Oxford University Press's Blog, page 359

Flying kites: politics, elections, and The One Show

The sight of a kite ensnared and tangled up in a tree – lonely and isolated, desperate to be free – is always a somewhat melancholy vision. You can almost sense the sadness felt not only by the child who once held that tugging string, but also by the parent who had to comfort the child as the realisation that all was lost, and the tree had won suddenly struck home. Now Endcliffe Park in Sheffield is not usually known as a graveyard for kites; the field is as wide as it is broad and the beautiful trees that grace the perimeter generally keep their distance.

Imagine then my surprise this morning to discover not one but two kites stranded and silhouetted high up in the treescape. Stranger still was the thought this view brought to mind. Parks and politics don’t usually mix but fate seemed to have created what seemed to me a political statement, possibly a chronicle of a death foretold.

The first kite was magnificent in blue and gold, six-foot tall and four feet wide – a geometric vision of beauty shimmering in the morning sun. Although clearly ensnared and left behind it may well have been a gift from the Gods, droppedfrom the clouds rather than the toy of a mere mortal. The kite sat tall and proud as if carefully positioned to dominate the landscape. The second by contrast was small and made of plastic, it was marooned low down in a secondary sapling, and while the mighty blue kite trailed bright white string, this one dribbled what looked like cheap fishing line (frayed as if unable to unite its various strands). It was red.

Can you see where this is going?

Apparently there is a Chinese proverb that says ‘unless there is opposing wind, a kite cannot rise’ but in the context of British politics it appears that only one kite is really rising, and the other is tumbling down. If truth be told the wind of opposition has arguably been so feeble that the Labour Party’s kite appears leaden rather than light. Too many strings held by too many hands and panels punctured by those within the party who favour a different design. Shot down before lift-off, stuck in a sapling, left behind.

Politics should provoke a sense of wonderment, belief, and faith in the power not of the wind, but of collective social action. Could it be this essential quality that politics has lost?

Compare this to the mighty blue beast in its tree-top aerie.

The Tories have the wind in their sails and Theresa May’s star is shining bright. Does anyone really believe that her decision to call a General Election had nothing to do with Brexit? Far closer to the truth to suggest the rational exploitation of a floundering opposition, the lack of an opposing wind, the chance to fly high. The risk for the Conservative Party is almost that the wind may become too strong, the string too taut, the party too confident, the majority too large.

I turned and walked along the River Porter and left the kites behind. And then as I left the park I suddenly realised the Kite God’s true message: It was not that one was big, bold and blue, or even that the other was ripped, rejected, and red; it was that neither was actually capable of flying. The beauty of a kite lies in the simple connection it provides between an individual and those invisible natural forces that we know exist well above our physical reach. The beauty of democracy – as Bernard Crick argued so eloquently in his In Defence of Politics (1965) – was that it also sustained a clear sense of connection between the men or women on the street, and those broader social forces that will inevitably shape our lives. Politics should provoke a sense of wonderment, belief, and faith in the power not of the wind, but of collective social action. Could it be this essential quality that politics has lost?

Soft Brexit, Hard Brexit, Fuzzy Brexit, Beer and Brexit… all little more than slogans that acknowledge the acceptance of a defensive, aversive, anti-‘other’, isolationist mode of populist politics. This is not a partisan point. British politics is currently dominated by everything that is ‘anti’ (anti-political, anti-establishment, anti-politician, anti-European, anti-immigration, anti-this, anti-that) and our world is framed through the negative. No political party can soar on huff and puff alone. My sense is that this is why the parties are ultimately trapped in a snare of the their own making – like kites in a tree – because beyond empty slogans they lack a positive vision that people can believe in or any sense of direction about where society is going or why.

Theresa May – soon to be President May – is focused upon freeing the UK from a “European trap” of its own making… I’m just not so sure. The travesty of the recent appearance of Theresa May on the BBC’s The One Show was the failure to ask the simplest question – ‘Deep down and being honest, in your heart-of-hearts, do you really think leaving the EU is the right thing for the UK to be doing?’ My sense is that she would have momentarily paused for thought, a very personal and unscripted moment that revealed a tortured soul. The pained expression on her face as she discombobulates the question instead of answering it…the sight of a kite ensnared and tangled up tree – lonely and isolated, desperate to be free – is always a somewhat melancholy vision….

Featured image credit: IMG_3110 by Neeta Lind. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

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How to use repetition

A couple times a week, I hear someone remark “It is what it is,” accompanied by a weary sigh. I always puzzle over the expression a little bit, thinking What else could it be? “It is what it is” is a literal tautology, an apparently needless repetition intended to convey something more. Overused, it has become a cliché, reflecting a too-easy acceptance of bad situations.

“It is what it is” is not alone. Tautologies abound, from “What will be will be” (and the Spanish version “Que será será”) to the assertive “I am what I am” (and the Biblical “I am that I am” translating the Hebrew Ehyeh asher ehyeh). There’s Yogi Berra’s “It ain’t over till it’s over.” And there’s “A man got to do what a man got to do” from The Grapes of Wrath, later morphed to “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

These clausal tautologies often share a grammatical form: the subject-predicate pair is repeated within the subject (“What will be will be”, “A man got to do what a man got to do”) or within the predicate (“It is what it is”, “I am what I am”). By stating the obvious in an obvious way, such expressions force us to look beyond the literal for meaning. Hearers infer inevitability and acceptance or, in some instances, hope and grit.

Clause tautologies are not the only kind. Noun tautologies assert that something—some noun–is itself: “food is food,” “tire are tires,” “war is war,” “a win is a win.” The grammar denies the existence of difference within a category, seeming to say that all foods (all tires, wars, wins, etc.) are the same. The denial of difference can sometimes evoke an obligation, as in “a promise is a promise,” meaning that all promises should be honored. Noun tautologies can also be expressed with the verb “means” emphasizing the need to take a word literally, as in “No means no” or “Brexit means Brexit.”

When noun tautolgies are set in the future tense or in the past, additional nuance arises. We see this in “Boys will be boys” or “I remember when books were books.” The first points to some extreme aspect of male behavior, attributing it to immaturity and implying its inevitability. The second points to a missing but idealized quality of books, such as physicality or literary quality.

Tautologies can also be used in conditional sentences with if. Here both meanings are possible, either the cancellation or emphasis of difference. “If he’s mad, he’s mad” can imply a nonchalance about someone’s anger: If he’s mad, he’s mad. There’s nothing I can do about it. Or it might, with a slightly different intonation (and stress on the second mad), indicate extreme anger: He doesn’t often get angry so if he’s mad, he’s mad.

Likewise “If it’s late, it’s late” can imply nonchalance (on the part of a student: If it’s late, it’s late. Who cares?) or reinforcement of the obligation (on the part of the professor:If it’s late it’s late, even by a minute). And if a deadline-enforcer says “If it’s late, it’s late,” the response might be “But it’s not late late.” Here repetition indicates that the canoncial meaning of late it intended.It’s not late late, it’s just a little late.

This usage is here to stay. Billy Collins’s poem “After the Funeral” begins with the line “When you told me you needed a drink-drink and not just a drink like a drink of water, …” and a recent New Yorker cartoon by Emily Flake is captioned “I mean, I guess we take your insurance, but we don’t, like, take-take your insurance.”

Well, that’s that.

I’m sure you agree that enough is enough.

Featured image credit: “FlickrFriday #15: Repetition” by elPadawan. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.

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Business as usual in Washington?

For decades, a majority of Americans have held the view that their representatives in government are corrupt. It is tempting, therefore, to view the current administration through the lens of “politics-as-usual,” just another instance of granting special interests access to the halls of government via lobbying or lavish campaign donations.

However, the Trump Presidency is accused of mixing public and private interests in ways that stand apart from those used by previous US administrations. While not necessarily illegal, Trump’s conflicts of interest appear to involve the persistent intrusion into government activities of the president and his family’s private financial interests. He visits his own properties on a more-than-weekly basis, thereby encouraging those who wish to do business with him to do the same; his family members have advertised the Trump brands via government websites and in person; Trump has failed to divest himself of the hotel down the street from the White House, thereby encouraging lobbyists and foreign diplomats to curry favor by renting its rooms or event spaces.

While these behaviors may be no more troubling to a large swath of the electorate in the United States than revolving door lobbyists or campaign finance run amok, they should be. Some legal scholars contend that cumulatively, Trump’s actions may well violate the emoluments clause of the US Constitution. Taken individually, however, none of his actions seem likely to be illegal or corrupt. Nonetheless, many of them blur the line between private wealth accumulation and public policy in ways that are almost unprecedented for leaders of modern Western democracies.

Donald Trump is not the first Western head of government to be accused of exploiting public office to benefit his business interests. The best-known precedent is Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s former Prime Minister. Recent research shows that, for example, companies paid inflated prices to advertise on the Berlusconi-owned Mediaset television network while he was in office (particularly among firms in highly regulated industries that would benefit the most from government favors). The parallels to overpriced Trump Hotel rooms or Trump licensing agreements are noteworthy. But Berlusconi—like Trump—is a conspicuous anomaly: for the most part, in the world’s wealthy countries, business people stick to making money by running their businesses rather than by entering politics.

Berlusconi in his private jet, in the 1980s by unknown. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

There are nations where business interests and political power are deeply intertwined and where political leaders chronically fail to honor the distinction between the pursuit of personal financial gain and the pursuit of political power. But these are not countries that the United States would like to emulate. They are the old-fashioned, poor, single-party autocracies, where political leaders siphon off public monies into Swiss bank accounts and devote considerable public resources to the growth of their personal financial and business concerns. Consider a few of the more extreme cases, like Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea and Africa’s longest serving ruler, who has bought luxury homes in France and whose son spent millions of government money on a lifestyle that includes a property in Malibu and a Gulfstream jet; or Robert Mugabe, the 92-year old President of Zimbabwe, a country that according to Transparency International loses $1 billion annually to corruption. The citizens of these countries—who are poor to begin with—are worse off as a result, and these nations collectively provide a lesson that American voters should keep in mind in working to hold their current government accountable, especially when they cast their ballots at their next opportunity to enter the voting booth.

More broadly, if America’s laws allow for business-government relations that Americans view as too cozy, let’s change the laws to bring them more in line with public opinion on what constitutes as corruption. Americans, whatever their partisan allegiances, want to elect representatives who put the interests of voters ahead of their own personal interests, and we need to find better ways to do this, perhaps by placing legal limits on campaign contributions and bringing the executive under the same conflict-of-interest regulations that apply to the rest of the government.

Featured image credit: “US Capitol Buidling” by Mark Thomas. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

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Are Indians charitable?

Are Indians charitable? My answer to this question is yes, as much as any other, contrary to what international surveys may maintain. I believe India comes out poorly on the generosity index because the focus is on aggregated giving and no distinction is being made between philanthropic giving and charitable giving. My contention is that charity is alive and well in India, and Indians are as charitable as any other nation. But philanthropy is another story.

Charity is the voluntary giving of money to those in need; it is palliative not curative in nature. It is purely impulsive, aims to provide immediate relief, not to root out the cause of the distress, and takes a short not a long term view of a problem. Charity makes no claim that it is given in order to reduce inequality or to promote social justice.

Philanthropy on the other hand, is the planned use of wealth for transforming society for the good of all.  It implies the use of a scientific spirit and method in giving for the purpose of social advancement. It is not limited to alleviation of poverty but includes giving to bring beauty and refinement to society. Further, it assumes that social ills such as poverty, educational failure, or criminal behaviour can be identified, attacked and cured.

If one analyses the charitable giving, one will find that it is largely charitable not philanthropic in nature.

Indian charitable giving is also underestimated because most sample surveys focus only on the urban segments, and capture the more formal giving. Most charitable giving in India is of the informal kind, given as alms, given to dependents, friends, employees and  others in need, or through informal channels. It therefore goes unreported, or is grossly underestimated, especially giving by rural givers who are themselves at the bottom of the pyramid. But undoubtedly they too give, especially in times of disaster, to their fellow sufferers.

Anecdotal evidence too backs the conclusion that, though not reflected in surveys, Indians are as charitable as any other nation. Just two examples will suffice. A day after the Times of India reported on the financial constraints which prevented figure skater Rajkumar Tiwari from participating in the Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy in Bangkok, people from across the country came forward to fund his trip. It was the same for the two slum boys who came out tops in the entrance exams for the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), but could not avail of the opportunity because of lack of funds. Funds poured in when people read their story.

I believe India comes out poorly on the generosity index because the focus is on aggregated giving and no distinction is being made between philanthropic giving and charitable giving.

Such surveys as exist (and there are very few in India), indicate that the bulk of the charitable giving is to religious institutions – temples, mosques, churches and gurus of all kinds. It is estimated that if the famous Venkateswara temple at Tirupati, donated its annual earnings, it would become the country’s second largest philanthropist.

Meanwhile, philanthropy is in short supply in India. Very few of the religious organizations which receive huge donations use this money for transformative social change. Other small giving does not get added up into collective philanthropy for transformative change, because it does not flow in large amounts to organizations who are involved in developmental work. But most importantly, those who can afford to take risks on supporting large projects for transformative change and innovation do not give enough.

The number of “high net worth individuals” in India has grown exponentially, by any count, possibly at the fastest pace in the world. According to the Hurun Report 2016 , published by a China based luxury and events group, the world’s billionaires grew by 99 to 2188 individuals, 50% more than in 2013. Of this India’s tally is 111 billionaires, giving it the 3rd place in the list. Their combined wealth is estimated at US$ 308bn.

Moreover, the number of new wealth builders is expected to grow fastest in India over the next 5 years. While the new rich Indians will grow by 47% in 2020, the growth globally is expected to be only 7% and in Asia 10%. The total value of their wealth is expected to be $879 billion, double what it was a decade ago.

However the distribution of wealth is highly unequal in India. According to the Global Wealth Databook, 58.4% of India’s wealth is with the top 1% of the country’s population. Only  57 billionaires control 70% of India’s wealth. At the other end of the scale are an estimated 363 million living below the poverty line of Rs. 32 a day in villages, and Rs. 47 in cities. This by itself makes a persuasive case for philanthropy to share wealth more liberally with the rest of the population.

Unfortunately, today’s rich are indulging in ostentatious living and spending lavishly to flaunt their wealth. According  to the Bain and Co.’s Annual Philanthropy Report for 2011, the wealthiest social class as a whole has the lowest level of giving, just 1.6 percent of household income. The class below the top gives 2.1% and the middle class 1.9% of household income, giving a median of 2.1% of household income.

Though the figure of giving as a proportion of household income of the Indian rich has increased to around 3.1, it  is still well below the potential for giving, or compared to the 9% given by the wealthy in the USA.

The silver lining however, is that philanthropic giving is steadily increasing. According to the Bain and Co.’s latest report, philanthropic funding from private individuals has grown from Rs 6000 crs. in 2011 to Rs. 36,000 crs. in 2016, and funding from individual philanthropists is reportedly even outpacing contributions from foreign sources and funds from companies.

Hopefully, if the philanthropy’s ecosystem improves, Indians of the future will be reckoned both charitable and philanthropic.

Featured image credit: Money in hand. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

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Philosopher of the month: Swami Vivekānanda [timeline]

This June, the OUP Philosophy team honors Swami Vivekānanda (born Narendranath Datta, 1863–1902) as their Philosopher of the Month. Born in Calcutta under colonial rule, Vivekānanda became a Hindu religious leader, and one of the most prominent disciples of guru and mystic Śri Rāmakṛṣṇa. After delivering a highly regarded speech as the Hindu delegate to the Chicago World Parliament of Religions in 1893, Vivekānanda gained worldwide recognition. His ideas were so well received that in 1895 he established the Vedānta Society in New York, before returning to India to found the Ramakrishna Mission. Vivekānanda inspired a newfound pride in the hearts of Hindus as his non-dualistic, Advaita Vedānta philosophy helped spread the spiritual traditions of India to the Christian West.

Narendranath Datta was born to Kayastha family, members of a scribe caste customarily employed in government service. Educated to become a lawyer, he completed law school at the Metropolitan Institution in 1886. Narendranath met Rāmakṛṣṇa after joining the Brahmo Samaj Hindu reform movement, and after eventually undergoing a powerful religious experience, became an ascetic disciple. When Rāmakṛṣṇa died in 1886, Narendranath traveled across India on foot, spreading his interpretation of Rāmakṛṣṇa’s teachings.

Vivekānanda’s philosophical and spiritual teachings upheld a type of Advaita Vedānta (later termed Neo-Vedānta) which he portrayed as the essence both of Hinduism and every other religion. Vivekānanda said, quoting a Hindu hymn, at his 1893 speech to the Chicago World Parliament of Religions, “As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”  Vivekānanda encouraged this form of Hinduism as a significant world religion, based on what he saw as universally valid and applicable ethical principles. Advaita Vedānta tradition proposes that the nature of reality is non-dualistic. The world of seeming multiplicity and flux is ultimately illusion, and Advaita Vedānta teaches that nothing has ever truly come into being. This idea is termed adhyāsa (superimposition), or the misguided belief that objects have certain attributes which, in reality, they do not. Knowledge of this surface reality is distinguished from absolute knowledge, paramārtha, which is knowledge or realization of the ultimate, non-dualistic reality.

Vivekānanda demonstrated to the world Hinduism’s venerated, ancient religious traditions. In India he was a driving force behind Hindu reform movements, and founded the Rāmakṛṣṇa Mission, a charitable organization which remaines active throughout the world. He helped shape the prevalent Western view of Hinduism as synonymous with Advaita Vedānta, and is considered to have paved the way for the Indian Independence movements of the early 20th century.

For more on Vivekānanda’s life and work, browse our interactive timeline below.

Featured image:  Swami Vivekananda Statue in Vivekananda House, Chennai. Photo by Balamurugan Srinivasan. CC-BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

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A glimpse at Eclipse 2017 [excerpt]

The United States mainland has not experienced a total solar eclipse in 38 years, and the upcoming 2017 eclipse promises to be the most-watched total eclipse in history. Why are millions of Americans travelling to witness this event?

In the following excerpt from Eclipse: Journeys to the Dark Side of the Moon, author Frank Close gives us a glimpse into the allure of the total eclipse.

Anyone who has experienced the diamond ring effect that heralds the start of a total solar eclipse will tell you that it is the most beautiful natural phenomenon that they have ever seen.

That this marvel happens is thanks to a cosmic coincidence: the sun is both 400 times broader than the moon and 400 times further away. This makes the sun and moon appear to be the same size. So if the moon is in direct line of sight of the sun, it can completely and precisely block it from view.

Resources provided by NASA.

As the moon moves slowly across the face of the sun, it casts a shadow on the earth’s surface, about 100 miles in diameter. As our planet spins in its daily round, the moon’s silhouette rushes across land and sea at about 2000 miles an hour.

There is a slow build-up to the totality show, as the moon gradually covers the sun, which becomes a thin crescent as twilight falls. As the climax approaches, excitement mounts. The temperature drops, and then, in the west, a wall of darkness like a gathering storm rushes towards you. This apparition is the moon’s shadow.

In an instant you are enveloped by the gloom. The last sliver of sun disappears and, as from nowhere, a diamond ring flashes around a black hole in the sky, vibrant, like a living thing. For those beneath the shadow as it passes, the sounds of animals cease, and life seems in suspended animation as for a few minutes night comes to the dome of the sky directly overhead, and covers the land from one horizon to the other. Look up myopically, and you would see stars as if it were normal night, accompanied by an awesome sight: that inky circle, surrounded by shimmering white light, like a black sunflower with the most delicate of silver petals.

One watcher has described it to me as like “looking into the valley of death with the lights of heaven far away calling for me to enter.” After the thrill of an eclipse you can’t wait to do it again, but wait you must until that exquisite alignment of sun, moon, and earth comes around once more. When it does, you must go to the thin arc where the moon’s shadow momentarily sweeps across a small part of the globe. For a total eclipse is only visible at special places on earth; a mere 0.5% of the earth’s surface is totally obscured by the moon’s shadow for just a few minutes, while the remaining 99.5% sees either a partial eclipse or nothing at all.

Anyone who hasn’t experienced totality might struggle to understand why people are prepared to adventure to the far side of the earth, by plane, ship, even on the hump of a camel, to be there. I didn’t anticipate that I would spend the latter years of my life planning expeditions throughout the globe to watch them.

Featured image credit: “Totalsolareclipse2001cmp” by Fred Espenak . Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons .

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A reading list for Euroanaesthesia 2017 in Geneva

This weekend anaesthetists from across the globe are descending upon Geneva for Euroanaesthesia, Europe’s largest annual event focusing on anaesthesia, perioperative medicine, intensive care, emergency medicine, and pain treatment.

We’ll be heading out there too, and the interactive bookcase below will give you a sneak peek at what we’ll have available at stand 81a!

A full list of the resources in our interactive bookcase is also listed below:

Regional anaesthesia of the upper limb – sample chapter from the Oxford Textbook of Anaesthesia
Anaesthetic emergencies – sample chapter from the Oxford Handbook of Anaesthesia 
ESA 2017 collection from the BJA and BJA Education 
10 top tips for anyone working in Retrieval Medicine – great advice from one of the editors of the Oxford Specialist Handbook of Retrieval Medicine 
Systematic approach to the injured patient – sample chapter from the Oxford Textbook of Critical Care 
The modern marvel of medicine – a history of anaesthesia with references from the Oxford Dictionary of Anaesthesia  

Featured image credit: Geneva panoramic view by Viktar Palstsiuk. CC BY SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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Net neutrality and the new information crossroads

Despite the rapidly expanding collections of information, the nation’s information is at risk. As more of it comes in digitized form and less in printed or verbalized formats, it can be corralled and viewed more easily by groups or institutions concerned with only their interests. Charging for access and the flow of information can be increased thanks to software. Today, lobbying effectiveness can influence laws and regulations to an extent not seen since the wild political days of the Gilded Age. Despite where information physically sits, if in digital form it can be easily changed, added to, or constrained. That capability was never possible with printed materials or shared conversations, which were always dispersed across the vast North American continent. The benefits of having much information in digital formats are enormous and will not be denied, but as a nation Americans need to recognize that they are confronting a new world requiring informed action.

Today’s information crossroad is about the future of the Internet. It is the base upon which so much information created and used by people will continue to rest. Massive deployment of sensors communicating with each other, people, computers, and other devices, already under way, will be another, what is cutely being called the Internet of Things (IoT). There are many issues before the American public, but the central ones concern security, privacy of information, and to what extent the Internet should be an “Information Highway” on which everyone can travel.

But why involve the public? Google knows what it wants to do. The Federal Communications Commission has a solid record of making information accessible as every new technology has come along. From time to time, Congress updates copyright and patent laws to account for new technologies, most notably software. Even the slow-moving federal court system has supported the notion of free flow of information and it appears every new information-handling technology ends up generating litigation for it to adjudicate. Most recently, in 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court judged that police could not access data on a private cell phone without a search warrant. Academics in many disciplines are extensively engaged in the broader conversation, producing a flood of books and articles that make it difficult for one to keep up with. So, why not let the experts deal with crossroad issues in their own ways?

The problem with relying solely on these various groups is that the issues before Americans involve 100 percent of the public and (for those roughly over the age of 7) activities they perform frequently each day. Their issues deal with the fundamental right to access and use information. These are essentially the same ones the public faced in the last quarter of the eighteenth century when they set up the United States. The central issues involving the Internet—data security, privacy, and net neutrality—have now been before the public for over two decades. But Americans have not become as engaged with them as they should. They ought to do so now, as these will need to be addressed head-on over the next several years. Recent evidence of the Trump administration putting these at risk is more an intensification of a debate rather than the introduction of a new conversation. But that intensification teaches us that to ignore these issues is to invite a circumstance when it may become too late to reverse course. There is always someone who wants to deny you the freedom to create, collect, and use information. Today is no different than 1917 or 1817.

Americans could well see information denied to them, they will probably see a sharp increase in what they are charged for what they access, and they may be sufficiently misinformed so as to threaten, or possibly weaken, their democratic way of life. That is why everyone needs to form opinions on these three issues and to take group and individual actions in line with their conclusions. Crowdsourcing technologies combined with social media software practices demonstrate that individuals can influence the course of events to a far greater extent than in earlier times. That was a lesson of the Arab Spring of 2011, which has frequently been called such things as the Twitter Revolution and the Facebook War.

American history is full of examples of threats to data security, privacy, and—the newest for a quarter century—net neutrality. The security of one’s banking and medical records stored in computers has been the subject of controversy, vigilance, and protections granted and denied since the 1960s. We are going through a period of unprecedented attacks on data security through hacking, after a period of relative calm in the early 2000s. Privacy has been with us since the dawn of the United States. Even in the Constitution, public leaders had to include language to protect invasion of American homes and papers. Net neutrality—the idea that everyone should have equal access to the Internet—is another manifestation of ideas such as freedom of the press, access to newspapers and books, and the ability to send mail to anyone uninhibited by special prices, censorship, or prejudicial to targeted groups. The history of American information suggests that openness and access has to be constantly earned and, in fact, re-earned. The historical record is full of ugly fights, but more successes than failures. It also tells us that we cannot leave it to experts or officials. American society as a whole must engage in the debate, take sides, and vote in favor of their positions.

Headline image credit: Unnamed by Seth Schwiet. Creative Commons Zero via Unsplash .

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The classics book club at Bryant Park Reading Room

Oxford University Press has once again teamed up with the Bryant Park Reading Room on their summer literary series.

The Bryant Park Reading Room was first established in 1935 by the New York Public Library as a refuge for the thousands of unemployed New Yorkers during the Great Depression. Today, thanks to the generous support of HSBC Bank USA, and the continued efforts of the Bryant Park Corporation, the Reading Room is thriving once again. As part of the Bryant Park program, Oxford University Press has created a special book club where we pair acclaimed contemporary authors with a classic title from the Oxford World’s Classics series.

This Tuesday, 6 June, marks the first Classics Book Club of the season! Check out the entire summer schedule below. Prior to each event, stop by Bryant Park to pick up a free copy of the book club choice while supplies lasts. The Reading Room is located in Bryant Park, right behind the NYPL Main Branch, on 42nd street between 5th and 6th Ave.

1.  June 6, 2017—Bruce Bauman, author of Broken Sleep, discussing Franz Kafka’s The Trial. 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Bruce Bauman is an award-winning author, an instructor in the CalArts MFA Writing Program and Critical Studies Department, and the Senior Editor of Black Clock literary magazine. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Salon, BOMB, Bookforum, and numerous anthologies and other publications. Born and raised in New York City, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the painter Suzan Woodruff.

2. June 20, 2017—Marina Budhos & Marc Aronson, authors of Eyes of the World, discussing Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth. 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos are writers whose first joint book was the acclaimed Sugar Changed the World. Aronson is a passionate advocate of nonfiction and the first winner of the Robert F. Sibert Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Budhos writes fiction and nonfiction for adults and teenagers, including the recently published Watched. Aronson is a member of the faculty in the Master of Information program at Rutgers and Budhos is a professor of English at William Paterson University. They live with their two sons in Maplewood, NJ.

3. July 11, 2017—Irina Reyn, author of The Imperial Wife, discussing Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Irina Reyn is the author of What Happened to Anna K: A Novel. She is also the editor of the anthology Living on the Edge of the World: New Jersey Writers Take on the Garden State. She has reviewed books for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Forward, and other publications. Her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in One Story, Tin House, Town & Country Travel and Poets & Writers. She teaches fiction writing at the University of Pittsburgh.

4. July 25, 2017—Joanna Luthmann, author of Love, Madness, Scandal, discussing Margery Kempe’s The Book of Margery Kempe.12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Johanna Luthman is an associate professor of history at the University of North Georgia. Originally from Sweden, Luthman has studied and worked in the United States since the early 1990s, receiving her doctorate from Emory University in Atlanta. Her work focuses on the Tudor and Stuart eras, specifically on issues of love, sex, and marriage. Her previous publications include Love, Lust and License in Early Modern England: Illicit Sex and the Nobility (2008), published under the name Johanna Rickman. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, Dr. Marko Maunula.

5. August 8, 2017—Radha Vatsal, author of Murder Between the Lines, discussing Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters. 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Radha Vatsal was inspired by 1910s action-film heroines to create a heroine, Capability “Kitty” Weeks, an aspiring journalist who finds herself plunged into the tumultuous world of 1910s New York. Vatsal was born in Mumbai India, and has a Ph.D.from the English Department at Duke University (with a focus on silent-era film history). She lives in New York with her husband and their two daughters.

6. August 22, 2017—Meg Lemke, Editor-in-Chief of MUTHA Magazine, discussing Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Meg Lemke is the Editor-in-Chief of MUTHA. She also programs the comics and graphic novels at the Brooklyn Book Festival, acts as a guest editor at Illustrated PEN, and takes on miscellaneous freelance projects in-between. She has worked as a book editor at Teachers College Press at Columbia University, Seven Stories Press and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The Seattle Review, The Atlanta Review, The Good Mother Myth blog, and Seleni, among other publications. She lives with her family in the dense mother-zone of Park Slope, Brooklyn. Find her @meglemke and meglemke.tumblr.com or read up on her formative years at Lady Collective.

Featured image credit: “New York Central Park” by JodesJ. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

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Gut microbiota and melanoma treatment responses

An academic study performed in Paris suggests that gut microbiota is associated with efficacy and intestinal toxicity of the drug, ipilimumab. Monoclonal antibodies directed against checkpoint molecules such as CTLA-4 have recently demonstrated success in cancer immunotherapy in patients with melanoma. CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4) is a T cell receptor that functions as an immune checkpoint, downregulating immune responses. The monoclonal antibody, ipilimumab, blocks CTLA-4 by inhibiting this negative immune signal and amplifying immune responses. Ipilimumab has demonstrated its efficacy in patients with metastatic melanoma where administration prolongs survival in a subset of patients. However, because of its non-specific and broad immune activation, ipilimumab can also induce immune-related adverse events, including potentially severe enterocolitis.

Gut microbiota is composed of trillions of bacteria. It plays a prominent role in the development of the immune system and in several diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease. Ipilimumab-induced enterocolitis is similar to inflammatory bowel disease, with regards to symptoms and endoscopy. In addition, inflammatory bowel diseases, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease are treated with same drugs, namely corticosteroids and infliximab, a monoclonal anti-TNF antibody.

Due to the rising uses of ipilimumab in immunotherapy against melanoma, we sought to understand how differences in the composition of gut microbiota influenced drug response. Under what circumstance would ipilimumab lead to a successful anti-cancer response? Which gut microbiota composition will predispose to enterocolitis? To understand the possibility of each outcome, we prospectively studied 26 patients with metastatic melanoma treated with ipilimumab.

Crystal structure of CTLA4 as published in the Protein Data Bank (PDB: 1DQT) by Ramin Herati. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

We found that a distinct baseline gut microbiota composition was associated with both clinical response and colitis. Patients whose gut microbiota was enriched in Faecalibacterium and Firmicutes (including Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Gemmiger formicilis, and other butyrate-producing bacteria) referred to as cluster A, experienced a stronger T cell stimulation and thus better responded to ipilimumab and were also more prone to enterocolitis than patients whose gut microbiota was enriched in Bacteroides (cluster B). Despite the greater risk of enterocolitis, the baseline gut microbiota composition of Cluster A may be of greater clinical benefit.

These results obtained in patients show a link between gut microbiota, efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors, and intestinal inflammation. They pave the way for a better identification of responders to this class of drugs. These results suggest that we could alter gut microbiota prior to immunotherapy, using probiotics, prebiotics, phages, antibiotics, peptides, and fecal transplantation in order to improve response to anti-cancer immunotherapy. Needless to say, many steps have to be passed before we get to this stage. These results should be confirmed in larger populations of patients and extended to other immune checkpoint inhibitors. Bacteria should be more precisely characterized, the relative weight of gut microbiota composition should be compared to other biomarkers and ultimately, clinical trials should prove the utility of tailored manipulation of gut microbiota.

Featured image credit: 3D structure of a melanoma cell derived by ion abrasion scanning electron microscopy by Sriram Subramaniam, National Cancer Institute (NCI). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

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