waka waka waka

Wasilla: All I Saw

Malcolm — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:35:14 +0000

I watched earlier today as John McCain introduced his clever choice for running mate: the former Miss Wasilla (and current governor of Alaska), Sarah Palin.

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Cui Bono?

Malcolm — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:18:10 +0000

Here’s Peggy Noonan once again (do forgive me for generating so little original content during this vacation), commenting on the speeches made so far at the democratic convention. She offers a simple but accurate insight:

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Casey At The Bench

Malcolm — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:30:45 +0000

Surrounded as I am by family and friends while on holiday, I continue to find time alone for writing to be in short supply. But here’s a gem for the “Shameless Filler” category: the “Old Perfesser” himself, the great Casey Stengel, testifying on July 8th, 1958 at the Senate Anti-Trust and Monopoly Subcommittee Hearings. This is priceless.

Perhaps best of all: Mickey Mantle’s opening remark (last line of the transcript).

Not Exactly A Plowshare

Malcolm — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:08:01 +0000

Here’s the latest in lethal technology: the wasp knife.

Nothing To See Here

Malcolm — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:21:17 +0000

It’s late in the day, and it’s been a long, full day: up early this morning to drive our son back to college, then an evening memorial service here in Wellfleet for a truly remarkable woman — Ellen Rafel, our next-door neighbor here on Hiram Hill, who lost her fight with cancer this spring. So for tonight I want to direct readers to an ongoing discussion at The Maverick Philosopher on what is perhaps the most intractable social and political dilemma of them all: abortion.

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The Lizard King

Malcolm — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:51:59 +0000

We’ve had a demanding schedule today: lolling and body-surfing at White Crest Beach, then the daily swim at Great Pond — and still to come this evening, our friend Larry Horowitz’s latest opening at the Cove Gallery, followed by dinner at Winslow’s Tavern. But a free moment having presented itself, I’ll take this opportunity to catch up a bit.

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Just Stopping By

Malcolm — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:41:28 +0000

A quiet, lazy midday having presented me with an opportunity to switch on my laptop, I thought I might, at the very least, offer those readers who’ve made the effort to stop by (and I think them for doing so) a tidbit or two.

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Hard Pressed

Malcolm — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:05:33 +0000

We are on holiday at our little seaside retreat, and the schedule is simply so demanding — sleeping, loafing on the beach, swimming in Wellfleet’s cool and limpid kettle ponds and the backshore’s bracing surf, sampling the area’s toothsome viands, strolling through town, visiting with friends, brushing up my Iron Wire out on the deck, playing music, and reading — that it’s hard to find the time for serious bloggery. There will be rainy days ahead, though, I’m sure.

Meanwhile, some amusing fluff: the periodic table of the elements, in an easy-to-use video format.

In Hot Water

Malcolm — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:07:30 +0000

There seems to be little doubt that the world’s oceans are in trouble. Here in Cape Cod, which was named for shoals of fish once so numerous that you could “walk across the water on their backs”, the fishing industry is all but gone, the result of near-total depletion of a fishery that once seemed limitless. It now appears, as we read here, that fertilizer runoff is leading to algal blooms that cause oxygen-deprived “dead zones”, and in this article we read about the “rise of slime”:

Areas that had featured intricate marine food webs with large animals are being converted into simplistic ecosystems dominated by microbes, toxic algal blooms, jellyfish and disease.

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Pat Answers

Malcolm — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:41:34 +0000

Pat Buchanan is a paleoconservative and an isolationist, albeit a thoughtful and articulate one. Here, presented without further comment (I’m too preoccupied at the moment with packing up and getting on the road), is an essay in which he describes recent events in Georgia from a perspective that is far more sympathetic to Russia than anything you are likely to read around here.

This Just In

Malcolm — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:17:00 +0000

A reader calls our attention to an item that is making the rounds today: in a startling breakthrough, researchers have found that when we drink alcohol, it can make others appear more attractive!

This astonishing result may even just be the tip of the iceberg: apparently booze can even make things just generally seem more beautiful.

Once the word gets out, of course, drinking alcohol might catch on to the point that it actually becomes a popular activity: why, I could even imagine that there might be some business opportunities here. If the idea really takes off, there might be money to be made manufacturing beverages that contain alcohol, or even selling the stuff to adventurous sorts on a per-drink basis.

As for me, I might have to stop drinking for a few hours to see if what they are saying is really true. I’ve been thinking the world was a beautiful place all along, but now I’m not so sure.

Rats In Vats

Malcolm — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:37:58 +0000

According to today’s Physorg.com newsletter, fascinating things are afoot at the University of Reading. Researchers are growing little biological brains made of rat neurons, and training them to control robots by way of a Bluetooth connection.

The scientists have in fact created several of these wee brains, which even seem to have their own personalities.

“It’s quite funny — you get differences between the brains,” said [professor Kevin] Warwick. “This one is a bit boisterous and active, while we know another is not going to do what we want it to.”

It is still early days, and the homegrown brainlets, however boisterous, are nonetheless capable so far of only the most rudimentary mentation, roughly equivalent to a record-company executive, Biblical literalist, or member of Congress. But the project shows great promise. Learn more here.

We Are Borg

Malcolm — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:04:30 +0000

I watched a little of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics the other day. It was an elaborate spectacle, and quite beautiful: an enormous troupe of drummers, identically clad, playing and dancing in perfect unison. There may well have been thousands of them; there were at least many hundreds.

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The Gauntlet Thrown

Malcolm — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:01:39 +0000

It’s quite clear now that Russia is intent on reconquering Georgia, and that their decision to do so is a brazen and flamboyant test of Western power and resolve. What is less clear is how we can respond. We have many good reasons to support Georgia, a staunchly pro-Western nation and participant in NATO’s Partnership for Peace. But we are not likely to be inclined to go to war with Russia over Georgia, and Russia, which still considers the country part of its empire, knows it. Its action calls to mind Germany’s annexation of the Rhineland in 1936.

This is a major event.

In today’s New York Times, William Kristol considers our options. Have a look here.

Dar al-Harb

Malcolm — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:47:08 +0000

Our reader Justin K., who, when he puts his ear to the ground, hears more than most, calls our attention to this item about the fighting in and about Ossetia, a conflict that is surely being savored with strategic appreciation by other interested parties in the caves and mountains to the east.

Do Not Go Gentle

Malcolm — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:19:27 +0000

I do hope to resume normal operations before too much longer, and to get back to the fascinating and important topics we’ve been looking at recently. A lingering ennui and lack of mental focus have hampered my attempts to get properly back in harness just yet; I look forward to the salutary effects of sea air, ample sleep, healthful exercise, absence from Midtown, and deliverance from enforced labor — all of which will commence this coming weekend, and last until after Labor Day.

Meanwhile: researcher Dr. Ana Maria Cuervo, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshive University, has been working on the mechanisms by which the body rids itself of accumulating protein wastes. This system of “protein clearance”, like just about everything else, works less well as we get older, and in turn the accumulation of toxins in our cells leads to many of the other indignities of advancing decrepitude.

Dr. Cuervo (with whose cousin Jose I have been all too familiar for a great many years, to the cumulative detriment of my own cellular resilience) has now succeeded in halting the decline of this system in the livers of mice, by introducing a suitable genetic modification. This is, I think, pretty big news, and I think she is starting with exactly the right organ.

Learn more here.

Georgia On My Mind

Malcolm — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:49:00 +0000

Things are getting hot in the former SSR. Our sources have suggested we follow along here, where readers will find further links as well.

No Accounting For Taste

Malcolm — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:52:43 +0000

An article in the New York Times a few weeks ago described the results of a Pew survey that inquired as to how the denizens of various nations felt about their governments and economies. Two authoritarian nations — China and Russia — did very well, while the Western democracies fared quite poorly.

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Breather

Malcolm — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:27:53 +0000

I am eager to pick up our discussion of meaning and morality where it left off a week or so ago. It paused on what I thought was a promising note: a comment by Peter Lupu that aptly summarized the tasks a naturalist account must accomplish.

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Face Value

Malcolm — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:55:05 +0000

The subset of our behavior, dispositions, reactions, and so forth that happens with our conscious awareness and endorsement is trivially small, and one of the areas where we respond most automatically and unconsciously is our interaction with others. We react subliminally to an enormous variety of cues: posture, gesture, tone of voice, choice of words, pupil dilation, odor, and many more. One of our most powerful automatic responses is the “read” we make of a person’s face, and now a pair of researchers from Princeton have done some quantitative research on just what is is we look for. Learn more here.