An own goal

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Unless there is a sudden and unexpected outbreak of patriotism and seriousness, today’s the day Boris Johnson will assume the title of Prime Minister of the UK.

There have been some pretty terrible rulers of the country, but you have to go back to King John, Edward II, Henry VI or Charles I to find anyone as unqualified as Boris Johnson.  That is, unless, like Boris you think that the whole business of running a country is a huge joke, and you want as Prime Minister an entertainer.

Personally, I think we need more comedians, but none with a finger on the detonator of a nuclear bomb, even if it might not actually work if he pressed the red button.

Since I have feet in rwo camps I can assure the British supporters of Johnson that informed Americans (who have their own local problem) cannot believe either Brexit or Johnson, laugh hysterically and think the Brits have lost it completely.  The only one delighted is Putin.  In soccer this whole sorry episode is known as an “own goal”.

Watch while a variety of countries (Iran is kicking it off) get their revenge for past colonialism and weight thrown around the world – this government will be out of its depth.

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The allure of handwriting

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“We are collectively more than ever obsessed with individual identity, our personal brand, putting our stamp on the world. But we bow to the plain text of the smartphone, bland and unblotted. A WhatsApp message will never have the personality of a sibling’s spider-scribble. Digital communication can never match the intimacy of a handwritten letter. If you want to tell someone I love you, I miss you, I’m sorry, I’m thinking of you, do it by hand, sealed in an envelope. Embarrassed teenagers confessing to a crush now do it by Snapchat. A few seconds and the message vanishes. Blushes are spared, but so much else is lost.”. (Laura Freeman, The Daily Telegraph)

It’s tempting to thank a friend for dinner or for a present by sending an email, but somehow it seems just too easy and it doesn’t have the weight or sincerity of a written letter or note.  But if you are the host or the donor you can sometimes get no thank-you at all, and an email is better than nothing.

Years ago I had four of the drawings I did in Italy printed professionally onto small notelets.  I still use those notelets and hand-write a message to the generous host or the kind present-giver.  It’s old-fashioned, but what is wrong with old-fashioned?  And if I ever run out of those notelets I will continue to write old-fashioned thank-you’s and send them by letter mail, a hint to younger generation – courtesy is kindness.  I like to think that Epicurus would have approved.

P.S: There is now a website, called TouchNote, where you can produce your own thank-you notes, presented as postcards, complete with attractive 4 colour picture of choice, theirs or yours, on the front, and a smart, personal message.  Another innovation to be struggled with, but they look most attractive.  We have received one from Carmen, a kind reader and friend of this blog.  Thank you!

Epicureanism then and now

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Brian Dougall, in The Hobo Test, his 2013 critique of Epicureanism, published in Philosophy Now, began by explaining what Epicurus meant  by pleasure and then went on to explain what Epicurus meant by a “good. life” . He wrote that easily- accessible pleasures in the era of Epicurus included water, fruit, a comfortable hammock, a simple hut, and some friends.  Examples of difficult-to-attain pleasures were foreign wines, exotic cheeses, large feather beds, columned mansions and political allies.  Difficult to acquire meant “more pain  than pleasure” .  Epicurus counted himself blessed because Mother Nature had given the Greeks a pleasant climate, a bountiful land (and, implicitly, not too many people to compete with).

Dougall says that if Epicurus were alive today he wouldn ‘t recognise the world.  There are 8 billion people competing for the world’s scarce resources.  Humanity firmly controls access to nature with laws and law enforcement, backed by police and lawyers.  People seeking to live in a hammock on on the sidewalk are fined or moved on.  The land, once accessible, is now all privately owned,.  The water in the nearby stream is polluted.  In short, try living a simple life and you are miserable, potentially a beggar or a hobo, with the social stigma that goes with it. Dougall even takes Epicurus to task for suggesting that a group of good friends. are necessary, virtually calling him a ”selfish .pleasure-hoarder”.

Well some of this is quite true.  It is no longer possible live simply exactly as Epicurus suggested.  But noone these days advocates the sort of self-sufficiency that Dougall excoriates. Indeed, the idea of the 1980s commune is thoroughly discredited, and no one aspires to be a hobo or espouse flower power. I think he betrays his background by concentrating on material things only.  Very Californian!

(Brian Dougall. has an MA from San Jose University and. BA in History from the the University of. California, Davis. He wrote a critique of Epicureanism in 2003)

There are other, non- material. aspects of Epicureanism that do resonate today:

  • equality of treatment and opportunity suggested by the actions of early Epicureans
  • courtesy to all, rich and poor, child and mother
  • politeness and consideration
  • tolerance
  • rejection of superstition, organised religion, man-made gods and “eternal suffering”.
  • compassion for immigrants, the oppressed and the sick
  • refusal to be fearful of death.
  • the power of friendship for the sake of friendship.
  • the importance of education that broadens the mind.
  • the ability to enter discussions with those who disagree with you, and put your points quietly. with a smile and without the current anger and foul language.
  • impatience with politics maybe, but a belief that government should be for all the people, regardless of income and status and that oligarchy – or rule by rich cliques – should never prevail.
  • an interest in sciences and the physical universe (Epicurus was an atomist, and, along with Democritus, one of the ancient fathers of modern physics)

Yes, you might have noticed that some of the above simply describe a “lady” or a “gentleman”.  Some say that these are outdated concepts.  If so, so much the worse for them and our modern world

(References include “The Epicurean Option”, by Professor Dane R. Gordon, professor of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY)

Dragging the Queen into the Brexit farce?

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Senior members of the United Kingdom’s ruling Conservative party are so concerned about the country leaving the European Union without a deal that they are planning to go over the head of the new Prime Minister and appeal directly to the Queen.

Fears are growing among politicians that if and when Boris Johnson becomes PM next week, he could take the UK out of the European Union without any sort of deal later this year, resulting in a drop of 5% in the UK stock market, a 10% drop in the pound  and a fall of 2% in GDP by the end of 2020. One group of senior Conservatives are planning to go straight to the monarch.
Queen Elizabeth has built her reputation by remaining studiously impartial, and won’t want any part of the move. But the politicians could theoretically force her to enter the controversy by using an arcane and rarely used parliamentary procedure called the “humble address.”. This is effectively a direct call from parliament to the palace, bypassing Downing Street. This rebel group plans to use it to ask the Queen to exercise her right as head of state to travel to the next EU summit and ask for a Brexit delay.
But that would put the Queen in an awkward position; her likely response would be to bounce it straight back to the government, according to leading constitutional experts. Professor Vernon Bogdanor of King’s College London told CNN: “The safest rule for the Queen is always to take the advice of her ministers. That keeps her safe from criticism.”
Meanwhile Robert Hazell, professor of government and constitution at University College London, says the strategy is a complete non-starter.  “MPs might use a motion for a humble address to indicate their strong opposition to No Deal, or strong opposition to Parliament being prorogued; but the idea of the Queen attending the EU summit is absurd,” Hazell told CNN.  “Summit meetings are for heads of government, not heads of state: Denmark will be represented by their PM, not their Queen, and ditto all the other monarchies in the EU (of which there are six, in addition to the UK),” he added.
This latest twist in the UK’s Brexit saga shows how concerned some politicians are about Johnson’s premiership, even within his own party. On Thursday lawmakers voted to make it more difficult for the new leader to suspend parliament and impose a no-deal Brexit.  (reported last night by CNN)
My comment: involving the Queen, even if she concurred, is a total no-no, a further disastrous mis-step, quite possibly resulting in calls for the abolition of the monarchy by Brexit extremists.  You simply do not do this!  (although I ‘m guessing that the Queen must be as appalled as other thoughtful people at the prospect of Boris Johnson and mess being created). Curiously, talking to (necessarily very few) younger people, they don’t seem very engaged or concerned.  It is they that will have to live with this and take the consequences.  A further little sign of how turned off even educated people are.

Our understanding of the cosmos is wrong?

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The following is an excerpt from the New Scientist:

“The Hubble constant may not be that constant after all.

Something is wrong with the expansion of the universe. Nearby galaxies seem to be moving away from one another too fast, we don’t know why, and every new set of data just seems to make the problem worse.

We have two basic ways to measure the expansion of the universe, which is described by the Hubble constant. The two methods have always returned clashing results, and many astronomers and cosmologists hoped that one of them was simply wrong. Now, a third independent method has solidified their disagreement.

One of the ways we measure the Hubble constant is by using the cosmic microwave background   (CMB), the remains of the first light to stream across the cosmos after the big bang. Patterns in that light can tell us how fast the universe was expanding then, and researchers then use models of how it has evolved to tell us how fast it ought to be expanding now.

The other main way is using what astronomers call the “distance ladder”, in which we measure the distance to stars called Chid variables, link those distances to nearby supernovae, and use those supernovae to determine how fast relatively nearby galaxies are moving away from us. The distance ladder method has consistently resulted in an expansion rate more than 9 per cent higher than the CMB method, causing much consternation among astronomers.

Disagreements

“If you have two measurements that don’t agree, there is always a chance that one of them or both of them are wrong,” says team member Simon Birrer at the University of California Los Angeles. “But if you bring in a third independent measurement that comes close to one of the previous ones, then people start believing that this tension is really there.”

Now, an international team of astronomers has made that third measurement of the Hubble constant using gravitational lensing, a phenomenon where light from a distant object is bent by the gravity of a closer galaxy on its way to our telescopes. When the light arrives, it often forms several smeared images of the farther object, like looking at a light through the bottom of a water glass.

The light that forms each image travels a different path around the closer galaxy, so, as the distant object changes in brightness, there is a time delay between when that change shows up in each image. That time delay is based on the distance the light has traveled, so we can use it to measure the distance to the original object. When that is combined with the rate at which it’s moving away from us, we end up with a measurement of the Hubble constant.

Birrer and his colleagues went through this process for three quasars, some of the brightest objects in the universe which reside at the centres of some galaxies. Their measurements matched the results from the distance ladder method.” (Leah Crane, New Scientist 11 July 2019)

If you don’t fully understand all this, then you are in good company!  But, that aside, I think it is wonderful and reassuring that human beings are still devoting their lives to untangling the secrets of the universe, and that so far the know-nothings and moneymen have yet to stop them.  The human race has a long way to go, if it survives.  Good luck to the scientists!