Donald Trump has a lot of signature behaviors, including his “America first” politics, his hair, his ‘tan,’ his way of speech, and his way of wearing suits. Half of America finds them attractive or at least OK, while the other half finds them super-unattractive. Trump seems to have a super-power, that there is no middle. Those who dislike him dislike everything about him to his policies to his clothes. Let Trump propose immigration control, and the opposition demands open borders. Let Trump propose tariffs, an ole Republican approach to diplomacy that is thought to bring in Jobs, and the opposition (even unions!) goes crazy for free trade.
Trump likes dark colors, long ties, long jackets, and long sleeves on his suits.
In the book “Fear”, by Bob Woodward’s first story is about folks on Whitehouse staff stealing Trump’s first tariff proposal from his desk in an effort to prevent it being signed. Whatever they thought of the tariff (it was not that weird, and didn’t do much) the fact that they stole it showed the dramatic reaction people have. In this case, folks who otherwise understood that they are there to serve the president, not to overturn his policies.
LeBron James in the Thom Browne, Anti Trump look. The pants are too short, as are the sleeves and jacket. Note the dull grey color and the short, dull-grey tie. The fellow behind him is dressed normal or Trumpish: dark clothes, long sleeves, bright, long tie.
In terms of fashion, the anti-Trump fever is to react against Trump’s choice of suits in dark colors, paired with bright ties that hang below the waist. The anti men’s fashion has moved to dull grey suits and short, grey ties. Trumps’s suits’s typically have extra-long long sleeves and long pant legs that hit the shoe-top. He likes long jackets too, that to me look vaguely like Lincoln’s. The fashion back-lash is men are wearing ridiculously short pants and jackets, with socks showing.
LeBron James, at right, is wearing a complete mens, anti-Trump look, likely a Thom Browne suit, a very expensive ill fit. This suit doesn’t look comfortable, but it’s fashion, and as I’ve said before, you’ve got to suffer for fashion.
There is also a woman’s version of anti Trump fashion. The Trump women wore feminine, closely fitting clothing and wore their hair long. The anti-Trump women’s look is the opposite; it includes short hair and masculine, often covered. This is paired with loose fitting male clothes: cargo pants or combat fatigues. Topping it off, ideally ideally is a checkered, keffiyeh scarf, either over the head or around the neck. The style of scarf was made popular by former PLO head, Yassar Arafat. This look is particularly popular on college campuses and at demonstrations. It implies that the wearer supports Palestine (Trump supported Israel), and shows you are part of the cool set. The wearer, herself, is typically is not in favor of kidnapping or rape or putting babies in oven, but they are so strongly anti Israel and Trump that they are OK with it, especially if it is Jews being kidnapped, rabed, or cooked alive. They will call for Jews to be gassed or tortured. It’s part of being in the in-crowd, and antisemitism is what’s in these days — it’s been popular for many centuries.
The women’s anti-Trump look includes short hair and a keffiyeh scarf. Photo from WRLN Florida.
It is a misconception to think that those wearing the keffiye don’t understand that they would not live long if they had to dwell among the Arabs they support. These feminists do understand, as do the ‘Queers for Palestine’. They’d never want to live in even the most moderate Arab country, the same way that those supporting Mao would never want to live in China under Mao. It is fashion, and like all fashion, it’s a mob behavior that exists only for fashion’s sake. In this case there is the added advantage that you get to hit Jews and break their windows — something that is particularly attractive for feminist women, I notice; the majority of people at the Palestine protests are women.
One of the most famous paradoxes of physics is explained wrong — always. It makes people feel good to think they understand it, but the explanation is wrong and confusing, and it drives young physicists in a wrong direction. The basic paradox is an outgrowth of the special relativity prediction that time moves slower if you move faster.
Thus, if you entered a spaceship and were to travel to a distant star at 99% the speed of light, turn around and get here 30 years, you would have aged far less than 30 years. You and everyone else on the space ship would have aged three years, 1/10 as much as someone on earth.
The paradox part, not that the above isn’t weird enough by itself, is that the person in the spaceship will imagine that he (or she) is standing still, and that everyone on earth is moving away at 99% the speed of light. Thus, the person on the spaceship should expect to find that the people on earth will age slower. That is, the person on the space ship should return from his (or her) three year journey, expecting to find that the people on earth have only aged 0.3 years. Obviously, only one of these expectations can be right, but it’s not clear which (It’s the first one), nor is it clear why.
The wrong explanation appears in an early popular book, “Mr Tompkins in Wonderland”, by Physicist, George Gamow. The book was written shortly after Relativity was proposed, and involves a Mr Tompkins who falls asleep in a physics lecture. Mr. Tompkins dreams he’s riding on a train going near the speed of light, finds things are shorter and time is going slower. He then asks the paradox question to the conductor, who admits he doesn’t quite know how it works (perhaps Gamow didn’t), but that “it has something do do with the brakeman.” That sounds like Gamow is saying the explanation has to do with deceleration at the turn around, or general relativity in general, implying gravity could have a similarly large effect. It doesn’t work that way, and the effect of 1G gravity is small, but everyone seems content to explain the paradox this way. This is particularly unfortunate because these include physicists clouding an already cloudy issue.
In the early days of physics, physicists tried to explain things with a little legitimate math to the lay audience. Gamow did this, as did Einstein, Planck, Feynman, and most others. I try to do this too. Nowadays, physicists have removed the math, and added gobbledygook. The one exception here are the cinematographers of Star Wars. They alone show the explanation correctly.
The explanation does not have to do general relativity or the acceleration at the end of the journey (the brakeman). Instead of working through some acceleration, general relativity effect, the twin paradox works with simple, special relativity: all space contracts for the duration of the trip, and everything in it gets shorter. The person in this spaceship will see the distance to the star shrink by 90%. Traveling there thus takes 1/10th the time because the distance is 1/10th. There and back at 99% the speed of light, takes exactly 3 years.
The equation for time contraction is: t’ = v/x° √(1-(v/c)2) = t° √(1-(v/c)2) where t’ is the time in the spaceship, v is the speed, x° is the distance traveled (as measured from earth), and c is the speed of light. For v/c = .99, we find that √1-(v/c)2 is 0.1. We thus find that t’ = 0.1 t°. When dealing with the twin paradox, it’s better to say that x’ = 0.1x° where x’ is the distance to the star as seen from the spaceship. In either case, when the people on the space ship accelerate, they see the distance in front of them shrink, as shown in Star Wars, below.
Star Wars. The millennium falcon jumps to light speed, and beyond.
That time was at right angles to space was a comment in one of Einstein’s popular articles and books; he wrote several, all with some minimal mathematics Current science has no math, and a lot of politics, IMHO, and thus is not science.
He showed that time and space are at right angles by analogy from Pythagoras. Pythagoras showed that distance on a diagonal, d between two points at right angles, x and y is d = √(x2 + y2). Another way of saying this is d2 =x2 + y2. The relationship is similar for relativistic distances. To explain the twin paradox, we find that the square of the effective distance, x’2 = x°2 (1 – (v/c)2) = x°2 – (x°v)2/c2 = x°2 – (x°v/c)2 = x°2 – (t°2/c2). Here, x°2 is the square of the original distance, and it comes out that the term, – (t°2/c2) behaves like the square of an imaginary distance that is at right angles to it. It comes out that co-frame time, t° behaves as if it were a distance with a scale factor of i/c.
For some reason people today read books on science by non-scientist ‘explainers.’ I These books have no math, and I guess they sell. Publishers think they are helping democratize science, perhaps. You are better off reading the original thinkers, IMHO.
Robert Buxbaum, July 16, 2023. In his autobiography, Einstein claimed to be a fan of scientist -philosopher, Ernst Mach. Mach derived the speed of sound from a mathematical analysis of thermodynamics. Einstein followed, considering that it must be equally true to consider an empty box traveling in space to be one that carries its emptiness with it, as to assume that fresh emptiness comes in at one end and leaves by the other. If you set the two to be equal mathematically, you conclude that both time and space vary with velocity. Similar analysis will show that atoms are real, and that energy must travel in packets, quanta. Einstein also did fun work on the curvature of rivers, and was a fan of this sail ship design. Here is some more on the scientific method.
China passed us in life-expectancy in 2022, and also in fertility, going the other way. In China lifespan at birth increased to 77.3 years. In the US it dropped an additional 0.9 years, to 76.8. US lifespans suffered from continuing COVID and an increase in accidents, heart disease, suicide, drugs, and alcohol abuse. Black men were hit particularly hard, so that today, a black man in the US has the same life expectancy as he would in Rwanda. China seems to have avoided this, but should expect problems due to declining fertility and birth rates.
China passed us in life expectancy in 2022.
Fertility rates will eventually burden the US too, as US fertility is only slightly greater than in China, 1.78 children per woman, lifetime, compared to 1.702 in China. But China has far fewer people of childbearing ages, relatively, and only 47% are women. Three decades of one child policy resulted in few young adults and a tendency to abort girls. Currently, the birthrate in China is barely more than half ours: 6.77 per 1000, compared to 12.01 per 1000. And the proportion of the aged keeps rising. China will soon face a severe shortage of care-givers, and an excess of housing.
Years of low birthrate preceded the “Lost decades” of financial crisis in Japan and the USSR. Between 1990 and 2011, business stagnated and house prices dropped. China faces the same; few workers and more need for care: it’s not a good recipe.
Beginning about 1991, Japan saw a major financial collapse with banks failing, and home values falling. China seems over-due.
Few children also signals a psychic lack of confidence in the country, and suggests that, going forward, there will be a lack of something to work for. Already Chinese citizens don’t trust the state to allow them to raise healthy children. They have stopped getting married, especially in the cities, and look more to have fun.
Affluent women claim they can’t find a good man to marry: one who’s manly, who will love them, and who will reliably raise their standard of life. Women seem less picky in China’s rural areas, or perhaps they find better men there. However it goes, urban women get married late and have few children, both in China and here. China produces great, sappy, soap operas though: a country girl or secretary in a high-power job meets a manly, urban manager who lovers her intensely. A fine example is “The Eternal Love” (watch it here). It involves time travel, and a noble romance from the past. Japan produced similar fiction before the crisis. And a crisis seems to be coming.
While Japan and Korea responded quietly to crisis and “the lost decades,” allowing banks to fail and home values to fall, Russia’s response was more violent. It went to war with Chechnya, then with Belarus and Ukraine, and now with NATO. I fear that China will go to war too — with Taiwan, Japan, and the US. It’s a scary thought; China is a much tougher enemy than Russia. There is already trouble brewing over new islands that they are building.
Robert Buxbaum January 25, 2023. If you want to see a Korean soap opera on the Secretary – manager theme, watch: “What’s wrong with Secretary Kim”. (I credit my wife with the research here.) I suspect that Americans too would like sappy shows like this.
Humans are funny little creatures. I suspect that God keeps us around for our entertainment value. Each culture provides God its own entertainment. The British by invading basically every country on earth wearing tall, furry hats. We Americans provide grand stunts, like landing on the moon, or an automobile race around the world in 1908 when there were no roads or gas stations. And the French took love, dining, and dueling to a high, almost comic level. In France, the great and near great dueled well into the 20th century. The great French mathematician, Galois dueled to the death over love or politics. The great rationalist philosopher, Descartes, fought a duel, disarmed his opponent, and forgave him because of love. The science fiction writing philosopher, Cyrano de Bergerac, was famous for many duels, typically over the insults in his writing (or his nose).
In France, the great and near-great dueled well into the 20th century.
Instead of writing about those fellows, this post is about two Napoleonic generals, Pierre Dupont de l’Étang and François Fournier-Sarlovèze, who fought 30 duels with each other over 19 years writing a contract to kill each other whenever possible. They didn’t start as generals, of course, but rose through the ranks, though dueling was illegal, in theory, most of the time. They dueled on foot and horseback, mostly with swords, but also with pistols, and managed to wound each other at every meeting. They never quite managed to kill one another, or settle things, but they kept going at it till they became friends, of a sort. They were not that bad dualists, Fournier was a crack shot with a pistol and had killed others in duels. DuPont was better with the sword, but both were good at dodging death by blocking their vital organs.
The antaganism started with a duel, as one might expect. Fournier, a lieutenant at the time, had just killed a popular Strasbourg townsman named Blumm in a pistol duel. The townsman had no experience with pistols so this was sort-of murder, and resented. There was to be a party that evening, and Fournier’s commanding officer sent captain DuPont with a message to Fournier to keep him away until tempers subsided. Fournier attempted to attend anyway, and felt insulted by DuPont’s efforts to keep him out. Fournier challenged DuPont, and DuPont accepted, choosing military swords. Fournier would have challenged the commanding officer, but one does challenge so far above one’s station in France.
They met the next day at dawn. DuPont won the first duel, injuring Fournier by a severe cut to the shoulder. At this point, first blood, most American dualists would have called it quits, and might have become friends. In the duel between Thomas Hart Benton and Andrew Jackson, Benton put two bullets into Jackson but didn’t kill them, and they went on to become friends, and colleagues in congress. But for these two, one deadly meeting was not enough. They decided to duel again as soon as Fournier recovered. That took a month. Fournier rechallenged, they fought again with military swords. This time DuPont was injured. At the next duel, both were injured. Again and again, whenever they met, with swords, cutlases, lances, rapiers, and at last with pistols.
Fournier (left) and DuPont (right). Fournier fought for Napoleon in the Spanish and Russian campaigns, and went on to help write the military code of conduct. DuPont fought in the Austrian, Dutch, and Spanish campaigns, eventually becoming Minister of War for Louis XVIII and deputy of the Charente “The Dualsts” film was shot in and around Fournier’s home town. The painting at left hangs in city hall.
They drew up a contract that they would try to kill each other whenever they were 30 leagues from each other (90 miles) and not otherwise occupied with a war. The duels would pause whenever one of them was promoted since one didn’t duel with someone of higher rank. The two proved to be excellent officers and advanced at a good rate, with occasional stops in prison because of the political turmoil of the time, but not because of their dueling. Fournier went to jail for financial mismanagement and for insulting Napoleon after the Russian Campaign, DuPont went to jail too, for losing to the Spanish, and later for supporting the Royalists. They were released because the army always needs good officers who are brave and successful (Read about their lives on Wikipedia, or here).
Sometimes they would meet by accident and try to kill each other in bars, restaurants, and hotels. Mostly they would meet by arrangement at appointed times in the woods, sharing a hearty meal and good insults before dueling. Sometimes they chatted with each other through the duels. They appreciated each others skill and complimented each other on promotions, especially when it allowed them to try to kill one another (there is a comic movie like this — Mr and Mrs Smith?). During one encounter, DuPont stuck Fournier to the wall through the neck with his sword, and Fournier requested that he move closer so they could continue fighting this way. Now that’s dedication.
Eventually, DuPont got engaged and they decided to fight to the death, hunting each other in a woods with pistols (two each). As it happened, DuPont disarmed Fournier, and forced him to agree to fight no more. It was a happy ending suitable to a movie. Actually, a movie made about them, “The Dualists, 1967.” DuPont became minister for War for Louis XVIII (released for being too royalist), and wrote poetry including “the art of war”. Fournier helped write the French code of military conduct.
Dueling didn’t stop here, but continued in France well into the 20th century. The last dual between members of the government was in 1967, see photo below. René Ribière, Gaullist speaker of the National Assembly fought Gaston Differe, Mayor of Marseilles and Socialist candidate for the French presidency. They used epees, long, sharp swords. Differe wounded Ribiére twice, both times in the arm, and Jean de Lipkowskiin called an end to the duel “. Several French duels of the 20th century, are caught on film.
Le député maire socialiste de Marseille et bon escrimeur Gaston Defferre (C) et le député gaulliste du Val d’Oise René Ribière s’affrontent en duel le 21 avril 1967 dans le jardin d’une maison de Neuilly sous le regard d’un des témoins M. Cassagne (de dos). René Ribière avait demandé réparation par les armes à la suite d’un différend survenu à l’Assemblé nationale au cours duquel Defferre l’ayant traité d'”abruti” avait refusé de lui présenter des excuses. / AFP PHOTO
The point of this essay, assuming there is one, is the love of God for us. A less loving God would have had the comedy of the generals end after only two or three duals, or after one killed the other. Here, He allowed them to fight till friendship prevailed. Also of note is that that French are not surrender monkeys, as some claim. They are masters of honor and history, and we love them.
Robert E. Buxbaum, December 28, 2022. In the US, dueling is more like gang warfare, I include here pirates like William Kidd and John Lafitte, the Hamilton-Burr duel with trick pistols, the western shootouts of Jim Bowie, Wyatt Earp, etc., the Chicago rivalries of the 1930s and the drug wars of Detroit. At present, Detroit has four shootings per day, but only one death per day. The movie “8 Mile” includes fights, shooting, and several rap duels, fought with deadly words. If you won’t fight for something, there is a sense that it isn’t worth much.
It’s good to have hero, someone whose approach to life, family and business you admire that you might reasonably be able to follow. As an engineer, inventor, I came to regard Peter Cooper of New York as a hero. He made his own business and was a success, in business and with his family without being crooked. This is something that is not as common as you might think. When I was in 4th grade, we got weekly assignments to read a biography and write about it. I tended to read about scientists and inventors then and after. I quickly discovered that successful inventors tended to die broke, estranged from their family and friends. Edison, Tesla, Salk, Goodyear, and Ford are examples. Tesla didn’t marry. Henry Ford’s children were messed up. Salk had a miserable marriage. Almost everyone working on the Atom Bomb had issues with the government. Most didn’t benefit financially. They died hated by the press as mass-murderers, and pursued by the FBI as potential spies. It was a sad pattern for someone who hoped to be an inventor -engineer.
The one major exception I found was Peter Cooper, an inventor, industrialist, and New York politician who was honest, and who died wealthy and liked with a good family. One result of reading about him was to conclude that some engineering areas are better than others; generally making weapons is not a path to personal success.
Tom Thumb, the blower at right is the secret to its light weight per power.
Peter Cooper was different, both in operation and outcome. Though he made some weapons (gun barrels) and inverted a remote control torpedo, these were not weapons of mass killing. Besides he but thee for “the good side” of the Civil War. And, when Cooper made an invention or a product, he made sure to have the capital available to make a profit on it too. He worked hard to make sure his products were monopolies, using a combination of patents and publicity to secure their position.
Brand management helps.
Cooper was a strong family man who made sure to own his own business, and made sure to control the sources of key materials too. He liked to invest in other businesses, but only as the controlling share-holder, or as a bond holder, believing that minor share-holders tend to be cheated. He was pro monopoly, pro trusts, and a big proponet of detailed contracts, so everyone knew where they stood. A famous invention of Cooper’s was Jello, a flavored, light version of his hide-glue, see the patent here. Besides patenting it, he sold the product with his brand, thus helping to maintain the monopoly.
Cooper was generous with donations to the poor, but not to everyone, and not with loans. And he would not sign anyone’s note as a guarantor. Borrowers tended to renege, he found, and they resent you besides. You lose your money, and lost them as a friend. He founded two free colleges, Cooper Union, and the Cooper-Limestone Institute, plus an inventor’s institute. (I got my education, free from Cooper Union.) Cooper ran these institutions in his lifetime, not waiting till he was dead to part with his money. Many do this in the vain hope that others will run the institution as they would.
Peter Cooper always sought a monopoly, or a near monopoly, patenting his own inventions, or buying the rights to others’ patents to help make it so. He believed that monopolies were good, saying they were the only sort of business that made money while allowing him to treat his workers well. If an invention would not result in a monopoly, Peter Cooper gave the rights away.
The list of inventions he didn’t patent include the instruments to test the quality of glue and steel (quality control is important), and a tide-powered ferry in New York. Perhaps his most famous unpainted invention was a lightweight, high power steam locomotive, “The Tom Thumb”, made in 1840. Innovations included beveled wheels to center the carriage on its rails, and a blower on the boiler fire, see photo above. The blower meant he could generate high-power in a small space at light weight. These are significant innovations, but Cooper did not foresee having a monopoly, so he didn’t pursue these ideas. Instead, he focussed on making rails and wire rope; he patented the process to roll steel, and the process for making coke from coal. Also on his glue/jello business. Since he made these items from dead cows and horses, he found he could also sell “foot oil” and steam-pounded leather, “Chamois”. He also pursued a telephone/ telegraph business across the Atlantic, more on that below, but only after getting monopoly rights for 50 years.
Cooper managed to stay friends with those he competed with by paying license fees for any patents he used (he tried to negotiate low rates), or buying or selling the patent rights as seemed appropriate. He also licensed his patents, and rented out buildings he didn’t need. He rented at a rate of 7% of the sale price, a metric I’ve used myself, considering rental to be like buying on loan. There is a theory of stock-buying that matches this.
The story the telegraph cable across the Atlantic is instructive to seeing how the pieces fit together. The first significant underwater cable was not laid by Cooper, by a Canadian inventor, Frederick Gisborne. It was laid in 1852 between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Through personal connections, Gisborne’s company got exclusive rights for 30 years, for this and for a cable that would go to Newfoundland, but he didn’t have the money or baking to make it happen. The first cable failed, and Gisborne ran out of money and support. Only his exclusive rights remained. This is the typical story of an inventor/ engineer/businessman who has to rely on other peoples’ money and patience.
A few months after the failure, a friend of Cooper’s, Cyrus Field, convinced Cooper that good money could be made, and public good could be done, if Cooper could lay such a cable all the way to London. One thing that attracted Cooper to the project was that the cable could be made as an insulated iron-copper rope in Cooper’s own factory. Cooper, Field, and some partners (see painting below) bought Gisborne’s company, along with their exclusive rights, and formed a new company, The New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Company, see charter here. The founders are imagined* with a globe and a section of cable sitting on their table. Gisborne, though not shown in the painting, was a charter member, and made chief engineer. Cooper was president. He also traveled on the boat with Gisborne to lay the cable across the St. Lawrence – just to be sure he knew what was going on. This cable provided a trial for The Trans Atlantic cable.
The founding individuals to lay a transatlantic cable. Peter Cooper at left is the chairman, Cyrus Field is standing, Samuel Morse is at the back. Frederic Gisborne, a founder, does not appear in the paining. Typical.
Samuel Morse was hired as an electrician; he is pictured in the painting, but was not a charter member. Part of the problem with Morse was that he owned the patent on Morse-telegraphy, and Cooper didn’t want to pay his “exorbitant” fees. So Cooper and Field bought an alternative telegraph patent from David Hughes, a Kentucky school teacher. This telegraph system used tones instead of clicks and printed whole letters at a time. By hiring Morse, but not his patents, Cooper saved money, while retaining Morse’s friendship and expertise. The alternative could have been a nasty spat. Their telegraph company sub-licensed Hughes’s tone-method a group of western telegraph owners, “The Western Union,” who used it for many years, producing the distinctive Western Union Telegrams. With enough money in hand and credibility from the Canadian trial, the group secured 50 years monopoly rights for a telegraph line across the Atlantic. Laying the cable took many years, with semi-failed attempts in 1857, 1858, and 1865. When the eventual success came in 1866, the 50 years’ monopoly rights they’d secured meant that they made money from the start. They could treat workers fairly. Marconi would discover that Cooper wrote a good contract; his wireless telegraph required a widely different route.
I should also note that Peter Cooper was politically active: he started as a Democrat, helped form the Republican Party, bringing Lincoln to speak in NY for the first time, and ended up founding the Greenback-Labor Party, running for president as a Greenback. He was strongly for tariffs, and strongly against inflation. He said that the dollar should have the same value for all time for the same reason that the foot should have the same length and the pound the same weight. I have written in favor of tariffs off and on. They help keep manufacturing in America, and help insure that those who require French wine or German cars pay the majority of US taxes. They are also a non-violent vehicle for foreign policy.
Operating under these principles, through patents and taxed monopolies, Peter Cooper died wealthy, and liked. Liked by his workers, liked by much of the press, and by his family too, with children who turned out well. The children of rich people often turn out poorly. Carnegie’s children fought each other in court, Ford’s were miserable. Cooper’s children continued in business and politics, successfully and honorably, and in science/ engineering (Peter Coper Hewitt invented the power rectifier, sold to Westinghouse). The success of Peter Cooper’s free college, Cooper Union, influenced many of his friends to open similar institutions. Among his friends who did this were Carnegie, Pratt, Stevens, Rensselaer, and Vanderbilt. He stayed friends with them and with other inventors of the day, despite competing in business and politics. Most rich folks can not do this; they tend to develop big egos, and few principles.
Robert Buxbaum, November 30, 2022. I find the painting interesting. Why was it painted? Why is Gisborne not in it and Morse in the painting — sometimes described as vice President? The charter lists Morse as “electrician”, an employee. Chandler White, holding papers next to Cooper, was Vice President. My guess is that the painting was made to help promote the company and sell stock. They made special cigars with this image too. This essay started as a 5th grade project with my son. See a much earlier version here.
Doctor Anthony Fauci has been giving graduate addresses at colleges around the country for the past few months, telling students about his struggles and successes in the medical research world, hammering a moral point that they should expect the unexpected and have no tolerance for “the normalization of untruth”, and for “egregious twisting and lies” as were leveled against his approach to COVID (and global warming, it seems). Untruths, racism, and lies spread by “some elected officials”, presumably his exboss. Here is his speech to the Princeton graduates, or see a brief summary of his talk st the University of Michigan.
Dr. Fauci may have the best intentions in criticizing others and deputizing students to enforce the truth.He certainly seems sure that his truth and intentions are 100% pure, but what if Fauci wasn’t quite right, or what if you thought his cure to the pandemic was less than marvelous. His truth may mot be real truth, or real truth for everyone. Beyond that, even if he were always 100% right on science, I believe that people have a fundamental right to make mistakes. “I have a right to be wrong,” as Joss Stone says (see music video). Freedom from imposed righteousness is a fundamental good. Even assuming that Fauci’s lockdowns were the height of righteousness, we have a right to take risks and to act against our own best interests, in my opinion. Consider a saint who really knows what’s right and only wants to do only what’s right. I doubt that even the saint wants a jailer to force it upon him and remove his free will. And the right of the rest of us may not want to do what’s ideal and healthy. We like ice cream even thought we know it’s fattening, and we should have the right to smoke too.
This right to our mistakes is something we deserve, even assuming that Fauci knows the truth for everyone, and that everyone has the same truth, and that all of his rules were for the best. But different people are different, and people’s preferences are different. “A sadist is a masochist who follows the golden rule,” as the saying goes, and Fauci may have been out-and-out wrong.
Humor from a time when one could tolerate hearing that their truths might not be true.
Concerning COVID, I’ve noted that, despite Fauci’s lockdowns and mask mandates, The US did worse than Sweden, and my home state of Michigan did worse than Sweden — worse in terms of deaths, and far worse economically. Michigan has the same size population as Sweden and the same climate and population density so it’s a good comparison. Florida did better than we did too, though they too didn’t close the schools or have mask mandates. Their economy did better too, and children’s education.
Was Fauci right to shut K-12 schools, or to send college students home? Maybe he was only half-right, or totally wrong and blinded by politics. The more Fauci and friends deny having political interests, the more they seem political. Many Fauci’s emails have become public, and he seems highly political, and very often wrong. He also does not take seriously the economic or mental or educational problems caused to the workers that he now blames on his critics. He also seems takes it as a given that those pushing hydroxychloroquine or surface disinfection were liars, despite scientific opinion on the other side.
Fauci’s push for masks went with his claim that surfaces were not major spreaders. I think the opposite is true, and used my blog and YouTube to push iodine as a surface sanitizer and hand wash. Most diseases are spread by surfaces, and I see no reason for COVID to be different. Iodine is known to kill COVID virus, and all virus, fungus, and bacteria. It’s far more lang-lasting than alcohol, too. Maybe I’m wrong, but maybe I’m right, and I have a right to express my science without fear of censure from Fauci’s deputies. As I see it, when an infected person coughs out-spews big droplets and small droplets. The big drops contain far more virus particles. They fall quickly and dry, ready to be picked up by someone who touches the residue. As for the smaller drops, some are certainly locked by masks, but these have fewer virus particles. Besides, the mask just becomes a new surface; you’ll touch your mask to adjust it or take it off. Unless you disinfect your hands with something strong like iodine the virus on your hands will go to your eyes or nose. Trump favored Chlorox for surfaces, and was skewered for it by Fauci and his experts. I think that was wrong, made worse by claims that he was not telling you to inject the Clorox.
On climate too, we do students a disservice by closing the discussion. It’s clear that Gore’s inconvenient truth isn’t completely true, nor are his remedies beneficial, in my opinion. To stop someone’s ability to make mistakes is to wrong him, and limit him. The same applies to many things; the fellow in power always thinks he’s right, and will always have allies to back him. When Robespierre was the enforced virtue and truth during the French Revolution, everyone agreed, but we now think he was wrong. Robespierre removed the head of France’s greatest scientist, Lavoisier. It would take another generation to grow another head like that.
In terms of interesting speeches to the graduates, As Marx said (Groucho), “I thought my razor was dull, till I heard his speech.” There here’s a speech against something.
Freedom is the right to be wrong, and stubborn, like Groucho. Now that’s a graduation speech!
I’d written previously about Marcel Duchamp’s early work as a founder of the Dada school of modern art, a school that aims to say nothing about anything except about itself. Duchamp hung a urinal as art and called it “fountain.” It was comic, insulting, and engaging — an inspiration for many modern arts to follow , and much bad modern art, too — the collections of string and found objects and paintings of squares or squiggles. But the story of Duchamp is interesting. In 1925, M. Duchamp gave up on art, at least this type of art and became a chess player. As with art, he was very good at it, and became the French chess champion. Now that’s an unexpected turn.
What sort of chess did Marcel Duchamp play? Modern. Very modern. While tradition chess had focussed on the center. He developed at the sides, a strategy that was called an “Indian attack”, named (I assume) after American Indians attacking a stage-coach. Instead of attacking directly, the popular image of an Indian attack is attack from the sides, or behind trees. In chess, it involves typically a “fianchettoed bishop.” Other modern chess players of the time attacked from the side too (Réti, Alekhine) but they generally worked form one side or the other with some central presence. Duchamp worked from both, often with no center.
Position after white’s 13th move
Here is a dramatic example, a position from a game with an American great, GM George Koltanowski. It’s 13 moves in, with Duchamp, is black, generally considered the weaker side. He has fianchettoed both of his bishops, and given up the center to Koltanowski. It’s Duchamp’s turn to move/ He will win in three moves.
Notice that Koltanowsi’s bishops point outward, as a cowboys guns might point, or as from a British fighting square. Meanwhile, Duchamp’s bishops point inward, with his queen -bishop almost directly at the white king. The game proceeded as follows. 13…, Nxd5 14.Nxd7, Nxf4 15.Nxf8, Bd4, 0-1..
The full game, seen here,. It might prove instructive if you want to explore in Duchamp’s footsteps. While I play traditionally, I sometimes fianchetto, and do not find it racist that such side-attacks are called “Indian attacks.” Perhaps that’s because I’m old and used to such things, or because they very often work.
Please Touch. M. Duchamp 1947
Self-portrait, M. Duchamp, 1957 (torn paper on black velvet).
As M. Duchamp’s chess skills waned, he returned to the art world, going in the opposite direction of Dali. Duchamp’s last works are small, and simple. They are still arresting but more dream-like. Dali’s works grew bigger and busier as he got older.
Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” presents the fictional story of Brian, someone born in the stable next door on Christmas Day, who is repeatedly mistaken for the messiah by a crowd that never gets the message right. We follow Brain as he grows and preaches wisdom, like “Think for yourselves, work it out, you’re all individuals.” The crowd then answers, in unison, “Yes! We’re all individuals.” Eventually Brian joins the People’s Liberation Front of Judea and is crucified by the Romans. Brian’s thoughts aren’t bad, but the humor is how completely his followers mess them up. Another example, near the end of the film, happens with Brian on the cross. A band of fanatical followers comes to the rescue, his “suicide squad”. They proceed to commit suicide, See it here. Brian can only say, “You silly sots.” It’s comedy. It’s a funny/sad take on religious martyrs, and it provoked a united condemnation by the three great religions because the comedy is relevant, and thus dangerous.
The movie opened in the Us, and was called “blasphemous” by the Catholic Church, and “a crime against religion.” The Catholic film-monitoring office rated it “C” for Condemned. Among Jewish leaders, Rabbi Abraham Hecht of Chabad/Lubovich asked to have the movie banned as a danger to civic peace. Chabad/Lubovich was promoting their own leader as the messiah (he had not proclaimed himself) so the film must have touched a particularly sensitive nerve.
Brian, center top, is thought to be the messiah, and reluctantly accepts the role, only to have it screwed up.
Rabbi Hecht claimed, in The New York Times, Aug 28, 1979, “This film is so grievously insulting that we are genuinely concerned that its continued showing could result in serious violence.” He was joined by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis and the Rabbinical Council of Syrian and Near Eastern Sephardic Communities of America, asking to have the movie banned. They had not asked to have any other movies banned before or since.
The US protestant opposition was headed by Robert Lee of the Lutheran council, who called it “a profane parody” in a broadcast carried by 1,000 radio stations. The religions united to buy a 1 page protest in “Variety,” a rare show of unity. The movie was banned in Italy, Ireland, Chile, Norway, parts of Britain (as a health danger), and likely many other countries. Ireland waited 8 years for a showing; Italy waited twenty years; Aberystwyth, Wales waited thirty years. The ban hasn’t yet been lifted in any of these places, by the way, nor have the religious bans been lifted. It seems that all religions agree you should not think for yourself abut God, or imagine that the leaders might have got things wrong.
The bishop of Southwark, on TV, making the case that “Life of Brian” was an attack on Christianity. It was just an attack on leaders like him.
In Britain, the effort to ban the movie were spearheaded by the “Festival of Lights,” a Protestant group. A leader of that group, Malcolm Muggeridge, debated two of the Pythons on TV, joined by Mervyn Stockwood, bishop of Southwark. See the full Life of Brian 1979 Debate, here. Malcolm Muggeridge had been editor of Punch, Britain’s top humor magazine. He argued that the movie was unfunny. Bishop Stockwood was considered a liberal, known to favor homosexual marriage within the church. He would not tolerate religious deviance, though and argued that the movie was sacrilegious, especially the song at the end. Neither individual seems to listen to anything the Pythons say. Stockwood ended the debate by saying that the Pythons “would get their 20 pieces of silver, that’s for sure”.
Abraham Hecht before the man he claimed was the messiah-king; He called “Life of Brian” a grave danger, and called for Israeli assassinations.
Despite being banned in many countries and by all major religions, the movie was financial success, in part because of the controversy. Its enemies too, in part for their controversy. The Festival of Lights gained notoriety for the protests of sex and violence in the movies. The Catholic Church banned more movies: Shaft, Rambo, Friday the 13th, and all the Borat movies. Rabbi Hecht protested the Israeli rabbinate for making conversion too easy, then pushed the idea that gentiles have to live by a Lubovich interpretation of “The Laws of Noach.” And finally, in June 1995, Hecht pressed for the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres: “Such people should be killed before they can perform the deed.” [the Oslo accords]. Rabin was assassinated five months later — after the accords were signed. Hecht was presented with a 6 month leave from his pulpit. There were no general condemnations of the banners within their sects, though. All seem to agree that religion is about loving your neighbor, and banning or assassinating those who are not loving enough.
The most contentious part of the movie is the song at the end. It has become popular at funerals and with the terminally ill: “Always look on the bright side of life.” It’s comforting without being preachy: “When you’re chewing on life’s gristle, don’t grumble, give a whistle, and this will help things turn out for the best. And always look on the bright side of life….” Bishop Stockton found this song the most offensive part, and my sense of why is that, as a bishop, he feels he must be seen to stand between you and God. No one like that wants a terminally ill person to look at him and “give a whistle.”
Every now and again a book or movie includes a chess game. Generally, it’s in a story where death is on the line. It’s a literary device used to indicate high mental acumen of the people involved, particularly the one who wins. As an example, in “Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows”, 2011, Holmes plays Moriarty, each calling out moves far advanced for the 1800s. It emphasizes these individuals’ super-smarts. Holmes wins at the end, of course. The Ingrid Berman film, “The Seventh Seal” is similar, with the chess game played against death himself. The knight shows himself a more-than-worth opponent. And that brings us to Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, book 1 of the series, and movie, Ron Weasley is presented as a sort-of fool throughout the series. He’s mostly as source of background information about wizarding, but in one episode standout, he plays brilliantly with giant-size chess men against a magical intelligence, and wins. After the game, one that is described as one of the best ever, Ron goes back to being the goof-ball he was throughout. His chess skills don’t come up again, or do they. It’s a well written series, so what’s the point of including the game?
Position of pieces in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone (movie).
To see how brilliant Ron’s play is, recall that Ron is eleven years old in book 1. He, Harry, and Hermione enter a mysterious room filled with menacing statues. Ron immediately realizes it’s a chess board, and infers that they must win as black to pass through. He further infers that the piece representing Harry must make the checkmate. Two or three pieces are missing, and Ron infers that Harry’s character must replace one of these and become the mating piece. If you’ve ever played a decent computer, you know it’s very hard to win as white (in the 90s you could still win). This ghost intelligence plays quite well, and it’s almost impossible to win if you need to have a particular minor piece make the mate. In the movie, Ron plays as black and reaches the position shown with Harry as the king’s bishop and Hermione as a rook. He is down in material, but has laid a very good trap. The white queen captures the “free pawn” on d3, violently threatening the Harry-bishop. Ron interposes the rook to c3 forcing the white queen to take the rook. At this point, Ron could win by B-c5+, QxB, N-h3 mate, but that would sacrifice Harry and leave Ron as the winning piece. Both Ron and Hermione realize this, and Ron causes Harry to make the checkmate by N-h3+, QxN, B-c5+, Q-f3, BxQ mate. Ron is injured when QxN — a sacrifice in both senses of the word.
Death plays chess, painting by Albertus Pictor, 1480
It’s an impressive display of chess skill, and Dumbledore is right in saying it’s one of the best games. No normal player could manage a game like that, certainly no eleven year old. Normally such a display would be used to present Ron as the group brain, or at least as a very deep thinker. If so, why does the author have Ron revert to his care-free, stupid persona with chess never showing up.
We see that Voldemort, the arch villain, won his game too, and only lost a few pieces doing it. That Voldemort is good at chess is no surprise; it goes with his deep-thinking persona. We don’t see Voldemort’s game, but I can infer that he won via the Trailer gambit. It’s a fairly tricky win, but the only way that I know where you win as black losing only a kings bishop, a rook, and a knight, the pieces that Ron and his friends replaced. The Queen is the winning piece, though, and that’s a lot simpler than winning with a bishop. Ron’s win is far more sophisticated, a surprise given Ron’s behavior and how he is treated.
Perhaps it’s just bad writing, or an effort to show Ron is good at something, but I thought to do a quick re-read of Ron’s early appearance in book 2. Here I find that Ron is bright and motivated, but overshadowed. Early in the book, we find 12 year old Ron picking a lock using a hat pin, and driving a flying car reasonably well. We don’t think this is exceptional because his brothers do all this first, but it is exceptional: imagine tryin to drive a regular car with no instruction at 12. Later we find that Ron learns the fine points of Quidditch without native skill or a coach, just using a book, and we find that Dumbledore picks him to prefect, instead of Harry, a job he does well. Finally, we find that Hermione prefers Ron to Harry. It’s a somewhat surprising turn because she’s supposed to be the brains of the trio. How could she stand to be with Ron? Perhaps she is one of the few people who sees that Ron is bright. Dumbledore is too.
Viewed this way, the chess game becomes the first of the examples of Ron’s brainpower, and becomes an important foreshadowing to a surprise at the end of the last book/movie, to the final battle against Voldemort. In that battle, while everyone else is throwing hexes, Ron is the one who realizes that, to win the war, he must go to the basement chamber and collect basilisk teeth. It’s chess thinking: he’s focused on the king, on Voldemort, while everyone else is dealing with side threats. In a sense, it’s Ron who defeats Voldemort. The chess game is a foreshadowing, and fits with Hermione’s choice of Ron over Harry.
Robert Buxbaum, August 26, 2022. If you like chess puzzles, find some here. And in “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey,” 1991, the brilliance idea is sort-of reversed. Bill and Ted play against death in battleship, twister, and clue, and win. It’s used to show that death is sort of random, and sort of stupid.
