In Response to this Week's Manufactured Moral Panic

Should We Be Afraid of the 3D Printed Gun?

The article is from four years ago, but is still valid.  The technology that has everyone so agitated has been out there for as long.  It was enabled and permitted during the Obama administration, so it wasn't a concern to Democratic politicians, the media, and Protestant leadership until very recently.

By the way, this has nothing to do with guns.  It's about the freedom to fabricate parts on your own without shelling out for jacked up prices by, oh, auto parts manufacturers, guitar parts suppliers, etc.  Also, self-fabricated parts, whether created by a 3D printer or in a wood or metal shop, cannot be successfully taxed.

Those large companies rightly see 3D printing as a threat and are working with sympathetic politicians (the ones on their "payroll") and dull-witted media to create this artificial issue to shove through legislation limiting our right to repair, modify, and adapt the things we own.

Also, unless you know how to operate an extruder and calculate an x-axis ratio, you're not building yourself a Tommy gun.

Today's Gratuitous Jack Kerouac Reference

In the Age of Censorship, What Do We Owe the Beat Generation?

Liberal Workplaces are Notoriously Misogynistic

Almost 2/3 of Female Writers Sexually Harassed at Work, Survey Finds

Network news, Hollywood, The Episcopal Church, etc.

I'm Not Sure How We Got from the First Sentence to the Sixth

I've really got to stop proofing other people's academic articles.  They seem to be demonstrations of nothing more than pretzel logic.

But Capitalism is, Like, Bad or Something

The World's Poorest People Are Getting Richer Faster

Meanwhile, in socialist Venezuela, the people have eaten the zoo animals.

Nominated for The Coracle's Genius Award

Using weeds, pests, and invasive species to make sustainable sushi

The restaurant may be found here.

I Think Einstein Would Doubt This

It was eventually corrected to "speed of sound".  Hey, editors are expensive.

The Current State of Anglican Intellectualism

The Archbishop of Canterbury has written a book. Critically, it goes about as well as one might expect.

Economic mistakes permeate Welby’s ideas, but they stem from a deeper philosophical omission: Forced actions do not have the same moral value as actions which are freely chosen. It is more valuable for an individual to freely decide to pay for healthcare for someone who cannot afford it than for that same individual to be forced by the government to provide that care. Welby mistakes not only on the best way to ensure the common good, but its very definition. That is why he advocates for compulsory nutrition, education, and exercise in the classroom. As a society of individuals, we should each choose what is good; Welby, on the contrary would rather all of Britain be forcibly conformed to a centralized vision of his just society.

The presumption of one's superior moral view, and the expectation that all be required to conform to it, has been the vexation of church leadership for a very long time.

Yep

Sorry If You're Offended, but Socialism Leads to Misery and Destitution

Of course, those who tell me of the joys of this ideology can never define it nor find an historical example of it's success.  They usually just inform me that "real" socialism has never been tried.

I wonder if the reason socialism looks so attractive to the young is because of stuff like this:

The new American adult: Mom and dad help pay the bills

Eugenie Clark

We re-ordered our list of profiles this week in honor of The Discovery Channel's annual "Shark Week".  Originally published on March 13, 2015, it concerns one of our favorite "watermen", she who first taught us about the reality of sharks.

"Sharks are beautiful animals, and if you're lucky enough to see lots of them, that means that you're in a healthy ocean. You should be afraid if you are in the ocean and don't see sharks." - Sylvia Earle

_____________________________________________________________

I was once jammed onto an airplane in the midst of a gaggle of well-fed corporate men and women who were highly charged after attending a week long "team-work and incentive" workshop in Las Vegas.  After the third pass of the liquor cart, my well-lubed cabin mates were dancing in the aisle to the dulcet tones of Shakira and Justin Timberlake, poorly navigating the various armrests and safety features of the Boeing 767, and chanting slogans inherited from their conference.  Chief among them was "WE SWIM WITH SHARKS.  WAHOO!!!"

Yes, it was a long flight.  One of the few things that lightened the ordeal was that I was traveling with my surf buddy, Boonie Jackson, and we had just spent the week driving up and down the Pacific Coast Highway surfing every beach that looked worthy of the stoke.  After the fourth or fifth "WAHOO!!!", we traded a bemused look.

See, we had spent seven days literally swimming with sharks, and not as a corporate metaphor, and knew that it was hardly the pinnacle of physical or moral courage.  All it meant was that we had been in the water.

Now it's true that there have been injuries and fatalities associated with shark attacks on surfers, especially with that of friend-of-The Coracle, Bethany Hamilton.  However, more surfers have drowned or suffered significant head trauma on submerged coral than have ever encountered a shark.  This writer has surfed for forty-six years in various world waters and, while he has seen his share of the genus Carcharodon, he has never been menaced by them.  This is also true of the sharks encountered while bonefishing in the flats of the Florida Keys, sailing off of Cape Cod, and scuba diving the Palancar Reef.  They are always there, but they tend to keep their own counsel.

However, it goes without saying that sharks have a reputation.  There was a time when it was common for ocean-going pleasure craft to carry "shark guns" on board.  These were usually salt-water resistant shotguns or rifles used for deer hunting.  Ernest Hemingway famously employed a Thompson Sub-Machine Gun on board his fishing boat, Pilar, and once, while attempting to kill a shark that had been hauled aboard while sail-fishing, shot himself in both legs with a .45 Colt.

There are also shark fishing competitions, specially designed shark spear guns and pneumatic knives, and multiple recipes for shark parts, popular in the Pacific Rim countries, that require an alarming level of slaughter.  There have been many, many movies and even a few novels that present sharks as a rapacious predator that will automatically attack any human in the water. 

A few years back, a couple of Hawaiian surfers, tired of the waves being crowded by amateurs, took some old, broken surfboards, cut what looked like shark bites out of them, and liberally distributed them about the beaches of the North Shore.  Suddenly, the surf wasn't as crowded any more.  Hence, as with my plane cabin mates, the employment of the shark as a metaphor for danger even among those who work in some of the safest jobs ever known in human history.

It would take quite a novel thinker to work against that current of common thinking about sharks to truly study them and present their much more complicated role in the aquatic eco-system.  A pioneer, of sorts.  Fortunately, a couple of New York City parents created such a pioneer when they decided in the early part of the 20th century to do something that nowadays would get them arrested and publicly shamed on a variety of news shows and on social media.  They would, on a near-daily basis, drop off their nine-year-old daughter at the New York Aquarium for her to spend the day, alone and un-escorted; a true "free-range" kid.

Instead of giving her a life's worth of trauma, as would be the case with some of the often soft, coddled children of the current age, it created in Eugenie Clark a robust curiosity about ocean life and eco-systems.  She would, because of her parents so "endangering" her, become the pre-eminent expert on sharks and a pioneer for women in the field of marine biology. 

Born in 1922, Clark's father died when she was still a toddler and her Japanese-American mother married the famous restaurateur, Nobu, which granted Clark the wherewithal necessary to pursue the considerable academic degrees necessary for her field.  These included degrees in zoology from Hunter College and New York University and considerable research work done with Scripps Institutions of Oceanography in California, its eastern counterpart, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute of Massachusetts, and the American Museum of Natural History.  Some of her most significant work was done with the U.S. Office of Naval Research, which had both an astronomical budget and the absolute best in post-WWII technology for the study of the ocean.

Most of Clark's studies would take place among the atolls and islands of the South Pacific, including Micronesia, Melanesia, and the Marshall, Palau, and Marianas Islands.  To further her research, it was necessary for her to be a proficient swimmer, certified scuba diver [I would remind the reader that this was before scuba diving was made popular by the TV show, "Sea Hunt"], cave diver, and technologically able.  Again, she did this, too, at a time when it was so rare for a woman to be involved in these particular sciences that she gained the respectful sobriquet of "The Shark Lady".

While she studied a great many types of fish, it was her work with sharks that gained her most notoriety, as her research reversed many of the assumptions about sharks that were and are common.  She wrote numerous articles, both scholarly and popular, on the subject of sharks and published several books, including Lady With A Spear and The Lady With The Sharks [I always thought both sounded as if they were fiction written by John D. MacDonald or some such mid-century pulp writer], and served as a mentor to numerous women in the biological sciences.  She was also the founding director of what is now known as the Mote Marine Laboratory.

Not only did she, in the midst of researching the biology of a rather dull flatfish, indirectly discover the most effective shark repellent yet produced, made from the secretions of a Pardachirus marmoratus [or Moses sole, a Red Sea dweller], but she also highlighted what was realistic in the feeding habits of sharks.

As an editorial note, when I first compiled the list of the fifty people to be remembered on Fridays over the course of a year, Dr. Clark was included and, at the time, still alive.  My concern was that her scientific and social contributions had been forgotten and her inclusion was to be an attempt to redress that possibility.  However, three weeks ago at the age of 92, Dr. Clark died and has since been memorialized in all of the major media.  There is much about her to be read on line, so the original reason for posting is no longer as necessary as I once thought.

[Although a non-smoker, she died of lung cancer.  Many of those early scuba enthusiasts developed the disease and it is thought to be related to the gas mixtures and the equipment used in diving in those days.]

The handy thing about weblogs, though, is that they can be wonderfully personal.  As such, it might be appropriate to note one of her contributions that was left unmentioned in the canned obituaries and vague remembrances in scientific journals.  Namely, Clark taught watermen the real nature of sharks.

From the New York Times:

She insisted that “Jaws,” the 1975 Steven Spielberg film based on a Peter Benchley novel, and its sequels inspired unreasonable fears of sharks as ferocious killers. Car accidents are far more numerous and terrible than shark attacks, she said in a 1982 PBS documentary, “The Sharks.”

She said at the time that only about 50 shark attacks on humans were reported annually and that only 10 were fatal, and that the great white shark portrayed in “Jaws” would attack only if provoked, while most of the world’s 350 shark species were not dangerous to people at all.

“When you see a shark underwater,” she said, “you should say, ‘How lucky I am to see this beautiful animal in his environment.’ ”

She was never attacked in any of her nearly 75 years literally swimming with sharks, and only once suffered a wound from one when a sample of a shark's jaws fell against her arm while she was driving in her car to a lecture.

Her learned perspective and positive attitude towards even the most feared of sharks is one that injects a necessary note of reality into any experience in the water.  While care always needs to be taken in the open and untamed sea, it is a care born of common sense and a full understanding of one's surroundings.

 “Monster stories fascinate us,” she conceded, but people should not be afraid of sharks: “People want to know all the horrible details. And a shark attack can give you horrible details. People just can’t put it into perspective. We’ve learned, as most divers do, they’re not really dangerous at all. It’s no worse diving with sharks than it is driving a car down the road. The average shark, the more you swim around, scares off easily.”

Endorsed

This Is the Human Driving Manifesto

Turns Out I've Been Doing It Right All Along

STUDY: Women Prefer Men Who Eat Meat

and

Women Prefer Physically Fit Men With Good Jobs And No Criminal Record

No. I Live in Connecticut and I Don't Want to Pay, Either

Connecticut is drowning in debt. Should the rest of us have to pay? 

Could we finally admit, even though he's a Democrat and that's the only party permitted for Episcopalians in the state, that our current governor is a bilious ignoramus?

Eric Hoffer

We offer a bonus profile this week, as today is the natal anniversary, or birthday, of Eric Hoffer, one of the unique voices of the American Century, and one who is looking more and more prescient all of the time.  This was originally published two years ago this month.

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."

Since the profession of full-time pastor is drying up along with mainstream Protestantism itself, many of my ordained colleagues have become, in the euphemism of the church, "tent-maker clergy".  In other words, and based on how St. Paul's was employed while spreading the Word of God, they have jobs, usually in the secular realm, that they fulfill along with serving a parish.

During the week I will work three days for a parish, one or two days as a drywall installer or carpenter, and one or two days as a luthier.  One morning a week, I serve as an unofficial chaplain for an independent school.  A good friend serves on weekends at a parish in New York City as its priest-in-charge and during the remainder of the week works for a Wall Street banking corporation.  We have both noted in conversation that, while we do not have any days off, we often don't miss them as our duties can be very different from day to day.  When we're becoming fatigued with pastoral work, we have our other, rather different, duties, and vice versa.

Personally, I find that nothing better aids the mind and the organization of thought than spending time working a blank of ash into an electric guitar body.  Between the jigsaw and the router, the sander and the airbrush, some of my best sermons and teaching plans have also been shaped.  Just when I get tired of the sawdust and noise, I can sit with an elderly parishioner in a hospital and speak of eternal notions, or watch the youth of the parish design a liturgy, or simply celebrate the Holy Mysteries behind the altar.  It is a refreshing type of occupational "cross-training" and I have sought to do so most of my professional life.

My model for this was my favorite English professor, whose specialty was comparative literature and, to facilitate his international education, worked as a merchant seaman for some years.  The juxtaposition served him well as his insight and lectures were easily the most accessible and popular in his department, no doubt as he saw the world through a much richer and more colorful lens.

When I asked him about this style of experiential learning, he told me of Eric Hoffer, who had served as his model.  I had never heard of Hoffer, which was not unusual since he wasn't terribly popular in the university system of the 1970's as he was not a product of the Ivy League machine, but when I read his works I realized that the relationship between "common" labor and intellectual perception was far more important than many realized.

Eric Hoffer was born in The Bronx in 1898, which often surprises people as, until the day of his death, he spoke with a strong German/Alsatian accent.  Such were ethnic neighborhoods once upon a time, with native languages spoken on the street and in the homes and written on the signs in the butcher's window, that one could be born and raised in a place that retained even the accent of "the old country".

Orphaned at an early age, blinded in an accident, Hoffer was all but helpless until, in an event that would forever baffle his physicians, his sight was suddenly restored at the age of fifteen.   Fearing, as one would, that he would just as suddenly become blind again, he read every book he could lay his hands on and then, as he became more confident that his vision would last, sought to see as much of the world and its wonders as he could.

Of course, not having money, a trust fund, or any inheritance, Hoffer worked at a series of jobs, usually in the labor trades.  He lived on Skid Row in Los Angeles, sometimes homeless, for the better part of a decade.  When his despair at his condition became acute, resulting in a near suicide, he left L.A. to become a migrant worker, railroad man, and prospector.  His only, and cherished, possession in those days was his library card.

In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the 43-year-old Hoffer volunteered for service with the U.S. Army.  Being a little suspicious of someone fluent in German with little in the way of a documented history, he was turned down.  Instead, he became a longshoreman in San Francisco, a job he would hold for the next twenty-five years.

Feeling that America's underclass was underrepresented in philosophic inquiry [no kidding, check out 21st century political philosophy, where two entitled millionaire establishment figures are seeking to represent the rest of us], and having read philosophy in quiet times during his prospector days, Hoffer wrote The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, his first book. Published in 1951, it is a philosophical examination of the nature of fanaticism such as through the world had suffered with Nazism and Stalinism.  The fact that this volume may still be read and be relevant is a testimony to the burgeoning nihilism of the past seventy years.

In marketing the book, Hoffer's publisher branded him "The Longshoreman Philosopher", a title that he would carry for the rest of his days.

As he wrote in the preface:

All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance.

All movements, however different in doctrine and aspiration, draw their early adherents from the same types of humanity; they all appeal to the same types of mind.

Hoffer had noted that the membership of the Nazi and the Communist Parties tended to be interchangeable, despite the gross difference between the two philosophies, indicating that the politics weren't as important as the "movement" in addressing an underlying need that was not being served by general society. In The True Believer and subsequent works, Hoffer observed that cultural movements were historically organized through largely predictable situations. Since a positive self-regard is necessary for personal happiness, when such esteem is lost, people will go to extraordinary lengths to claim the absent sense of well-being.  By extension, when they believe that their lives are useless and have been made so by a corrupt, untouchable Other, and that the only recourse is for individuals to gather together and foment or force radical change, movements then take life.  Depending on the depth of alienation, mass movements can be brutal.

Hoffer observed that this was the case even with relatively benign movements, such as Christianity, which he noted managed to take an eager persecutor like Saul of Tarsus and alter his thinking and practices so that he became St. Paul, an equally zealous apologist for the faith.

It does not take a philosopher to note that, during this particularly fractious year in politics, there is a remarkable similarity between some of the supporters of Sanders, Trump, and Clinton, with people reduced to rage, tears, dramatic gestures, chanting, and other emotionally compromised behavior, to see Hoffer's perspective has longevity.  Even a cursory glance at Islamism would reveal the same.

The True Believer was remarkably popular, written and published as it was during the height of American literacy.  It turned Hoffer into a minor celebrity, with positive interviews appearing in print and in the relatively new world of television.  By the mid-1950's, Hoffer was working three days a week as a longshoreman and one day as a philosophy lecturer at Berkeley [Where else?].  He would often be introduced as a "public intellectual", only to correct the speaker by replying, "No, just a longshoreman".

Hoffer would live into his 80's, residing no longer on Skid Row but in an apartment overlooking the San Francisco docks where he used to work.  He would publish twelve more books, most of which are still in print.  In addition, the Hoover Institution has archived an enormous collection of Hoffer's notebooks that include enough material for several other volumes.  In 1983, shortly before his death, he was awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It's Not, but It Does Permit the Historically Ignorant to Self-Identify

Communism sent millions to their deaths - so why is it cool to wear it on your T shirt?

A Pungent Observation

One of my former students is was a digital editor for The New York Daily News.  Yesterday, he was one of the newsroom staff laid off as the newspaper continues its downward spiral.  I noticed a lot of commiseration on his Twitter account, but really am not that worried about him as both his father and sister are prominent members of the press and he will find another job soon enough.  Still, speaking as a former stringer for a newspaper chain that no longer exists, not to mention a former paperboy for the defunct Cleveland Press, I note the loss of newspapers with some rue.

However, I can't help but notice the reaction of many members of the print medium about the decimation of printed news.  When a manufacturing plant that employs thousands is closed forever, the newspapers recommend that those from the dead industry learn how to write computer code or train for careers in the health care sector.

When a newspaper lays off a portion of its staff, they react as if it's the collapse of the First Amendment and the literal end of democracy.

If I were of a cruel nature, I would suggest that the print reporters learn code or study for careers in the health care sector.

Unrelated pungency:  Suddenly, I want to be the illegal plastic straw king of southern California.  I just need a catchy criminal nickname.  How about King Bombilla?

I Knew It!

The secret of longevity: fat, sugar and booze

Before We Start Hearing About Climate Change and More Hurricanes, Here's Some Science

Note the downward trend indicated by the horizontal line.

Appearance vs. Reality

"I don't have half as much as most of these folks or a tenth or a hundredth. There's only so much you can eat. There's only so big a house you can have." - Barack Obama, July 17, 2018, in South Africa

So, a Guy Walks into an Episcopal Church...

I wish this were a laborious joke, or a satire.  Alas, it is all too real and another example of how The Episcopal Church continues to expect the transient and superficial to provide a foundation for the future.  Or the present.

“Are you here for the service?” she asked me.

“Um, sure.”

Every Wednesday in the summer, Trinity hosts midday “Catch Your Breath” services, catering to Financial District workers on their lunch breaks. The signs outside—beneath the Episcopal flag and next to the rejuvenation posters—advertise the services in this way:

Take a break from the workday rush. Participate in a breathing exercise, enjoy some quiet time, and listen to a short teaching before tackling the rest of your day. Bring your lunch for a supportive midday interaction... 

I became conscious that the woman across the room was staring at me. I’ve never been athletic, and neither my blazer nor my tie really lent to these stretching exercises—but then neither did her pantsuit. Maybe I was conspicuous for being the only person in the room under forty, and the only man. 

Ellen addressed my singularity when she sat down on one of the flower cushions. 

“Since we have a gentleman among us, I’ll be a little more modest,” she said as she draped the scarf over her legs. “Okay, now let’s just focus on our breath. As you breathe, focus on that breath and when your mind wanders—as it will do—get back to the breath. We’ll do this for about three minutes. Notice your breath. Notice your nose, your lungs.” 

Please read the whole thing.  It sounds like it may have been a chance to contemplate the eternal in the middle of a very secular setting [Wall Street], perhaps even to receive the sacrament and know reconciliation as a balm to one's spirit.

You'd be wrong, of course.

Jane Scott

This profile was originally posted on August 24th in 2012, shortly after Ms. Scott's death. When reading her obituary I was reminded of those halcyon days when many of the great stars of 20th century music were still performing or were just becoming established. As I lived equidistant from Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, and as all of the great acts came through those cities, and as I had either a newspaper or radio station paying for my tickets, I saw as many as I could and was able to witness portions of pop history.  Jane Scott was always there, it seemed, and I always want to look for her shadow whenever I catch a current performer.  She's there, somewhere, I think.

Everything I knew about rock music I learned from this woman, who looked like the world's best grandmother.  Seriously, whenever I would see her I would expect to smell mothballs and homemade apple sauce.  Based on her appearance, it may be hard to believe that Jane Scott was the definitive rock music critic of the Midwest.  It was rather "rock and roll" of her not to look like a popular music critic.

I met Ms. Scott back in the 70's when I was working at an AOR*-formatted radio station, although I'd been reading her column in Cleveland's daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer, since I was 13.  The same year we met I had interviewed Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, Denny Laine of Paul McCartney's band, Wings, and jazz legend Larry Coryell, but she was the one for whom I was in stuttering awe, as she had literally seen and interviewed every single major performer and musician of the apex of the American sound, from Sinatra to Elvis, from Lennon to Rotten.  Jane Scott was a true lady and an old-fashioned reporter, and very patient with what I'm sure were some tedious interview questions from a 20-year-old.

What made her special was an instinct that cannot be learned, as illustrated in this quotation from her obit: "She found her lifework on Sept. 15, 1964, the day four lads from Liverpool came to Cleveland. No one at the paper was interested in covering the Beatles, and Ms. Scott volunteered."  See what I mean?  She knew something special was about to happen and, being a good reporter, she wanted to be there to experience it.  This is not taught in journalism schools and we may see its absence in contemporary media on any given day.

The evening I met Ms. Scott, we were in attendance at a concert in a 200-seat venue in Cleveland's Playhouse Square.  “He looked like a cross between a dockhand and a pirate,” she wrote of the performer in The Plain Dealer in 1975, reviewing the young musician we had both come to see. “He stood on the darkened Allen Theater stage last night in a black greaser jacket, blue jeans, a gray wool cap pulled over an eye and a gold earring in his left ear. ... His name is Bruce Springsteen. He will be the next superstar.” She made this prediction at the age of 56, and was the first to do so, about a musician who had yet to release more than two, mildly received, record albums.  She was right, of course.

When she died last year, her obituary ran in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times, and, of course, the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Even before her death, she had become legend.

* AOR = Album-oriented Rock

The Human Race Will Be Aided Immeasurably Once We Stop Listening to Hollywood Opinions

Angela Logomasini, a senior fellow at Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Tate that "the idea that you're going to ban straws and save the world is ridiculous."

Plastic pollution in the ocean is a real problem, but only about 1 percent of it comes from the U.S. Of that 1 percent, only a tiny fraction comes from plastic straws.

How can that be? Celebrities tell us Americans use 500 million plastic straws every day. "Polluting water and killing sea life," according to actor Adrian Grenier.

The 500 million number is repeatedly used by the media. But it comes from a nine-year-old's school project. The real number is much less—closer to 175 million.

I sometimes feel that environmental concern, or "care for creation" as it's known in The Episcopal Church, is just another exercise in the weird, middle-class pornography of chic causes.  The people who tell me that it's an emergency never really act as if it is an emergency.

Like They Need Another One

New venomous snake species found in Australia

Child Raising has Changed Since My Day

Doomwatch

Two security experts from the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory drove to San Antonio, Texas, in March 2017 with a sensitive mission: to retrieve dangerous nuclear materials from a nonprofit research lab there.

Their task, according to documents and interviews, was to ensure that the radioactive materials did not fall into the wrong hands on the way back to Idaho, where the government maintains a stockpile of nuclear explosive materials for the military and others...

But when they stopped at a Marriott hotel just off Highway 410, in a high-crime neighborhood filled with temp agencies and ranch homes, they left those sensors on the back seat of their rented Ford Expedition. When they awoke the next morning, the window had been smashed and the special valises holding these sensors and nuclear materials had vanished.

This has been kept a secret for a year.

A Billion Dollar Corporation Would Lie to Its Customers in Order to Profit Off of Them? Nah.

Consumer group sues Ben & Jerry's over eco-friendly claims

Oh, look.  Here's another one:

Starbucks Bans Plastic Straws, Winds Up Using More Plastic

A Pungent Response

I appreciate that there is a large number of people very, very upset [still] that their candidate of choice did not win the last presidential election, and that the person who did is too boorish to be a member of their social class.

However, this latest "controversy" is absurd for reasons that even those with a loose hold on historical knowledge should understand:

Trump breaks protocol during Royal visit as he fails to bow

American citizens don't bow to English royalty.  Ever.  Our nation was founded on the premise that we would never bow to the English crown.

I attended the equivalent of high school in the U.K.  I roomed with the only other "foreign" students, Bob from Australia and Ian from the Republic of Ireland.  When two members of the royal family toured the campus, (we'll call them Philip and Andrew), Bob, Ian, and I were placed behind the rest of the student body as it was expected that Ian and I would not be bowing.  We didn't, and Bob joined with us in solidarity, and no one thought it inappropriate.

Dystopia Made Real

The Tech Industry’s War on Kids: How psychology is being used as a weapon against children

Please read the whole thing as I'm hearing stories like this at work more often.

Here's a sample:

These parents have no idea that lurking behind their kids’ screens and phones are a multitude of psychologists, neuroscientists, and social science experts who use their knowledge of psychological vulnerabilities to devise products that capture kids’ attention for the sake of industry profit. What these parents and most of the world have yet to grasp is that psychology — a discipline that we associate with healing — is now being used as a weapon against children.

Duke Kahanamoku [with Updated Photo]

Originally presented on August 10, 2012, during the Summer Olympics, we were extending our look at the nature of "The Waterman" and decided to begin with the 20th century progenitor, a quiet, unassuming, and wonderfully polite athlete who taught the world the meaning of the word "Aloha".  This one is brief, mainly as there is much about Duke to be found online, with links to more fulsome accounts of Duke's life and achievements.  Also, for some reason, a menu.  What can I say? It was August.

In keeping with the month and its aquatic nature, this week features one of the lesser known American Olympic athletes, but one who has had a massive influence on American culture and sport more than any other Olympian.

Duke Kahanamoku competed in the 1912 Olympics, winning a gold medal in swimming [Yes, just "swimming" and not butterfly, freestyle, breaststroke, etc.  Swimming competitions weren't as rich and various as they are today]; he came back to the Olympics eight years later and, at the age of 30, won his second gold medal.

Chiefly, though, he is recognized as the father of surfing and, as such, is featured as a statue in Huntington Beach, California [see above, with The Coracle's editor despairing that some kook had left gum on Duke's heel] and a mural in Ocean City, New Jersey [see below].  That's really all that matters to me, but much more can be read about The Duke here, here, and here.  The story of his rescue of sailors from a sinking boat is worth reading, as it explains why California lifeguards to this day use surfboards as one of their rescue tools. [A practice that's beginning to take hold in the eastern USA, too.]  It also represents the qualities of self-sacrifice and compassion for which Duke was known and which informed traditional, pre-commercialized surfing, as his nature and character offer what's best about the very odd sport and spirituality of surfing.

[You can find the menu from one of the many restaurants that bear his name here.  I just thought I'd mention it as I'm having a craving for some huli chicken.]

Since the original posting of this profile, The Coracle was able to make a trip to Oahu and stop by the Bishop Museum in Honolulu where Duke's redwood surfboard is on display.  I discovered that one is not permitted to touch it.

News That's Useful

The complex physics behind bending it like a World Cup player

Contrary, and Welcome, News

"...the report reveals that more than one-in-two black males–57 percent–now belong to the country’s middle or upper class. That is up from 38 percent in 1960. Meanwhile, the share of black men in poverty has fallen from 41 percent in 1960 to 18 percent today. In comparison, 55 percent of Hispanic-Americans belong to the middle or upper class while the figures stand at 73 percent for Asian-Americans and 75 percent for white Americans. There is still clearly work to be done, but this cannot be described as anything other than huge socio-economic progress for black American males, a group often unfairly associated primarily with crime and unemployment."

I'm puzzled why so many of my colleagues continue to regard non-whites as helpless and adrift from the economic system.  Were I a cynic, I would think it had something to do with keeping non-whites in a position where their only social recourse would be from white "saviors".

It's a good thing I'm not a cynic.

They Really, Really Should Have Learned Something about Ohio Before Trying This

At the Guardian’s website, the just-launched Operation Clark County was explained in detail. “We have come up with a unique way for non-Americans to express your views on the policies and candidates in this election to some of the people best placed to decide its outcome,” the determinedly-lefty newspaper announced.

By typing your email address into the box on this page you will be sent a name and address of a voter in Clark County, Ohio from the most recent publicly available voters roll. You may not have heard of it, but it’s one of the most marginal areas in one of the most marginal states.

It’s a place where a change of mind among just a few voters could make a real difference. 

Writing to a Clark County voter is a chance to explain how US policies effect [sic] you personally, and the rest of the world more generally, and who you hope they will send to the White House.

 Please read the whole thing; the responses from Ohioans are as hilarious as you may imagine.

Surprising No One Sentient

World's poorest shoulder cost of tropical conservation

We Find Those Quotation Marks a Little...Disturbing

Because Ignorance is Easy

Why do so many 'woke' activists on cultural left know little or nothing about religion?

Get woke, go [spiritually] broke.

Which is Why Connecticut Needs to Stop Using Plastic Straws. Wait, What?

Shocking study reveals 90% of global plastic waste comes from just TEN rivers in Asia and Africa

In Which Case, a Day Gardening with My Wife Would Kill You

I Did Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Workout. It Nearly Broke Me.

Is it the lack of gym classes in schools for the writer's generation?  The absence of military service?  Sitting indoors and playing video games?  Too much soy in his diet?  It's the soy, isn't it?

The Death of Frivolity

A Feminist Critique Of Indiana Law School's Dean Photo

"Maybe I’m just a humorless feminist,..."

Yeah, maybe.  That seems a redundant observation in the 21st century.

Everything Old is New Again

I find a park bench after gulping from a park water fountain. Soon a woman sits down next to me. Her name is Maria, and she tells me she's been an activist for a long time. Her graying hair her tells me that could mean decades. 

"But I'm not a revolutionary by any means," Maria tells me. "I made my own sign, see?"

 It reads: "Walk in another's shoes."

Maria explains that she comes from a family of Trump voters, but isn't one herself. She just wants to love people. She's talkative and kind—in my sunstroked haze, I feel like I'm making a friend.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asks, beckoning me with a whisper. 

"Yeah of course." She gestures at the loudspeakers on the lawn and sighs.

"None of this is new. This is just the same old stuff they told us to chant in the sixties—and nothing changed then either."

A Pungent Observation

The Episcopal Church is meeting this month for the triennial General Convention.  All manners of polity and procedures, not to mention social justice attitudes, are determined at this gathering.  While only some of it is relevant to the folks in the pews, it is revered as the apex of pureness promotion in our particular, and fleeting, brand of Protestantism.

The best part, you ask?  All of the convention delegates, organizational representatives, and other worshipful attendees travel from all over the United States and its various territories by car and, particularly, jet airplane to meet in a vast, air-conditioned center in Texas.  In July.

A featured topic?  How the church can be more environmentally sensitive.

Good use of resources, don't you think?  As is often noted on social media:  I'll consider the environment dire when the people who tell me it's dire start acting like it.

The Heat Wave Antidote

 
How ice cream made America

An Obituary of Note

Steve Ditko, Spider-Man Co-Creator and Legendary Comics Artist, Dies at 90

Not just Spider-Man, but a whole host of other characters, some of whom are little known but had a great influence on this genre of literature.  I mean, how often is a hero based on the philosophy of...Ayn Rand?

This will warrant a new Friday profile, we think, and readers may anticiapate that in the near future.

Meanwhile, here's another of Ditko's creations, Dr. Strange, the Master of the Mystic Arts, exploring an alternate reality in a manner in which only Ditko could have rendered.  You can tell it's from the late '60's, can't you?

Jacques Cousteau

This was written in a hospital room when my wife was recovering from surgery.  It isn't so much about Cousteau as it is about the freedom he made possible to abide in the water.  It is an early consideration of the nature of "the waterman" that would be explored in subsequent profiles and even a parallel weblog.  This was originally presented on August 3, 2012.

We all know this fellow.  Maybe because it's summer, and my mind, despite the distractions of a very busy parish season, plus my wife's surgery this week, is filled with the delights of the waterman's pursuits, but I was thinking about Jacques the other day.  Maybe it was because I couldn't get that funky taste out of my scuba regulator, who knows?

Jacques Cousteau was not just the host of the very, very best National Geographic specials EVER [I had them all on videotape and then DVD; I'm going to get them all on digital as soon as they're available] but he was the developer of the underwater portable breathing device, in particular the bulbous gadget attached to the mouthpiece of a scuba ensemble.  It was marketed with the name "aqua lung", which is what they were still called when I first donned one for my federal uncle back in the 1970's.  The bundle of francs he made from that enabled him to leave the French Navy and lease his famous ship Calypso in order to study most directly the wonders of the oceans.

In addition to his underwater work, he also wrote some bestsellers, including my fave The Silent World, and filmed some theatrical documentaries, two of which won Academy Awards, including World Without Sun, which was one of the two films I saw while on a seaside vacation [the other was The Endless Summer] that either made my life or ruined it, depending on whom you ask. 

More of Cousteau may be found here.  You can also get a red knit cap at that site, just like the ones worn by Cousteau and his divers.  [Yes, I have one.]

I would be remiss not also to mention the fellow who formed my daydreams of scuba diving before I even heard of Cousteau.  He was fictional, but no less real to those of us in the Midwest: Mike Nelson of the TV show Sea Hunt.  The boys of my neighborhood used to pull our t-shirts partially over our heads, with our faces staring our the head hole, and would pretend to "swim" about our yards like Mike and company.  We would also make the gurgling stomach noise that Nelson's regulator always made, too.

From the UK Guardian

Yeah, I just...nah, it's too hot.

Movies for the 4th

So, it's really humid outside, I just spray painted something with a couple of rattle cans and I think I lost five pounds in thirty minutes, so I'm indoors with the air-conditioner on.  That means it's time for laziness and movies.

1.  Where Eagles Dare: Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood decimate the Wehrmacht at a castle in the Alps.  I mean, c'mon.

2.  Patton: Enough said, really.

3.  Dr. Strangelove: Absurdity in the Cold War.

4.  The Scarlet Coat: Well, one has to be set during the Revolution.  Cornel Wilde goes undercover to spy on Benedict Arnold and thwart his treason.  A bonus is that Turner Classic Movies is showing it today at 2:30pm Eastern.

5.  The Last of the Mohicans:  Natty Bumppo, the original liminal man.  Also, it stars my former neighbor.

6.  The Manchurian Candidate: Free will overturns Communist brainwashing.

Happy 4th! Also, Massive Social Media Corporations Hate Freedom.

Facebook Algorithm Flags, Removes Declaration of Independence Text as Hate Speech

More Post-Christian Martyrdom

Again with this?  This just means you're fasting, and only half as much as my family and friends do annually on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  Mormons do so even more often.  By this measure, we go on hunger strikes before colonoscopies.  My point is that this isn't an onerous or unusual thing to do, so please take it down a notch, willya?

By the way, it's just a fast, not a "hunger strike".

What’s Your Baseball Nickname?

A friend of mine and I were trying to remember every baseball nickname we could.  It was a daunting list, although we both noted that the use of nicknames is no longer common in the sport, which is a pity.  I was always partial to "Oil Can", myself.

Anyway, switch on this generator and see what yours is or should be.  Mine is "Iceberg".

Meanwhile, in the Rest of the World...

#IranUpdate,
This isn’t Syria,Yemen,Libya etc. Here is #Iran.
Security forces attacked a village(zehoki)in Minab in Hormozgan province.Reason for attack was protesting against brutality of regime forces.According to reports 6 civilians have been injured by security forces&snipers pic.twitter.com/v9bLgD3TOi

— Raman Ghavami (@Raman_Ghavami) July 2, 2018

Chief Wahoo Syndrome

"Chief Wahoo Syndrome" is when white people decide they're going to "stick up" for the American Indians based on something about which they have little interest or knowledge but that makes the whites appear virtuous, mostly to one another.  They also invent weird euphemisms like "Native American" to display their manufactured sensitivity.

It's easier than learning the names of the tribes, I suppose.

Anyway, Chief Wahoo is the long-time logo of the Cleveland Indians and its about to go down the memory hole because the white people who run baseball and the white people with whom they go to cocktail parties need to display their virtue to one another over charcuterie.  Pity, as Wahoo, along with the team name, celebrates the first Indian to play major league baseball.  But history is hard and ego-reinforcement is easier.

There is no Indian in northeastern Ohio who cares about Chief Wahoo.  I speak with some authority as I'm related to many, if not most, of them.  There is a gaggle of "Native Americans" hired by whites to protest the logo, of course, but they're under indictment for the misuse of those funds, so never mind.

The people whom I do know who are or were upset about Wahoo are mostly white and woefully uninterested in baseball.  Most of them are clergy, of course, who like to get upset about social non-issues to distract from the fact that they're a little weak in the devotional department.

Now that Wahoo is a non-issue, the virtuous need another victim and they have selected...Laura Ingalls Wilder?  Really?  The most popular books in the Ohio Indian Schools curriculum?  Sure, why not?  We must all appease the gods of white virtue.

Librarians Airbrush Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Name from Award

What all of these authors have in common is that their characters spoke and behaved as people really did during their time. Their books are witnesses to our history, which does indeed include examples of racist and bigoted stereotypes. But isn’t it better to have children confront such issues rather than treat them like snowflakes? At its best, literature forces us to wrestle with issues, even when they are not pretty....

I have always had a soft spot for librarians, people charged with introducing children to great literature and great ideas. I worked my way through college for two summers as a librarian. The people with whom I worked loved sharing books with children. They didn’t view their role as that of a censor or scold. Ironically, by unfairly slashing away at the reputation of Laura Ingalls Wilder they are resurrecting an old, discarded stereotype of librarians as prissy and pedantic. How ironic it would be if librarians — who should want children to be open and curious — once again develop a reputation of being close-minded.

Told Ya So

Few know more about the oceans and coastlines than surfers.  This is from The Global Warming Policy Foundation:

SAVE THE OCEANS

Stop recycling plastic

Some sagacity:

The title may sound odd to ordinary people, but the sad fact is that the global “recycling” industry has significantly added to the marine plastic litter problem.

I have put recycling in quotes, because only a small fraction of plastic recovered from consumers is actually recycled: the material collected is dirty and so mixed up that it is impossible to produce the high-quality raw material required by, for example, the food-packaging industry. Most recovered plastic is simply burned or dumped: on land, in rivers, or even directly in the oceans.

Unable to recycle waste in line with the targets imposed on them, rich countries have chosen to dump it — plastic, paper and cardboard — on poor ones, especially China. Lower environmental standards in much of Asia has made it cheaper to manage waste there and low-quality recycled plastic can sometimes be profitably produced from these waste streams, albeit in highly polluted conditions...

The consequences for the environment and for public health of this “recycling” madness have therefore been horrendous, and have ultimately proved too high for the Chinese, who have now banned waste imports entirely. Recent figures suggest that recycling businesses in the UK have responded by simply shipping waste to Asian countries with even weaker environmental standards. So even more waste will end up in the oceans in future.