Politics and religion in other climes

I was chasing down a familiar name (my mother had worked with the man) in the news, and a rabbit trail brought me to an interesting election dispute:

NEC rejects Justin Oldpa Yeazeahn CKA New Zoe Prophetkey application to contest for the bi-election for Senate seat in Nimba. It is reported that he fraudenly inserted voter registration number on his application form, where as he didn't register to vote during the last election.

Mr. Yeazeahn who has asked young people in Nimba to have plenty children by impregnating their girlfriends and wives, and he will pay the hospital bills has responded to NEC communication to him as attached.

He said the National Elections Commission didn't send the communication in time , to allow him use the 48 hours appeal period to file an appeal. He indicated that the commission refused to use his email to address the communication which would have given him opportunity to immediately respond.

Mr. Yeazeahn also accused the NEC of not giving the signed copy of his rejection communication to the person he sent to receive it

Many who think that Prophetkey shouldn't run for public office because of his unruly behavior , noted for abusing women will be happy if NEC decision stands.

The public is watching to see what happens next!!!!

Thanks to HOTT FM 107.9 and Super Bongese TV.

Raised beds

I built short raised beds of wood shortly after we moved here, and though the wood is largely gone the piles of soil aren't that tough to keep more or less corralled. Since bending over is getting a smidgeon harder, I built a trial "higher" raised bed, so that the soil is about 20" above the yard. This also let us grow things that want deeper roots--the yard's "topsoil" is about 5" deep and then hits glacial till. Carrots bifurcate or go sideways.

Anyhow, I wondered how long the high raised bed would last and now I know--about 5-6 years. I'm thinking of replacing the useless wood with cement blocks--the 4x8x16 variety, in hopes that the 4" thickness and construction adhesive would be enough to anchor one side wall to the next. I'd dig a little foundation, and then use 3 courses of bricks glued together.

Does anybody have any experience with this? Alternatives? Suggestions? "Round" off the corners?

Real Education

I hadn't heard of Real Education by Charles Murray, published in 2008. He divides the book according to four claims

1. Ability Varies
2. Half of the Children Are Below Average
3. Too Many People Are Going to College
4. America's Future Depends on How We Educate the Academically Gifted

The lie is that every child can be anything he or she wants to be. No one really believes it, but we approach education’s problems as if we did.

It isn't a secret that things like Head Start can create a bump in achievement, but that it lasts less than a handful of years, at which point there's little to no difference in academic skills compared to the control sample. He suggests there can be in some interpersonal abilities.

I wasn't aware of how things like the NAEP math tests worked, and found his numbers on how many students couldn't solve the "8'th grade" problems horrifying.

He proposes cerfifications to undermine the BA fetish, hoping that a need for certifications would create a supply for them. Let employers who don't know what a school's BA is worth (or whether the fellow without a BA is good) have a way of measuring skill.

For those who go to college for STEM, he has little to say: The demands of STEM weed out those not apt; there aren't "too many" after a while. But many are encouraged to go to college who don't benefit.

For those who don't "live in Lake Woebegon," he points to existing and underutilized and underadmired career and technical education. He wants tracking--though I'm not sure he understands how big a staff increase this might require.

For the gifted he hopes to teach wisdom:

A wonderful maxim is attributed to George Christian, one of Lyndon Johnson’s press secretaries: “No one should be allowed to work in the West Wing of the White House who has not suffered a major disappointment in life.” The responsibility of working there was too great, Christian thought, to be entrusted to people who weren’t painfully aware how badly things can go wrong. The same principle applies to those who will become members of America’s elite. No one among the gifted should be allowed to rise to a position of influence without knowing what it feels like to fail. The experience of internalized humiliation is a prerequisite for humility.

At all levels, he wants to teach basic Western culture and the principles of virtue. Those aren't exactly popular, at least in public.

As a sympathetic onlooker, I offer one piece of advice to advocates on the front lines: Stop focusing on math and reading test scores to make your case. They are the measures of educational achievement most closely tied to the child’s underlying academic ability. The limits that public schools face in raising those scores also bedevil private schools, charter schools, and home-schoolers. The reason private schools, charter schools, and home-schooling are desirable is their ability to create a better education in ways that do not show up in reading and math scores.

What can push change? School choice (including homeschool) and certification can help address the first few problems. For the liberal education he hopes in four things: "The stuff of a liberal education is truly wonderful," professors trying to look smart with "impenetrable vocabulary" can't get away with that forever (may not be a safe prediction, it's an old problem), students already ask themselves the questions a liberal education addresses, and using your capacities to the utmost is fun.

Don't look for top-down solutions:

If there is to be a return to reality, it will not come from government. Of all the people hooked on wishful thinking, politicians have the most untreatable habit.

It's about 168 pages, with the rest being notes. Some of his ideas parallel things I've been thinking about education. Give it a read.

Cutting board data point

We've a small plastic cutting board that sees a lot of use because of its convenience. I had a look at it yesterday, and then had a feel of it. The edges had the original smooth corrugated surface. The middle felt fuzzy to the touch. I had a closeup look at it (*), and the surface looked like a sea of floppy snouts pointing up. A lot of plastic had been carved away, and in between where cuts had been the ridges had been re-scored in random directions -- everywhere I looked were bits of plastic begging to be cut or twisted free. I can see why the researchers found that cutting carrots on a board generated more fragments than cutting the board directly -- you'd also get the sideways motion of the cut vegetable to push on those little nubs of plastic. (This was on boards that had already seen a lot of testing.)

I think we're going to retire that board, and use it for craft work instead.

In answer to a question: The best case is that the plastic consumption is harmless, and given that we haven't all keeled over, that's a good approximation. There are lots of other things in our food environment that are "mostly harmless."

WA Guess--these things are a little like mercury: where the inorganic version is somewhat harmful but the organic compounds are deadly. The plastic bits may not cause much problem, but if (e.g.) our gut flora mutate to devour plastic on our behalf, the resulting waste chemicals might be harsh on the body.

At any rate, I prefer not to eat dirt or soap or other "mostly harmless" stuff, so I'll be trying to minimize my plastic consumption too. I won't be losing sleep, though.

(*) MicroBrite Plus pocket microscope--I bought it for science demonstrations in the park. The kids were too young and fumble-fingered to get much benefit from it.

UPDATE: Crummy picture, but you can see a couple of the "snouts."

Plastic dust

Researchers studied Plastic particles in bottled water, using Stimulated Raman Scattering:

The researchers found that, on average, a liter of bottled water included about 240,000 tiny pieces of plastic. About 90% of these plastic fragments were nanoplastics. This total was 10 to 100 times more plastic particles than seen in earlier studies, which mostly focused on larger microplastics.

and

The method identified millions of additional particles that did not match the seven categories of plastic. It’s not yet clear if these tiny particles are nanoplastics or other substances.

Why would there be plastic "dust" inside a water bottle?

So far I haven't found any definitive answer to that. However, water does do some damage even to PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is quite stable in water. Possibly stress points in the plastic bottles are more liable to "corrosion." Possibly the manufacturing process liberates some microstrands of plastic as it blows up the plastic. UV can accelerate degradation. I haven't thought of everything. (Different manufacturers had different quantities: maybe their processes differed or their water sources differed.)

At any rate, using their estimates I get something like a tenth of a part per billion mass of known plastic bits. And probably a hundred times that of unknown stuff--maybe other plastics, maybe bacteria; not known yet.

Influencers

Encouraging people to do stupid things isn't new with TikTok/YouTube/etc. Back when the Stegosaurus flailed his tail and I was an undergrad, a radio call-in invited people to tell their Thanksgiving recipes. In amongst the desserts, one called offered his turkey recipe--the core of which was to cook the bird at 180F for 7 hours. The host didn't spot the problem, but the very next caller did. At least with the Tide pod craze, you were only going to sicken yourself, and not the whole family.

Memories don't work the same

We went to an exhibit on Egypt almost exactly 21 years ago. The subject of the Book of the Dead came up, and as a result also the exhibit. I had forgotten some things that impressed me about the exhibits, but Youngest Daughter not only remembered them, she remembered exactly what dress she had worn.

Progression

"we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us."

One of the men in our Bible study this morning compared that to a toddler trying to walk and falling on his rump. It's trouble, but he perseveres and gains strength, and with strength skill, and gains the skill in the hope of walking just like Mommy and Daddy.

Some of those tribulations hurt a lot more and longer than a flop on the rump, though.

Monotheism

It's popular to say that Moses learned from Akhenaten (one of his poems resembles a psalm), and I've heard the reverse--that Akhenaten learned from the Jews. Given the difficulty with dating anything, I don't think that line of inquiry is very fruitful.

I like another approach. As I've read elsewhere, and Rodney Start reminded us, a "High God" tradition is pretty universal among "primitive" groups. In The Idea of the Holy Otto describes an "encouter with the numinous" that he, I think properly, regards as the source of religious feeling. Depending on when and where this encounter happened, you might attach the sense of awe with the ocean, or the stars, or the forest, and come to think of that as the god. The default numinous experience would be monotheist.

Polytheism comes in when the original experience fades, or you have to get along with (swear oaths for) neighbors who either had a different experience or inherited the rituals from someone who had a different experience. And henotheism devolves to polytheism (by the next generation, if not sooner) which will dilute devotion.

If this approach applies, then Akhenaten had such an experience, and was in a position to (at least for a while) defy politics and tradition and try to inspire everyone to give up the corrupt rituals of non-worship in favor of a truer devotion.

In other words, the two could have been independent.

Phytoremediation

A study using plants to pull lead from slag-contaminated soil in Atlanta found that in their pots, 10% of the lead could wind up in the plants. The soil had over 500mg/kg of lead. The paper deals with a number of the technical details, but for now just assume that the whole plant is removed and processed (maybe oxidizing it with H2O2 instead of burning) to retrieve the lead someplace either safe or usable.

If one harvest gets rid of 10%, and you want the concentration to be below 5mg/kg, that's about 44 harvests to clean up that dirt. 37 if you're OK with 10mg/kg, 22 if you're OK with 50mg/kg (and you probably shouldn't be).

The urgency of the problem is because people live there now. Some garden, and some of those eat what's in the garden. 40 years is a long time to maintain a program as people come and go, buildings wear out and get replaced, and political priorities churn.

You'd think that something like this would remain a priority, but experience of fighting wars, especially existential ones, says that even important projects get back-burnered or canned. Losing them is even more disruptive. And 44 years is a long time.

Chewing sticks

Some trees are preferred (arak?) for this dental hygiene product.

It's popular enough that the FDA (Forestry Development) had to ban their harvest for a while to keep down the clear-cutting of trees, although permits are available after sub rosa payments.

I've seen them in use, but never realized that the resource was limited.

Touring ancient monuments

We like to tour castles, and try to imagine what life in them was like. We don't tour the peasant huts; there aren't any left. They'd have been pretty cramped too. Of course, castles might have gotten pretty cramped for space; you don't waste time and stone building fortifications to enclose parks (unless you're building Constantinople). Although maybe you only get crowded when everybody is taking shelter..

Imagine tourists a thousand years from now wandering about what used to be the USA. What would be left that they could tour?

Skyscrapers don't last. Everyday homes would survive as foundations. Metal, pipes, bricks--all gets scavenged and reused. Some of the public buildings, if not stripped for construction material, might have parts of walls and pillars left. And dams. Even if a dam is broken, that's a lot of concrete, and would stay impressive for a long time.

Runways would look pretty ratty, with lots of crumbled stuff and plants growing through it, but should still be mostly visible. Likewise the highways--though I assume a lot of that would be redone and the concrete repurposed. Bridge remnants, where there wasn't a replacement.

Near towns, I'd guess that concrete would get scavenged for coarse building fill, maybe to build town walls.

Some of the stories of our era would survive. Would Cape Canaveral be famous for the legends about space travel or the battle fought there in 2876?

Snakebites

I see that sucking venom out of a snakebite is discouraged (absolutely if you have an injury in your own mouth). This attempt at mitigation is ancient and very widespread, so at a wild guess it helps, despite some of the modern advice. (Sometimes hospitals can ID the snake from venom residue.)

Snake venom varies dramatically. In Africa some herbal treatments seem to be helpful, likewise in Bangladesh, among Amerindians, and so on.

Some of these work:

Ten studies reported statistically significant percentage protection (40-100%) of animals against venom-induced lethality compared with control groups that received no medicinal plant intervention. Sixteen studies reported significant effects (p ≤ 0.05) against venom-induced pathologies compared with the control group; these include hemolytic, histopathologic, necrotic, and anti-enzymatic effects. The plant family Fabaceae has the highest number of studies reporting its efficacy, followed by Annonaceae, Malvaceae, Combretaceae, Sterculiaceae, and Olacaceae. Some African medicinal plants are preclinically effective against venom-induced lethality, hematoxicity, and cytotoxicity. The evidence is extracted from three in vitro studies, nine in vivo studies, and five studies that combined both in vivo and in vitro models. The effective plants belong to the Fabaceae family, followed by Malvaceae, and Annonaceae.

Which is best for what snake might vary considerably. One wonders how this was decided on.

In Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland is a description of how the Snake Society was formed:

It is told that a hunter came upon two snakes fighting each other, and one was swallowing a leaf as an antidote for the bites of the other. The hunter then prepared medicine of the same kind of leaves, which he used with success in treating cases of snakebite. This incident led to the forming of the association.

On page 401:

A practice was found among the Loma similar to that described by practitioners of the snake cult in East Africa. A fine triturated black powder is prepared from the heads of poisonous snakes, charred, with certain herbs, in an iron pot. This contains the snake's venom, undoubtedly modified by the heating and certainly diluted by the charcoal with which it is mixed. Its action is further controlled by the herbs mixed into the compound. These are the same herbs which the leech uses in treating snake bite. This black powder is rubbed into tiny cuts in the skin of a person who wishes to be immunized against snake bite. The first immunizing dose is a small one, the next two are larger; a definite reaction is produced. The leech recognizes that this protection is temporary and that it must be repeated every two or three years. As the heads of several different varieties of snakes are used in the preparation of this powder, the immunizing effect is that of polyvalent vaccination.

This native practice even parallels our toxin-antitoxin immunizations, because he mixes with his toxin the remedy he would use in treating snake bite. The details of this treatment are guarded with great secrecy. Mr. Embree of the Methodist Mission in Monrovia once saw a boy bitten by a very poisonous snake. His comrades expected him to die. He asked them to wait while he went into the bush to get some medicine. They were surprised to see him return, as the medicine for that particular snake bite is known only bv certain big doctors. He admitted that he knew the medicine and begged the others not to tell anyone that he knew the secret, fearing the jealousy of those who were supposed to have a monopoly on the information.

Interesting. I don't know how fresh the plants have to be, and whether one could put together a "spectrum" treatment or whether it ought to be species-specific. As for immunity to snakebite: there are reports of it; species-specific. And reports of snake bite centers:

there are different dens in different cities wherein people who want to have snake bite are allowed to sit in chairs. The person in charge of snakes holds the snake near the head end of snake just distal to lip margin. Initially, he makes the snake to inject minimal bite in little toe or index finger for minimal envenomation, and then, he makes the snake to bite in lip or tongue of individuals according to their wish. The most commonly used snakes were krait, cobra, and green snake. Persons who were bitten, showed jerky movement and left the room within few minutes. From the reports provided orally, six persons lost their life due to such procedure. Many people who use such dens were from high socioeconomic status and well educated. Some of them were youth and college students.

What doesn't get traded

Corn appears to have been bred about 7000BC, and spread south: Ecuador 6000BC ± N lower Central America 5600BC, Columbian Andes 4500BC ± N -- New Mexico and Arizona about 2500BC, and to reach beyond the desert took more than 2500 more years.

Seeds are easy to pack, and if you keep them dry they ought to keep a long while. But the "how to grow" them might be a little less portable, if traders weren't usually farmers.

Transfer of knowledge and plants is trivial if the farmers migrate or intermarry along the routes, straightforward if trading travel is part-time or everybody learns a bit of everything, and hard if trading is a specialization, or if the people you trade with aren't really into agriculture on a large scale.

I wonder what the barriers were that slowed corn reaching far into North America. Desert would be one, obviously. Were the deserts and jungles of those eras in the same places as now? I've done a little searching, and so far haven't found systematic climate studies that cover enough of the area to game out which way people might go. If somebody knows, I'm curious. Up and down the coast should be pretty straightforward.

Remote areas having nothing you cared to cart back is another barrier, as are hostiles. Great Lakes copper went east, south to Georgia, north to Alaska--but I don't see references to the SouthWest. Well after Great Lakes copper started being used, South American started smelting their own--and possibly that was easier to get than stuff from the north. But one map on that page shows marine shells being traded across the deserts, so trade wasn't impossible.

Of course, the trade routes may have developed later than the movement of corn growing, which happened pretty early in most places.

I got started down a rabbit hole trying to figure out how trade worked from the Pacific to the Amazon side of the Andes. Incas traded for feathers and skins, and even tried to invade--how old were the trade routes? Would they have been possible for the Caral-Supe, circa 3500BC, 3000 to 4700 years earlier?