable to protect large numbers of its citizens from disasters such as floods. Meanwhile China, India and other potential rivals effortlessly forge ahead. Afghanistan has proved intractable for three overreaching imperial powers-Britain, the USSR and the USA. Others would do well to keep out.

Nations are not social services departments. Armies exist to fight wars and Ministries of External Affairs to negotiate the best interest. A sure route to long term decline is to neglect the internal economy for the sake of foreign interventions. Our reading list today is longer, but we hope even a cursory study will illustrate our point.

Edward Gibbon The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire CUP 2013

Paul Kennedy The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers Random House 1987

Corelli Barnett The Collapse of British Power Pan Macmillan 1972

Henry Kamen Imperio Punta de Lectura 2004

#USA #China #India #Britain #Russia #India #Rome #Imperial Spain #President Biden

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From all of the staff here- editorial, production, finance, administration, distribution and not forgetting our stalwart legal team, a big thank you to all our contributors, readers, sharers and visitors for another month-thank you. As the skies darken, at least here in the northern hemisphere and the leave turn and fall, we look forward to working with you through another autumn. What shall it bring?

_{(put signature here)}

Especially for one or two on the staff who don’t actually seem to do anything. Who’s that tall bloke in HR who’s always on the photocopier for example? What does he do all day? And that empire-building woman in finance-what are all these meetings she sets up about? Need to look at her. Rest of them don’t seem too bad, although someone needs to clean up the cups in the fourth floor rest area bit. Definitely not the cleaner’s job, she’s overworked as it is. Let them know we’re watching, but do it discretely!

(note to secretary-paragraph one for website, paragraph two for board newsletter only)

The Editors

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In 1835 the French philosopher Auguste Comte [1] tried, somewhat ambitiously, to set the possible limits of human learning. He agreed that we could know the distances and motions of the stars, but never their composition. Within ten years he was wrong. The invention of spectroscopy rendered his prediction void.

The origins of human language seem even more impenetrable. Between the utterances of bonobos and our own all-syntax, fully-vocabularised and recursive model lies a gap of at least four million years with absolutely nothing in it. It is like being an educated Roman standing on the shores of Spain in about 50 BC trying to guess what was on the other side of the Atlantic from two bits of washed up flotsam.

There are tiny, fascinating clues. The FOXP-2 gene is in there somewhere. Brains have got bigger, and there have been changes in key areas like Broca’s tissue. Certain gestures seem universally understood. Linguistic and genetic evidence seem to indicate a common origin of the languages of Homo sapiens somewhere in Africa probably between 200 000 and 140 000 years BCE. That’s a lot of time, and a big area.

But it seems to us, sadly, that everything beyond that is speculation and guesswork. We have great regard for the valiant enquiries of some very learned people; a good jumping off point is the Wikipedia article below[2] Sadly, their efforts are intriguing but not yet convincing. When the Paris Linguistic Society banned all discussion of the origins of language, we can understand why. So, although it is tempting to imagine some early hominins directing hunts in language comprising nouns only, that is not science. (You should try communicating in nouns for just an hour or so-it’s surprising how far you will get.)

The only way forward we can think of is advanced computer modelling. Would it be possible to programme the communication systems of chimps and bonobos into a computer, subject them to iterations of evolutionary pressure, and see what happens? Or would the old principle of “rubbish in= rubbish out” apply? Could we model the brain of a Homo erectus, human, but smaller than our own, to assess its capacities. Answers on a postcard, please. In language.

#humanevolution #linguistics #computermodelling #limits of knowledge

[1] Auguste Compte Cours de Philosophie Positive

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language

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a weekly look at stories which intrigue

Earthquakes and global warming The causes of earthquakes have been attributed to many things. The Roman Emperor Justinian thought that they were caused by the practice of homosexual acts, and legislated accordingly. Some are undoubtedly caused by shifts in the Earth’s tectonic plates. Others seem to be the result of more local events in the outer crust, which jar ancient faults, setting off local earthquakes. Which brings us to an intriguing report in Nature. So much ice is melting now due to global warming that the crust is now changing its shape. We are no geomorphologists; but doesn’t that imply a higher chance of earthquakes?

ttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02285-0?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=8af1d88175-briefing-dy-20210827&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-8af1d88175-45255642

Heroic Compassion When the women’s refuges and similar initiatives kicked off in the 1970s, there was more than one sneer about middle class do-gooders. Well, these so called do-gooders have constructed a mighty movement which has added inestimably to the quality of human life, and we at LSS put these brave women on the same pedestal as Wilberforce and the anti-slavers. Gill Margaret Hague documents the early years for the Conversation. And if you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

https://theconversation.com/you-couldnt-leave-your-husband-it-wasnt-done-the-story-of-the-women-behind-the-first-domestic-violence-refuges-160895?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%202045120132&utm_content=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%202045120132+CID_0838e4af337211e52d7e5c8fe53624b5&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=You%20couldnt%20leave%20your%20husband%20It%20wasnt%20done%20%20the%20story%20of%20the%20women%20behind%20the%20first%20domestic%20violence%20refuges

Street lights-a progressive dilemma Street lights make the night safer for women, draining the dark pools of shadow from which their enemies attack. Yet now these lights seem to be the cause of a rapid decline in our six-legged friends, without whom we are all doomed. If you know the answer, write to Joe Biden, as he’s probably not got much on this weekend. Mr Gary Herbert of Buckinghamshire adduces this study from the Conversation by Douglas Boyes.

https://theconversation.com/why-the-changing-colour-of-our-streetlights-could-be-a-danger-for-insect-populations-166470?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+August+26+

Well, that’s three for this week gentle readers, enough to keep you going until we meet again on Tuesday. Enjoy and relax!

#globalwarming #earthquakes #justinian #domesticviolence #insectdecline