J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 28

August 3, 2020

Briefly Noted for 2020-08-03

Clinton Foundation: Administration Alumni Conversation with President Clinton and Secretary Rodney Slater https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SG-jcTuV5A: ��Administration Alumni Conversation with President Clinton and Secretary Rodney Slater��

St. Ignatius of Loyola: _Prayer for Generosity https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/prayer/traditional-catholic-prayers/saints-prayers/prayer-for-generosity-saint-ignatius-of-loyola/: ��Eternal Word, only begotten Son of God,/Teach me true generosity./Teach me to serve you as you deserve./To give without counting the cost,/To fight heedless of wounds,/To labor without seeking rest,/To sacrifice myself without thought of any reward/Save the knowledge that I have done your will./Amen��

DOL: News Release: Embargoed Until 8:30 A.M. (Eastern) Thursday, July 30, 2020: Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf��

FRED: Weekly Unemployment Insurance: Initial Claims https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA#0��

FRED: Weekly Unemployment Insurance: Continued Claims https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCSA��

Lois Parshley: _Covid-19 in Children: A Clearer Picture of Infection & Transmission Risk_ https://www.vox.com/21352597/covid-19-children-infection-transmission-new-studies: ��Six days in, a teenage staff member... tested positive for Covid-19. Eventually, 49 percent of the campers... 19 percent of trainees and 56 percent of staff were infected.... 26 percent of the cases reported no symptoms. A CDC report on the Georgia camp joins a rapidly growing body of desperately needed evidence of how the coronavirus impacts children and young people��

Hoisted from the Archives from 11 Years Ago: Notes: Vernor Vinge's 'A Deepness in the Sky' https://www.bradford-delong.com/2014/04/hoisted-from-the-archives-from-11-years-ago-notes-vernor-vinges-a-deepness-in-the-sky.html: ��[Spoilers]. In Vernor Vinge (1999), A Deepness in the Sky (New York: Tor: 0812536355). On pp. 699-700, a brief paragraph completely reverses your understanding of the progress of the book's main plot��

TV Tropes: Books on Trope https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BooksOnTrope��

W.E.B. DuBois: The Comet https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/story-dubois-comet.pdf��

W.E.B. DuBois: Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/book-dubois-darkwater.pdf��

Jack Williamson: The Legion of Space https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/williamson-legion-of-space-i.pdf https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/williamson-legion-of-space-ii.pdf https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/williamson-legion-of-space-iii.pdf

Party Cards: 5th International; Burkean Conservative; Social Democrat; Neoliberal; Market Socialist https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/%23delong-5th-international-party-card.pdf��https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/%23delong-burkean-party-card.pdf https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/%23delong-social-democrat-party-card.pdf https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/%23delong-neoliberal-party-card.pdf https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/%23delong-market-socialist-party-card.pdf

Wikipedia: Iron Crown of Lombardy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Crown_of_Lombardy��

Randall Munroe: xkcd: Blagofaire https://xkcd.com/239/�� Explain xkcd https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/239:_Blagofaire...

Randall Munroe: xkcd: 1337: Part 5 https://xkcd.com/345/�� Explain xkcd https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/345:_Period_Speech...

Randall Munroe: xkcd: Period Speech https://xkcd.com/771/�� Explain xkcd https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/345:_1337:_Part_5...

Randall Munroe: Cory Doctorow��xkcd https://blog.xkcd.com/2007/03/23/cory-doctorow/��

Charcuterie Montrealaise Augie: Menu https://augiesmontrealdeli.com/menu/��

Plus:

@qpheevr: 'Gentle readers of all genders https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1269637114297298946.html.... I crave your indulgence. I��d like to quote a single sentence from someone who is now one of our least favourite fantasy authors, in order to illustrate a scientific fact about language. Here��s the sentence: ��Harry, your eyesight really is awful,�� said Hermione, as she put on glasses��.... The pronoun ��she�� refers anaphorically to Hermione Granger. At this juncture in the narrative... Hermione has just drunk a potion that makes her physical form identical to that of Harry Potter.... Pronouns reflect gender, not reproductive organs.... Hermione is still a girl, even though she��s been ��turned into�� a (specific) boy, because her identity hasn��t changed, and being a girl is part of her identity, not a property of her physical form...

.#brieflynoted #noted #2020-08-02

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Published on August 03, 2020 20:36

Heavy But Inconclusive Skirmishing Between the Military Camps at Ilerda: Livelogging the Fall of the Roman Republic

spain to syria

A strongly unconventional high politician knows that his adversaries will try and convict him of crimes after he lays down his military command, so he lets the dice fly. His first probing military moves demonstrate his position is very strong. From a central position in control of the heart of the empire, he moves first to deal with the Pompeian forces in Spain to his west. He has his men build a fortified camp close enough to the Pompeian base that the soldiers will inevitably start to fraternize:

Gaius Julius Caesar: The Civil War: 'Heavy But Inconclusive Skirmishing Between the Military Camps: Between the town of Ilerda and the neighbouring hill where Petreius and Afranius had their camp there was a level space about five hundred yards wide and almost in the middle of this there was a small hillock. Caesar was certain that if he seized and fortified this eminence he would cut off the enemy from the town and the bridge and all the supplies which they had collected together in the town...

...With this intention, he led three legions out of camp and drew them up for battle in a suitable position; then he ordered the front line of one of the legions to advance at the double and seize the hillock. Observing this, Afranius hastily sent the cohorts guarding the front of his camp round by a shorter route to capture the position. There was fighting, but since Afranius��s men had reached the hillock first our men were beaten off and, as enemy reinforcements came up, they were forced to turn and go back to the legionary standards.

The method of fighting employed by the Pompeian troops was simply to charge violently at the outset and seize a position; they had no particular concern about keeping their ranks but fought dispersedly; if they were being worsted, they did not think shame to retreat and give ground. They had grown accustomed to this sort of fighting with the Lusitanians and other barbarian tribes��naturally, since it usually happens that troops are influenced by the habits of the natives of any region in which they have spent a long period of service.

This upset our troops, who were not at all accustomed to this sort of fighting; when they saw individuals running forward, they thought that they were going to be surrounded on the flanks, where they were exposed; and they believed that they ought to keep in their lines and should never leave the standards nor allow themselves to be dislodged from a position they had taken up, except for some very serious reason. The result was that the advance-guard were thrown into confusion and the legion posted on that wing did not stand its ground but retreated to higher ground near-by. Panic spread through almost the whole force.

Seeing this unexpected and unusual occurrence, Caesar began urging his men on, and led up the Ninth legion to support the others; he beat back the enemy, who were boldly rushing in hot pursuit of our men, and forced them in their turn to retreat and withdraw to Ilerda, under whose walls they halted. However, the men of the Ninth were carried away by their eagerness to repair the setback and, rashly pursuing the enemy��s flight too far, they found themselves in a dangerous position at the foot of the hill on which Ilerda stands.

When they tried to withdraw from this position, the enemy once again began pressing on them from above. They were on a slope, falling away steeply on both sides; the ground was just broad enough to admit three cohorts drawn up abreast; and no reinforcements could be sent up on the flanks, nor could the cavalry bring any help if they got into difficulties. Towards the town, the ground descended in a slight slope for about seven hundred yards. In this place our men attempted to rally since, carried on by their zeal, they had thoughtlessly advanced thus far; they had to fight in a position that was disadvantageous both because of its narrow confines and because it was right up against the base of the hill, so that no missile could fail to find a mark. None the less, they fought with courage and endurance, sustaining innumerable wounds.

The enemy��s numbers were increasing, and fresh cohorts were constantly being sent up from the camp through the town, so that their men could be replaced as they grew tired. Caesar was forced to do the same and send up fresh cohorts so that he could draw the weary men out. After five hours of continuous fighting, our men had used up all their missiles, and their inferiority in numbers was beginning to tell on them. They drew their swords and, charging up hill against the enemy cohorts, they cut down, a few and forced the rest to give ground.

The enemy retreated right up to the walls, and some in their panic were driven right into the town, so that the way was left open for our men to withdraw. In addition, our cavalry, although they had been posted low down on the slopes, struggled up valiantly at either side to the top, and rode up and down between the two armies giving cover for our men to retire. And so the day��s fighting was a blend of successes and reverses.

About seventy of our men fell in the first encounter, and among them was Quintus Fulginius, leading centurion of the Fourteenth legion, who had risen to this position from the ranks because of his outstanding valour; more than six hundred were wounded. Among Afranius��s troops, over two hundred ordinary soldiers were stands. When they tried to withdraw from this position, the enemy once again began pressing on them from above. They were on a slope, falling away steeply on both sides; the ground was just broad enough to admit three cohorts drawn up abreast; and no reinforcements could be sent up on the flanks, nor could the cavalry bring any help if they got into difficulties. Towards the town, the ground descended in a slight slope for about seven hundred yards. In this place our men attempted to rally since, carried on by their zeal, they had thoughtlessly advanced thus far; they had to fight in a position that was disadvantageous both because of its narrow confines and because it was right up against the base of the hill, so that no missile could fail to find a mark. None the less, they fought with courage and endurance, sustaining innumerable wounds. The enemy��s numbers were increasing, and fresh cohorts were constantly being sent up from the camp through the town, so that their men could be replaced as they grew tired. Caesar was forced to do the same and send up fresh cohorts so that he could draw the weary men out. 46. After five hours of continuous fighting, our men had used up all their missiles, and their inferiority in numbers was beginning to tell on them. They drew their swords and, charging up hill against the enemy cohorts, they cut down, a few and forced the rest to give ground. The enemy retreated right up to the walls, and some in their panic were driven right into the town, so that the way was left open for our men to withdraw. In addition, our cavalry, although they had been posted low down on the slopes, struggled up valiantly at either side to the top, and rode up and down between the two armies giving cover for our men to retire. And so the day��s fighting was a blend of successes and reverses. About seventy of our men fell in the first encounter, and among them was Quintus Fulginius, leading centurion19 of the Fourteenth legion, who had risen to this position from the ranks because of his outstanding valour; more than six hundred were wounded. Among Afranius��s troops, over two hundred ordinary soldiers were killed and five centurions, including Titus Caecilius, a senior centurion.

However, each side was of the general opinion that it had come off better in that day��s fighting.

Afranius��s men claimed the victory because, although they were generally acknowledged to be inferior, they had none the less kept fighting at close quarters for so long and withstood the onslaught of our men, and they had initially captured the hillock which had been the object of contention and had forced our men to give way at the first encounter.

Our men thought they themselves had won because, although they were on unfavourable ground and at a disadvantage in numbers, they had sustained the battle for five hours; because they had charged up-hill with drawn swords; and because they had forced their adversaries, who were actually on higher ground, to withdraw and had compelled them to take refuge in the town...

Caesar, Julius. The Civil War (Classics) (p. 57). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

.#history #livebloggingthefalloftheromanrepublic #politics #2020-08-03

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Foreshadowing from Gaius Sallustius Crispus https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/foreshadowing-from-gaius-sallustius-crispus-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: A strongly unconventional high politician facing the expiration of his term of office. He knows that there is a very high probability that, because of his actions in office, his adversaries will try and convict him of crimes after he lays down his power. Let us start with some foreshadowing from Gaius Sallustius Crispus...

Pompey's Strategy and Domitius' Stand https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/burns-pompeys-strategy-and-domitius-standnoted.html: In his The Civil War Gaius Julius Caesar presented "just the facts" in a way that made Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus look like a cowardly and incompetent idiot. The attractive interpretation is that Ahenobarbus was just trying to do the job of defeating Caesar, but had failed to recognize that Pompey was not his ally. Pompey, rather, was somebody whose first goal was to gain the submission of Ahenobarbus and the other Optimates, and only after that submission was gained would he even think about fighting Caesar. Still an idiot, but not an incompetent or a cowardly one: Alfred Burns https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/article-burns-pompey.pdf: ��In early 49, the alliance confronting Caesar consisted of the old republican senate families who under the leadership of [Lucius] Domitius [Ahenonbarbus] tried to maintain the traditional institutions and of Pompey who clung to his own extra-legal position of semi-dictatorial power. Both parties to the alliance were as mutually distrustful as they were dependent on each other��

Marcus Tullius Cicero's Take on the First Three Months of -49 https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/marcus-tullius-ciceros-take-on-the-first-three-months-of-49-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: ��We have a primary source for the start of the Roman Civil Warin addition to Gaius Julius Caesar's deceptively powerful plain-spoken "just the facts" narrative in his Commentaries on the Civl War��a narrative that is also a clever and sophisticated lawyer's brief. Our one other primary source: Marcus Tullius Cicero's letters to his BFF Titus Pomponius Atticus. Caesar, in his The Civil War, makes himself out to be reasonable, rational, decisive, and clever. Cicero, in his Letters to Atticus is a contrast. He lets his hair down. He is writing to someone he trusts to love him without reservation. He is completely unconcerned with making himself appear to be less flawed than he appears. And the impression he leaves is absolutely dreadful: he makes himself out to be erratic, emotional, dithering, and idiotic��

Reflecting on the First Three Months of -49 https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/reflecting-on-the-first-three-months-of-49-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: ��The key question for the first three months of the year -49 is: what did the factions anticipate would happen in that year? The Optimates seemed to think that they had Caesar cornered: Either he surrendered... and then submitted to trial... or he... was quickly crushed.... Cicero appears to have believed that either the Senate surrendered to Ceesar and let him... put Cataline��s conspiracy into action but legally... and then ruled With the support of his electoral coalition of mountebank ex-debtors and ex-veterans to whom he had given land; or... Pompey... crushed Cesar militarily... follow[ed] up with proscriptions and executions after which he would rule as a second Sulla. What is not at all clear to me is what Pompey thought would happen.... My guess, reading between the lines of Plutarch, is that Pompey found himself allied with the Senate in January-February of -49, but not in command of anything��as shown by Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus��s behavior at Corfinium, attempting to trap Pompey into fighting alongside him in central Italy. And so he retreated to Greece, where he was in undisputed command��

Caesar Offers a Compromise Solution (or So Caesar Says) https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/caesar-offers-a-compromise-solution-or-so-caesar-says-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: The Beginning of Caesar's Commentaries on the Civil War, in which Caesar says that he had proposed a compromise solution to the political crisis.... 'The dispatch from Gaius Caesar was delivered to the consuls; but it was only after strong representations from the tribunes that they gave their grudging permission for it to be read in the Senate. Even then, they would not consent to a debate on its contents, but initiated instead a general debate on ��matters of State'.... Scipio spoke... Pompey, he said, intended to stand by his duty to the State, if the Senate would support him; but if they hesitated and showed weakness, then, should they want his help later, they would ask for it in vain��

The Optimate Faction Rejects Caesar's Compromise https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/the-optimate-faction-rejects-caesars-compromise-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: Caesar narrates the reasons that the leaders of the Optimate faction��Cato, Lentulus, Scipio, and Pompey��worked hard to set the stage for war, and how the majority of Senators in the timorous middle were robbed of the power to decide freely, and driven reluctantly to vote for Scipio's motion to rob Caesar of his protections against arrest and trial��

The Optimate Faction Arms for War, & Illegally Usurps Provincial Imperium https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/the-optimate-faction-arms-for-war-illegally-usurps-provincial-imperium-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: Caesar narrates: Whatever norms he may or may not have broken during his consulate��in order to wrest land from the hands of corrupt plutocrats and grant it to the deserving��he says, the Optimate faction does much worse. In the first seven days of the year of the consulate of Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus and Gaius Claudius Marcellus Maior, the Optimate faction goes beyond norm-breaking into outright illegality. And to that they add impiety. They illegaly seize power, as they grant themselves proconsular and propraetorial imperium over the provinces, without the constitutionally-required popular confirmation of imperium. They impiously violate the separation of church and state by seizing temple funds for their own use. They thus incur the wrath of the gods. And they incur the enmity of all who believe in constitutional balance, as opposed to armed plutocratic dictatorship��

Caesar Presents His Case to the 13th Legion, & Negotiates Unsucccessfully with Pompey https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/caesar-presents-his-case-to-the-13th-legion-negotiates-unsucccessfully-with-pompey-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-rep.html: Caesar presents his case to the 13th Legion, and wins its enthusiastic support. Caesar and Pompey negotiate, but Pompey refuses to give up his dominant position. He holds imperium over Spain and commanding the ten Spanish garrison legions, while also residing in the suburbs of Rome and thus dominating the discussions of the Senate. Pompey refuses to commit to setting a date for his departure for Spain��

The Optimate Faction Panics and Abandons Rome https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/the-optimate-faction-panics-and-abandons-rome-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: Caesar narrates: The Optimate faction panics at a rumor of Caesar's approach, and flees from Rome with the looted Treasury reserve. The towns of Italy support Caesar. Even the town of Cingulum rallied to Caesar, even though its founder Titus Labienus, Caesar's second-in-command in the Gallic War, had deserted Caesar for his earlier allegiance to Pompey. And Pompey's attempts to reinforce his army by recruiting veterans who had obtained their farms through Caesar's legislative initiatives did not go well...

Caesar Besieges Domitius in Corfinum https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/caesar-besieges-domitius-in-corfinum-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus began raising troops, and by the start of February -49 had 13000 soldiers in the town of Corfinum. On 09 Feb -49 Domitius decided to stand at Corfinum rather than retreat to the south of Italy. So he wrote to Pompey... urged that the Optimate faction join its military forces together at Corfinum to outnumber and fight Caesar. Pompey disagreed. Why did he decide that he, Pompey, "cannot risk the whole war in a single battle, especially under the circumstances"?��

Caesar Captures Corfinum https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/caesar-captures-corfinum-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus's deception that Pompey is coming to the Optimates' aid in Corfinum falls apart, Ahenobarbus tries to flee, Lentulus Spinther begs for his life, Caesar grants clemency to all, and adds the three Optimate and Pompeian legions to his army. Before Corfinum Caesar had had two legions in Italy to the Optimate and Pompeian six. After Corfinum (with the arrival of Legio VIII plus new recruits) Caesar has seven legions in Italy to the Pompeian three. It is now 21 Feb -49: Gaius Julius Caesar: The Civil War: 'Domitius��s looks, however, belied his words; indeed, his whole demeanour was much more anxious and fearful than usual. When to this was added the fact that, contrary to his usual custom, he spent a lot of time talking to his friends in private, making plans, while avoiding a meeting of the officers or an assembly of the troops, then the truth could not be concealed or misrepresented for long��

Pompey Refuses to Negotiate & Flees to Greece https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/pompey-refuses-to-negotiate-flees-to-greece-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: Pompey flees to the southern Adriatic port of Brundisium. Caesar catches up to him and begs him to negotiate. Pompey refuses and flees to Greece. Caesar decides not to follow, but to turn and first defeat the Pompeian armies in Spain. It is now 18 Mar -49...

Cementing Caesarian Control of the Center of the Empire: Late March -49 https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/cementing-caesarian-control-of-the-center-of-the-empire-late-march-49-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: Caesar, now that the Pompeians and the High Optimates have fled, offers to share power with the dysfunctional Senate but, filibustered and vetoed by Optimate tribunes, he consolidates his hold on the center of the empire and heads for Spain��

Treachery at Massilia: April-May -49 https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/07/treachery-at-massilia-april-may-49-liveblogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: The Massiliotes profess neutrality��until Pompeian reinforcements arrive, and then they go back on their word. Pompeians to whom Caesar had shown clemency at Corfinium have again taken up weapons against him: Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus at Massilia, and Vibullius Rufus to command the Pompeian legions in Spain��

Rendezvous in Spain, at Ilerda https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/08/rendezvous-in-spain-at-ilerda-livelogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-repubvlic.html: Caesar's first probing military moves demonstrate his position is very strong. From a central position in control of the heart of the empire, he moves first to deal with the Pompeian forces in Spain to his west: 'The First Spanish Campaign: Fabius��s orders were to make haste to seize the passes over the Pyrenees, which at that time were being held by the troops of Pompey��s lieutenant, Lucius Afranius. He ordered the remaining legions, which were wintering farther away, to follow on. Fabius, obeying orders, lost no time in dislodging the guards from the pass and proceeded by forced marches to encounter Afranius��s army��

Caesar Begins His First Spanish Campaign https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/08/caesar-begins-his-first-spanish-campaign-livelogging-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic.html: A strongly unconventional high politician knows that his adversaries will try and convict him of crimes after he lays down his military command, so he lets the dice fly. His first probing military moves demonstrate his position is very strong. From a central position in control of the heart of the empire, he moves first to deal with the Pompeian forces in Spain to his west. He has his men build a fortified camp close enough to the Pompeian base that the soldiers will inevitably start to fraternize��

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Published on August 03, 2020 11:37

DuBois: The Comet��Noted

Worth reading. What we call ��Lovecraftian�� but in a profoundly anti-Lovecraftian way: the real horror comes not from alien species, or the dead uncaring stars, or death from the comet, but from white men��northern white men��doing what white men naturally did�� do:

W.E.B. DuBois: The Comet http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15210/15210-h/15210-h.htm#Chapter_X: ��He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching the human river that swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him save in a way that stung. He was outside the world��"nothing!" as he said bitterly. Bits of the words of the walkers came to him. "The comet?" "The comet��" Everybody was talking of it. Even the president, as he entered, smiled patronizingly at him, and asked: "Well, Jim, are you scared?" "No," said the messenger shortly...

..."I thought we'd journeyed through the comet's tail once," broke in the junior clerk affably. "Oh, that was Halley's," said the president; "this is a new comet, quite a stranger, they say��wonderful, wonderful! I saw it last night. Oh, by the way, Jim," turning again to the messenger, "I want you to go down into the lower vaults today." The messenger followed the president silently. Of course, they wanted him to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dangerous for more valuable men.

He smiled grimly and listened. "Everything of value has been moved out since the water began to seep in," said the president; "but we miss two volumes of old records. Suppose you nose around down there,��it isn't very pleasant, I suppose." "Not very," said the messenger, as he walked out.

"Well, Jim, the tail of the new comet hits us at noon this time," said the vault clerk, as he passed over the keys; but the messenger passed silently down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; down to the dark basement beneath; down into the blackness and silence beneath that lowest cavern. Here with his dark lantern he groped in the bowels of the earth, under the world.

He drew a long breath as he threw back the last great iron door and stepped into the fetid slime within. Here at last was peace, and he groped moodily forward. A great rat leaped past him and cobwebs crept across his face. He felt carefully around the room, shelf by shelf, on the muddied floor, and in crevice and corner. Nothing. Then he went back to the far end, where somehow the wall felt different. He sounded and pushed and pried. Nothing. He started away. Then something brought him back.

He was sounding and working again when suddenly the whole black wall swung as on mighty hinges, and blackness yawned beyond. He peered in; it was evidently a secret vault��some hiding place of the old bank unknown in newer times. He entered hesitatingly. It was a long, narrow room with shelves, and at the far end, an old iron chest.

On a high shelf lay the two missing volumes of records, and others. He put them carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure��and he saw the dull sheen of gold!

"Boom!"

A low, grinding, reverberating crash struck upon his ear. He started up and looked about. All was black and still. He groped for his light and swung it about him. Then he knew! The great stone door had swung to. He forgot the gold and looked death squarely in the face.

Then with a sigh he went methodically to work. The cold sweat stood on his forehead; but he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked until after what seemed endless hours his hand struck a cold bit of metal and the great door swung again harshly on its hinges, and then, striking against something soft and heavy, stopped. He had just room to squeeze through. There lay the body of the vault clerk, cold and stiff.

He stared at it, and then felt sick and nauseated. The air seemed unaccountably foul, with a strong, peculiar odor. He stepped forward, clutched at the air, and fell fainting across the corpse.

He awoke with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and groped up the stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman sat as if asleep, with the gate swinging free. With one glance at him the messenger hurried up to the sub-vault. In vain he called to the guards. His voice echoed and re-echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement he rushed. Here another guard lay prostrate on his face, cold and still.

A fear arose in the messenger's heart. He dashed up to the cellar floor, up into the bank. The stillness of death lay everywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and stretched the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced about. He was not a man easily moved; but the sight was appalling! "Robbery and murder," he whispered slowly to himself as he saw the twisted, oozing mouth of the president where he lay half-buried on his desk.

Then a new thought seized him: If they found him here alone��with all this money and all these dead men��what would his life be worth? He glanced about, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked behind. Quietly he turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street.

How silent the street was! Not a soul was stirring, and yet it was high-noon��Wall Street? Broadway? He glanced almost wildly up and down, then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horror froze in his limbs. With a choking cry of utter fright he lunged, leaned giddily against the cold building, and stared helplessly at the sight.

In the great stone doorway a hundred men and women and children lay crushed and twisted and jammed, forced into that great, gaping doorway like refuse in a can��as if in one wild, frantic rush to safety, they had rushed and ground themselves to death. Slowly the messenger crept along the walls, wetting his parched mouth and trying to comprehend, stilling the tremor in his limbs and the rising terror in his heart. He met a business man, silk-hatted and frock-coated, who had crept, too, along that smooth wall and stood now stone dead with wonder written on his lips.

The messenger turned his eyes hastily away and sought the curb. A woman leaned wearily against the signpost, her head bowed motionless on her lace and silken bosom. Before her stood a street car, silent, and within��but the messenger but glanced and hurried on. A grimy newsboy sat in the gutter with the "last edition" in his uplifted hand: "Danger!" screamed its black headlines. "Warnings wired around the world. The Comet's tail sweeps past us at noon. Deadly gases expected. Close doors and windows. Seek the cellar." The messenger read and staggered on.

Far out from a window above, a girl lay with gasping face and sleevelets on her arms. On a store step sat a little, sweet-faced girl looking upward toward the skies, and in the carriage by her lay��but the messenger looked no longer. The cords gave way��the terror burst in his veins, and with one great, gasping cry he sprang desperately forward and ran,��ran as only the frightened run, shrieking and fighting the air until with one last wail of pain he sank on the grass of Madison Square and lay prone and still.

When he rose, he gave no glance at the still and silent forms on the benches, but, going to a fountain, bathed his face; then hiding himself in a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly gripped himself and thought the thing through: The comet had swept the earth and this was the end. Was everybody dead? He must search and see.

He knew that he must steady himself and keep calm, or he would go insane. First he must go to a restaurant. He walked up Fifth Avenue to a famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous, ghost-haunted halls. He beat back the nausea, and, seizing a tray from dead hands, hurried into the street and ate ravenously, hiding to keep out the sights.

"Yesterday, they would not have served me," he whispered, as he forced the food down.

Then he started up the street,��looking, peering, telephoning, ringing alarms; silent, silent all. Was nobody��nobody��he dared not think the thought and hurried on.

Suddenly he stopped still. He had forgotten. My God! How could he have forgotten? He must rush to the subway��then he almost laughed. No��a car; if he could find a Ford. He saw one. Gently he lifted off its burden, and took his place on the seat. He tested the throttle. There was gas. He glided off, shivering, and drove up the street. Everywhere stood, leaned, lounged, and lay the dead, in grim and awful silence. On he ran past an automobile, wrecked and overturned; past another, filled with a gay party whose smiles yet lingered on their death-struck lips; on past crowds and groups of cars, pausing by dead policemen; at 42nd Street he had to detour to Park Avenue to avoid the dead congestion. He came back on Fifth Avenue at 57th and flew past the Plaza and by the park with its hushed babies and silent throng, until as he was rushing past 72nd Street he heard a sharp cry, and saw a living form leaning wildly out an upper window. He gasped. The human voice sounded in his ears like the voice of God.

"Hello��hello��help, in God's name!" wailed the woman. "There's a dead girl in here and a man and��and see yonder dead men lying in the street and dead horses��for the love of God go and bring the officers��" And the words trailed off into hysterical tears.

He wheeled the car in a sudden circle, running over the still body of a child and leaping on the curb. Then he rushed up the steps and tried the door and rang violently. There was a long pause, but at last the heavy door swung back. They stared a moment in silence. She had not noticed before that he was a Negro. He had not thought of her as white.

She was a woman of perhaps twenty-five��rarely beautiful and richly gowned, with darkly-golden hair, and jewels. Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, she would scarcely have looked at him twice. He would have been dirt beneath her silken feet. She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men she had pictured as coming to her rescue she had not dreamed of one like him. Not that he was not human, but he dwelt in a world so far from hers, so infinitely far, that he seldom even entered her thought.

Yet as she looked at him curiously he seemed quite commonplace and usual. He was a tall, dark workingman of the better class, with a sensitive face trained to stolidity and a poor man's clothes and hands. His face was soft and slow and his manner at once cold and nervous, like fires long banked, but not out.

So a moment each paused and gauged the other; then the thought of the dead world without rushed in and they started toward each other.

"What has happened?" she cried. "Tell me! Nothing stirs. All is silence! I see the dead strewn before my window as winnowed by the breath of God,��and see��" She dragged him through great, silken hangings to where, beneath the sheen of mahogany and silver, a little French maid lay stretched in quiet, everlasting sleep, and near her a butler lay prone in his livery.

The tears streamed down the woman's cheeks and she clung to his arm until the perfume of her breath swept his face and he felt the tremors racing through her body.

"I had been shut up in my dark room developing pictures of the comet which I took last night; when I came out��I saw the dead!

"What has happened?" she cried again.

He answered slowly: "Something��comet or devil��swept across the earth this morning and��many are dead!"

"Many? Very many?"

"I have searched and I have seen no other living soul but you."

She gasped and they stared at each other. "My��father!" she whispered.

"Where is he?"

"He started for the office."

"Where is it?"

"In the Metropolitan Tower."

"Leave a note for him here and come." Then he stopped. "No," he said firmly��"first, we must go��to Harlem."

"Harlem!" she cried. Then she understood. She tapped her foot at first impatiently. She looked back and shuddered. Then she came resolutely down the steps. "There's a swifter car in the garage in the court," she said.

"I don't know how to drive it," he said.

"I do," she answered.

In ten minutes they were flying to Harlem on the wind. The Stutz rose and raced like an airplane. They took the turn at 110th Street on two wheels and slipped with a shriek into 135th.

He was gone but a moment. Then he returned, and his face was gray. She did not look, but said:

"You have lost��somebody?"

"I have lost��everybody," he said, simply��"unless��"

He ran back and was gone several minutes��hours they seemed to her.

"Everybody," he said, and he walked slowly back with something film-like in his hand which he stuffed into his pocket.

"I'm afraid I was selfish," he said. But already the car was moving toward the park among the dark and lined dead of Harlem��the brown, still faces, the knotted hands, the homely garments, and the silence��the wild and haunting silence. Out of the park, and down Fifth Avenue they whirled. In and out among the dead they slipped and quivered, needing no sound of bell or horn, until the great, square Metropolitan Tower hove in sight. Gently he laid the dead elevator boy aside; the car shot upward. The door of the office stood open. On the threshold lay the stenographer, and, staring at her, sat the dead clerk. The inner office was empty, but a note lay on the desk, folded and addressed but unsent:

Dear Daughter:

I've gone for a hundred mile spin in Fred's new Mercedes. Shall not be back before dinner. I'll bring Fred with me.

J.B.H.

"Come," she cried nervously. "We must search the city."

Up and down, over and across, back again��on went that ghostly search. Everywhere was silence and death��death and silence! They hunted from Madison Square to Spuyten Duyvel; they rushed across the Williamsburg Bridge; they swept over Brooklyn; from the Battery and Morningside Heights they scanned the river. Silence, silence everywhere, and no human sign. Haggard and bedraggled they puffed a third time slowly down Broadway, under the broiling sun, and at last stopped. He sniffed the air. An odor��a smell��and with the shifting breeze a sickening stench filled their nostrils and brought its awful warning. The girl settled back helplessly in her seat.

"What can we do?" she cried.

It was his turn now to take the lead, and he did it quickly. "The long distance telephone��the telegraph and the cable��night rockets and then��flight!"

She looked at him now with strength and confidence. He did not look like men, as she had always pictured men; but he acted like one and she was content. In fifteen minutes they were at the central telephone exchange. As they came to the door he stepped quickly before her and pressed her gently back as he closed it. She heard him moving to and fro, and knew his burdens��the poor, little burdens he bore.

When she entered, he was alone in the room. The grim switchboard flashed its metallic face in cryptic, sphinx-like immobility. She seated herself on a stool and donned the bright earpiece. She looked at the mouthpiece. She had never looked at one so closely before. It was wide and black, pimpled with usage; inert; dead; almost sarcastic in its unfeeling curves. It looked��she beat back the thought��but it looked,��it persisted in looking like��she turned her head and found herself alone. One moment she was terrified; then she thanked him silently for his delicacy and turned resolutely, with a quick intaking of breath.

"Hello!" she called in low tones. She was calling to the world. The world must answer. Would the world answer? Was the world��

Silence!

She had spoken too low.

"Hello!" she cried, full-voiced.

She listened. Silence! Her heart beat quickly. She cried in clear, distinct, loud tones: "Hello��hello��hello!"

What was that whirring? Surely��no��was it the click of a receiver?

She bent close, she moved the pegs in the holes, and called and called, until her voice rose almost to a shriek, and her heart hammered. It was as if she had heard the last flicker of creation, and the evil was silence. Her voice dropped to a sob. She sat stupidly staring into the black and sarcastic mouthpiece, and the thought came again. Hope lay dead within her.

Yes, the cable and the rockets remained; but the world��she could not frame the thought or say the word. It was too mighty��too terrible! She turned toward the door with a new fear in her heart. For the first time she seemed to realize that she was alone in the world with a stranger, with something more than a stranger,��with a man alien in blood and culture��unknown, perhaps unknowable. It was awful! She must escape��she must fly; he must not see her again. Who knew what awful thoughts��

She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young, smooth limbs��listened, and glided into a sidehall. A moment she shrank back: the hall lay filled with dead women; then she leaped to the door and tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. He was standing at the top of the alley,��silhouetted, tall and black, motionless. Was he looking at her or away? She did not know��she did not care. She simply leaped and ran��ran until she found herself alone amid the dead and the tall ramparts of towering buildings.

She stopped. She was alone. Alone! Alone on the streets��alone in the city��perhaps alone in the world! There crept in upon her the sense of deception��of creeping hands behind her back��of silent, moving things she could not see,��of voices hushed in fearsome conspiracy. She looked behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, stretched to scream at the barest touch.

She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a child, until she found that narrow alley again and the dark, silent figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested; then she walked silently toward him, looked at him timidly; but he said nothing as he handed her into the car. Her voice caught as she whispered: "Not��that."

And he answered slowly: "No��not that!"

They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the wheel and sobbed, with great, dry, quivering sobs, as they flew toward the cable office on the east side, leaving the world of wealth and prosperity for the world of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. It clothed itself in every ghastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and suffering. It lay wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in its dread and awful silence was it like to death everywhere.

Yet as the two, flying and alone, looked upon the horror of the world, slowly, gradually, the sense of all-enveloping death deserted them. They seemed to move in a world silent and asleep,��not dead. They moved in quiet reverence, lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had, at last, found peace. They moved in some solemn, world-wide Friedhof, above which some mighty arm had waved its magic wand. All nature slept until��until, and quick with the same startling thought, they looked into each other's eyes��he, ashen, and she, crimson, with unspoken thought. To both, the vision of a mighty beauty��of vast, unspoken things, swelled in their souls; but they put it away.

Great, dark coils of wire came up from the earth and down from the sun and entered this low lair of witchery. The gathered lightnings of the world centered here, binding with beams of light the ends of the earth. The doors gaped on the gloom within. He paused on the threshold.

"Do you know the code?" she asked.

"I know the call for help��we used it formerly at the bank."

She hardly heard. She heard the lapping of the waters far below,��the dark and restless waters��the cold and luring waters, as they called. He stepped within. Slowly she walked to the wall, where the water called below, and stood and waited. Long she waited, and he did not come.

Then with a start she saw him, too, standing beside the black waters. Slowly he removed his coat and stood there silently. She walked quickly to him and laid her hand on his arm. He did not start or look. The waters lapped on in luring, deadly rhythm. He pointed down to the waters, and said quietly: "The world lies beneath the waters now��may I go?"

She looked into his stricken, tired face, and a great pity surged within her heart. She answered in a voice clear and calm, "No."

Upward they turned toward life again, and he seized the wheel. The world was darkening to twilight, and a great, gray pall was falling mercifully and gently on the sleeping dead. The ghastly glare of reality seemed replaced with the dream of some vast romance. The girl lay silently back, as the motor whizzed along, and looked half-consciously for the elf-queen to wave life into this dead world again. She forgot to wonder at the quickness with which he had learned to drive her car. It seemed natural. And then as they whirled and swung into Madison Square and at the door of the Metropolitan Tower she gave a low cry, and her eyes were great! Perhaps she had seen the elf-queen?

The man led her to the elevator of the tower and deftly they ascended. In her father's office they gathered rugs and chairs, and he wrote a note and laid it on the desk; then they ascended to the roof and he made her comfortable. For a while she rested and sank to dreamy somnolence, watching the worlds above and wondering. Below lay the dark shadows of the city and afar was the shining of the sea.

She glanced at him timidly as he set food before her and took a shawl and wound her in it, touching her reverently, yet tenderly. She looked up at him with thankfulness in her eyes, eating what he served. He watched the city. She watched him. He seemed very human,��very near now.

"Have you had to work hard?" she asked softly.

"Always," he said.

"I have always been idle," she said. "I was rich."

"I was poor," he almost echoed.

"The rich and the poor are met together," she began, and he finished:

"The Lord is the Maker of them all."

"Yes," she said slowly; "and how foolish our human distinctions seem��now," looking down to the great dead city stretched below, swimming in unlightened shadows.

"Yes��I was not��human, yesterday," he said.

She looked at him. "And your people were not my people," she said; "but today��" She paused. He was a man,��no more; but he was in some larger sense a gentleman,��sensitive, kindly, chivalrous, everything save his hands and��his face. Yet yesterday��

"Death, the leveler!" he muttered.

"And the revealer," she whispered gently, rising to her feet with great eyes. He turned away, and after fumbling a moment sent a rocket into the darkening air. It arose, shrieked, and flew up, a slim path of light, and scattering its stars abroad, dropped on the city below. She scarcely noticed it. A vision of the world had risen before her. Slowly the mighty prophecy of her destiny overwhelmed her. Above the dead past hovered the Angel of Annunciation.

She was no mere woman. She was neither high nor low, white nor black, rich nor poor. She was primal woman; mighty mother of all men to come and Bride of Life. She looked upon the man beside her and forgot all else but his manhood, his strong, vigorous manhood��his sorrow and sacrifice. She saw him glorified. He was no longer a thing apart, a creature below, a strange outcast of another clime and blood, but her Brother Humanity incarnate, Son of God and great All-Father of the race to be.

He did not glimpse the glory in her eyes, but stood looking outward toward the sea and sending rocket after rocket into the unanswering darkness. Dark-purple clouds lay banked and billowed in the west. Behind them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that suffused the darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as though gathered back in some vast hand, the great cloud-curtain fell away. Low on the horizon lay a long, white star��mystic, wonderful! And from it fled upward to the pole, like some wan bridal veil, a pale, wide sheet of flame that lighted all the world and dimmed the stars.

In fascinated silence the man gazed at the heavens and dropped his rockets to the floor. Memories of memories stirred to life in the dead recesses of his mind. The shackles seemed to rattle and fall from his soul. Up from the crass and crushing and cringing of his caste leaped the lone majesty of kings long dead. He arose within the shadows, tall, straight, and stern, with power in his eyes and ghostly scepters hovering to his grasp. It was as though some mighty Pharaoh lived again, or curled Assyrian lord. He turned and looked upon the lady, and found her gazing straight at him.

Silently, immovably, they saw each other face to face��eye to eye. Their souls lay naked to the night. It was not lust; it was not love��it was some vaster, mightier thing that needed neither touch of body nor thrill of soul. It was a thought divine, splendid.

Slowly, noiselessly, they moved toward each other��the heavens above, the seas around, the city grim and dead below. He loomed from out the velvet shadows vast and dark. Pearl-white and slender, she shone beneath the stars. She stretched her jeweled hands abroad. He lifted up his mighty arms, and they cried each to the other, almost with one voice, "The world is dead."

"Long live the��"

"Honk! Honk!" Hoarse and sharp the cry of a motor drifted clearly up from the silence below. They started backward with a cry and gazed upon each other with eyes that faltered and fell, with blood that boiled.

"Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!" came the mad cry again, and almost from their feet a rocket blazed into the air and scattered its stars upon them. She covered her eyes with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. He dropped and bowed, groped blindly on his knees about the floor. A blue flame spluttered lazily after an age, and she heard the scream of an answering rocket as it flew.

Then they stood still as death, looking to opposite ends of the earth.

"Clang��crash��clang!"

The roar and ring of swift elevators shooting upward from below made the great tower tremble. A murmur and babel of voices swept in upon the night. All over the once dead city the lights blinked, flickered, and flamed; and then with a sudden clanging of doors the entrance to the platform was filled with men, and one with white and flying hair rushed to the girl and lifted her to his breast. "My daughter!" he sobbed.

Behind him hurried a younger, comelier man, carefully clad in motor costume, who bent above the girl with passionate solicitude and gazed into her staring eyes until they narrowed and dropped and her face flushed deeper and deeper crimson.

"Julia," he whispered; "my darling, I thought you were gone forever."

She looked up at him with strange, searching eyes.

"Fred," she murmured, almost vaguely, "is the world��gone?"

"Only New York," he answered; "it is terrible��awful! You know,��but you, how did you escape��how have you endured this horror? Are you well? Unharmed?"

"Unharmed!" she said.

"And this man here?" he asked, encircling her drooping form with one arm and turning toward the Negro. Suddenly he stiffened and his hand flew to his hip. "Why!" he snarled. "It's��a��nigger��Julia! Has he��has he dared��"

She lifted her head and looked at her late companion curiously and then dropped her eyes with a sigh.

"He has dared��all, to rescue me," she said quietly, "and I��thank him��much." But she did not look at him again. As the couple turned away, the father drew a roll of bills from his pockets.

"Here, my good fellow," he said, thrusting the money into the man's hands, "take that,��what's your name?"

"Jim Davis," came the answer, hollow-voiced.

"Well, Jim, I thank you. I've always liked your people. If you ever want a job, call on me." And they were gone.

The crowd poured up and out of the elevators, talking and whispering.

"Who was it?"

"Are they alive?"

"How many?"

"Two!"

"Who was saved?"

"A white girl and a nigger��there she goes."

"A nigger? Where is he? Let's lynch the damned��"

"Shut up��he's all right-he saved her."

"Saved hell! He had no business��"

"Here he comes."

Into the glare of the electric lights the colored man moved slowly, with the eyes of those that walk and sleep.

"Well, what do you think of that?" cried a bystander; "of all New York, just a white girl and a nigger!"

The colored man heard nothing. He stood silently beneath the glare of the light, gazing at the money in his hand and shrinking as he gazed; slowly he put his other hand into his pocket and brought out a baby's filmy cap, and gazed again.

A woman mounted to the platform and looked about, shading her eyes. She was brown, small, and toil-worn, and in one arm lay the corpse of a dark baby. The crowd parted and her eyes fell on the colored man; with a cry she tottered toward him.

"Jim!"

He whirled and, with a sob of joy, caught her in his arms.

https://github.com/braddelong/public-files/blob/master/readings/story-dubois-comet.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois

.#noted #sciencefiction #racism #2020-08-03

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Published on August 03, 2020 10:17

August 2, 2020

Briefly Noted for 2020-08-02

Parker Molloy: 'Here��s a mashup https://twitter.com/parkermolloy/status/1287772516342267905 that the amazing @JohnnyHeatWave made to go along with my @mmfa article. It��s depressing. https://t.co/ObiRMSsocE.... It��s all even more ridiculous if you look at the number of times the same person cresulously talks about Trump��s ��new tone��...

Paul Krugman: With the Coronavirus Pandemic, Republicans Are Flunking Microbe Economicss https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/opinion/republicans-keep-flunking-microbe-economics.html: ��The question of whether or not to dump raw sewage into a public lake isn��t something that should be left up to individual choice. And going to a gym or refusing to wear a mask during a pandemic is exactly like dumping sewage into a lake: it��s behavior that may be convenient for the people who engage in it, but it puts others at risk.

Heidi Przybyla: MOAR Trump Corruption https://twitter.com/HeidiNBC/status/1289172345614000128: ��Trump overspent for ventilators by as much as 500 million... paid 4-5 times as much... Didn't enforce prior contract or try to build on it...

Zack Labe: '#Arctic sea ice extent https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/1289203261757505541 is currently the lowest [for August] on record (JAXA data) �� about 730,000 km�� less the 2010s mean �� about 1,580,000 km�� less the 2000s mean �� about 2,420,000 km�� less the 1990s mean �� about 3,290,000 km�� less the 1980s mean, More plots: ...

Jake Sherman: 'Trump... aides and senior officials https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1288847011001913345 who feel like they cannot work safely during COVID, and are being told not to wear masks��

Wikipedia: House of Grimaldi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Grimaldi��

Plus: Duncan Black: Eschaton: Just The Flu https://www.eschatonblog.com/2020/07/just-flu.html: ��150,000 dead and no end in sight.... Measures which can allow life to return to somewhat normal (mask wearing as a standard practice, no indoor dining and similar) once the new case rate is low, are also measures which can flatten the curve and stop cases from exploding but not enough to significantly lower them. The initial round of medicine needs to be harsher, and 30-60 days of strong lockdown is necessary.... Official measures... [plus] leadership and general buy in from the populace). MAGAs coughing in each others mouths to own the libs, a president who can only manage his new tone for about 7 minutes (long enough to get the bobbleheads to praise him for it yet again), and a conservative media telling "you" constantly that it's all a plot to steal your vital essences, are going to make dealing with this impossible no matter what the relevant stupid governor makes official policy...

.#brieflynoted #noted #2020-07-30

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Published on August 02, 2020 15:18

Steve M.: The Post-Trump GOP Is Likely to Be Even Worse��Noted

Steve M.: The Post-Trump GOP Is Likely to Be Even Worse https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-post-trump-right-is-likely-to-be.html: ��The Lincoln Project.... I believe the Project's founders and allies when they say they're disgusted with the Republican Party and want to reform it. I'm not saying I'd like the party they hope to create.... But in some areas, I think the party the Lincoln Project wants to create would be at least be a slight improvement.... As Max Boot notes, Stuart Stevens, a former Republican consultant, now calls the GOP "a white grievance party�� and acknowledges that ��there is an ugly history of code words and dog whistles in the party.�� Boot writes, "If you accept Stevens��s searing critique of the Republican Party��and I do��then it is incumbent on the Lincoln Project to target not just Trump but also his enablers. That��s just what it has done with commercials such as this one urging the defeat of Republican senators." I think this ad is sincere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vZp3FAQZvU. But I also think it's too late. Trump might be on the way out, and Democrats might be on the verge of retaking the Senate, but the Republican Party that remains... appears to be getting crazier and crazier. At least 14 candidates affiliated with QAnon will be on ballots nationwide in November. This weekend, the right-leaning Sinclair group of television stations will air an interview with a prominent COVID-19 conspiratorialist.... "America This Week" hosted by Eric Bolling.... Judy Mikovits, the medical researcher featured in the discredited "Plandemic" video... banned from platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. Throughout the segment, the on-screen graphic read, "DID DR. FAUCI CREATE COVID-19?".... During the interview Mikovitz told Bolling that Fauci had over the past decade "manufactured" and shipped coronaviruses to Wuhan, China, which became the original epicenter of the current outbreak. Bolling noted that this was a "hefty claim," but did not meaningfully challenge Mikovits and allowed her to continue making her case.... I enjoy the Lincoln Project's work, but I don't think the party the Project's members and allies want to save can be made respectable again. It's too far gone�� .#noted #2020-08-02

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Published on August 02, 2020 14:59

Wikipedia: Trans-Mediterranean Barbary Slave Trade��Noted

Nunn's estimates: trans-Atlantic slave trade: 10.5 million; Indian Ocean slave trade: 900,000; trans-Saharan slave trade: 3.2 million; Red Sea: 1.3 million: Wikipedia: Trans-Mediterranean Barbary Slave Trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade: 'Robert Davis... estimates... Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli alone enslaved 1 million to 1.25 million... from the beginning of the 16th century to the middle of the 18thFrom bases on the Barbary coast, North Africa, the Barbary pirates raided ships traveling through the Mediterranean and along the northern and western coasts of Africa, plundering their cargo and enslaving the people they captured. From at least 1500, the pirates also conducted raids on seaside towns of Italy, Spain, France, England, the Netherlands and as far away as Iceland, capturing men, women and children. On some occasions, settlements such as Baltimore in Ireland were abandoned following a raid, only being resettled many years later. Between 1609 and 1616, England alone lost 466 merchant ships to Barbary pirates. While Barbary corsairs looted the cargo of ships they captured, their primary goal was to capture non-Muslim people for sale as slaves or for ransom. Those who had family or friends who might ransom them were held captive; the most famous of these was the author Miguel de Cervantes, who was held for almost five years��from 1575 to 1580. Others were sold into various types of servitude. Captives who converted to Islam were generally freed, since enslavement of Muslims was prohibited; but this meant that they could never return to their native countries. 16th- and 17th-century customs statistics suggest that Istanbul's additional slave imports from the Black Sea may have totaled around 2.5 million from 1450 to 1700.... The trade ended with the French conquest of Algeria (1830-1847)... .#noted #slavery #2020-08-02

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Published on August 02, 2020 14:12

Against 'Ideology for Ideology's Sake'��Note to Self

Lincoln douglas

Smart young whippersnapper and Equitable Growth alumnus Marshall Steinbaum attempts to solve the problem of corrupt interests and corrupt ideology with... MOAR IDEOLOGY! Ideology that he hopes, somehow, will be reality-based.

I do not think this will work:

Marshall Steinbaum: 'In order to know what to do https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1016333284320526337, we have to know how things work. To me, the sentiment @Noahpinion expresses here is the moment I get off the 'empirical revolution' train, because this is where it turns toward 'maybe we can avoid ideology after all'. Nope..."

The occasion is Noah Smith over at Bloomberg News, who noted:

Holy C---! This https://equitablegrowth.org/brad-delong-worthy-reads-on-equitable-growth-june-29-july-5-2018/ is [uch an important point https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1016012399185293312: Instead of thinking "what determines X", policy thinkers should always be thinking of "how can we change X". It seems forehead-smackingly obvious, and yet so often we still ignore the question of "WHAT CAN WE DO?"!!

"What are the determinants of poverty?" "What are the determinants of economic growth?" "What are the determinants of IQ?" NO! These are questions for scientists! For policy thinkers, it should be "What can we do to affect these things?" Many causes are beyond the control of policy. Many policies work for reasons we don't fully understand. Scientists' job is to figure out how to control the things we can't yet control, and understand the effects we don't yet understand. But that is not policy thinkers' job!

A great example is LEAD REMOVAL. We're getting good evidence that lead removal causes all sorts of good outcomes (e.g. lower crime, better school performance, etc.). Do we need to know what OTHER things might work even better, in order to do lead removal? NO! Just do it!!

Here is a GREAT simple succinct statement of the principle:

@SallyLHudson: As economist Arthur Goldberger put it, bad eyesight is genetic. That has no bearing on whether doctors should prescribe eyeglasses. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2553675.pdf

Focusing on identifying the biggest causes of a problem often distracts us from asking how we can actually change the problem. It biases us toward policy paralysis.

It is certainly true that Noah and I both believe that equitable growth��raising, say, the geometric mean of real expenditure on people (not the average!) is a principal that is non-ideological in the sense that it either commands broad assent or it is such political death not to assent to it that those who disagree pretend that they do assent. From that perspective, what you need then is evidence, not ideology. And if you find that you must turn to ideology because the evidence is not sharp enough? I think it is fraught with disaster to do so. I think you then need to gather more evidence, and to argue with smart, honorable, honest people who think differently from you about what the evidence means.

And what if you do think that your ideology is a necessary input to understanding the evidence? That you possess a secret Key to History given to you by some revelation? Well, my view then is that��like all those who pretend to certain knowledge of Last and First Things, you are either a grifter or are mad, and it is going to end in tears. As my example, let me simply mention: Leon Trotsky.

Moreover, since I like it, let me add John Maynard Keynes's strictures on why Trotsky is not to be taken seriously:

John Maynard Keynes (1926): (1926): Trotsky On England http://delong.typepad.com/egregious_moderation/2009/05/john-maynard-keynes-19826-trotsky-on-england.html: "The book is, first of all, an attack on the official leaders of the British Labour Party...

...Trotsky sees, what is probably true, that our Labour Party is the direct offspring of the Radical Non-conformists and the philanthropic bourgeois, without a tinge of atheism, blood, and revolution. Emotionally and intellectually, therefore, he finds them intensely unsympathetic....

The Fabians, the I.L.P.ers, the Conservative bureaucrats of the trade unions represent at the moment the most counter-revolutionary force in Great Britain, and perhaps of all the world��s development.... At any cost, these self-satisfied pedants, these gabbling eclectics, these sentimental careerists, these upstart liveried lackeys of the bourgeoisie, must be shown in their natural form to the workers. To reveal them as they are will mean their hopeless discrediting...

Well, that is how the gentlemen who so much alarm Mr. Winston Churchill strike the real article. And we must hope that the real article, having got it off his chest, feels better.... Trotsky is concerned in these passages with an attitude towards public affairs, not with ultimate aims. He is just exhibiting the temper of the band of brigand-statesmen to whom Action means War, and who are irritated to fury by the atmosphere of sweet reasonableness, of charity, tolerance, and mercy in which, though the wind whistles in the East or in the South, Mr. Baldwin and Lord Oxford and Mr. MacDonald smoke the pipe of peace.... If only it was so easy! If only one could accomplish by roaring.... The roaring occupies the first half of Trotsky��s book.

The second half, which affords a summary exposition of his political philosophy, deserves a closer attention.... Granted his assumptions, much of Trotsky��s argument is, I think, unanswerable.... But what are his assumptions? He assumes that the moral and intellectual problems of the transformation of Society have been already solved��that a plan exists, and that nothing remains except to put it into operation.... An understanding of the historical process, to which Trotsky is so fond of appealing, declares not for, but against, Force at this juncture of things. We lack more than usual a coherent scheme of progress, a tangible ideal. All the political parties alike have their origins in past ideas and not in new ideas��and none more conspicuously so than the Marxists. It is not necessary to debate the subtleties of what justifies a man in promoting his gospel by force; for no one has a gospel. The next move is with the head, and fists must wait.

.#cognition economicsgoneright #highlighted #notetoself #publicsphere #2020-08-02

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Published on August 02, 2020 13:57

Lacker: GPT-3 vs. Turing��Noted

Much of our intelligence is devoted to constructing models of other minds based on observations of actions, expressions, and words. We have a strong tendency to overdo it. Thus we can be very easily grifted to really, really believe that there is another mind��another Turing-class entity��back there when there isn't: the lightning does not really come from a large red-haired guy with a big hammer and anger management problems who drives a cart pulled by two goats. The latest example of this is GPT-3: Kevin Lacker: Giving GPT-3 a Turing Test http://lacker.io/ai/2020/07/06/giving-gpt-3-a-turing-test.html: ��An interesting corollary is that GPT-3 often finds it easier to write code to solve a programming problem, than to solve the problem on one example input...

Q: Write one line of Ruby code to reverse an array.

A: ary.reverse

Q: Write one line of Ruby code to count how many X's are in an array.

A: ary.count { |x| x == 'X' }

Q: Reverse the following array: [1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 4, 2, 77]

A: [10, 6, 4, 2, 77, 3, 5, 1]

Q: How many X's are in this array: [1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 4, 2, 77]

A: 2

This problem shows up in more human questions as well, if you ask it about the result of a sequence of operations:

Q: If I have a marble and a paper clip in a box, put a pencil in the box,
and remove the marble, what is left?

A: A paper clip.

Q: If I have two shoes in a box, put a pencil in the box, and
remove one shoe, what is left?

A: A shoe.

Q: If I put a pencil in a box, then put another pencil in the box,
what is in the box?

A: Two pencils.

Q: Then if I take out a pencil and put in a frog, what is in the box?

A: A frog.

It��s like GPT-3 has a limited short-term memory, and has trouble reasoning about more than one or two objects in a sentence.��

.#noted #2020-08-02

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Published on August 02, 2020 12:06

Waldmann: Social Democracy & Freedom��Noted

Steve Randy Waldmann: Social Democracy & Freedom https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/7557.html: ��So who is right here? I say Milton Friedman is. ��Free speech�� stops being real, stops being a practicable ideal, once the consequences of unpopular expression are so great you��ll be banished from the communities you value and be unable to earn a decent living. Both the woke and their discontents should be able to speak their piece.... We want a society where��in practice, not just as a formal, legalistic matter��the public sphere can accommodate a wide range of expression, some of which each of us will find abhorrent. But Friedman��s conjecture that capitalism plus a light-touch state would be an effective way to ensure this state of affairs was wrong. Because it was never really ��capitalism��, in his argument, that protected political freedom. It was decentralization.... What we��ve discovered (as any Marxist would have predicted) is that laissez-faire-ish capitalism doesn��t deliver that at all.... Dominant firms will brook no public dissent from the moment��s religion, as preaching that religion is essential to bewildering and misdirecting an immiserated public whose democratic power could, in theory, undo them. It��s a bit, um, rich that Bret Stephens would complain about this from his perch at The New York Times.... But perhaps it is understandable that he feels the chill. Elite positions like his are an ever-shrinking a game of musical chairs, lots of us would love his life and he wouldn��t love ours. If he (like his editor) were kicked out in a great public scandal, it��s not at all clear that he would land so well. Among elites, the stakes of this game of dangerous speech and righteous counterspeech have become enormously high. (Just ask Steve Salaita, Bret.) You can lose the sort of incomes most of us will never enjoy, and the sort of social place most of us will never experience, if your friends decide they have to sacrifice you in the name of the corporate virtue upon which you collectively depend... .#noted #2020-08-02

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Published on August 02, 2020 11:29

Caesar Begins His First Spanish Campaign: Liveblogging the Fall of the Roman Republic

spain to syria

Gaius Julius Caesar: The Civil War: 'The First Spanish Campaign II: Two days later Caesar arrived with nine hundred cavalry, whom he had kept as a personal bodyguard. The bridge which had been broken down by the storm was almost rebuilt; he ordered it to be completed that night. He himself ascertained the nature of the surrounding country and leaving behind all the baggage train, together with six cohorts to protect the bridge and the camp, he set off on the following day towards Ilerda, advancing with his forces in a triple column...

...He halted close to Afranius��s camp and kept his men there under arms for a short time, offering battle in the plain. Afranius thereupon led out his forces and halted them half-way down the hill below the camp. Caesar, realizing that Afranius did not intend to have a battle, decided to make camp, rather less than half a mile from the base of the hill.

He ordered his men not to build a rampart, which could not fail to be prominent and visible at a distance, in case while they were engaged on this the enemy should make a sudden attack, terrorize them and force them to give up the work. Instead, they were to dig a trench fifteen feet wide on the side facing the enemy; the actual digging was carried on secretly by the men of the third line, while the first and second lines were drawn up in front of them still under arms. As a result, the work was finished before Afranius realized that defences for a camp were being constructed. Towards evening, Caesar led his legions behind the trench and they waited there under arms during the following night.

The next day, he kept the whole army behind the trench, and since materials for a stockade would have to be fetched from a considerable distance, he kept the men for the time being on the same kind of work, setting one legion to fortify each side of the camp, with instructions to dig trenches of the same dimensions as the first; the remaining legions he stationed under arms, but without their marching kit, to ward off the enemy.

Afranius and Petreius, hoping to frighten our men and make them break off their work, brought their forces right down to the foot of the hill and tried to provoke a battle; but in spite of this Caesar carried on with the defence-works, relying on the protection afforded by the trench at the front and the three legions. The enemy did not linger long; without advancing farther from the foot of the hill, they withdrew into their camp again. On the third day, Caesar had a rampart built round the camp and ordered the cohorts and baggage which had been left in the previous camp to be brought up...