Too bad it's not 1954!
This 1950s child's toy came with 4 types of uranium ore and a Geiger counter. It wasn’t cheap either, selling off the shelf in 1950 for 49.50, around the 500 mark in today’s money. pic.twitter.com/Wyr98qw81n
— World of Engineering (@engineers_feed) December 16, 2025
I've posted about Irving Finkel of the British Museum before. Here he is expounding his theory that a discovery at Gobekli Tepe in Anatolia proves that writing was developed several thousand years before previously thought. He also explains that significance that the ancient writing we do have from Mesopotamia provides a very narrow, and perhaps misleading, window onto that world.
Finkel is always entertaining and has a knack for explaining complex topics in an understandable way. I have no idea if his theory is correct but you'll enjoy listening to him.
The final scene from Local Hero. I've loved this movie since seeing it with Mrs THC more than 40 years ago. The soundtrack by Mark Knopfler is an integral part in creating the unique feel of the film. During the early 80s Scottish director Bill Forsythe made a magical trio of small budget offbeat films - Gregory's Girl, Local Hero, Comfort & Joy.
Girls after one minor argument: “I’m never speaking to you again.”
— Faizan (@faizannriaz) November 22, 2025
Boys after calling each other fascist and jihadist: pic.twitter.com/wNzEH7Ac9E
Another painting by an artist I discovered only a couple of years ago, John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-93). Wharfedale is one of the Yorkshire Dales and is north of Leeds. A master at capturing light in the evening.
Jerry Seinfeld captures humanity's greatest paradox in a single line. pic.twitter.com/gLDjptD1Sx
— The Cinéprism (@TheCineprism) November 26, 2025
Bob Dylan recorded Forever Young in December 1973 and it appeared the following month on the album Planet Waves. One of his best known songs, he released another version in 2023 on the album Shadow Kingdom. Dylan was 32 when he wrote and recorded the song. He was 82 when he recorded it for the second time. It hits differently. I know it did for me listening to it at 72. The original is a song of aspiration and hope for his young ones. Fifty years later he knows how it turned out and it shows in his voice and informs how we react.
Dylan married Sarah Lownds in 1965 and four children were born between 1966 and 1969 (3 boys, one girl), while Bob also adopted his wife's daughter from a prior marriage. He had last toured in 1966, using the excuse of his injuries from a motorcycle accident that fall to stop his hectic recording and touring schedule. While releasing several albums in the following years he only played a couple of one-off concerts and become a mysterious, remote figure.
In his eccentric and revealing autobiography, Chronicles Vol. 1, Dylan describes the reasons for his withdrawal in two passages. The first in a conversation with The Band's Robbie Robertson while driving around Woodstock:
He says to me, 'Where do you think you're gonna take it?" I said, "Take what?". "You know, the whole music scene." The whole music scene! . . . No place was far enough away. I don't know what everybody else was fantasizing about, but what I was fantasizing about was a nine-to-five existence, a house on a tree-lined block with a white picket fence, pink roses in the backyard. That would have been nice. That was my deepest dream.
The second in which he writes of moving several times to avoid the plague of reporters seeking him out:
Even if these reporters had been allowed in the house, what would they find? A whole lotta stuff - stacking toys, push and pull toys, child-sized tables and chairs - big empty cardboard boxes - science kits, puzzles and toy drums.
Whatever the counterculture was, I'd seen enough of it. I was sick of the way my lyrics had been extrapolated, their meaning subverted into polemics and that I had been annointed as the Big Bubba of Rebellion, High Priest of Protest [etc] . . . What the hell are we talking about? Horrible titles any way you want to look at it . . . What mattered to me most was getting breathing room for my family.(1)
The lyrics, written for his young children:
May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.
May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong (Chorus)
May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung (Chorus)
Bob and Sarah divorced in 1977 (she is now 86 and has never spoken publicly about the marriage). I don't know anything about their children, but son Jacob said in a 2005 interview, "My father said it himself in an interview many years ago: 'Husband and wife failed, but mother and father didn't.' My ethics are high because my parents did a great job." (2)
Forever Young also reflects a different viewpoint than that expressed in some of his earliest recordings. From 1962 through 1964 Dylan developed a reputation as a "protest singer", a label he bitterly resented and ultimately rebelled against. Though he is still sometimes called the "voice of his generation", Dylan never spoke publicly about the Vietnam War, either in opposition or support, despite it being the rallying point of protest in the second half of the 60s into the early 70s.
The song that marked that transition was My Back Pages from Another Side of Bob Dylan, released in August 1964, with lyrics acknowledging that issues and life were more complicated than he had previously portrayed.
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate, " I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that nowIn a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now
A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now
And you better start swimmin'Or you'll sink like a stoneFor the times they are a-changin'Your old road is rapidly agin'Please get out of the new oneIf you can't lend your handFor the times they are a-changin'
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(1) While rereading some of Chronicles in preparation for writing this post I came across another passage which explained something else I've written about - how terrible Dylan was in concert with Tom Petty during the 80s, the only time I've ever seen him perform in person:I'd been on an eighteen month tour with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. It would be my last. I had no connection to any kind of inspiration. . . . Tom was at the top of his game and I was at the bottom of mine. . . My own songs had become strangers to me. I didn't have the skill to touch their raw nerves, couldn't penetrate the surfaces. It wasn't my moment of history anymore. There was a hollow singing in my heart and I couldn't wait to retire and fold the tent. One more big payday with Petty and that would be it for me. I was what they called over the hill. If I wasn't careful I could end up ranting and raving in shouting matches with the wall.
I had written and recorded so many songs, but it wasn't like I was playing many of them. I think I was only up to the task of about twenty or so. The rest were too cryptic, too darkly driven, and I was no longer capable of doing anything radically creative with them. It was like carrying a package of heavy rotten meat. I couldn't understand where they came from. The glow was gone and the match had burned right to the end. I was going through the motions.
(2) Dylan wrote at least two songs about his marriage; Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands from Blonde On Blonde (1966) and Sara from Desire (1977), the latter as his marriage was collapsing, and which includes the lyric "Staying up for days in the Chelsea Hotel/Writing "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you". Sara is searing and emotionally wrenching. On the other hand, Dylan makes a lot of stuff up, so did he really write Sad Eyed Lady for Sara, or did he make it up as part of his last ditch appeal to his wife?
The Battle of the Bulge, between December 16, 1944 and January 28, 1945 remains the most costly battle fought by the American military with over 80,000 casualties. It was Hitler's last offensive, a desperate gamble to split the Allied front and shatter the British/American alliance with the Soviets, taking place in wooded, hilly terrain in Luxembourg and Belgium.
What most Americans know about the Bulge (including me until recently) focuses on the siege at Bastogne and the valiant actions of the 101st Airborne, most recently celebrated in the fine Band of Brothers series. However, there was much more to the battle as I learned in 2023 by listening to We Have Ways of Making You Talk, the top notch WW2 podcast hosted by two British military historians, James Holland and Al Murray, when they hosted John McManus, an American historian, who'd written Alamo in the Ardennes, about the 28th Infantry Division and its battle against the Germans in the opening days of the offensive, prompting me to read and write about the book (see Alamo in the Ardennes).
Last December, Holland and Murray, along with McManus, did a 9-part podcast on the battle, focused on its opening days and on American units outside Bastogne, the siege of which is not mentioned until the seventh episode. They provide an illuminating discussion of the strategic and logistical folly of the German plan, while shining a spotlight on the actions of outgunned and outnumbered American units who managed to completely disrupt the German timetable in the first four days, making the failure of the offensive inevitable. These small actions, involving companies and regiments at obscure crossroads in the woods are given the attention and recognition they deserve and it completely changed my perception of the battle. The series is a fitting tribute to those brave American soldiers.
I highly recommend giving it a listen. You can find it here and searching on The Battle of the Bulge or use the podcast app on your phone. Make sure to have a map in hand to follow the action!
And now planning a trip next fall to the area.
The title of an essay by David Polansky, a favorite of mine, in praise of 80s movies, a decade in which Mr and Mrs THC went to the movies a lot, back when that was a thing. According to the author, 80s cinema has a branding problem compared to the 70s and 90s;
But if there is one thing that does define ‘80s cinema even as it defies attempts to neatly characterize it, it is sheer variety. Indeed, the decade can be broken down into several categories, which in the aggregate resulted in an impressive volume of cinema of lasting if underappreciated value.
He goes on to break down The Old Masters; Around The World; Independent Americana; Peak Genre; and The Late, Great Middlebrow Movie.
That last category, which no longer exists, encompasses twenty films, of which we saw 15 or 16 in the theater during that decade. In light of last night's news I note that three were directed by Rob Reiner; Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride, all of which we saw and greatly enjoyed, the last being a classic that I've watched many times. And let's not forget another Reiner classic, 1984's This Is Spinal Tap.
We were very upset to hear about Reiner's death along with that of his wife and of the family tragedy behind it; one child a murderer and another child left to find the bodies of her parents. We thank Rob for the enjoyment he gave us and hope that he and Michelle may rest in peace.
The title of Polansky's essay is from another classic 80s film.
Ephesus, located on the Aegean coast of Turkey, was one of the great cities of the Greek and Roman world, along with being significant in the history of early Christianity. Today it is a ruin. This video explains why and how it happened. It is particularly good explaining the geophysical reasons for its decline and how spoliation works when it came to disassembling much of the city's monumental architecture. It's also a reminder of the fragility of civilization. During Roman times the governmental structure, finances, and technology allowed for the dredging to keep the harbor of Ephesus open, but once the empire became poorer and technical knowledge declined, so did the ability of the city to thrive.
We've lit the candles for the first night, while thinking of those murdered and wounded while celebrating the holiday at Australia's Bondi Beach. Hanukkah celebrates the Jewish victory over those who would oppress and deny us religious freedom.
A word on the situation outside the United States (I'll have more to say on the U.S. soon) and Israel. Between 80 and 85% of the world's Jews live in the United States or Israel. Another 8% live in three countries (about 400,000 in each); the UK, France, and Canada. Two of those countries, the UK and Canada, have governments hostile to Jews, while France is more neutral, though Jews constitute the overwhelming majority of hate crime targets (including assaults, rapes, and murders) and, more recently, cancelled the traditional national Christmas and New Years celebrations on the Champs-Élysées in Paris because of fear of terrorist acts by its Muslim population.(1) In all three countries the toxic combination of leftist politics and a growing Muslim population has left Jewish populations at risk. Absent a dramatic change in political culture, the future is not good for the Jewish communities of these countries.
In the next tier are two countries each with about 100,000 Jews (together, about 1.4% of the global population); Australia and Argentina. Australia can be placed in the same category as the UK and Canada, with a government hostile to Jews and a rapidly growing Muslim population.(2) Argentina has an antisemitic history but its current government is led by a man who identifies as Jewish so, at least for now, it has the brightest prospects of all.
As Hussein Aboubakr Mansour wrote in the wake of Bondi Beach:
Any sober observer must be honest. Outside the United States, there is no Western political establishment with either the will or the capability to address this problem, let alone reverse its growth. The future of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is likely to be increasingly Jew-free and increasingly dysfunctional.
One of the prayers we say when lighting the Hanukkah candles is "Blessed are you Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who performed wondrous deeds for our ancestors in those ancient days at this season." May that happen again.
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(1) France has deployed 7,000 soldiers across the country to protect “places of worship and sensitive sites.” The deployment, originally meant to be short term, has become open ended. The French Ministry of Defense states “our commitment is long-term, for as long as this situation requires.” Minister of the Armed Forces Catherine Vautrin echoed the message, “the terrorist threat is permanent.” President Macron has already admitted this is a war with no end in sight.
Interior Minister Nunez: “We’ve dealt with terrorism, we’ve dealt with separatism, now we’re tackling infiltration" and looking into “the links between representatives of political movements and organizations and networks supporting terrorist activity or propagating Islamist ideology”.
In May, Macron received a government investigative report that Islamists are infiltrating France's republican institutions and are a threat to national cohesion. The report (leaked to Le Figaro), drawn up by two senior civil servants, found evidence for a policy of "entryism" by the Muslim Brotherhood into public bodies like schools and local government. According to the report, "entryism means getting involved in republican infrastructure… in order to change it from the inside. It requires dissimulation… and it works from the bottom up."
The report goes on to say that the Muslim Brotherhood was losing influence in the Middle East and North Africa, and so was targeting Europe, backed by money from Turkey and Qatar. This is not an effort limited to France.
"Having given a Western look to the ideology in order to implant themselves in Europe, (the Muslim Brotherhood) tries to lay down the roots of a Middle Eastern tradition while concealing a subversive fundamentalism." The "Western look" the authors refer to is dressing Islamism in the robe of the fashionable academic jargon of settler-colonialism and the oppressor-oppressed framing.
The report states unequivocally that “Hatred of Jews,” is a core ideological element, often laundered through anti-Zionist slogans. Just like American college campuses and every university Middle East Studies Program.
According to The Free Press, "The report details a wave of online influencers—trained in Brotherhood institutions, fluent in grievance politics, and calibrated for younger audiences. Some present as activists fighting “Islamophobia”; others cloak Islamist ideology in therapeutic or entrepreneurial language."
Interestingly, in response to the report, French intelligence agencies recommended the government get tougher on Israel in order to placate its growing and unruly Muslim population. Macron took the advice, recognizing a Palestinian state in September. It's not going to work. The Muslim Brotherhood target is Western Europe, not Israel. All that recognition does is show weakness.
(2) In 2000 the current Australian Prime Minister led demonstrations in Sydney in support of Yassir Arafat after he walked away from accepting a Palestinian state at the Camp David talks and prepared to launch a series of suicide bombings against Jews. After decades of Australian support for Israel by all governing parties, the current PM withdrew Australia's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. No surprise, since his man Arafat shocked President Clinton and others at Camp David when he denied there was ever a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount! And, to this day, that is what Palestinian children learn in school. Since Oct 7, 2023, the PM has demonstrated on numerous occasions that his animus extends to the entire Jewish people.
For more on the lies about the Temple Mount read this THC post which provides some background, along with an account of the 2015 New York Times article propagating this fake news. For more than a decade the Times has viewed its role as creating a permission structure to allow progressives to become anti-semites.
I was recently privileged to be inducted as an associate member of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, joining the Picacho Peak Camp in the Department of the Southwest of the SUVCW. The SUVCW, with over 6,000 members, is the successor organization to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the organization of Civil War veterans formed at the conclusion of that conflict.
The SUVCW is a Congressionally chartered non-profit corporation with three missions; Patriotic Education; Honoring Union Veterans and Veterans of all U.S. conflicts; and Preserving and Perpetuating the Grand Army of the Republic.
To become a full member of the SUVCW, one must be a direct descendant of someone who served in the U.S. military during the Civil War, and such ancestry goes through a rigorous vetting process before a membership application is accepted.
Because all of my ancestors arrived after the Civil War, I am eligible to become an associate member of the organization. Several members of the SUVCW are members of our Roundtable and having spoken to two of the three camps in Arizona, I was very honored to be asked to join as an associate.
I know my parents and my grandparents would all be very pleased with my membership in the SUVCW, given how proud they were to be Americans, and how they honored those who established and sought to preserve the Union. The posts that I've done on my paternal and maternal grandfathers make that clear.
Have a friend here in Phoenix who is a fellow music lover and also a fan of Bob Dylan. We'd talked about visiting the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa (Dylan's archives are in Tulsa because that's where Woody Guthrie's archive and museum is). Earlier this year he found out that Billy Strings (another mutual favorite) was playing a Tulsa concert on December 10 so we decided to make a road trip.
Fortunately, Southwest Airlines has direct flight to Tulsa, so on the afternoon of the 10th we flew there and attended Billy's concert that night. I'd seen him once before and have watched endless live videos on YouTube. Billy and his band don't have a warm up act. They start at 8 and end around 11, with a 20 minute break in the middle. One of the things I like best about his music is though I only recognized about a 1/3 of the songs, everything they played was incredible. The rest of the group; mandolin, bass, banjo, and fiddle are as talented as Billy. We, like most of the audience, spent most of the concert on our feet.
We were in the 12th row of seats but in front of us was an area without seats where fans can stand for the entire concert. At the end of the show, Billy slid off the stage and hung out with the folks in that area.
His shows are a magical experience. Will see him again. Upon returning to AZ realized the concert marked exactly 4 years since I first heard Billy Strings (read Away From The Mire).
One of the last songs Billy played was Don't Think Twice, It's Allright. Appropriate since we visited the Dylan Center the next morning.
The exhibits at the Dylan Center take you through Bob's career and are set up in an entertaining fashion. It includes previously unavailable photos, recording takes, letters, and drafts of lyrics, along with videos from Dylan interviews.
The special exhibit was Dylan Goes Electric, sparked by the movie A Complete Unknown and Elijah Wald's excellent book Dylan Goes Electric!, by itself worth visiting. The highlight was a film about the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, the first part of which consists of interviews with some of the surviving key players (and their conflicting memories) and culminates with Dylan's entire performance that night which consisted of three electric tunes (Maggie's Farm, Like A Rolling Stone, It Takes a Lot To Laugh It Takes a Train to Cry) and the two acoustic tunes he came back out to play to calm the audience down, It's All Over Now Baby Blue, and Mr Tambourine Man.
All the interviewees recount that the Newport sound system was awful and Dylan's vocals were inaudible during the electric set. However, in the film the sound has been remastered so you can clearly hear the vocals and, it turns out, Dylan was in fine form.
Listening to Baby Blue when Dylan returned to the stage, it's unmistakeably meant as a warning to the hardcore folkie contingent who disdained his turn to electric that The Times They Are a-Changin'.
Leave your steppingstones behind thereSomething calls for youForget the dead you've left, they will not follow youThe vagabond who's rapping at your doorIs standing in the clothes that you once woreStrike another match, go start anewAnd it's all over now, Baby Blue
We had enough time before our flight to make a brief visit to the Guthrie Center which is next door to Dylan.
Billy plays most of his solos with eyes closed.
Lyrics from Mr Tambourine Man with Dylan's handwritten changes inserting "in the jingle-jangle morning). Below is the Cash Box Top 100 for the week in September 1965 when Like A Rolling Stone displaced The Beatles Help! at Numero Uno. The Top Ten also includes another Dylan song, It Ain't Me Babe by The Turtles at 7.
Below: Pete Seeger is often portrayed as strongly objecting to Dylan's turn to electric. Pete's contention is that his objection to Dylan at Newport was that the electric music was so loud it drowned out Dylan's lyrics. This is a 1968 letter from Pete to his father about the recent release of Dylan's album John Wesley Harding. I really like the last paragraph: "Maybe Bob Dylan will be like Picasso, surprising us every few years with a new period. I hope he lives as long." He has done so. If you are in any doubt listen to Oh Mercy (1989), Time Out Of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001), and Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020).
A day late, this is the first paragraph of President Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863; a sentiment I particularly like:
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
You can find the full text here.
40,000 headmen couldn't make me change my mind . . .
Traffic. 1968. Music - Steve Winwood (and vocals). Lyrics - Jim Capaldi (and drums). Woodwinds - Chris Wood. Maybe - Dave Mason (guitar).
Tonight is the Harvest Moon so it's time to listen to Leon Redbone performing Shine On Harvest Moon.
On September 13, 1968, Major General Keith Ware, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, was killed at Loc Ninh, Vietnam when his helicopter was shot down. Along with Ware, his three command staff and the four-man crew also died. Ware, 52, was the highest ranking American officer to die during the Vietnam War.
Ware was the first WW2 draftee to become an Army general and received the Medal of Honor in recognition of his actions in 1944.
The 25-year old Ware was drafted in July 1941. Sent to Officer Candidate School he initially served as a squad leader, seeing action in the 1942-3 Tunisian campaign, the July 1943 invasion of Sicily, the January 1944 assault at Anzio, and in the August 1944 landings in southern France.
His leadership qualities were quickly recognized and he was promoted several times, eventually commanding the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Division. He received the Medal of Honor for his actions on December 26, 1944 at Sigolsheim, a small town, near Colmar in the Alsace region of France. The most decorated American soldier in the war, Audie Murphy, served under Ware, receiving the Medal of Honor for his actions in January 1945.
Ware decided to stay in the military after the war, eventually rising to be assistant commander of the 2nd Armored Division and then becoming, in the mid-60s, the army's Chief of Information. He volunteered for service in Vietnam, arriving in early 1968, just in time to face the Tet Offensive.
According to an article in HistoryNet, at the Battle of Loc Ninh, though Ware knew the North Vietnamese Army "had anti-aircraft weapons on the ground but ordered his helicopter to fly at low altitude despite the risk to allow him to pinpoint enemy positions and more effectively coordinate the battle".
Medal of Honor citation:
Commanding the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry, attacking a strongly held enemy position on a hill near Sigolsheim, France, on 26 December 1944, found that 1 of his assault companies had been stopped and forced to dig in by a concentration of enemy artillery, mortar, and machinegun fire. The company had suffered casualties in attempting to take the hill. Realizing that his men must be inspired to new courage, Lt. Col. Ware went forward 150 yards beyond the most forward elements of his command, and for 2 hours reconnoitered the enemy positions, deliberately drawing fire upon himself which caused the enemy to disclose his dispositions. Returning to his company, he armed himself with an automatic rifle and boldly advanced upon the enemy, followed by 2 officers, 9 enlisted men, and a tank. Approaching an enemy machinegun, Lt. Col. Ware shot 2 German riflemen and fired tracers into the emplacement, indicating its position to his tank, which promptly knocked the gun out of action. Lt. Col. Ware turned his attention to a second machinegun, killing 2 of its supporting riflemen and forcing the others to surrender. The tank destroyed the gun. Having expended the ammunition for the automatic rifle, Lt. Col. Ware took up an M-1 rifle, killed a German rifleman, and fired upon a third machinegun 50 yards away. His tank silenced the gun. Upon his approach to a fourth machinegun, its supporting riflemen surrendered and his tank disposed of the gun. During this action Lt. Col. Ware's small assault group was fully engaged in attacking enemy positions that were not receiving his direct and personal attention. Five of his party of 11 were casualties and Lt. Col. Ware was wounded but refused medical attention until this important hill position was cleared of the enemy and securely occupied by his command.
From 1935 by artist Kwase Hasui. Via Alexander's Cartographer.
Kwase Hasui (1883-1957) was considered Japan's leading printmaker and became very popular in the United States during the 1930s. Some other examples of his work, from Wikipedia.
It's said at the end of this post from Assistant Village Idiot, one of the few long time bloggers who has not gone off the rails over the past decade. AVP also makes an astute observation about what might explain the findings he refers to.
RFKJr, among many other myths that he believes*, thinks psychiatric meds are contributing to the high-profile shootings we've been seeing, and thinks we should "look into it." Well, this is only one study in Sweden, but it does have an N=247,420 with robust results. Prescribing ADHD medication resulted in lower adverse "real world outcomes" such as self harm, traffic crashes, and crime. Interestingly, the effect seems to be weakening over time as the number of prescriptions increases.
In this longitudinal population-based study of 247 420 individuals using ADHD medication between 2006 and 2020, we consistently found ADHD medication to be associated with lower rates of self-harm, unintentional injury, traffic crashes, and crime across all analyzed time periods, age groups, and sexes. However, magnitude of associations between ADHD medication use and lower risk of unintentional injury, traffic crashes, and crime appear to have attenuated over time, coinciding with an increase in prescription prevalence during the same period. The weakening trends for unintentional injury and traffic crashes were not fully explained by changes in age and sex distribution of the medication users, whereas the trend for crime was no longer statistically significant. These findings suggest that the declining strength of the associations of ADHD medication and real-world outcomes could be attributed to the expansion of prescriptions to a broader group of individuals having fewer symptoms or impairments.My guess on this reveals one of my biases, but it may turn out to be true in this case. A broad range of interventions pick off the low hanging fruit at first, whether this be in medicine, education, economics, or crime. As this success is experienced by the doctors, politicians, or teachers, they try the solution on a wider group that less-obviously fits the the category and surprise! It doesn't work as well on every Tom, Dick, and Harry. The Law of Diminishing Returns. I used to see this in mental health, where an intervention like ECT's would work spectacularly well on some people with depression, but treatment-refractory patients of many diagnoses would eventually end up at the "shock treatment" door, because patient, family, and prescribers were all frustrated and willing to try less-likely interventions.
*The current fallback argument by his supporters are that the CDC and the medical establishment badly needs disruption and he is supplying disruption, so shut up, you liberal weenie. I find this unconvincing. Just because an institution needs to be disrupted does not mean that any particular disruptor is on the right track. Not all disruptions are equally valuable. Saruman wanted to disrupt Mordor, after all.
RFK Jr is very glib, a plaintiffs personal injury lawyer, and a believer that conspiracies underlay every aspect of society. There are no honest disagreements. You are either good or evil. Observing his technique in interviews over the decades you see him deploying the same approach against interviewers who don't know the details about which he is speaking. He overwhelms the interviewer by spewing out a long list of studies and findings. The problem is he starts by fairly accurately referring to two studies, then cites 3 more where he misstates the conclusions, and wraps it up with 4 studies summarized accurately but where there are a dozen other studies with better methodology that reach opposite conclusions none of which he cites. He does this over and over again.
The agency he oversees needs disruption and reform but he is the wrong person to do it. He is not about open scientific inquiry. When appointing committee members or authorizing studies they are designed to reach the conclusion he wants.
UPDATE: In a September 5 piece in the Wall St Journal, former CDC Director Susan Monarez (hand-picked for the role by RFK Jr, who fired her after 29 days), writes that at a August 25 meeting with the HHS Secretary:
I was told to pre-approve the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled
with people who have publicly ex-pressed antivaccine rhetoric. That panel’s next meeting isscheduled for Sept. 18-19. It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t
rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being acceptedor rejected.
La Roque Gageac is a small riverside village along the Dordogne River which we first visited in 1977. Our most recent stop was in 2022 and we hope to return next spring. We stay in the bastide town of Domme on a cliff on the other side of the river, about a 10 minute drive away (which you can see center-right in the first photo below).
La Roque has only one street on which you can find restaurants, gift shops, and a hotel. Behind are a couple of rows of houses with narrow pathways and all back up by a cliff, pockmarked with caves used as a refuge by the inhabitants during the Viking raids of the 9th and 10th centuries and when other disturbances occurred during the following centuries.
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The Cisco Kid was a half hour TV series broadcast from 1950 to 1956 of which I have a vague recollection watching as a youngster. Starring Duncan Renaldo as the Kid and Leo Carrillo as his sidekick Pancho, as Robin Hood-type outlaws, it was based on a 1907 short story by O. Henry. Apparently it was the first TV series to be filmed in color though, at the time, I didn't know it because we, like everyone else, had a black and white TV (I never owned a color set until the mid-1980s).
The Cisco Kid is also the title of a million selling hit song from 1973 by the band War, which commenced with these lyrics:
The Cisco Kid was a friend of mineThe Cisco Kid was a friend of mineHe drink whiskey, Poncho drink the wine
War began as a group of musicians in Southern California. Linking up with singer Eric Burdon (formerly of The Animals) they produced the hit, Spill The Wine, in 1970. Splitting from Burdon the following year, War went out to have a series of hit albums and singles during the 1970s.
The Cisco Kid is from The World Is A Ghetto, the best selling album of 1973, which also contains the beautiful title song. War had a very tight rhythm section, which with catchy melodies and lyrics, resulted in a lot of chart success.
Other songs worth a listen by War include Slippin' Into Darkness, Low Rider, and Why Can't We Be Friends (with the immortal lyric, "I know you're working for the CIA/They wouldn't have you in the MAF-I-A").
A lot of the riffs and rhythms in War's songs have been covered and sampled by many other artists and used in movies and other shows.
Chris Arnade writes of his travels, mostly walking, through the world, with a focus on avoiding downtowns and tourist spots, observing how life is lived for "regular" and particularly in the U.S., by those who are struggling. His substack is Chris Arnade Walks The World. It provides a very different perspective than your usual travelogue. He's also the author of Dignity: Seeking Respect In Back Row America.
Chris recently returned from Australia and just published Alice Springs, Townsville and Crossing the Australian Outback.
The outback is like an extreme version of America's flyover country, and most Australians literally do only fly over it. When I announced my original Sydney-to-Townsville-to-Alice Springs bus route, I was struck by how many people had strong negative opinions about both places, especially Alice Springs, despite never visiting them. I began jotting down their responses, and by the time I left Sydney, over a hundred people had warned me against going, about ten were neutral or positive, and only five had actually been to the outback.
This was like the cartoonish US stereotype of an out-of-touch coastal urban elite, but in this case, the opinions weren’t confined to the elite, but to almost everyone of every class who lives within fifty miles of the dense (for Australia) southeastern coast.
On Alice Springs:
Since everything I was told had been proven wrong, including that the bus ride would be a little slice of hell, I arrived in Alice Springs close to convinced it would be a little slice of heaven, a festival of desert felicity, complete with kumbaya circles of Aboriginals dancing and singing with their now reformed and newly tolerant colonial masters. Or maybe I was going mad, and delusional, from thirty hours without sleep in the unforgiving landscape.
It however wasn't a little slice of heaven, at all, and by the end of the first day I realized that the only thing that everyone who had warned me, had gotten completely correct, was that Alice Springs is, to use Australians favorite vernacular2, a shithole. A shithole of majestic landscapes, and wonderful people, but still a shithole.
Read it to find out why.
"His Majesty's Government have thus been faced with an irreconcilable conflict of principles... For the Jews the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish State. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine".
- Ernest Bevin(1), British Foreign Minister, February 1947, explaining to the House of Commons why Britain decided to terminate the Mandate for Palestine(2) and refer the matter to the United Nations.
How you want to go?
Eight crapshooters to be my pallbearersLet 'em be veiled down in blackI want nine men going to the graveyardEight men coming back
The US government acquiring an equity interest in Intel is a very, very bad idea.
The President has a Constitutional obligation to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". The TikTok ban was passed on a bipartisan basis by Congress and its constitutionality upheld by the Supreme Court. The President's refusal to execute the ban, despite the clear statutory language, along with his most recent action establishing a White House TikTok account, is a violation of that obligation. It is no better than the Biden administration's failure to enforce of immigration laws and its violations of the Civil Rights Act.
I have no opinion about Cracker Barrel's new logo. I last ate there in the 90s.
I know youMet before, seventh floorFirst World WarI know you
From Fifth Dimension, the third album by The Byrds, released in July 1966. The album was the second of the three pioneering musical ventures the band was to undertake during its career. The first, in the spring of 1965, was the creation of folk rock, with Dylan's Mr Tambourine Man.
Fifth Dimension heralded the advent of psychedelic music in the year before the Summer of Love, with songs like Eight Miles High, 5D (How is it that I could come out to here/ and be still floating?), Why, What's Happening ?!?!, and I See You. Though the album was somewhat of a mishmash, also including traditional folk tunes like Wild Mountain Thyme and John Riley, along with the novelty tune, Mr Spaceman, it was clear we were entering a new musical era.
The third twist was with the band's sixth studio album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, released in August 1968. Though The Byrds and some other American bands had flirted with country music, Sweetheart of the Rodeo was the first album by a rock band to fully embrace the country sound and was the launching pad for the emergence of country rock with groups like the early phase of The Eagles.
At 15 I thought I See You, with its far out lyrics and McGuinn's weird guitar, was pretty cool.
Archibald Wright Graham died on this date, sixty years ago in Chisholm, Minnesota. Graham, better known to most as Moonlight and in Chisholm as Doc, came to wide attention as a character in WP Kinsella's novel Shoeless Joe, and the 1989 film based on his book, Field of Dreams.
(Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, from wikipedia)
I recently caught Field of Dreams on TV.
It remains highly rewatchable. If you haven't seen it, I won't
describe the plot because it makes the movie sound ridiculous, while it
is really wonderful (and ridiculous at times). The last scene always moves me. And it is about much more than baseball.
I already knew that
the real Archie Graham played in the outfield for two innings in a June
1905 game after being called up from the minors to join John McGraw's
New York Giants. It was his only major league appearance and he never got a chance to bat. Graham (Burt Lancaster) tells the story in Field of Dreams. In the 1970s, author WP Kinsella ran across a mention of Graham while perusing the Baseball Encyclopedia, was captured by his brief career and nickname, and included him as a character in Shoeless Joe. Graham reportedly garnered the nickname Moonlight because he was "fast as a flash".
What I had not realized was how closely the fictionalized version of
Moonlight Graham in the book and movie was to the real Archibald Graham.
In the movie, Graham's one appearance with the Giants takes place in
1922. He later retires from baseball and moves to Chisholm, Minnesota,
becoming a doctor and dying in 1972. Doc Graham, as he is known, is a
beloved figure in that small town, with a sterling reputation, and
devoted to his wife Alicia, who always wears blue. Doc always walks
with an umbrella. In one scene, Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones)
interviews older townsfolk about Doc Graham and they tell endearing
stories of him. Terrence and Ray Kinsella (Kevin
Costner) also go to the local newspaper where a reporter reads to them from
Doc Graham's obituary.
It turns out the real Archibald Graham was a college graduate, unusual
in baseball in those days, and received his medical degree from the
University of Maryland in 1905, the same year he played for the Giants. After a couple of more years in the minor leagues he moved to Chisholm in 1909, because he was suffering from a respiratory condition and heard the climate in the Iron Range mining town could help him. The town immediately to the south of Chisholm is Hibbing, where Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) grew up. Graham opened a medical practice, a few years later becoming the school system doctor, a role he remained in until 1960, along with being the team doctor for all of the school sports teams. He married Alicia Madden, who always wore blue,
and he always carried an umbrella. Doc Graham died in 1965 and Alicia in 1981. The
anecdotes used in the movie are from the life of the real Graham, and
the reporter in the film is reading from his actual obituary.
From the Chisholm Free Press & Tribune (1965)
"And there were times when children could not afford eyeglasses or milk or
clothing. Yet no child was ever denied these essentials because in the
background there was always Dr. Graham. Without any fanfare or publicity,
the glasses or the milk or the ticket to the ballgame found their way into
the child's pocket." [This was the portion read in Field of Dreams]
While still new in Chisholm, he grew sweet on Alicia Madden, a
schoolteacher. She was a farmer's daughter from Rochester, and they married
in 1915.
They never had children. Instead, they showered their affection on every
child in town -- he as the full-time doctor for the public schools for more
than 40 years, she as the director of countless community plays.
They built a house that still stands in southeast Chisholm, on the fringe of
a neighborhood known as Pig Town, for the livestock kept by the hardscrabble
immigrant miners' families.
"That was Doc," said Bob McDonald, who grew up in Chisholm and has coached
high school basketball there for 44 years. "He and Alicia could have lived
up with the high and mighty on Windy Hill, but they chose to be among the
common people."
McDonald remembers a wiry, athletic man, dapper in an ever-present black hat
and black trench coat, walking everywhere and always swinging an umbrella.
Yes, he said, Alicia did always wear blue.
On the opening night of all of her plays, Graham would sit in the same seat
in the back of the high school auditorium, a dozen roses in his lap,
Ponikvar said.
People were poor, but schools used mining company taxes to meet needs. Under
Doc's care, kids got free eyeglasses, toothbrushes and medical care. He
lectured them on nutrition, inoculated them, rode their team buses, made
20-year charts of their blood pressure, swabbed their sore throats, made
house calls if they stayed home sick.
He bought apartment houses but charged rock-bottom rents, and no rent to a
single mother and her eight children, Ponikvar remembers.
"Doc became a legend," she wrote when he died. "He was the champion of the
oppressed. Never did he ask for money or fees."
Below is a preview (narrated by Vin Scully!) of a Mayo Clinic film about Doc Graham's collaboration with the clinic on a groundbreaking study of blood pressure in children.
Moses Seixas was a man with a plan in the summer of 1790. Forty six
years old, the son of Portuguese Jews who emigrated to Rhode Island,
Moses was warden of Newport’s Tauro Synagogue. President George
Washington was making his first visit to Rhode Island, and Moses was
determined to use the occasion to obtain express acknowledgement of the
enfranchisement of American Jews under the new Constitution.
Washington’s visit also had a plan behind it. The prior year, he had
undertaken a lengthy visit to the northern states as part of his
strategy of drawing the new nation together and creating more popular support for the newly formed Federal government (he would tour the southern
states in 1791). Rhode Island was not part of that tour, because it had
yet to ratify the Constitution. The recalcitrant state, under pressure
from the new federal government and neighboring states, along with the
promise of a visit from Washington and Vice-President Thomas Jefferson,
became the last of the original 13 states to ratify on May 29, 1790.
Sexias was to get what he wanted from his letter, but the President’s
response expressed additional thoughts that are worth reflecting upon
today.
On August 17, 1790 Moses sent a letter to the President, welcoming him to Newport on behalf of “the children of the stock of Abraham“, expressing their happiness in having the “invaluable rights of free Citizens“, and adding:
“we now with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People – a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance – but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship.”The President responded the following day, echoing the warden’s phrasing but adds his own distinctive sentiments:
“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United states, which give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”Much of the commentary on the letter by historians focuses on the passage that the Government “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance“, citing its importance for the concept of religious liberty, but its significance is deeper in its link to America’s unique founding principles. It is found in two sentences which do not have a counterpart in the Sexias letter. The first:
“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”
The passage expresses two concepts:
First, the American version of “tolerance” is not something
bestowed by a dominant group, or individual, upon other groups, because
that kind of tolerance is revocable upon the discretion of the dominant
group or individual. Bestowed “tolerance” was the concept used in most other societies in that age (and still used in many parts of the world), but in Washington’s parlance “tolerance” is that which we owe to each other as equals. In other “tolerant” societies of the time, the Jewish Community would be considered supplicants; in Washington’s they are equals. In other words, tolerance is a mutual obligation, because it is a sign of equality. It is that sense of mutuality that is foundational to this nation.
Second, the source of what we owe to each other as equals are our “inherent natural rights“.
These rights are not created by the Declaration of Independence or the
Constitution. It’s the other way around – these rights predate those
documents and are a source for the text and ideas behind them.
Specifically, the Constitution is not a document describing the rights
of citizens – those inherent natural rights are so broad as to exceed
any attempt to catalogue them in a document. Rather, the Constitution is
a delineation of the specific powers delegated by the citizens, who
hold those inherent rights, to the government in order for it to perform
certain designated functions.
It was 25 year old James Madison who first pointed out how these
concepts worked together in May 1776, during the debate on Virginia’s
new state constitution. The draft constitution contained a Declaration
of Rights, including a clause on religious liberty drafted by George
Mason, providing that “all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion“. Madison objected to the use of the word “toleration”
because it implied toleration was a gift from government rather than an
inherent natural right. Mason agreed and the draft was amended to read “all men are entitled to the full and free exercise” of religion. This approach is now embodied in the First Amendment our Constitution, not coincidentally authored by Madison:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.As for Washington, his views were not something newly formulated in 1790. In 1775, shortly after the Continental Congress named him commander of its military forces, he approved a plan to invade Canada. The civilian population of Canada, which the British had taken from France only twelve years prior, was almost exclusively Catholic, a religion detested by most American Protestants of that era. On September 14, 1775, Washington sent instructions to Benedict Arnold, commanding the American expedition about to start its epic campaign through the backwoods of Maine to Quebec. He directed Arnold to respect the religious beliefs of the Canadians. This, in and of itself, was not remarkable – doing so was wise strategy when the Americans were trying to get the Canadians to join them in the revolt against Britain. It was the way Washington expresses himself that is striking:
“While we are Contending for own own Liberty, we should be very cautious of violating the Rights of Conscience in others; ever considering that God alone is the Judge of the Hearts of Men and to him only in this Case they are answerable”The second significant sentence in Washington's response to the Jewish congregation:
For happily the Government of the United states, which give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
In this passage, the President emphasizes the duty of every American is to be a good citizen by supporting the new federal government. Thought the letter does not refer specifically to the Constitution, Washington had expressed that this was the underlying purpose of his state visits, and he seized every opportunity to promote it. The Constitution, not a common religion, was to bind all citizens together. However, if you read more on Washington and many of the other Founders, what underlay all of this was a common sense of morality. That duty of the citizen was not absolute, rather Washington's expression of that duty presupposes the government would act in a moral way that deserved the support of its citizens. But not only the government. As John Adams would write:
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."Both letters are worthy of a full reading, expressing their sentiments using the wonderful phrasing characteristic of that time, a writing style that only a generation later had fallen out of favor. I particularly like Washington’s closing lines:
” . . . while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.”Moses’ closing words aren’t too bad either:
“And, when, like Joshua full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.”You can find the full text of the Seixas letter here, and Washington’s full response here.
