Cancer lends itself to military metaphors. Sufferers “fight” or battle” the disease, though in practice this usually means accepting a prescribed course of treatment. “Whenever I hear those martial verbs, or hear people being described as brave, I feel a little sorry for people with heart disease or Alzheimer’s, who, rather than warriors, tend to be portrayed as passive, voiceless victims, who never get to ‘fight’ their illnesses but only ever ‘succumb’”
(1,200 words)
Centenary tribute from a friend of the composer. Long, discursive, not always easy going, but full of interesting detail. Original inspiration came from the work of Lithuanian painter Mikalojus Ciurlionis. “It is scarcely believable that
The Rite of Spring, and before it
The Firebird and
Petrushka, were written by a composer still in his twenties, slightly more a decade after the death of Johannes Brahms”
(4,760 words)
“He played within a certain range. Like Jackie Gleason, he’ll be remembered for a particular role, and a particular kind of role, but there is no underestimating his devotion to the part of a lifetime that was given to him. In the dozens of hours he had on the screen, he made Tony Soprano — lovable, repulsive, cunning, ignorant, brutal — more ruthlessly alive than any character we’ve ever encountered in television”
(718 words)
So who “won” the confrontation in Turkey sparked by Gezi Park? Short answer: the protesters, at least on the longer view. “Erdoğan’s project to be anointed an omnipotent president through a change in the constitution is now no more than a dream. The newcomers to the political arena may not yet be in a position to draft a new set of rules, but they have shifted the keystone that supports Turkey’s patriarchal firmament”
(900 words)
A crisp and forceful conversation with the NSA leaker, whatever you think of motives and actions. “Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school”
(1,280 words)
Reconstructing the history of a 13th-century cult in southern France. Parents would abandon sick children on the grave of Saint Guinefort, who was, apparently, a greyhound, credited with having once saved a baby from a snake. The underlying myth dates back a thousand years to India, where the sacred animal was a mongoose. In the French variant, the dog was confused with a human saint, and a ritual was born
(3,140 words)
Should unwilling fathers be required to pay child support? “If one has a strongly intuitionistic approach, the biological model (where participation in a process of sexual intercourse resulting in pregnancy and childbirth is sufficient for obligation) is probably the best option. While it might lack in philosophical grounding, there are relatively few counterintuitive implications (at least that I can think of)”
(1,270 words)
Much of this will be familiar to anybody who has dipped a toe into behavioural psychology — Kahneman, Kahan, confirmation bias, affect and so on — but still, it’s well put together, and pushes a bit harder than you might expect at first. Yes, people are reluctant to change their minds. But: “On the one hand, it doesn’t make sense to discard an entire belief system, built up over a lifetime, because of some new snippet of information”
(4,100 words)
Two male tractor drivers live together in a remote village in Belarus. Both had wives and children before discovering they were in love with each other. Their wives left, taking the children. Transcript of a frank and touching conversation. About love, marriage, sex. “The village has accepted it. But then, this is a dead village, there’s nobody here but pensioners. The old dears found it a bit weird, of course, but they soon go used to it”
(3,600 words)
Day Five of
Slate‘s trial coverage. A recommendation for the series so far, not just this post. Every dose comes full of flavour. “John Martorano is a porpoise of a man inside a massive suit jacket. His face disappears into the fat of his neck. When he takes the stand today—tinted eyeglasses, polka-dot tie, pocket square—he tells us he is 72 years old, divorced, and unemployed. Also, he has murdered 20 people”
(915 words)
Finnish liftmaker Kona has announced a super-strong, super-light cable made of carbon-fiber, 90% lighter than steel, which can raise an elevator a kilometre or more — twice the existing limit. Since the effectiveness of lifts is one of the main constraints on the height of buildings, this breakthrough could allow for a new generation of skyscrapers twice the height of existing ones. The mile-high tower-block is coming. And maybe space elevators too
(1,060 words)
It’s better not to get involved at all in a conflict that you cannot win. But since the Obama administration has decided to get involved in Syria, here are some rules of thumb. America doesn’t have any reliable friends in this one. Not Qatar, not Saudi, not Turkey. Don’t give the rebels anything that we’d want to get back afterwards, such as portable anti-aircraft weapons. And — this ought to be obvious — have clear rules for the endgame
(2,000 words)
“To a visitor from North America, where bird hunting is well regulated and only naughty farm boys shoot songbirds, the situation in the Mediterranean is appalling: Every year, from one end of it to the other, hundreds of millions of songbirds and larger migrants are killed for food, profit, sport, and general amusement. All across Europe bird populations are in steep decline, and the slaughter in the Mediterranean is one of the causes”
(5,700 words)
“
Worker: It’s 6:37 AM, let’s begin hammering.
Second Worker: Are we nailing anything in today?
Worker: No, we’re just striking the bare, wooden floor with our hammers.
Second Worker: How hard are we hammering today?
Worker: Boss wants us to alternate between hammering with great force and exceptionally great force. We take breaks when the man living downstairs leaves the building”
(300 words)
Another fine review of recent Thatcher biographies by Charles Moore and Robin Harris. “When people attain a certain level of fame, their notable acts have been so exhaustively described and analysed that what we crave to know about them is the banal and everyday: what they might have in common with the rest of humanity, rather than what sets them apart. This is true of the Queen, for example. It is even truer of Margaret Thatcher”
(1,450 words)
Germany accounts for one-fifth of the EU’s production and one-quarter of its exports. It has low unemployment, a balanced budget, and falling government debt. Power in Europe is shifting to Berlin. For Germany, this ought to be a time of triumph. But Germany isn’t like that, at least not yet. It has no historical experience of successful international leadership, and no great desire to lead. Can it rise to the opportunity?
(1,900 words)
Icky in parts, also funny, original, and highly informative. “You can buy a mole for a tenner on eBay. Three crows might cost you twenty. Merely searching for these things changes eBay’s profile on you and they start suggesting sheep thigh bones, dental picks and disembodied hawk feet.” Nor had it occurred to me, before reading this, that the giblets bagged up inside a store-bought chicken are not going to be the bird’s own
(2,400 words)
Essay pegged to Jeremy Adelman’s book,
Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman, centred on Hirschman’s insight that the greatest progress is made not when things go exactly as planned, but when they go wrong in a big way, and an innovative solution has to be found. “The entrepreneur does not see himself as a risk-taker, because he operates under the useful delusion that what he’s attempting is not risky”
(4,100 words)
