Oxford University Press's Blog, page 349

My advice to Mr. Bezos: pay some tax

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, has asked on Twitter for advice about the use of his fortune for philanthropy. My advice is that Mr. Bezos should pay some tax.

Contemporary attention to philanthropy is largely attributable to the admirable work of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, Jr. Through their efforts, The Giving Pledge, Buffett and Gates have commendably encouraged rich individuals in the US and abroad to devote much of their wealth to charity. Buffett and Gates themselves have been generous with their own personal fortunes.

But, as I have discussed in the Florida Tax Review there is a downside to the Buffett-Gates Giving Pledge: Under current law, the federal Treasury loses substantial revenue when appreciated stock is donated by a US citizen to charity. When Buffett’s Berkshire shares, Gates’s Microsoft stock or Bezos’s Amazon shares are transferred to charity, and the federal Treasury loses the income tax on the capital gain which would have been realized had that stock been sold. Moreover, such gifts of appreciated stock to charity remove these assets from the coverage of the federal estate tax. The upshot is that the federal Treasury receives neither income tax nor transfer taxes when billionaires like Buffett, Gates, or Bezos contribute their appreciated stock to charity, stock on which these business founders have paid no federal income tax.

Besides their efforts for charity, Buffett and Gates have been outspoken in calling for higher income taxes on the rich (the so-called “Buffett Rule”) and for the preservation of the federal estate tax. Notwithstanding their advocacy of higher taxes for the rich, Buffett and Gates conduct their own affairs to avoid any federal taxation on their contributions of their appreciated shares to charity. This is perfectly legal but hard to square with the Buffett-Gates program of taxing the affluent.

There is, in short, considerable tension between the Buffett-Gates project to protect the federal fisc and the Buffett-Gates effort to encourage philanthropy as that effort has in practice been implemented.

Mr. Bezos can now set an instructive example. He can sell Amazon shares, pay tax, and then contribute the net after-tax proceeds to charity. This would produce less for charity but more for the federal fisc. In addition or instead, Mr. Bezos could make a voluntary contribution to the federal Treasury to compensate for some or all of the income, estate, and gift taxes avoided by his contributions to charity.

Warren Buffett has eloquently observed that large fortunes such as his result not just from the skill and work of entrepreneurs like Gates and Bezos, but also from the taxpayer-provided public services which support these entrepreneurial efforts. Mr. Bezos could open a new chapter in charitable giving by acknowledging the role of public overheads in facilitating his success and by paying some tax on the gains he will donate to charity.

Featured image credit: Amazon’s front door by Robert Scoble. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

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Stephen Hawking’s smile

Where can you share space with royalty, science rock stars such as Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Peter Cox, real rock stars like Brian May of Queen, moon walkers and other astronauts and Nobel Laureates? The Starmus Festival.

The stream of achievements proved as intense and dense as expected given the star-line-up, and yet certain aspects of the proceedings proved transcendent: it was spirit of the festival that was more memorable than any one talk, performance or fact.

Standing ovations were a highlight but the longest was saved for Garik Israelian. He’s the astrophysicist-rock-music-lover founder of Starmus. When he came on stage to close the grand event, 2000 attendees leapt to their feet. It was the longest standing ovation I’ve ever experienced.

Without a passion for science there would be no Starmus. Without people like Israelian, and the scientists and musicians of his Board, there would be no stage for telling the tales of the discovering the first exoplanet, or fixing the Hubble telescope or the undertaking ground-breaking science that wins Nobel prizes.

Here are ten highlights of the forth Starmus Festival, “Life and the Universe”, held in Trondheim, Norway, 18-23 June 2017 that give a glimpse of this spirit.

1. Stephen Hawking smiling at his jokes during his talk ‘The Future of Humanity’

The first time came while he was musing about being able to explore the universe in our minds, even at boring parties. The second time, happened while saying life might abound in the universe but intelligence is rare – and perhaps not even on Earth.

2. The number of auditorium-wide laughs

Two thousand people laughing is a good sound and it turns out scientists can be exceedingly funny. But the best laughs came from astronaut Charlie Duke describing how excited he was when Apollo 11 finally landed after an ‘almost-abort’ situation and his attempt at ‘moon Olympics’ during his Apollo 16 visit to the moon.

3. Stars ‘R Us

I turned around during a coffee break and found none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson himself standing a few feet away graciously posing for photos with fans: the stars were part of the listening audience and not just there for their few minutes in the spotlight. What struck me the most was the wide-eyed, enthusiasm of the speakers for the human endeavour of discovery and what it affords society and the personal soul. This played out on and off stage.

4. Pink finger nails on display during a Nobel Prize panel discussion

The only female on a panel of 11 Nobel Laureates was May-Britt Moser. She was there for her discovery of grid cells in the brain which allow us to remember where we are. She added a wonderfully female flavour to the proceedings. The panel ended with remarks on the need for better representation in science. Moser had the last word. She held up her hand and agreed that everyone should be in the running for Nobel prizes – even ones with pink nails.

5. Neil deGrasse Tyson asking Buzz Aldrin during a ‘moon walkers’ panel to show off his t-shirt

Trondheim Spektrum 20 June: Moonwalkers in Conversation, Harrison Schmitt and Charles Duke. Buzz Aldrin on Skype. Moderator: Neil deGrasse Tyson. Starmus2017_Moonwalkers_TN by NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

Buzz Aldrin had to join by Skype so was speaking from a screen on centre-stage. The crowd couldn’t see his t-shirt, until the end. Second man to walk on the moon, huge supporter of further space travel, he showed it off with gusto. It read, ‘Get your ass to Mars’.

6. Scientist-musicians and musician-scientists

The festival started in part because world-famous guitarist of Queen, Brian May, went back to get his PhD in astrophysics. Starmus is a merger of ‘star’ and ‘music’, for good reasons. A key focus was the creative process – and how many scientists were inspired by music and how many musicians love science.

7. Bright eyes

It was here that I realized the ultimate venue for sapiosexuals: science festivals. Rarely have I seen so many beautiful people, women and men. The venue was alive with a healthy sheen of muscles and perfect skin and the average height of the men seemed a 6-foot 7 inches. But the most attractive feature of the entire crowd was the light on in everyone’s eyes.

8. The spirit of curiosity

This festival celebrated curiosity, life-long learning and sought to bring inspiration into everyone’s lives. This is especially touching at a time when politically the world that seems to be growing narrower in its focus, short-sighted in vision and downright cruel in its actions.

9. The unified front

This festival celebrated science and scientists and their contributions to society. In a time of increasing anti-science sentiment, this was a good reminder to preserve and speak up for facts, empirically seeking the truth and the value of education.

10. Democratizing knowledge and opening science to all

This festival is about a commitment to democratizing human knowledge. In the spirit of openness, the festival had a high price entrance fee (but comparatively low given the quality of the proceedings) but was live-streamed. The full proceedings are available on YouTube.

Final thoughts

Starmus is young and still making its name among both scientists and public, but Israelian’s record-setting, standing-ovation-garnering closing remarks make it clear he is in it for the long haul. After experiencing a Starmus event, I can recommend watching the proceedings of this science communication extravaganza online, or if possible attending an event in person, not just for immense knowledge and perspective to be gained, but to partake in the spirit. A many-day celebration of human desire to know how the universe works, Starmus is truly a festival.

Featured image credit: Starmus2017_NobelPrizeWinners_KD by NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

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Library outreach: a case study from Wakefield Libraries

Dawn Bartram is Library Development Area Supervisor, Skills and Learning, at Wakefield Libraries in the UK, and was the winner of our CILIP competition. Here Dawn expands on her winning entry, and talks us through the benefits and approach to setting up a library outreach programme in order to spread the word about the online resources available at your local library.

1. What are the key considerations of an outreach programme?

As part of a management re-structure in 2009, Wakefield Libraries decided that, rather than having “outreach” as a generic part of every member of staff’s job description, we should create a team whose primary role would be to engage with our communities and stakeholders, to promote the library service externally, to build and develop new partnerships, and to encourage collaboration.


The team was asked to focus on three areas – Promoting Reading, Developing Skills, and Learning and Generating an Audience. Although each member of the team was designated a specific area, it soon became apparent that in order for the team to be effective we all needed to work together, support each other, and become involved in all areas.

2. How do you establish your priorities for an outreach programme?

Wakefield Libraries create a calendar of events to highlight various initiatives throughout the year, and this enables the team to align itself more to the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) Universal Offers. This ensures that our plans also link into the council priorities: caring for our people, caring for our places, ambitions for our young people, and modern public services. We organise events across the district to guarantee we reach as many different communities as possible, and we utilise all libraries, including our mobile libraries, by encouraging displays of online resources.

3. How do the online resources provided by the library expand its reach?

Even though the number of libraries within the Wakefield Authority and the number of outreach team members have reduced, the need to raise awareness of library services has not diminished. It is becoming increasingly important to ensure that libraries continue to be viable, and we do this by increasing outreach efforts, and increasing the diversity of library resources.


Our online offer has grown, which helps to fill the void left by having fewer libraries, and is in many ways ensuring a wider variety of provision. The online resources the library provides are available 24/7, are accessible on computers, tablets, and other portable devices, and can be accessed whilst in the comfort of your own home or whilst out and about. They are immediately accessible and can be relied upon to be accurate and current.

Dawn and her colleagues run outreach events at numerous venues throughout the district by Dawn Bartram. Used with permission.

4. What are some effective ways to promote online resources?

Wakefield Libraries have built up a number of contacts throughout the district and are proactive in contacting partners and finding opportunities to raise the profile of the library and the resources available. We get invited to various events to promote the library service, which provide great opportunities to network and expand the number of potential partners to work with.


For example, whilst collaborating with The Theatre Royal Wakefield on a project during Shakespeare Week; actors performed some of a Midsummer Night’s Dream and we developed an activity using quotes from The New Oxford Shakespeare online. The children also enjoyed being able to curse each other using vocabulary from Shakespeare’s work!

5. How do you use technology and social media as part of an outreach programme?

We are big users of social media to promote the library’s resources, and we enhance content for members, such as recommending a “Word of the Day” from the Oxford English Dictionary, or using the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to celebrate birthdays and other events related to local famous people.

The team delivers presentations to various groups and societies (church groups, Rotary clubs, Women’s Institutes, various charities, Parish Councils, etc) and we advertise these using Twitter and other social media channels. We now also have tablets which allow us to tweet ‘on the move’ during events, but also allow us to give demonstrations of how our online resources can be accessed from our website with just a library card. We do promotions at open days, galas, and festivals, and although working outside comes with many challenges, it is certainly worth the effort to spend time with people face to face.

6. What advice would you give to librarians starting an outreach programme?


Expect the unexpected, be prepared but adaptable, and most of all enjoy the variety of opportunities available to share knowledge of library services within the community.


To paraphrase the opening from the original Star Trek series – “Our continuing mission is – to explore new areas of the community, to seek out new potential stakeholders and future members, to boldly go where no library service has gone before!”

Featured image credit: books library read shelves silence by Marisa_Sias. Public domain via Pixabay.

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Landmark climate agreement holds its own

It is now beyond doubt that climate change is real. It is already happening, and human beings are largely responsible for it. The pending break of a massive iceberg from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf is the latest reminder of this reality, and its potentially dire consequences. As if to drive home the urgency of the climate challenge, the cracking of Larsen C accelerated just as President Trump announced his decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.

Although the Trump Administration had been threatening for months to fulfil the president’s campaign promise to ‘cancel’ the Paris Agreement, and had already begun to dismantle Obama-era domestic climate regulations, the announcement came as a shock to the world.

In December 2015, after more than twenty years of effort under the umbrella of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), states finally had come together in a comprehensive, universally applicable, long-term agreement on climate change. Then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon heralded the Paris Agreement as a ‘monumental triumph,’ while others hailed it as a ‘landmark,’ and the ‘world’s greatest diplomatic success.’ One hundred and ninety-five parties signed the agreement in short order, and, remarkably, it entered into force in less than a year, in November 2016 – just before the US election.

Some of the most innovative features of the Paris Agreement, notably its reliance on non-binding, ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs) to limit greenhouse gas emissions rather than on internationally negotiated, legally binding targets, were in part designed to facilitate its acceptance by then US President Barack Obama without Senate approval. Other aspects of the agreement were meant to make it easier for a less sympathetic, new government to stay in the Paris Agreement. In any event, notwithstanding the announcement of US withdrawal, it will not take effect until November 2020. In the meantime, the US remains fully bound by the Paris Agreement, and obliged to perform its commitments in good faith.

In some respects, the world has been at a similar juncture before, in 2001, when George W. Bush assumed the US presidency and announced the US would not join the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. And yet, the most recent developments regarding the Paris Agreement underscore how much have changed in the intervening years.

“Barack Obama & Donald Trump”. CC0 Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The UN climate regime has evolved significantly, from the ‘top-down,’ largely inter-state approach epitomized by the Kyoto Protocol, to the hybrid, multi-level governance experiment with a blend of binding and non-binding elements, among which the ‘bottom-up’ NDCs are a central innovation.

This shift in the legal approach to climate change has gone hand in hand with a major shift in global climate politics. The Paris Agreement is historic because it managed to provide a formula that transcends long-standing divisions between developed and developing nations, that provides flexibility and privileges sovereign autonomy while promoting accountability and progressively increased ambition, and that establishes the long-term horizon needed to spur social, economic, and technological transition.

Finally, there have been significant geopolitical shifts. Rather than threaten the Paris Agreement, the US withdrawal appears to have strengthened global resolve to follow through with climate action. China, long a reluctant participant in the climate regime due to its developmental aspirations, has declared its willingness to provide climate leadership. The European Union and even Canada, the immediate US neighbour and long a ‘follower’ of its climate policies, have made clear that they are unwilling to renegotiate the Paris Agreement as desired by the Trump administration. Indeed, just this week the Environment Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, and the European Commissioners responsible for environment and climate agreed that the Paris agreement is irreversible and its full integrity is key. Meanwhile, climate action continues apace in the US as well, as states, cities, and corporations pledge continued support of the Paris Agreement.

So, all indications are that the Paris Agreement adopted the right approach to the infinitely complex policy challenge posed by climate change. And the strengthened multilateralism we have witnessed since the US announced its decision to withdraw offers hope that the climate agenda will continue to advance, and the strong action by US states, cities, and businesses will build a bridge for the US to re-engage with the Paris Agreement in the future.

Featured image credit: “The U.S. Chief of Mission Residence in Paris, France, Is Illuminated in Green to Celebrate Paris Agreement’s Entry into Force” by The U.S. Department of State. CC0 Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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Large sample of giant radio galaxies discovered

Recently a team of astronomers from India have reported discovery of a large number of extremely rare kind of galaxies called “giant radio galaxies” (GRGs), using a nearly 20 year old radio survey. GRGs are the largest galaxies known in the Universe, which are visible only to radio telescopes. These extremely active form of galaxies harbor a super massive black hole ‘central-engine’ at the nucleus, which ejects a pair of high energy particle jets nearly at the speed of light, which terminate into two giant radio lobes. These behemoths span nearly three million light years across, or even more sometimes. This size corresponds to stacking nearly 33 Milky Way like galaxies in a line!

Pratik Dabhade said, “The huge size of GRGs has defied any theoretical explanation so far. Our work will help in understanding how these galaxies grow to be so large. We are studying whether they are born in regions of very sparse galaxy density, or they have extremely powerful, well-collimated, long-lasting radio jets which allow them to expand to very huge distances.

Professor Joydeep Bagchi added, “understanding the life-cycle of the black hole’s energetic activity, properties of the matter which falls into it, and the influence of the surrounding medium which acts on the lobes far away from the host galaxy, and provides a ‘working-surface’ for the radio jets to act, are among the most important problems in this field.”

Since the GRGs are known to expand to such large sizes, they are believed to be the last stop of radio galaxy evolution. Astronomers have found many thousands of smaller radio galaxies in the past six decades, but only a handful of GRGs are known so far. The first GRG was discovered in the 1970s using the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands in 1974. Since then all major radio telescopes and powerful computer simulations have been used in an effort to unravel their mysterious nature.

A collage of 25 new GRGs published in this work. Used with author’s permission.

In the published work, astronomers used the data from a highly sensitive radio survey at 1.4 Gigahertz frequency, done with the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope in New Mexico, USA. Hundreds of new GRGs were discovered by the team. Most of these newly found GRGs are highly unusual, showing very powerful radio jets, feeding large, diffuse radio lobes. Their discovery involved careful inspection of vast amounts of radio data but also sensitive optical spectroscopy and imaging data to identify the host galaxy and measure its distance from earth. The team also show that their new GRGs all host super massive black holes with masses of 100 million to billions of solar masses, in which matter is in-spiralling and liberating extraordinary powerful radio wave energy. These exotic giant radio galaxies are now being followed up with Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune, and using The Low-Frequency Array (or LOFAR), located mainly in the Netherlands and Europe, for more detailed studies.

Featured image credit: Artist’s impression of a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy. CC BY 4.0 via ESO/L. Calçada.

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How to write about theatre performances

It’s the theatre season in my town of Ashland, Oregon, and I’m keeping up with the play reviews and talking with reviewers about what makes a good review. Reviewing a play is different than reviewing a book or even a film. For those of you whom might find yourselves called on to write a review, here are some tips.

Minimize the summary— For book reviews, summary can be useful, even necessary. In a play, not so much. Unless it is a premiere, the play’s plot is likely to be well-known and many will have seen it before in other theaters. So extensive summary is usually redundant.


Identify the vision—Instead of telling what happens, focus on the director’s vision of the performance. How does the director give the work a new relevance or cause us to think about the work in fresh ways? How does the piece reach out to new audiences or challenge old ones? Or both.

Research the production—If the company has performed the play before, readers may be interested in how this version differs from previous ones. If a work is new, the research might touch on how it came to be written.

Take good notes while you watch—It’s hard to write in the dark, but don’t rely on your memory for details. You want to be an active play-watcher, noting key lines, details of performance, set, and costuming, and even your impressions that a particular actor is good at being smarmy or seems waif-like. Does something jump out at you that will be the opening hook for your review?

Talk to the audience—At the intermission or after the performance, talk with members of the audience. See if their impressions of the play match yours. Did seniors appreciate the music? Were younger people engaged in the story? Are there some audience members who have special knowledge of the theme that you can tap for a comment?

Draft it asap—The longer you wait , the harder it is to get started, so write a quick rough draft right after the show, even if it is late at night. You can come back to it after a good night’s sleep and see if it still holds up.

Ask follow-up questions—Sometimes you still have questions after you’ve looked over your notes and drafted your review. If you do, contact the director or theatre’s press officer. They can often provide a definitive answer to lingering questions about artistic choices or pesky details.

Put it all together—As you write it all up in a final draft, take into account the whole experience—the play itself and its adaptation, the set, lighting and sound design, and the acting and casting. Did everything work together? How do the parts relate to the whole? Be honest but tactful, acknowledge the work, and remember by the end of the run, the performance will have evolved.

Remember, it’s not about you—Readers want to learn about the play and whether it is worth seeing, so connect your recommendation to your analysis. And if you don’t think the play is all that great, resist the temptation for clever snarkiness. That’s all people will remember about the review and many readers won’t think it’s that clever. Honor the effort even if it falls short.

Proofread—Autocorrect is not your friend, so it pays to double-check the spelling of the names of the cast, crew, and anyone you’ve quoted, and to fact-check the historical details you may have mentioned.

Own the review—Occasionally you will get some feedback—or pushback—about your analysis or opinion. Acknowledge the point if it is a valid one, and don’t feel too bad if people sometimes disagree with you. After all, that’s show business.

Featured image: “Stage in the theater” by Paulius Malinovskis. CC by 2.0 via Flickr.

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Puerto Rico in crisis

The US territory of Puerto Rico is currently experiencing its most severe and pro­longed economic downturn since the Great Depression (1929–33). Between 2006 and 2016, the island’s economy (measured as Gross National Product in constant 1954 prices) shrank by 15.2%, while total employment fell by 28.6%. The elimination of federal tax exemptions under Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code in 2006 dealt a serious blow to the island’s manufacturing industry. The closing down of many facto­ries had a negative ripple effect on the Puerto Rican economy, including banking, construction, and public administration.

Puerto Rico’s sustained economic deterioration since 2006 has been associated with a spiraling cycle of public debt. The Commonwealth (or Estado Libre Asociado, in Spanish) accumulated fiscal deficits as it continued to borrow money by issuing municipal bonds to pay public em­ployees and maintain public services. Instead of restructuring its economy after the demise of Section 936, the insular gov­ernment more than doubled its debt from $17.6 billion in 1996 to almost $40 billion in 2006. The debt nearly doubled again to $74 billion in 2016. Much of the island’s debt stems from public corporations such as the electrical power authority, the government development bank, the transportation authority, and the water and sewage authority.

Since 2006, the Commonwealth gov­ernment has taken austerity measures to reduce public spend­ing and increase state revenues—such as laying off thirty thousand public employees in 2009 and cutting back state con­tributions to public pension systems. But such measures have been insufficient to straighten the island’s finances.

On 28 June 2015, then-Governor Alejandro García Padilla declared that “the debt is not payable.” Because Puerto Rico is not a state of the American union, it does not qualify for federal bankruptcy; because it is not a sovereign country, it cannot apply for emergency financial assistance from mul­tilateral organizations such as the International Monetary Fund. In May 2016, the Commonwealth government de­clared a fiscal state of emergency and a moratorium on its public debt obligations. In July 2016, the Commonwealth government defaulted on nearly one billion dollars in debt. Puerto Rico adopted a bankrupt-like status in May 2017, under special legislation approved by the US Congress. A federal judge, appointed by the US Chief Justice, will now oversee efforts to restructure Puerto Rico’s debt.

El Capitolio de Puerto Rico by Brad Clinesmith. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The island’s population, which had been growing at least since the late 1700s, began to fall in 2004. For the first time in its modern history, the inhabitants of Puerto Rico decreased by 2.2% (82,821 persons)—from 3.808 million in 2000 to 3.725 million in 2010. The population further declined by 8.4% (314,850 persons) to 3.411 million between 2010 and 2016.

This remarkable population loss can be attributed to three main demographic factors, linked to the island’s linger­ing economic crisis. First, net migration from Puerto Rico to the United States reached 311,198 persons during the first decade of the twenty-first century and 360,143 only between 2010 and 2016. Second, Puerto Rico experienced declining fertility rates—from 15.6 live births per 1,000 persons in 2000 to 9.1 live births per 1,000 persons in 2016. Finally, decreasing numbers of return migrants and foreign immigrants, especially from the Dominican Republic, have slowed down population growth.

The current migration wave from Puerto Rico (approximately 313,000 between 2010 and 2015) has surpassed the peak years of the “Great Migration” (nearly 288,000 be­tween 1950 and 1955) in net numbers. In 2015, the total number of people moving from Puerto Rico to the United States reached a record high—approximately 89,000, per census estimates.

In recent years, the Commonwealth’s autonomy vis-à-vis the US federal government has increas­ingly faltered. The US Supreme Court has reiterated that ultimate power over Puerto Rico resides in the US Congress. In June 2016, the court further eroded the Commonwealth’s legal claims to autonomy. First, in Puerto Rico v. Sánchez Valle, the US Supreme Court ruled that two men accused of selling firearms in fed­eral courts could not be tried for the same crime in Puerto Rican courts. Second, in Puerto Rico v. Franklin Cal. Tax Free Trust, the court upheld the lower courts’ decision that Puerto Rico could not enact its own bankruptcy law to restruc­ture the debt of its public utilities. Hence, the island’s colonial relationship to the United States has come under increasing scrutiny, especially in the context of Puerto Rico’s continuing financial distress.

In June 2016, the US Congress passed a bill, called PROMESA (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Act), to address Puerto Rico’s public debt. President Barack Obama quickly signed the bill into law, asserting that this was the only viable option for Puerto Rico. However, the legislation faced strong opposition in Puerto Rico, particularly from labor unions, pro-independence supporters, and some elected officials. PROMESA placed the island’s fiscal affairs under direct federal control to restructure its debt.

In August 2016, President Obama appointed a seven-member oversight board from a list of candidates nominated by Congress, including four Puerto Ricans (two Republicans and two Democrats). This board is strangely reminiscent of the Executive Council, which ruled the island between 1900 and 1917 with little input from Puerto Rican elected officials. In any case, PROMESA has undermined one of the pillars of Commonwealth status: fiscal autonomy from the federal government. It may well mean the death sentence of the Estado Libre Asociado as a feasible political status for Puerto Rico.

Featured image credit: “Puerto Rico” by Lenaeriksson. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

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Unity without objecthood, in art and in natural language

What makes something we see or something we talk about a single thing, or simply a unit that we can identify and that we can distinguish from others and compare to them? For ordinary objects like trees, chairs, mountains, and lakes, the answer seems obvious. We regard something as an object if it has a form, that is, a shape, a structure, or at least boundaries, and it endures through time maintaining that form (more or less). An apple is what it is as long as maintains its form. Once it is cut into small pieces it is no longer an apple, but just ‘apple’. Some objects individuated by a form may be very temporary, for example waves and clouds.

Apart from the question of the form that individuates objects, one can ask the weaker question of makes something a unit, given is presented to us, for example visually. Abstract art has addressed that question and optical art has played with our ways of perceiving something as a unit. Let us look at the paintings from the series “Alchemie” by the Argeninian op artist Julio Le Parc.

Figure 1.

 

Figure 2.
Figure 3

Paintings from Le Parc’s “Alchemie” series, copyright Atelier Julio Le Parc. Used with permission.

Painting 1 clearly represents a single object, if unfamiliar, with a stable structure guaranteeing the objects endurance. In painting 2, we do not see an object that we would attribute an enduring structure to, but rather just something we may call a ‘unit’, something that has some form of integrity, in virtue of the closeness of dots and a boundary separating them from the dark background. In painting 3, again, we do not see objects, but various units. In fact, we can discriminate different units, depending on what we focus on, color or distribution of dots.

What makes us see something as a unit? In the last two paintings, the units are all parts of the painting that are maximal with respect to some property shared by dots (color of dots, color of background), or a relation among them, such as being connected with respect to a minimal distance. Such conditions define something as an integrated whole.   Conditions defining an entity as an integrated whole or as having ‘gestalt’ are not always easy to make explicit, but they drive our perception in the way we individuate objects and we discriminate units in what is presented to us. Conditions of integrity help us discriminate an object or a unit, something that endures with a particular form or something that just has a form without thereby even being an object.

Language is not so different from painting. With language we can refer to objects with an enduring form, apples or houses, for example. The conditions of structure or form are generally expressed by the nouns we are using to refer to objects, more precisely by count nouns such as apple or house. But there is another important level of meaning where integrity conditions play a role, namely with complex constructions involving mass nouns and plurals. At that level, language operates in a way that is much closer to the art we just looked at. When we use mass nouns and plurals, we now longer can count on an enduring form being conveyed by the noun. Yet, we may refer to things that are divided into units, in the context of the linguistic information that goes along with the construction that is used. For example, when we refer to something as the rice, we do not differentiate between different portions of rice. However, when we refer to it as the white rice and the brown rice, we refer to it being divided into two units. Similarly, when we refer to the rice as the rice in the various dishes, we refer to the rice as being divided into as many units as there being dishes. In both cases, though, we do not refer to a plurality of objects. We do not refer to ‘two entities’, the white rice and the brown rice. The rice is never a thing and neither is the white rice or the brown rice, and the white rice and the brown rice are not two things, unlike an apple and a pear. The different ways of referring to the rice matter for the semantics of natural language, in particular the application and understanding of predicates. Thus (1a) does not sound very good, whereas (1b) is perfectly fine and has a single reading, and similarly (2a) does not sound very good, whereas (2b) is fine and has a single reading:

(1) a. ??? John compared the rice.

b. John compared the white and the brown rice.

(2) a. ??? John cannot distinguish the rice.

b. John cannot distinguish the rice in the various dishes

(1b) means John compared the white rice to the brown rice, and (2b) means John cannot distinguish the rice in dish one from the rice in dish 2 and from the rice in dish 3 etc.  It is not entirely impossible to get such readings also for (1a) and (2a), but these sentences also allow for other readings, depending on what sort of division of the rice into units is relevant in the context of the discourse. By contrast, when we use the predicate count instead of compare in (1a) (John counted the rice), a reading is entirely excluded on which contextually relevant portions are being counted.

The sensitivity of predicates like to compare and distinguish to the contextual division of a portion means that such predicates do not apply to entities or portions as such, or to pluralities. Rather when they apply to something like a portion of rice, they apply to it as divided into units given the information given by the descriptive content of the construction that is used or else nonlinguistic contextually relevant information.

What sorts of conditions are constitutive of the division of a portion into units? These are generally the same sorts of conditions as apply in the case of the painting: the units are maximal units of rice that share a contextually given property, such as the property of being white or the property of being brown in the case of (1b), and the property of being located in a particular dish in the case of (1b).

The same phenomena appear with plurals:

(3) a. John compared / cannot distinguish the students.

b. John compared / cannot distinguish the male student and the female students.

c. John compared the students in the different classes.

Compare applies to a plurality relative to a contextually given division into subpluralities, which is enforced by the use of a complex construction as in (3b) and (3c). Again pluralities are not single things, but they may count as units in the context.

Language also dislays unit-dissolving and unit-preventing modifiers, for example the adjectives whole, and individual in English:

(4) a. The whole collection is expensive.

b. John compared the individual students.

Whole in (4a) allows a distributive reading of expensive that would be impossible if only the count noun was used (the collection is expensive). Individual in (4b) prevents a reading on which proper subgroups are the object of comparison.

In natural language, as in abstract art, we thus see the importance of conditions of unity without objecthood. These conditions may be crucial for the understanding of what is said in the utterance of sentences, as just as they are crucial for the understanding or appreciation of a painting.

Friederike Moltmann, Julio Le Parc. Credit BFA.com.

Featured image: painting by Atelier Julio Le Parc from the “Alchemie” series. Copyright Atelier Julio Le Parc. Used with permission. 

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Bastards and Game of Thrones

Watching Game of Thrones, and devouring the novels, made me a better medievalist. As fans of the show and novels know well, George R. R. Martin’s imaginary world offers a vibrant account of life and death, of royal power and magic, of political infighting, arranged marriages, sex, love, and despair. It is not an accurate depiction of medieval Europe, but why should it be? Instead, it is great fun, and is also a prime example of what scholars have started calling “medievalism,” accounts of a medieval past that are often as much about us as about them, what we love (and love to hate) about Medieval Europe, real or imagined.

But there is more to it than just good fun. Game of Thrones also helped me think through one of my main interests as a scholar, illegitimacy in Medieval Europe.

According to the Game of Thrones wikia page, a bastard is “anyone born out of wedlock.” Until recently, scholars of medieval Europe have generally adhered to the same definition. I have argued that we need to revisit our definition of bastard, at least for medieval Europe through the late twelfth century, and I would suggest that the same rule holds for Game of Thrones. Medieval Europe did not divide its people into two stark categories: children born of marriage and children born outside marriage. Instead, children were ranged on a spectrum of illegitimacy.

The same is true of Westeros and its neighbors. What mattered most for the prospects of a child was often the status of both parents, not the question of if they legally married each other or not. Of course there were plenty of regional variations in medieval Europe (and in Game of Thrones). There were changes over time in Europe as well. It is harder to assess change over time with Game of Thrones, but certainly there are characters in the series who refer intriguingly to a past in which some sexual and marital practices considered illegal by contemporaries were quite legal, and could have resulted in legitimate issue with rights to a throne.

Robert Fitzroy, 1st Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England, with his wife Mabel FitzHamon. By Monks of Tewkesbury Abbey, c. 1500-1525. Bodleian Library Manuscript. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Much as in Medieval Europe, there are several different kinds of bastards in Game of Thrones, falling into sometimes overlapping categories. The first and most obvious type of bastard is one born to a known “highborn” father who recognizes the child as his but whose mother is either unknown or known to be low status. Here the most memorable example is Jon Snow, Snow being the surname for Northern bastards of this type (though of course — spoiler alert — Jon’s parentage turns out to be more complicated, and extremely throneworthy regardless of any niceties of marriage law), or Sand, Sand being the surname for bastards from the south. It is quite clearly better to be a Sand than a Snow, with the warm sunny climate of the south both more openly licentious than the restrained north, and more tolerant of children born to extramarital sex.

This difference in the social status possibilities for the same kind of illegitimate child in two different regions mirrors nicely, and probably quite intentionally, the relative permissiveness towards bastards found in Iberia as opposed to England. The sons of lower status mothers had little chance of becoming king in England — William of Normandy, the conquering bastard in 1066, the obvious exception to this. William’s grandson Robert of Gloucester, son of King Henry and an unknown woman, was not considered a worthy candidate of his father’s throne. In Game of Thrones Ramsey Snow, a bastard son of Lord Bolton and a miller’s wife, raped by Lord Bolton — and a bastard in every sense of the word — could be legitimized as Ramsey Bolton and therefore become a legitimate heir, but this does not appear to have been a real possibility for Robert of Gloucester. Kings of England needed royal blood, ideally from both parents, and Robert had a good deal less of it than his half-sister Matilda, who via her mother had the best possible ancestors for an English queen.

Looking instead to Iberia we find, as in Dorne, in southern Westeros, greater room for bastards to inherit and also more women in positions of power. I have a hard time imagining the royal daughters of the ruling houses of Christian Spain having the same military prowess as found with the Dornish princesses, but it is certainly clear that kings in Iberia could quite publicly keep concubines, and that the children of these women could do quite well. Even the son of a Muslim concubine, Sancho Alfónsez, seems to have been considered a worthy candidate for the mighty kingdom of Castile-León. We know a great deal less than we would like about his mother: King Alfonso VI had so many wives and concubines that it is extremely difficult to sort them out and sort out who precisely Sancho’s mother was, but it seems that she was a Muslim concubine, though there are some stories that Alfonso married her in an effort to “legitimize” his only son. While Sancho’s mother may have converted and her son was likely raised as a Christian, it is a surprise to see their son as the main contender to the throne until his untimely death in battle in 1107. Alfonso’s eldest daughter, Urraca, born to one of his highborn Christian wives, inherited his throne instead, but his daughter Teresa, born to a noble concubine, obtained the county of Portugal, which soon became a kingdom.

In subsequent generations, we more often find the children of illegal marriages made between the various interrelated ruling families inheriting thrones than the children of lower status concubines, but that does continue to happen, and in ways worthy of a Game of Thrones rendering. For instance, in the fourteenth century, Henry “the Fratricidal,” one of many illegitimate sons of King Alfonso XI of Castile and his noble mistress Eleanor (a woman of actually quite high Iberian royal ancestry), killed his legitimate half-brother Pedro “the Cruel” and became ruler of Castile.

There is so much more to say about Game of Thrones and what we can learn from it about the Middle Ages, but to close off this piece I’ll say only that the Middle Ages is filled with such stories, and that fiction like Game of Thrones can help us better understand how to tell them.

Featured image credit: City walls of the Old Town, Dubrovnik. Photo by JSB. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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Ten facts about the pipa

The modern day pipa has gone through many transformations since being introduced during the Han dynasty and Koryŏ period. The instrument was integrated into three distinct cultures. It can be made of several different materials. The pipa has even been physically positioned in separate ways. The evolving models of the instrument to its changing popular usage show that the pipa has a long and rich history.

1. The modern pipa is called the quaxing pipa (“pipawith a crooked neck”) in China, and was introduced from India in 346-53 CE. However, it is said to have originated in ancient Persia.

2. According to Han dynasty sources, the origins of the name “pipa” refer to how the instrument is played. “Pi” meant “to play forward” and “pa” means “to play backward”. However, as no other types of sources reference this etymology; scholars suspect that the instrument more likely originated outside China, and that its name references a foreign language term.

3. Modern pipas are made out of several types of materials. Their soundboards are made out of wutong wood, their frets and turning pegs are made of ivory, buffalo horns or wood, and their lower frets are made from bamboo.

Image Credit: Musical Cultural performance by Ms Pei Ju Tsai with the Pipa, a Chinese traditional string instrument by IAEA Imagebank, CC BY-SA 2.0  via Flickr.

4. The quxing pipa was used during the Sui and Tang dynasties for entertainment and was often paired with singing and dancing or accompanied by an ensemble.

5. There is a smaller instrument similar to the quxiang pipa called the wuxian pipa (“5-string pipa”), which was introduced to China from India during the 4th century BCE, but it gradually disappeared after the Tang dynasty.

6. Traditional forms of the pipa are still played in Fujian and northern Shaanxi despite the increasing popularity of factory-made forms.

7. After the Tang dynasty, the pipa was used more for narrative singing and regional opera and its playing position switched from being vertical to horizontal.

8. The number of frets on the pipa increased from about 4 to around 14-16 frets after the Tang dynasty. This traditional pipa has a range of approximately 3 octaves.

9. In the 1920’s and 30’s, musicians experimented with 24-fret pipas in equal temperament, a version that gained popularity in the 1950’s and persists today.

10. The more frets that a pipa has, the greater its range and flexibility of pitch.

Featured image: “Paintings on north wall of Xu Xianxiu Tomb”.  Photo by Ancient Chinese Tomb Painter. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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